Hello everyone, here’s news from the front.

I made good progress this month on v0.5, but I have not finished yet, especially since I spent a lot of time doing a major update of my “Universal Device Preview” asset. All the details just below!

Thank you for your feedback

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who took the time to answer my questions of the last devlog, about the name of the “Almost Epic Adventures” series and the name of the game “Neverlooted Dungeon”. It’s unanimous, you all like these two names. This confirms my beliefs and I will probably keep them. Thanks again :)

Thanks to the playtesters

Thanks to Philippe, Guillaume, Yves, Maxime, Mika and Arthur for testing version 0.5 this month. Thanks to you, I was able to discover some bugs and issues from the first levels, and that’s very important.

Version 0.5 almost complete

I kept working on lots of things that are not necessarily visible to the testers but that are necessary to get closer to release.

I worked on the character controller. I’m very happy to have replaced the default Unity controller last month, and now that I finally have something clean that works like I wanted. I will soon be able to add swimming and climbing ropes, which I wanted to do for so long.

I replaced Unity’s basic keyboard-mouse-controller management system which was really limited by a much more powerful asset. In particular we can now reconfigure the controls in the game, which was essential. This asset also support any gamepads, and I have already made them almost working. In fact everything is already working very well, except the inventory that must be improved because its controls were designed for mouse interactions. I’m not going to do that right now, but I was very happy to find that the support of the controller would be easier than expected.

I reworked the logic of the game, including transitions between levels. I removed the ugly lifts, I replaced them with beautiful doors and transitions, which are more consistent with the story. Thank you Mika for your advice on the end of levels, I made a lot of improvements and I hope you like the changes ;)

I corrected the tutorial that had some weaknesses. I added some pickable items, and I modified a lot of the issues found in previous playtests. In particular it was possible to pass without really learning to manipulate the inventory, which became an issue thereafter. We will see in future tests if my modifications work.

I added an endurance system, to prevent being able to sprint permanently. I also added endurance potions hidden in the levels to boost the player a bit. I still do not really know if I like this result, because I used to speed run the whole game, and that limits me a lot now. We will see after the tests if I decide to keep it.

I improved a lot of systems and fixed a lot of their issues, especially the localization system, save system, trap damage system. I have done deep code changes to stop using Unity Resources, which are actually too expensive. I have corrected a lot of bugs, some complex, some easy.

In short, a lot of work, and I can not wait to finish to finally go back to level design to improve levels.

Universal Device Preview 1.8

After many requests from users concerning the “Safe Area” support, for the new phones that have a camera in the screen, I finally made a major update of my asset to take them into account in the simulation.

I took the opportunity to redo a marketing work, including changing the name (the previous name was “Multi Device Preview & Gallery), and making a great video. Thanks Eric, Laurent, Jonathan, Kenneth and Christophe for your feedback when creating the new video :)

You will find all the details of the update here: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#!/content/82015

This update took me a lot of time, hence my delay on the schedule of v0.5. I hope that in the long run it will take and that it will finance the rest of the game.

Roadmap

The end of v0.5 is near. I still need to correct some systems, and some stuff here and there.

Once completed, I will make a marketing pass with a nice logo and a simplistic first trailer, to finally launch the Steam page. It is important that I hurry to do it, to allow time to win subscribers before the release.

I still hesitate to launch the public demo at the end of v0.5 or wait for v0.6. Indeed, the last playtests showed some issues with the rhythm, and variety of traps and triggers. I prefer not to release a demo if it might disappoint the testers. I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I keep doing playtests regularly, so tell me if you want to come and to test the game :)

In general, the game has taken a good turn, everything starts to fit as I have in mind, and I’m happy with the result. For once I see the release as something doable, and it motivates me well. Once the v0.5 is over, it will be time to work on levels one by one, to bring them little by little toward their final version.

See you soon,

Arnaud