Weekly Roundup 94 - Back into Game Dev = New Level Layouts (Patreon)

Hi everyone!

And hello to all the New Patrons this week who joined in for the Riveting Restrictions Animation Pack. I hope you've also had the time to explore the other content attached to this Patreon. You can access it all from here! 

Next new playable build for Bindmancer?

Work this week is back on the game and it's going towards a new playable build at the end of this month, targeted for the Friday the 25th of Feb.

1: Whats New?

This week I got back into the game and looked into how I can improve the gameplay experience.

I did some smaller things at first like tightening up the exit portal animation coming online much faster. And I've also added some new environmental art into the scene like some new decorative pots and stands.

The big-ticket amount of work done this week was focused on remaking the level-tiles that are used to generate randomized dungeons to be individually smaller and more focused.

Previously each tile was 24x24 movement tiles in size and the current levels in the December build felt like it had a lot of downtime due to "travel-time" where nothing much happened as you moved from one area of the dungeon to the next once you cleared out enemies and objects in a room.

I've made a new set of tiles sized 13x13 and these feel much more action-packed! There's less room to ignore enemies and travel time to get to a new section of the dungeon if you need to travel through an area already explored is reduced by half.

Here's some examples of generated level layouts using the new 13x13 tiles.

Currently it takes around 3-5 minutes to clear a level but more around 10 minutes to fully explore it for its resources. Which is a pretty good amount of time for the sake of pacing the play experience.

Long enough to feel like you accomplished something. Not so long that it drags on.

I've also randomized the number of tiles and the number of prisoners that can spawn per level. Making each level feel more unique.

Gameplay Video:

You can check out the these new level-segment designs and the pacing of play via this almost 4-minute video! 

2: What's Next

There's a ton of stuff to add to make the play experience as good as possible for the next upcoming build. 

My first priority is to improve aspects of the game that's already there. So polish up the prisoner puzzles to be more interesting, enemy interactions and the like.

I also need to do something with the beat visualizer and bring it up closer to the center of the screen as right now you have to keep glancing down at it, which isn't fun.

I also want to add a smaller and more simple enemy. Something that can be killed in a one hit kill that keeps the player on their toes. Like a jelly slime or something of the like.

For those who have played the December build: What aspect of the game do you want to see improved or added to right now?

Cheers!

- Caroo