Hello everyone, here’s news from the front.

Only a month apart since the last devlog? What’s happening?

I hope you do not suffer too much from the heat wave. Here it is hot and humid, but that did not stop me from creating levels.

Version 0.4 completed

As announced in the last devlog, my goal was to complete a first version of all levels. It’s done! It was not easy, and some levels were harder to complete than expected, but now I have 14 playable and interesting levels.

Compared to the 12 that I announced last month, I reworked some of them a lot, removed some, and added new ones.

Given the already large number of levels, I decided not to make some levels I had planned, although I had plenty of cool ideas for them, to try to keep the amount of work in something doable. I prefer to focus on fewer levels so that they are all interesting; the quality before the quantity. Do not worry, the game is already long enough like that.

I want to thank Aurélie who has played all levels and allowed me to identify what works and what does not, and to find bugs.

Current state of the game

Overall the game is already fun and the levels already well advanced. The concept is well defined and original. There are plenty of traps that are fun to avoid, the levels are varied and enjoyable to explore.

I still think that I do not use enough the unique mechanics of the game, and that it could be much more fun. The game sometimes lacks rhythm, and the difficulty is not well balanced.

Also, the game unfortunately still contains a lot of bugs, mostly minor ones, but 1 or 2 important ones. Correcting all of them is a priority.

Finally, I would like to further refine the gaming experience. I need to improve and correct some details to better match what I have in mind.

Roadmap

I will work on all these issues, gradually iterating on all levels.

For version 0.5, I will focus my efforts on the first 4 levels, to improve level design, gameplay, experience, fix bugs, and to improve all basic content (menus, sounds, saving progress, etc.). These levels are particularly important because they influence the desire to continue playing the game. They are approximately the first hour of play. I will do several iterations on them.

Ideally, I would like with this version 0.5 to make a “demo” a little more “pro” than usual, especially compared to the polishing (interfaces, menus, bugs …) and maybe to do some playtests with more people than usual, to get more feedback and find more bugs.

In the following versions I will gradually integrate other levels, and more narrative content.

See you soon,

Arnaud