Blogs - FiestartStudios

Hello everyone!

Fiestart is pleased to announce that we have officially released. Here is our itch.io page where you can download and play our game (our game is also available here on indieDB!) The game was released alongside many other great games at the EECS 494 Showcase. Go check them all out!

Here are some notes from our DevLog:


What's new?

We modified the tutorial level so now it's more intuitive and has no softlocks. We added a new level "Garden". It is shorter and easier. We added a feature so that you can directly choose any room to start your game as long as you have been there once. We redesigned the UI so that they look better and highlight what's important for the player. We added lots of arts. Now you can easily tell the difference between levels.




As the project has come to its end, much effort has been devoted to make it more polished, and new features are added so that the player can get access to the levels more easily.


What were some important decisions for Fiestart in this release?

First, we wanted to make our tutorial better. Our last tutorial involved too much reading and unnecessary information. Now, the tutorial should take less then 2 minutes, while going through everything that's important! We also wanted to add an easier level and tutorial. Lots of juicy UI stuff was also added!








What's next for Contracts?

Contracts is a great game considering the amount of time we've put into the development, but the time was still so limited that we couldn't include other juicy stuff we wanted to. The direction of the game changed several times along the way, but we are proud of the final product. It may be time for the dev team to take a rest, but future development is definitely not out of the question...

Hello everyone!

Fiestart is pleased to announce that we have released the beta version of our game, Contracts.

Here are some notes from our DevLog:

What's new?

We made some new changes to the UI and styling of our game. We really like the use of black and white, and we though it would be cool to use color accentuation through the use of a light blue. Our title card, menu scenes, and in-game scenes all have a much more stylish and sleeker feel to them. Take a look!

Here's our new title card. Neat huh!

Our new menu. You'll notice we took out some buttons we previously had. We won't be needing those anymore, but we think the layout and look of our menu fits so well.

And our contract selection screen...

What were some important decisions for Fiestart in this release?

First and foremost, we decided that Contracts needed more player guidance and purpose. In our previous playtesting sessions, player were having a hard time with figuring out the controls, or what they had to do. Thus, we decided to make a tutorial sequence for players to follow a guided walkthrough of a typical contract.

Here is what a tutorial panel typically looks like. Note that we want to involve the player with Contracts' different gameplay aspects, including movement, the weapon system, combat, distractions, etc.

We also added some more flavor to the aspect of "The Agency" which is who the player is being assigned contracts by.

Here's a scene welcoming the player to The Agency:

What's next for Contracts?

Our final gold release is coming up, and we want to make sure that Contracts is in great condition for our players. We're looking to make some improvements to UX, mainly by adding some easier levels that will help the player get better acquainted with the missions. We also want to accelerate the pacing so that players do not feel bogged down by long transitions.

Here are the Windows and Mac version of our beta!

What's New in Contracts?

Levels are no longer generated randomly. They now are generated completely based on our design. We added new weapons and distraction items. We added a ranged weapon, the suppressed pistol, to the game. We added a distraction item, the coin, to the game. The enemy, once spotting the coin, will approach it and stare at it until being alerted. We incorporated attacking controls into moving controls. The player no longer needs to press the attack button to initiate attacking mode. We also improved the UI. Additionally, information of a tile and what's on it will be displayed if the player hovers the mouse on the tile. Finally, we now display the stats of the weapon when the player is equipped with one. Also, some more art assets were added. And of course, lots of bug fixes!

What's the motivation behind our design choices?

Fixed the level design so that it will give the us more control of how levels will play out. Players will experience interesting and carefully designed puzzles.
Added more weapons to give players more choices when engaging with the puzzles. They can take various strategies to solve the puzzles.
Incorporated the attacking and moving controls into one to make the control smoother and easier.
UI now gives players more information about enemies and weapons, on which they will base decisions to solve the puzzles.

What's Next for Contracts?

We plan to add enemies that use ranged weapons. We also have more levels on the way (maybe some in a more industrial setting...) We also think our art assets are super cool, so players will have different experiences in different levels and the game will be more immersive.

Welcome to Contracts!

Contracts is a puzzle-style turn-based combat game where you play as an assassin, taking on several contracts in order to prove your prowess in combat, stealth maneuvering, and enemy manipulation within a 2D isometric level.

Contracts adopts a simple but stylistic aesthetic that puts the focus on refined and striking visuals. All art assets are original, including some music tracks and sound effects.

We have now released an early alpha build of our game. Download our Windows or Mac builds and play our Casino level! Try your best to complete the Contract (and maybe get a few side objectives along the way...).