December '23 Update!
Lots of progress this month! After collecting a ton of great feedback at the PIGSquad demo event at the beginning of the month, I prioritized and worked on several key features:
- A shorter intro/tutorial experience to make demos and play tests more accessible and productive
- A clear introduction to the 'hook'
I chose to solve both of these in one go, by adding a short Prologue that the player can start in media res, right after character creation. The writing will need a lot of care of feeding to get through the truckload of info I'm dumping here, and the need for a glossary of some sort needs to get pulled up the roadmap, so I can figure out how I want to implement it before I get too much farther into content.
Here's a 12min play through of the new Prologue. I rewrote a few of the Cartha interactions to fit the narrative into place - this content was originally slotted after the Cartha bit. But I like this a lot more - it introduces several ideas, and for the new gap I can just get to the expansion of ideas using this new part of the game world that much faster.
For new-new ideas, you can see in here that I'm experimenting with making the campfires an explicit game world feature, rather than a "do it anywhere" feature of the UI. Shamelessly modeled after souls-like Bonfires, this takes feedback around "committing to the bit" more as far as camping and long rests are concerned. If I'm going to ask the player to find a safe place to level up, or use the rest system for health/spell slots, just go all-in on that idea, give them a presence in the game world. Hopefully I can create a similar sense of relief/joy at finding one out in the wild.
Upcoming sprints:
A shorter intro/tutorial experience to make demos and play tests more accessible and productive
- January '24 - UI overhaul to the in-game menu system. I don't think I like the modal approach, it feels very MMO, and it's not vital to the gameplay in ways that I want it to be.
- February '24 - Combat System revisit. Been a solid six months since I worked on the combat system, and the backlog of ideas and needs is strong enough that a good sprint or two is warranted before I get back to content production.
Having a short prologue section is great for this also, much quicker cycle times for testing and iteration. See you in January!
The Wyndfinder
A classic, High Fantasy, turn-based CRPG, based on the 5E SRD, set in a world of history and magic, allies and rivals.
Status | In development |
Author | Cat Lord Games |
Genre | Role Playing, Adventure |
Tags | 3D, Exploration, Top-Down, Turn-based, Unity |
More posts
- The Wyndfinder67 days ago
- January '24 - Belated Update!Feb 03, 2024
- November 23 Update - Finish Your Game Jam!Nov 28, 2023
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