Dev Log Update v0.21

August 11th, 2024

These past weeks have been all about polishing the demo in preparation for our official launch on Steam. We're almost there! I showed the demo to a couple of playtesters, noted a bunch of issues, and fixed them all. Here's the second installment of the demo, now with those bug fixes in place. I'll need to invite a few more playtesters for another round before I'm truly convinced the game is Steam-ready, but wow! The game is really starting to feel like a complete experience now.

Playtest Results

Over the past couple of weeks, I worked with two playtesters. I posted an announcement on Facebook and received about half a dozen responses, but only one person followed through. Thanks, Brittany! Your session was incredibly helpful. The other playtester was a good friend of mine, Andy. A big thanks to you, too, for taking the time to help a fellow coder out.

We uncovered a long list of issues, and I'm happy to report that they’ve all been resolved. Some suggestions from my testers were also implemented, resulting in a richer, more polished game experience.

Wall Trap Control Panel

One of the issues both players encountered was confusion around the Control Panel that toggles the Wall Trap on or off. It wasn't clear what the panel did, and there was no way to know by sight or sound what it was controlling. To address this, I added conduit lines on the floor connecting the control panels to the traps they control. This should provide a clue for future players.

Another issue was a misunderstanding about whether the control panels used up valuable lockpicks. Andy mentioned he stopped using the panels because he wasn’t sure what they did and didn’t want to waste lockpicks on them. To clarify, the panels do not consume lockpicks. I added text feedback to notify the player whenever a lockpick is used, including the remaining count in their backpack.

To further prevent confusion, I added hover text that appears when you hover over any interactable object in the game, such as control panels, chests, doors, grabbable items, merchants, NPCs, your stash, tent, repair bench, and more. I was careful to include everything in this update.

Now, understanding the trap control panels is much easier. Players can see the conduit connecting them to the trap, hover over the panel to see the interaction prompt, and receive feedback when lockpicks are used.

Before these updates, I almost considered removing the control panels for wall traps entirely. I’m glad I didn’t because addressing these issues added a lot of valuable functionality to the game.

Help Tips

I put a lot of effort into the "Help Tips." While I hoped players would pay close attention to them, I didn’t fully expect it. Still, both testers followed the tips initially, learning their way around the game. However, they seemed to lose interest after following 3-4 tips in a row. I thought long and hard about how to keep players engaged with the Help Tips system, so they wouldn’t miss valuable guidance.

One idea was to give each tip its own icon image. This adds some visual variety, drawing the player’s eye to something different. Previously, each icon was just an exclamation point, but now they all have unique appearances.

I also added a subtle animation effect to the icons. Every 10 seconds, a coroutine animates the icons in a cascading swell effect. It’s not extremely noticeable, but the subtle motion is enough to remind players to check the Help Tips periodically.

Smart Shopper

Andy made a great suggestion that led to a few upgrades, making the shopping experience in the game much more enjoyable. He suggested graying out the items the merchant isn’t interested in. Previously, if you tried to sell an item the merchant didn’t want, you’d get text feedback: “Not interested in that item.” Andy’s idea was to preempt this by simply graying out unwanted merchandise. I implemented this, and it significantly improved the shopping experience.

I also took it a step further. Socketed items are highly valuable, so players won’t want to miss the opportunity to buy them from merchants. I added visual cues to indicate when an item has sockets. Now, 1, 2, or 3 circles appear on the item if it has sockets. If any of the sockets are used (imbued with magical enhancements), I fill in the circle, making it a solid dot. This is visually appealing and extremely helpful when shopping.

Character Creation

Both testers experienced different issues during character creation.

Andy seemed puzzled by the placeholder character that appeared when the game first loaded. There’s a slider to choose an existing character, but a character was already visible on the screen. He clicked the “New” button, quickly typed a save name, hit Save, and started playing. Andy didn’t care much about his character’s appearance; he just wanted to start playing. This confusion stemmed from the pre-generated character being on the screen.

To clarify, I looked at how other popular games handle this and decided to use a scarecrow as a placeholder where the character would stand if you were to create a new one. Although some might question the use of a scarecrow, I decided to leave it. It’s a placeholder, and it’s clear that it’s not meant to be played. The instructions to create a new character are clear, and the three available buttons guide the player.

Brittany’s experience was much more frustrating. After unlocking the door in the first room of the intro dungeon, the game froze and crashed. This happened every time she reloaded and tried again. It was extremely frustrating, and I felt bad that she couldn’t continue playtesting. She was kind enough to roll back to the previous version, which was good enough for the rest of the session.

This issue was challenging to solve, and I’m not even sure if I’ve fully resolved it. I couldn’t reproduce the problem myself, nor could Andy. For some reason, it only happened on Brittany’s computer. I spent a couple of days trying to figure it out and did my best to make it go away. I’ll need to catch up with her soon to see if the latest update fixes the glitch. (Fingers crossed.)

The rest of Brittany’s playtest went smoothly. I watched her play for over an hour, and she seemed to enjoy the mini-adventure. It’s unfortunate she died at the end of the first quest and missed the reward, but I was impressed that she wanted to continue playing after we finished testing for the day.

Locking Quests

Both playtesters found the second quest before the first. They interacted with the quest giver and opened the quest entrance but didn’t enter the dungeon, knowing they were on the wrong quest and needed to find the first one. This anticipation made it clear that I need to lock quests until the previous one is completed.

Health & Stamina Bars

One of the last remaining GUI elements to implement was the Health and Stamina bars. The health bar was easy, as the graphic set I purchased includes a nice health orb. It looks great in the game. The stamina bar functions differently from the health bar, so I brought it closer to the health bar (in the bottom-left region of the screen). The two progress indicators look good together. I may come up with a new idea for stamina later, but for now, I’m happy they match the rest of the GUI.

Quest Complete Announcement

I wanted to make it very clear when quest objectives are completed. Now, when players finish all items on their checklist, a pop-up animation banner appears with a sound effect, notifying them that the quest is complete.

What's Next?

I’ll need to invite another round of players to test the demo. If you’re interested in helping, please message me. I’d love to meet on Discord and hang out while you play the game. Your support would be incredibly helpful. Just reach out, and I’ll do my best to coordinate our schedules.

In the meantime, I want to record new music for the game and may add more variety to some of the dungeons. But for now, the demo is pretty much done and just awaiting more testing.