A Puzzling Thriller inspired by the Zero Escape and Danganronpa series.
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Latest Updates from Our Project:
Short Update
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 12:55:44 PM
I actually don't have much to show today... which is probably why I forgot to make this Update yesterday. That next Update will be back on schedule, sorry about this.
I've been focusing on getting this final Demo finished so I've just been working on new locations and improving code (which is not very interesting). These new locations are not finished either. Those locations being the Living Quarters of Lady Luck's facility, the Dining Room, the Roulette Room and some locations outside of the Facility. Most of these places have been shown off before, and are technically in the game already, but I never spent the time to make them look very good. So that's what I'm doing now, and I think it'd be better if I showed those locations in the next Update in a more finished state.
Challenge Room 1 has been finalized (again). I totally remade that first section with new items to use and even put another Item into the second part of CRoom 1 (the train room). So playing through that Challenge Room will not be the same as it was in the previous Demo. Regarding that Demo, on Friday I actually removed it from the Itch.io page. I'm aiming to get this final Demo finished for the first week of October, so I decided it would be for the best to get rid of that outdated demo in preparation for the new one.
On the Itch page I made a recent Devlog that listed what would be happening with that new Demo. The bullet points were this:
Totally Updated HUD/UI - including the Dialogue Box
New Inventory System - Examine, Use and Combine Items
Revamped Challenge Room 1
Meet all 14 of the Characters
Get a glimpse of the game's Story and where it's going
Explore Lady Luck's Facility
Optional Challenge Room 2 Playable Teaser
Many Bug Fixes & Optimizations
Pretty much everything I've been saying for weeks now. The biggest change is that I will not be including the entirety of Challenge Room 2 in the Demo (despite it being finished). I think 2/7 of the game's Challenge Rooms being in the Demo would probably be overkill, and likely ruin the enjoyment of players that have played the Demo before. So instead of that, you'll get a short, optional "Teaser" which will have you play through only the first floor of Challenge Room 2. This will be an optional thing you can select and play from the Demo's Title Screen.
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Clearly I don't have much to say or show this time around so here's some not too exciting pictures.
Here's the Inventory screen with very slight improvements. When the Demo is out it'll look much better.
Wheel Puzzle with the updated UI.
And now that I've posted some visuals, I can end this Update. The next one will be much better as the things I'm working on now will be more complete. Later.
Progress, Challenge Room 1, Puzzles & More
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 03:56:46 AM
This will be a quick one. Just going over everything I've done these last two weeks.
In terms of actual progress on the game as a whole, this might have been my most productive two weeks in a very long time. I've made changes to Challenge Room 1 once more, improved a lot of the game's systems and polished many aspects of the game. It's getting closer to being really legit.
Starting with Challenge Room 1, I've added more items, and a chance to use the item combination system. That first section of Challenge Room 1 has now been turned into more of an escape room. That side room where you pulled the two levers has been ugly for a long time so I've scrapped it entirely and turned it into a new room. I think this is the final version of Challenge Room 1 (about time).
Here is some new footage of Challenge Room 1's Update:
As you can see, there's also some new Animations going on. I've added a ton more Zoom/Focus moments like you see here. Because of that, I felt it was pretty important to also add in some quick animations to make things feel that much better. The visuals and animations themselves aren't final, but I'm happy to have these things in place to improve upon. The same can be said about Challenge Room 2 here:
I'll continue to add in more and more animations and things to ZOOM into. It's turned the game into something a lot more interactive.
I've reworked a lot of my code so that I can ZOOM into pretty much anything I want without any additional work. That has made creating new Puzzles and Challenge Rooms even easier. That along with getting the Inventory system totally functional, things are really speeding up. The Inventory Menu itself is still relatively uncool, but it really just needs some of its elements rearranged and the visuals improved. It's all coming together.
I don't have much else to show, so here's some 3D Models I guess:
The Chest from the previous video. Put in 2 keys to make it open
Battery that you need to collect to get the Lift in Challenge Room 2 to move
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That's gonna be it for this Update. Not totally sure what the next Update will hold but it will be right near the end of the month so probably some new Challenge Room screenshots and Character stuff. On the horizon I'm putting together the big deal Demo. And alongside that I have a 4th Trailer in the works. Once the game is in a spot that I'm really proud of it, I can push harder to get the game some more attention. First impressions are very important so I haven't to make them count. Till next time.
UX Updates, Inventory Menu, An Important Change to the Game, and what happens next
over 3 years ago
– Tue, Aug 04, 2020 at 05:37:16 PM
This will be a very wordy Update. Some great progress has been made, but I need to address a major change to Thief's Roulette. After that I'll go over what happens next with development.
I've been slowly adding QOL (quality of life) features and plan to greatly expand on the game's options. Here I've added an option to Invert Y and X mouse/look directions. I actually only recently learned that was something people thought was important so I made sure to get it added in. Additionally, I created an Auto Read toggle to dialogue. The Auto Read Button will look much better, I just wanted it to work first! Both of these are kinda hard to show off lol, but I guess you'll have to trust me that they work. You can also see that I've changed the game's HUD and made some "final" touches to the new Dialogue Box. I put final in quotes because I think that and the other UX elements can still be improved upon. I think it's good that I've found something I like, but it can still improve.
The Inventory is up and running. Now, as you find items, they'll be added to the list on the right side. Clicking them will bring up a 3D model of the item and allow you to look at it from all angles. This feels much nicer than the makeshift item inspection I had at first. I still need to improve the visual elements of the Inventory but the goal was to make sure it worked, and it does. There's also a COMBINE option now, so that totally changes what kind of puzzles I can build. Although a number of the Challenge Room's puzzles have already been fully planned out, I'm going back in and updating things around the new opportunities the Inventory provides. For example, I'm going back into Challenge Room 1 now, and doing a final revision to the puzzles with an Inventory in mind. I think this will make the game much more enjoyable.
I'm working to get all of these updates put into the current Demo so that everyone can try it out. My goal is to have all of these things (minus CRoom 2) in the Demo by the next Kickstarter Update (August 15th). I should also say that Challenge Room 2 is officially 100% playable. I don't want to show much more of it for spoiler reasons but what I have to do now is just visual polish.
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Now for that "Important Change to the Game"
The development of Thief's Roulette started nearly 2 whole years ago, which is still a little hard for me to believe. Over time, my vision for the game has been constantly changing. That's the reality for most, if not all creative projects. Especially, with such a long development time things are bound to change. The difference between a normal project, and one that was crowdfunded, however, is that it's much harder to allow yourself (as a creator) to stray from the vision that was promised at the beginning. People paid for one thing, and at the end of the road, that thing has become something different. It's a difficult process for the creator, and the backers. Fortunately, Thief's Roulette is more similar to its initial concept than not; it has still changed in one major way that I need to officially speak about.
On the Kickstarter launch for Thief's Roulette, at the list of Features, there are these 3 bullet points:
A gripping story of deception. Who you choose to align with may either lead to your death or your survival.
Heavy Player Choices that can alter the path of the Story.
Multiple Endings
I think you can guess where I'm going with this. I had been trying to plan a way to stay on track with this goal in mind, but recently (since around May this year), I believe that it would not be plausible, or even beneficial to the game. The multiple endings idea, and all the branching paths was something I liked at the start of development, but the further I got, and the more actual progress I made, I don't think that's what the game needs. On a structural level, Thief's Roulette is so much bigger than I had first had in mind. The themes and the storyline that I've created, are in the same boat. What I thought I wanted to make at first was a small, indie Zero Escape "clone." That would allow for multiple endings, branching paths, and all the replayablility that Zero Escape games are known for.At this point, Thief's Roulette is very different than Zero Escape, and even from what I thought I wanted Thief's Roulette to be. The game has gotten much larger in scope than I initially thought it would be. The game will end up being 30 Hours or longer. The length, and the direction that I've taken it, means I can't go through with all of the endings I initially had in mind.
I prefer not to use the "solo developer" excuse, but at this point I need to be realistic about what I can pull off alone. A 30 Hour game with multiple endings is for sure possible, but on my own, would take a lot more time, and I'd rather make this idea I have now the best it can be rather than spending another year or 2 working to get it as branchy as I had originally planned. That being said... the game will have 2 very distinct Endings (both "True"), but they're determined by choices made in the final act. You will not have to replay the entire game to see the full story unfold. Choices will still play a role in the game, but they will not change the structure of the story as a whole. Small scale changes in dialogue and how characters react to you is what they will affect. In a previous Update, I had mentioned that Dreams will be an important occurrence throughout the game. Every Dream will have multiple endings based on the choices you make within them. That's another way that you can experience differences during a playthrough. One more way, is through Character Choices. During Break Time, and on special occasions, during Challenge Rooms; you will make choices that will impact specific characters. All of the 14 other Thieves have a backstory that you can learn about. The choices you make will determine how much of that backstory they will tell you. If you get close enough with them, you will get to experience a special event through their perspective (in Trailer 3, you see one at 0:36s into the video). That being said, all of these events can be experienced in a single playthrough. This means, the structure of the story will be the same each time, but you still have a chance to make your experience different through the choices you make.
And that's that. I was very nervous about bringing this up, but it would be even worse if I just said nothing and released the game. For a TLDR: There will only be 2 Endings and no more branching paths. The10 Hour game with multiple endings has becomea 30+ Hour game with 2 Endings. Dreams,Small Choices, and Character Events present opportunities to create different experiences in a playthrough. I think this will make the game more memorable and the story more concise.
I know some people will not like this, but that's what the game has become. I think what I have now is undeniably better than what I wanted to do originally. If I could just tell you all what happens in this game, then tell you what would happen in the original idea, you would agree... but that's obviously a spoiler! When Thief's Roulette is complete I think all of the backers, and the new players will enjoy the game despite its initial pitch. So thank you all for the support through these 2 years of development. I will keep working hard to create a game worthy of that support.
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With that finally being said, now I want to rundown my plans for development going forward.
I'd say I met my goals for July. Challenge Room 2 is playable, and I updated a lot of the game's visual elements. I think overall the game is much more appealing than before. All of these things can still improve, but I can take this as a win. So now, it's time for August:
I'm going to finalize all of the improvements that I made here. So the Dialogue Box, HUD, and the Inventory Menu will be totally polished and final. I'll also be updating the game's Pause Menu and Options Menu to align with those visual changes. With those things complete, I will Update the game's Demo. Along with that is the visual finishing touches on Challenge Room 2. When those things are all done, I'm going to put the rest of my attention on making Challenge Room 3 fully playable (its much further along than I've shown). This unfortunately doesn't leave me much time to work on Character Art (new expressions, poses, etc), but maybe I'll get a little bit of that done too, who knows. The primary goal of August is finalizing what's been started and getting Challenge Room 3 playable.
In regards to the future of these Kickstarter Updates, things might change a bit. From here on out, I have to show much less of the Challenge Rooms that I'm working on. New Trailers are going to show glimpses of new locations, but I don't want to focus too much on Challenge Rooms in Updates. Those discoveries are very much linked to the progression of the game and its themes. If I show a new Location in an Update it will have to be the least interesting part of a Challenge Room, or shots of Lady Luck's Facility. So future Updates might be heavy on Character Art and Text. New improvements and features will still appear in Updates, but this far into development they're going to be very rare. I will still be sticking to this schedule, though, so no worries there.
That's gonna be it for this Update. The comments will always be open, so be free to speak your mind. Thief's Roulette has come a very long way and I promise it will be worth the wait.
Updated Dialogue UI, Inamori blinks, and Doors
almost 4 years ago
– Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 04:06:53 PM
In the last Update I said my goal for this month is finish Challenge Room 2, and updating all of the game's UI visuals. I've made some progress on that and more.
I'll get right to the point with this Update, so it'll be a short one:
Inamori blinks. Getting that working was really easy, but I'll have to figure out how to have those little animations run alongside expression/pose changes. Shouldn't be too hard I think.
Anyway, that's the direction I want to take the dialogue box. I wouldn't call it final just yet, but it will end up being very similar to this, just needs a couple more tweaks I think. I've also been trying out different fonts to see what works best. The idea behind the dialogue box is that the MC is always shown on the screen, and he can react to the things the character says. Also, when he speaks or thinks, I can have his icon light up - thinking about having that Red turn to Green(?) when he speaks. I'll have to sit for it a bit longer before I know if that's cool or not. Those buttons (TALK and HELP) haven't been setup, but when they are, the line that Inamori says when I approach her would be what she says when you select "TALK". So when you walk up to her she'll just say something like, "What's up?" Basic phrases like that. Then you select to either Talk or ask for Help.
I've also been thinking about what I could do with the Team Icons at the top right of the screen. Besides making them a little more sleek, I think it would be cool if I allowed other characters to jump in during 1 on 1 conversations, and have those Icons consolidate (does that make sense here?) into one big Icon that would show 1 speaking character. Then that character could speak, and when they're done, the Icons would separate again. Without visuals, that might be hard to understand what I mean. So, I'll try to put something together if I decide to go forward with it.
What happens next in regards to UI is the Inventory idea. I'm thinking about ways to make it all look nice on the screen. For example, instead of the 3 hotkeys on the screen, it would just be one Item Icon, and a button to pop out an inventory beside it. That seems nice to me, but I'll have to build it for real to see if it actually works well.
Not sure what I'll be going with, but I think having an Inventory is going to be pretty important for the game. The game just won't be as fun as it could be without the whole picking the right item for the job moments that come with adventure games. I've had to restructure some of the Challenge Room puzzles with this idea in mind, but it will be worth it in the end.
More and more details are being added to Challenge Room 2. It's finally all coming together. I added some automatic doors, some new lighting, and little objects in the environment. Also, you can see more of what you'll have to do on the first floor of CRoom 2. You have to get the password for a locked computer. As a reminder, this Challenge Room revolves around the "Letter Converter." It is a device that converts letters into numbers. That should be a good enough hint as to what will be happening in this Room's puzzle. I think this CRoom will end up being very fun to play.
That's about all I have for this Update. On the next one, which happens to be the start of next month, I'll have the final Dialogue UI and HUD, Inventory, and some new Challenge Room 2 stuff. I think I might also finish some of the new character sprites poses I've been working on. That may not make it into the next Update, but it would be cool if it did... I like recording these little videos for Updates, so I'll do more of that as well. Bye for now.
Short Update - Some New Screenshots & Goals
almost 4 years ago
– Sun, Jul 05, 2020 at 09:27:45 PM
This will be a quick one. I've got some new Screenshots for Challenge Room 2, but I've spent most of my time on polish and improving smaller parts of the game.
This is the 2nd floor of CRoom 2. Most of what I did here was adding some more shapes and detail to the environment. I've said this plenty times before, but once the lighting, and textures are in place, it will look much much better. Right now I just want it as structurally complete as possible. I also added another room to the 2nd Floor, but I haven't put anything inside it yet. It's meant to expand on the puzzle you go through on that floor.
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Next I just wanted to go over what I've been doing these last 2 weeks and some of my goals for this month.
Lately I've been really focused on polishing/implementing the game's UI and Menus. I feel like I've gotten a solid understanding of how I want the environment and characters to look, but the UX elements are not yet unified or polished. I've been working on some new concepts for the Textbox, the HUD (which would include Team Icons and Items), and the Menus. My goal is to update all of these things and get them visually unified.
Regarding the Textbox, I'm planning a pretty substantial overhaul. So the design would be totally different. For example, it would include a portrait of the Main Character to show his reactions to the current conversation and better help differentiate when the MC is talking and when the other characters are talking (without spinning the camera). It would also finally bring in the TALK and HELP options to the Dialogue Box. So that you can either talk to the Characters during Challenge Rooms, or ask them for help. Along with that I am looking at different fonts and trying to see what would work the best.
For the Menus I plan a similar overhaul. Visually they're so simple, and don't really add any sort of visual interest to the game. I'm thinking about a rework of the Items/Inventory as well. Maybe having just 3 items at a time isn't the best idea... I had puzzles planned out that would allow for the 3 items at a time concept, but the further I get, I feel like it just ends up reducing the amount of choices and actions the player can make. It doesn't feel as engaging when you always know exactly what to use and when. Because of that, I've been working on an Inventory Menu that would hold all of your items, and probably bring back the idea of combining them to make new ones. This will mean I'll have to go back in and adjust some of the puzzles, but I think that will pay off in the end.
Lastly on the topic of polish is the Characters. I've said this before, but I really want to get the new expressions in and get some simple character animations in as well (blinking for one). All of these things will bring the game to that next level. I think the game is getting cool, and I believe the people that have played and kept up with its progress understand what I'm going for, but... as far as showing the game off to people outside that sphere, the game isn't as attractive as it could be. So that's my goal. I want the game to have some strong visual appeal.
So my goal for this month is fully completing Challenge Room 2, and doing this polish push. At the end of the month the game will reach a much higher level of quality. Hopefully I can show a good chunk of this in the next update. We'll see...
