Death - May Update news

I was hoping that this update would include a demo, but unfortunately I am not quite there yet. However, I do have some exciting updates!

I started this game hoping to make it scary, but I never put much thought into how I was going to accomplish that. My first step was to make it dark and add blood with some violence. Not a bad start, but it wasn't quite scary yet and in its previous state there was little chance of actually being scary. Then I remembered that I was also trying to make this game as mechanically realistic as possible, and then I realized the most important piece! No game will never be truly realistic if the player can see behind them, so I simply removed that ability and came up with this:

The player can now only see where he/she is looking, which is done by moving the mouse. However, the vision does not act like a flashlight, you will still need a light source in dark areas to see (Look at the 3rd picture for an example). The vision change also adds some challenge for jumping from ledge to ledge because you can't see the ledge you are jumping from unless you look down. Hopefully the game can be legitimately scary considering you won't be able to see what lurks behind you, which leads me into my next future improvement. I'm hoping to make the player rely on their hearing more often so when you are facing away from a enemy then you can hear the enemy creep up through footsteps and other bodily noises.

I also spent some time playing Resident Evil 4 again for... Research. I noticed that a important form of character development they used was to show Leon's thoughts. So, I adopted that same idea and now when ever the player has an important thought it is printed on the bottom of screen in the previously used white font. A very simple and easy addition, but will play a significant role in the game to build up the story.

The vision was the most important change I made, but I also cleaned up a lot of my code which lead to a slight improved performance. Sadly, there isn't anything else to show for the past few weeks of work, just a lot of under the hood stuff which needed to be done at some point.

I really want to get a demo out to get some feedback and fix any necessary changes, so that'll be my top priority in the coming days. I am very close, but there are some miscellaneous things that I have to look at, and then I have to do a play through to ensure that it all works. My current goal is to get a demo out by this Friday, May 11th. Thanks for reading!