The dark middle phase of development (Patreon)

Hello! One notable thing that happened in the last couple weeks is that I learned a more advanced method of texturing objects, so stuff can look like this while having much less polygons:

I am mostly happy about this, only slightly scared by the fact that it will probably result in a drastic change to the look of my games moving forward.

Also, I improved the look of player blood.

Besides that I have been perfecting the controls of the "minigame" which happens when patching an anomaly with our patented Patcher Gun. You can see a bit of it here: https://twitter.com/ZeekerssRBLX/status/1562099849012592640 

I have felt for the past couple weeks that I've veered from the game's original vision and inspirations--the main indicator of this is that there's a sense of aimlessness when working on the project. So I've been working to pull it back.

One of the ways I've been pulling the game back to its "roots" is by changing the premise back to what it was before. Instead of being a ragtag team of scrap-collectors, you are now contracted workers for a shady, megalithic corporation. Details like this seem like they should be unimportant, but my heart tells me otherwise.

(That's not a real number so don't bother calling it.)

I'm also looking critically at the game's objectives and overall shape. Perhaps it shouldn't have a roguelite structure? (Maybe I'm just afraid of taking a risk.) Before I make some big decision such as that, I'm going to perfect the current prototype, making all the gameplay mechanics as clear as possible.