Hi guys!
Finally, after many months, the game was tested again by a friend of mine who is really into RPGs and really NOT into Survival games, which makes his feedback even more valuable. He has the knowledge to express himself and little patience on rough edges. It helps if your testers can call out what's wrong!
Many minor bugs and map design failures where detected during the process, but the main, biggest issues where the player feeling a bit lost in the island, not knowing where to go or how to go back, and also not really making use of the survival techniques learned in the 10-15 minute long tutorial (which is just another map, not a book, although there might be too many words -- and players don't read).
So after a lot of thinking, I came out with a ridiculously great feature that would solve all of those, and some more, issues. The Objectives feature.
Others may call it Quest system, but this works more like "next objective in sight". The game suggests you very important goals that are crucial for survival (so you are going to do them anyways!). Each Objective having one or more tasks to complete.
Finally, there are two kind of Objectives. Sequential and Imminent.
Sequential objectives unlock one after the other, and may wait until conditions are met to display the next one.
Imminent objectives pause Sequential objectives, putting them on hold, while one of these becomes the current active Objective due to very specific circumstances. Like, it's starting to get cold, and the player needs a push to be reminded to find a shelter and get a fire camp going to spend the night.
I want to make something clear. This system won't be dumbing down the game. Instead, it's making it easier to learn by teaching you how to do things by practice and repetition. Most Imminent Objectives stop popping after a few times, assuming the player has learn how to take care of him or herself on that given situation.
The Objectives feature will help drive the gameplay, give a hand to a lost player, make it more entertaining, without ever giving up on the sandbox and exploration spirit the game is impregnated with.
That is all for now. Stay tuned for more updates on the development of Unveil!
