Demo Info and Map Polish!

Hey everyone!

We are in the final stretch this month and will be beginning actual demo map playtesting, AI tweaking, and doing all the polish this month that is going to be required to make the pre-Alpha demo something super special!

Patrons will be helping us playtest the map to ensure nothing weird is happening with the AI or level streaming and to ensure that the AI is as fun and interesting to play against as we can possibly make them. There's a bunch of cool stuff we are finalizing this month, so let's check out a couple of new props and see where the map is going.

Demo Map Finalization and Props:

A ton of assets have gone into the demo map, with the vast majority of them being completely custom-made from scratch. This took some extra time and polish to get the assets planned and designed, but with the pieces all being part of modular sets, we are able to make pretty large spaces pretty quickly by piecing together these existing assets. This was actually done on purpose since Chapter One is going to be based on what the Demo map is, so having these assets set up in this way will allow us to pretty quickly and easily get through Chapter One and on to Chapter Two much faster, saving us a ton of time and costs associated with developing in a different manner.

However, some of the new props we have gotten in are actually very important to the game, with one of them being the main wrist device that you'll be using to zipline and also block enemy attacks.

Wrist Device:

This wrist device is going to be your primary method of countering creature attacks and also traversing the facility since it contains the grappling components necessary to actually grapple from point to point. It is a sturdy piece of gear that will be nicely secured to your left arm.

Demo Map Props:

A big issue with a lot of games today is that their environments may look nice in terms of textures and detail, but they are lacking "life" to the world. This is usually a result of not having filled in environments and instead choosing to leave them relatively barren. The point of having a large number of modular props, such as these two above, is to allow us to make a lot of variants of them to scatter around the world with other props to make full and interesting environments with them.

This effectively allows for the world to feel full and lived in and will ideally prevent desolate and barren environments through the demo map and full game, since given the environments we have and our location, we have the chance to make some really special and cool looking props to help fill in these unique environments.

Demo Map Screenshots:

The map is very much coming together and is starting to be textured and filled in with props. The actual architecture and design behind the map are finalized, and the last step for us is texturing and giving every area its objectives and props. We have a couple of screenshots of the WIP environments and how the lighting and general feel of how everything fits together and flows.

Demo Map - It's Coming Together!

This is just one of several sections of the map that are almost done, and we are projecting the full map will be finished next week! This is going to give us a good bit of time to make a killer Kickstarter video in these environments, as well as ensure we have enough time to polish and test every aspect of the game with our playtesters.

A lot of the polish will be going into the AI, controls, and level streaming in order to ensure nothing weird happens with any of those systems and to keep the experience flowing smoothly on low to mid-range systems. We cannot of course guarantee that the game will run on all systems but we are putting a big emphasis on it to ensure that everything is as playable as it possibly can be across systems. We are also adding the AI lines, voice logs, and written articles to help progress the story and guide you, the player, through the world we have created here.

We are extremely excited to bring this demo to you guys since it has been in the making for several months and is really something we have given our all to make sure Kickstarter is successful and that we will be given the amazing opportunity of actually putting the game into full production.

Bonus: 3199 Petting Animation

As some context, we recently started a TikTok page and have been posting some quick animation skits here and there, and people seriously LOVED this petting animation. As a note, we will include petting of creatures but ONLY as an Easter Egg since we are a horror game after all, but do also like to have a bit of fun with the community.