A Puzzling Thriller inspired by the Zero Escape and Danganronpa series.
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Latest Updates from Our Project:
New Environment - Screens & More
almost 5 years ago
– Wed, May 29, 2019 at 05:26:47 PM
Got some good work done over these couple weeks. Progress on Environments, and I've made some changes to some of the First Challenge Room's Puzzle design. I can now say I know exactly what is going into the Demo, now it's all about getting it all up and running.
So, to start, the New Location:
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This is the Room the 3 Teams of Thieves stand before entering the Challenge Room. The Roulette standing on the Balcony spins to Assign Teams, and to perform the Marking Roulette. Clearly right now it is just a Blank White Wheel. Eventually I will add in all of the Thieves' faces on the Wheel so that it can spin and make selections.
The Room needs some more touching up here and there, but this is the general layout and design. Also, you may have noticed that there is no UI to show your Team in the upper right corner. That is because this Room takes place in the Main Casino. The Team UI appears only when you are in the Challenge Rooms. The Three Door Rooms will not all look like this. The look of this specific 3 Door Room reflects the theme of the first 2 Challenge Rooms. The Rules have the Thieves competing through 2 Challenge Rooms, then they sleep for the night. When they awake and reunite here, the Room will be much different for the next set of Challenges.
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Next is an Updated look at one of the Puzzles in Challenge Room 1:
Another Puzzle for Challenge Room 1. Here, on the left and ride sides of the walls is a Grid of Lit Bulbs. When you interact with a Bulb it changes colors and is thus "Active." The goal of the Puzzle is to find the correct arrangement of active Bulbs on both sides of the Room. Pretty simple!
And unlike the Wheel Puzzle from the other Update, this one doesn't work yet! That's why I haven't included footage :) - I'll get it running soon.
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Finally, a look at another Updated part of this Challenge Room:
This is actually the first location I've shown for Thief's Roulette. It had been sitting dormant while I got a better idea of how this Challenge Room's design should be. So now it fits much better with the Train Zone part that is just through that glowing door.
If anyone is tired of all the blue, you can be happy that this is simply a motif of the initial 2 Challenge Rooms. You've seen all of Room 1 now, but I haven't shown any of Room 2. That will also be pretty blue ;)
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The Demo will cover the entirety of Challenge Room 1, along with a small Scene taking place in the 3 Door Room. You will be assigned Teams and be addressed by Lady Luck. There will be minor character moments here and some more during the Challenge Room. So expect that, and something a little special on top. I've mostly got my mind set on what that will be, but it can still change. It will be cool, I don't want to talk about it lol.
The goal of the Demo is to include as much content as I can without spoiling any of the Story's crucial moments. Lots of the discoveries and character moments will happen during the Casino/Free Roam sections of the game. Because of this, the Demo will be primarily Challenge Room, and just a little Casino.
Challenge Room 1 is your introduction to the Game's primarily gameplay and mechanics. You learn about interacting with different Devices, picking up Items, those sorts of things. It is also the introduction to the game's Level Design and to what is expected of the Player. This first Room will not be too difficult, it is totally designed to get the Player to understand the game's visual language so that from here on out, I can tone down all the hints.
C-Room 1 is very color coded, and on top of this it uses Cords that serve as additional visual aid to keep the Player on track. These two things will work together to make sure the Player never gets lost, but also to teach them to use the environment as a tool to solve the C-Room. The Rooms after this will all have visual cues, but will not be as overt. I want the Player to pay attention, but they have to learn what to pay attention to.
That is especially important because C-Room 1 has 2 Room-Escape style puzzles, and 2 Logic Puzzles. They work hand in hand, where you must use your environment to acquire tools that will help with the Logic Puzzles and vice versa. In the first C-Room, these are pretty split. You know where the Room Escape ends and where the Logic Puzzles begin. As you progress through the Challenge Rooms, these start to blend together more and more. That's why it's important for me to get the Player actively paying attention to the environments right away. I think it works pretty well, but I'll only know for sure once the Demo is out and I can get some real feedback.
And that's all for now. I was a couple days late this time, sorry about that!
Short Update - Improved Puzzle
almost 5 years ago
– Fri, May 10, 2019 at 08:21:28 PM
This Update won't be too long, I've been doing more Coding than anything else. Some optimizations, minor visual tweaks here and there. That sort of progress.
I added another Cord. :)
It's minor, but I think the level needed a bit more direction. There's one cord going in that leads to the "Final Step" to complete the Room. The other cord, that's been there since the start, leads directly to the 4 Wheel Device and a Ladder with a Locked Hatch.
This is the 4 Wheel Device from the previous Update, but it's got some visual improvements. I also added some little panel to the right of it. What you're intended to do is Roll the wheels until they're the correct combination, then you place your Hand on the panel. I just need to add in the Hand Print texture for the panel and it'll look nicer. This is the first Challenge Room so there will be lots of visual cues everywhere. There are 3 different Hand Panels. They're supposed to get you used to their function. That's also the intention of the 2 Cords in this room. Just more direction to get you to focus to the visual clues around the Challenge Rooms.
The view you get upon interacting with the 4 Wheel Device.
Thinking of ways to make the onscreen controls more visually intuitive, but for now this works.
Still going strong. I've gotten so much more done recently than I had the first couple months after the Kickstarter Campaign. I believe the Next Update will be pretty cool.
I'm offering simple rewards for newcomers that wish to support:
+$5 Donation: Your Name in the Game's Credits (and my appreciation)
+$20 Donation: A digital copy of Thief's Roulette
+$25 Donation: A digital copy of Thief's Roulette + The Digital OST
+$35 Donation: A digital copy of Thief's Roulette + The Digital OST & Digital Artbook
I'll obviously not limit what you can donate, but the physical rewards are going to be exclusive to the original Kickstarter supporters!
Of course original Kickstarter supporters can support again if they choose to do so. If you've donated again, top of your Pledge, message me if you'd like to potentially upgrade to a higher Backer Tier.
This is currently what you see upon interacting with a Puzzle Device. You get a popup of the device and handle all interactions in this screen. Currently, it only works from a code standpoint. Meaning that this specific puzzle can be solved, but you don't get any of the visual feedback that I want to have implemented. I want the Wheels to animate, along with the rest of the device. This is not functional as of now, but when it is I will be sure to showcase it.
My current approach to puzzles like this is to use Inputs rather than my initial idea of having you use the mouse and based on the angle you clicked you would rotate in that direction. It was very buggy! I did the same thing on this puzzle here:
As seen in Trailer #2, I would rotate the device based on where I clicked. It was cool at first, and felt very immersive, which is what I was going for... but it's very easy to break. Although I could work on it more and potentially get it just right, there is also the issue of using a controller. It doesn't feel nearly as fun or intuitive on a controller as it does with Mouse & Keyboard. Because of this I've gone the Popup route, of having a separate representation of the Device that pops up when you interact with it. If I could somehow build a combination of these things, that would be most ideal.
Now, the new Location:
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Just a look at a Challenge Room. This specific Room will not be in the Demo.
Lately I have been working on Thief's Roulette very differently than I had been at the start of development. My process has now become more based on working on the parts of the Project that were the most fun or interesting to work on. This has led to me being way more motivated to work on the game as every time I do, I'm having fun. So I've been doing much more work now than I had previously. Working this way means that I do make more progress on the Project overall, but it is not that good for finishing up a Demo! Sooner or later I'll need to put more attention to finalizing the Demo, but working this way feels very helpful in the long run.
But since we're on the topic of the Demo, I should say what exactly needs to be done to call it complete:
Make the final final pass on Challenge Room 1's visuals (very close)
Model the Player Bedroom (in Lady Luck's Casino, everyone gets their own)
Finalize the visuals for the Puzzle/Gameplay side of things
Make a Title Screen (a first draft at least)
1 Full CG
At this point I honestly wish the Demo wasn't something I focused on during the Kickstarter Campaign. Not that it's holding me back or anything, but promising such a short development time for the Demo was a mistake on my part. That being said, the game is moving along great. The next Update will include recorded footage of some Locations in game. I've gotten the OBS situation mostly fixed and uploaded a short video to the Youtube channel. Hopefully I can improve the quality for these next videos.
Update - More Environments (Screenshot Dump)
about 5 years ago
– Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 11:34:52 AM
This one didn't need to take so long but I had some technical difficulties and decided to just put the Update up now instead of another long delay. I wanted to have some videos in this Update but either OBS or my computer is not cooperating. Really poor quality and framerate to the footage I recorded. So while I work that out, this Update will just be screenshots of the new Environment work I've done.
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Some lesser Screenshots first, WIP Environments.
Recently I've made a ton of improvements to the "Train Zone" which is what I'm calling Challenge Room 1 at the moment. I've shown this location a lot, so hopefully you recognize the changes I've done:
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That's all I got for now. When I get the recording worked out I'll do another quick Update.
That's the link to my Youtube Channel that will be specifically for Uploading Game Dev content. Unfortunately right now I'm stuck with this ugly URL since the channel is new. When that changes I will let everyone know the link once more. Right now there is only the 2nd Thief's Roulette Trailer uploaded. In the near future I will be uploading some big things and some small things. So, if the Update here isn't on time or I feel like what I have isn't too substantial, I will have at least uploaded some content on the Youtube Channel. Now, onto the game!
The 15th and Final Thief, Li
A Police Officer, what is he doing here?
Took a while. A Police Officer is a character I knew that I needed to include in the cast. Just like Inamori's role as apart of the Government, these sorts of characters will be the most interesting for me to write. Discovering more about their lives and possibly figuring out what mistakes caused them to land in Lady Luck's Game will be something fun to explore.
A larger picture of Li. I'm not sure why I haven't been doing this the whole time. However, in Li's case he has no feet so the bust doesn't extend much further than this (sorry)! I'll make sure to finalize the Cast and upload large, full body shots of each one.
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I've been working on a new Location... but it's a little too rough at the moment. So, I'll either include it in the next Update or I'll do a small Update between this and the next.
I've got 3 New Tracks up on the Game's Soundcloud:
Those are the recent additions. I also uploaded the song used in the Game's 2nd Trailer.
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In a previous Update, I mentioned the possibility of a Companion Game for Thief's Roulette. Well, I've been working on it in fact. It will take place before Thief's Roulette (but the same time period) and it will be more about the world outside of Lady Luck's Game. There will surely be references and connections between both games but they will be standalone stories.
Just a small set of Sketches/Concept Art. MC Design not "Final" but it's close enough. This Room is very important to him.
The game will be played and presented very much like Thief's Roulette is. First Person exploration, heavier on the Visual Novel than Roulette, but it will include some minor Puzzles. Expect to delve into concepts such as: Virtual Simulations, Dating, Isolation, Surveillance, Dreams and Privacy. I will show more of this game as it progresses.
Thief's Roulette is my main priority of course, but time will be put into the development of this Companion Game as well. As they share many of the same systems, code, and assets, working on one tends to mean working on the other in one way or another. You will not be required to play this game to enjoy Thief's Roulette, but instead it could add another layer to it. A closer look at the World the Thieves live in.
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Since I've been asked a number of times now, here is a Paypal link for those that wish to support the project post Kickstarter:
Some of those who asked were new to the Project and missed out on the Kickstarter. So I'm offering simple rewards for newcomers that wish to support:
+$5 Donation: Your Name in the Game's Credits (and my appreciation)
+$20 Donation: A digital copy of Thief's Roulette
+$25 Donation: A digital copy of Thief's Roulette + The Digital OST
+$35 Donation: A digital copy of Thief's Roulette + The Digital OST & Digital Artbook
I'll obviously not limit what you can donate, but the physical rewards are going to be exclusive to the original Kickstarter supporters!
If you are an original Kickstarter Backer that would also like to donate, I won't stop you from doing so... If you choose to donate on top of your Pledge, message me if you'd like to potentially upgrade to a higher tier.
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And now we've reached the end of the Update.
The Demo is still on it's way, of course. Like I said in a previous Update, I've been pushing it back trying to polish and include more and more features in the Demo. I want to get the true Thief's Roulette experience packed in there so the game can really stand out when people finally get their hands on it. Without spoiling too much, let's just say the Demo is much bigger than you would expect. I hope you guys can bear with me for a little while longer. It will totally pay off!
Thanks for all your patience, I've been working hard even though it may not seem like it! The curse of making a game when I'm primarily an Artist is I hate showing off early work. I'll have to suck it up and start posting more content from now on.
