A Puzzling Thriller inspired by the Zero Escape and Danganronpa series.
All purchases help support the development of the game.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Small Update
almost 3 years ago
– Sun, Dec 05, 2021 at 02:19:14 PM
Super quick one.
I've just been working on Menus and UI/UX, and putting finishing touches on some art and environments. I'm essentially just going through the game over and over just looking for ways to make things look better, and make some scenes/dialogue land better.
I made a new "Player Menu" that lets you choose to open either the Inventory or the Thief Device. With a mouse you can click one of the two options, but you can also press Left or Right to quickly select them after opening the menu. The actually buttons that represent the 2 options need to be improved visually, but the overall look of the menu is pretty much how I want it to be. I will work to get the animations/transitions smoothed out, then it would look really nice. I am thinking about doing a little visual overhaul to the Inventory screen... I probably shouldn't... but I just might.
The game is very far along, but it's tough to just stop working on it and say it's done. Even when something looks "fine", I keep thinking that maybe it could be better. That's what all artists go through, of course, but it happens more with games since there's just so many elements at play. There's a lot to double and triple check. I've said it before when I was working on the demo that first impressions are very important. Now that the game is reaching completion and I hope to sell it, first impressions are even more important. You don't want to leave in things that harm the player's experience if you can find them and get rid of them. But it's just as important to know when it's time to deem the game finished and let things happen as they will. Otherwise I would work on this game forever and that would be silly.
For now I'll keep making adjustments, but soon I'll have to say it's officially done. When that time comes, I'll get together with the Publisher and we'll work out the console ports, release date and all the official business. I'll continue to update you all here as we get closer to that.
That's all I got for this one. Have a nice weekend.
Update Time
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Nov 20, 2021 at 02:02:42 AM
I usually post these in the morning (my time), but I'm up late working so update time is now.
What I've done these last two weeks:
All Challenge Rooms complete, both visual polish and gameplay.
Finishing Options and Menus - It's all functionally complete, but some of them just look/feel very basic. Trying to make everything have a little style to it. Can't go all out with fancy UI at this point, but I still want things to look nice.
Final Touches on the "Thief Device" - I haven't shown this in a long time since I've been changing the visuals so much. I will finally post it once it's done! Likely next update.
Trailer is done... now I just need that release date...
Gameplay Updates, Art and a Screenshot
about 3 years ago
– Tue, Nov 09, 2021 at 12:42:01 AM
Quick one.
Here's what I've done these last two weeks:
Finishing up CGs - The CG Art for the game and the trailer. Trying to give them a certain cinematic look since so much of the game will be actively moving around and doing things. The breaks in gameplay need to have some quality to them.
More Lore - I definitely said this in a previous update, but seriously a lot of lore has been made. I've always had a pretty complete idea of how the world will be, but the problem was finding interesting ways to flesh out the world without having a character directly say things to you in an unnatural way. So I've been going back to early challenge rooms and sprinkling in little visual hints and things to find. In Challenge Room 2, which has the email puzzles, I've added more emails and pictures that also expand on the world outside. Little things like that are everywhere now, and will provide enough information to get you interested, but still keep some things mysterious.
Mysterious Doors
New Interaction - In all the demos and gameplay so far, you can only really interact with something in 2 ways: you press the interact button and it does a thing, or you press interact and it zooms into that point of interest. From there you use your mouse/cursor to interact. I've added a third way, that's pretty much those 2 combined. You use the crosshair as a mouse/cursor and interact directly with things without zooming in. I even went back and changed a couple things you previously zoomed in on, to be directly interactive. This only works in certain places, since forcing controller users to be super precise would be annoying. So when interacting with big "Buttons" you don't need to zoom in anymore, you can interact directly with the screen as you are.
So with this example, I previously would have made you press interact, zoom into the thing, then click it with the mouse/cursor. Now, you just walk up to it, aim and interact. This is just a Testing Room btw, so ignore the barebones look.
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Woops forgot to give him his arrow marking!
Funnily enough this shot was meant to go into the previous trailer like a standoff with the Lady Luck monitor, but I couldn't get the look right. I'm liking this so far, so just a little more time on it and it's done. This is the last piece of art I need to finish for the Trailer. There's a couple more like it that I haven't shown, that you'll see in the trailer as well.
I'm going to end it there. Thank you everyone for your patience and support!
Update Time
about 3 years ago
– Sun, Oct 24, 2021 at 02:13:22 AM
What I've worked on the last two weeks:
Finalizing Challenge Rooms 4 and 5 - Both are done on the gameplay front, but they can be prettier. One thing I've realized a long time ago, but is becoming a bit of a funny problem now, is that I have to be very careful with how I furnish rooms. I can't exactly fill the rooms with clutter and props because this is a game where you collect items, so that would lead to confusion. At the same time I wouldn't want every Item to be glowing or have an indicator because then you wouldn't need to look for anything. I have to play on that line of just enough detail to not feel empty, but not too much so the player won't be confused by what they can and cannot interact with.
Setting up Keybind Options - I forgot to do this, so I have to get to it now! Requires going back in and redoing a bit of code, but you can't really put out a game without the option to change keybindings these days.
Adding more Examine targets - Just more things in the environment to zoom into and get a bit of flavor text.
To quickly talk about release; all of this turned out to be way more complicated than I thought. Not only is this my first "official game," but I'm largely doing it all solo. Testing, polish, performance, on different computers and OS and the additional consoles (which come with their own set of challenges), there's still more to do in and outside of the game. The game will be "complete" next month, but that doesn't mean it can be released. There's a lot to do, so I can't give precise dates as I'm still very inexperienced. Understandably, people do get nervous when it comes to Kickstarter games, so all I can do is stay active and transparent. I like responding to messages, and I've been consistent with the update schedule for over a year (maybe 2). One day it'll all be done, and the game will be in your hands. Progress has been going very well, so for now it's just a matter of time.
Update Time
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Oct 09, 2021 at 04:04:40 PM
I'm just going to go over what I've worked on these last 2 weeks.
Lots of LORE - If you've ever played any of the Shock games (bio, system) or the Deus Ex games, you'll know just how much story and lore is packed into optional content. It can be emails, audio logs, or many other ways meant to distribute information to players that are interested in it. Since you're trapped in this facility, I want to have emails and notes for you to find, on top of the optional conversations you'll have with the other characters, that help you understand the world around you. That should add a nice layer of depth to the game world.
Graphical Improvements
Optimizing Code & Performance Improvement
Beyond that I've just been doing general development stuff. Refining puzzles that need attention, and making the environments look nicer.
In Challenge Room 2 (1/3rd of it is playable in the demo) you use an item called the Letter Converter. It essentially assigns a number to every letter in the English alphabet. This made for some cool puzzles I'd say, but using it can be quite clunky and unintuitive. So I've made some changes to that here:
The visuals here are going to change, but the new functions are a Quick Use button, and a way to store numbers from within the Converter screen. That "Q - USE!" in the bottom left is just a way to remind me to make it look prettier eventually, but it works! Press Q and pull up the letter converter without having to open your inventory. The store numbers function is meant to let you go from letter to letter saving the ones you wish to know the number of. I probably didn't present it in the best way, but I'm just pressing E, or whatever the interact button is, to save the number for that letter. So if I know that I need to convert the word LUCK, I will go to L, press the interact button, then to U, C, K (pressing interact button on each one). That will store the 4 digits, and you'll have it right there to review when you need it. When I playtested before, I would write down the numbers on a piece of IRL paper, so this is much more convenient.
