It’s always a little disheartening to have to scale back one’s goals. This week forced us to do that a couple of times, both in what we expected to have in order to challenge out of Proof of Concept, and what we needed to have a successful QA test. Upon looking at the game and what we actually have in it, it became fairly clear that there are a few things that we need to polish, and just straight up add in some cases, before the game can really prove what it is trying to be. For one thing, neither of the narrative systems are actually present in the game. The plan for this week is to get both of those in, the system for the mask to write text on the walls in the player’s vision, and the system for the inventor to speak to the player through masks. Enemy behavior is also still a little wonky, though we have made some very solid progress on it. It also turned out that most of the content that needed to be tested wasn’t done until after Saturday, and everything functional by then was stuff we already had feedback on. Nonetheless, we understand the spot we’re at and though it’s going to take some hustle, I’m confident we can get it to where we need it be in time.

My main task all week has been building levels. I’ve been sketching out diagrams for what different areas of the hotel could look like, trying to keep them plausible while still making them good for gameplay. I’ve realized this really is what’s going to make or break the game, whether the spaces in the hotel are going to compel the player to use their abilities to their full potential and really experiment with what the best solution to overcome the space is.

This is one of the rooms I designed this week, that’s geared more towards players who have focused on the mobility powers. I’ve tried to give a clear and obvious way for a specific power to be applied in most rooms, but leave the space open enough for players to use whichever they want. If a player has invested upgrade points into the dashing and leaping powers, they can jump between these balconies and avoid the enemies entirely, and hopefully grab some pickups on the way. It is a high risk solution, as if they fall, they fall right next to enemies (which damage on touch) which hopefully adds excitement for players who want to play that way. Players can also land on the enemies on purpose (as one of our powers lets them do) or intentionally allow themselves to be battered by them to absorb energy, aggro them all to one spot, then release a shockwave when all the enemies get close. The player can also use the mask to fight the enemies individually and lure them off. Hopefully we’ll see a variation of player approaches when we bring it in to QA next week.

I talked with Kate, and we’ve got a good solution for how to deliver the fairly sparse audio that I’ll be recording in this coming week. It’s all the inventor, but we can have her voice present in the game before she speaks directly to you. For this, we’re going to have very few enemies, who, when they die, have their mask drop and start twitching and flashing. If the player decides to interact with it, it plays a memory of that enemy, something that the inventor said to them or around them. It helps keep the player engaged if they’re actively engaging with the material, and players will get a sense of fear for this character well before they meet her.

It’s a big week for narrative and polish. Hopefully we can challenge out of Proof of Concept next week, as we’ll really have basically every system that needs to exist. I think the narrative is going to add a lot of flavor to the world, and I can’t wait to see how players respond.