As always, life is hugely busy and just finding time to dev and talk about the game is a major challenge, but we have continued to make good progress on the game overall. Here are some highlights:
Development
- Acts 1-4 are essentially feature-complete, minus voicing and achievements, which I plan to add when the game is otherwise completed.
- Act 5 is in development, quite a bit of work has been done on the early puzzles for this. This act is probably going to be a bit more dialogue-heavy as a significant amount of the history behind what's happening is revealed here. I've been very pleased with the dialogues I've written so far - every character has a unique way of talking, and the information is portrayed in what I hope is an engaging fashion rather than an exposition dump. I'm delighted with the way all the plot strands are weaving together seamlessly (at least, it seems that way to me) and slowly revealed to the player throughout the game.
Testing
- Acts 1, 2 and 4 have been fully tested and most bugs / issues found have been corrected already.
- Act 3 is currently in testing. Although obviously this is to pick up bugs and issues, the main focus is to ensure that the game flow works as intended. I may add an extra small section to this act, although I am reluctant to open myself up to scope creep - I've got enough work to do already!! :-)
Game structure
As you already know, the game is split into 6 different acts (plus an epilogue cut scene). I've been trying to work out what I can tell you about the different acts without revealing too much. That's always a tricky business, but here's my attempt:
Act I
Correlates to the demo, if you've played that. Captain Disaster gets a distress call, meets some aliens, frees some aliens... nice easy puzzles and a bit of dialogue to get things started and set the scene.
Act II
CD lands on a planet with more aliens, and discovers that they have a significant problem Being a nice chap he decides to help out. He also finds that a character already known to him (from "Death Has A Million Stomping Boots" is on the planet, and is demanding an apology for certain events in the past!
This act has quite a number of characters to talk to and many puzzles involving inventory items. Just like in the good old days.
Act III
In order to help the inhabitants of the planet, we travel to another area to put a plan into action. This part of the game features only one character to talk to (unless you count remote communication with Zero-Bit, the ship's computer), and a handful of inventory puzzles, but the main focus here is more technical puzzles and use of interfaces for devices.
Act IV
We again journey to a different area, but this time (and because the screenshots give it away instantly, I don't consider this too much of a spoiler) Captain Disaster finds himself thrown into a digital world, having fallen foul of a security application. Obviously a skit on TRON, a movie I have always loved and made Lorenzo watch for reference even though he's not a fan of Jeff Bridges, it has a completely different look and feel to the rest of the game. You still have inventory items, but they are mainly things like mods and viruses. Defeating the security application is key to finding out about the history of the planet, however, and of course you have the opportunity to escape, because you need to get back to the real world for the next act...
Act V
This is where I don't want to reveal to much. I will simply say that we will journey to a very different part of the planet, and meet completely new aliens. The dialogue here will really give you a feel for what has happened over the centuries on this planet, what has led up to the present state of affairs, and why the stakes are so high. I have decided, for better or worse, to not include any of the screenshots from this act just yet. I don't want to say too much about the puzzles and other aspects of this part of the game, but let me just say this... you may well find yourself very surprised by one aspect of it.
Act VI
No screenshots for this one yet as we haven't made it! Don't want to say much about the plot here really, just that Captain Disaster will be largely acting as a peacemaker. Which won't be easy...
Planet location walkthrough
Just a little tour of some of the locations in Act 2. The park with the kids playing is one of my favourite places in the entire game.
