It's the "Spooky!" update...

Well, not that spooky I know, but the title seemed apt and the image is from in-game so what the hell. Besides, those that have play tested bits of the game will get the title reference... But onwards to the news!

News the first

Patreon is paused again. Not because I haven't been busy, on the contrary I have, but I'm not going to fire up the patreon charging again until Five is actually released. I'll talk more about this below but if I hadn't have been sideswiped in April the chapter would have come out in May, so patreons have already paid enough for it as far as I am concerned.

News the second

The GUI is stable, looks good and should make your gameplay much, much less of a chore as well as looking a damn sight nicer on the eye too.

Now what follows is a pretty long post so you can just stop here if you like, knowing that I'm pausing patronage until Chapter Five comes out and everything is going fine and dandy otherwise. (I would if I was you!)

But if you're still reading then I want to take a moment to explain just why I've been putting so much effort into a new GUI. After all the old one did sort of work and, understandably, you really want me dishing out more content and not faffing with a control interface. As the inimitable John Wick would say "I get that."

Heavy Five has a lot of strengths, but whilst I was recovering from the car crash and not able to do much it gave me time to think about its weaknesses. The more I thought about them, the more I realised that these were really pretty major and were a significant barrier to both the enjoyment of the game and the ease of the play for the player. What's worse is that these weaknesses will only make things more difficult for the player as we move forward. In short, I'd got the game design wrong. Not  surprising I suppose given I'd never done anything like this but that inexperience doesn't make them go away.

The three things wrong with Heavy Five*

Presentation, immersion and information.

Presentation

Presentation is an easy one. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, "I started with nothing" (I should really turn that into a meme) and so a combination of a lack of graphics software, a lack of experience and a lack of knowledge meant that what I presented to you the player was...well, amateurish. Alright, fair enough, I was an amateur but I don't really have that excuse anymore. Everything, menu and interface wise, just looked basic.

Well, not any more. You'll see what I've done with the interface shortly, but the whole front end of the game has been brought up to scratch. Throwing some time, money and Adobe software at it has made it look pretty damned slick and the menu...I'm told it's never been done before. However, testers aside I'm keeping the front end under wraps. I want you to have the surprise of that one.

Immersion

So one on hand I write realistic characters (well more or less), an intriguing plot and then I keep losing any immersion you've built up (and this in a POV game where immersion is the whole point) by constantly breaking the fourth wall by wheeling out Becca every ten minutes. Intros, outros, bad ends, tutorials, there she is. Now don't get me wrong, I find her a lot of fun but I have to face up to it that she does break immersion which is a bit of a bugger really and not really fair to you. How can you believe in the characters, no matter how well written, when Becca keeps popping up?

So she's gone. Well, sort of. All of her existing content has gone and has been replaced with in-game content instead. She does still pop up at the start - but as an in-game character. So she helps with the character selection and also with the optional in-game tutorials. No more fourth wall. ( I guess this means she's available for Bored Pilot now?)

Ensign Becca wanting confirmation of your identity before the orders are released

A scene from the tutorial. Oh hai Jane...

Lt. McGruder helpfully giving her opinion on the weapon choices...

What about the bad ends? She was all over the place with those.

They've been replaced as well with something, concept wise, winking at those from Arkham City. Not exactly of course, that would be cheap, but I use that reference to give you an idea.

So we now have a more streamlined, and more importantly, much more immersive game which looks and feels much more professional.

Information

Holy hell, did I make you work for scenes....

Sorry about that.

When I first started hearing that players had multiple saves, I took that as a bit of a source of pride. Players were trying everything and hunting down content, sometimes just to see what I had done or wrote. That's pretty flattering if you think about it. And that scenario does still hold true in some respects. But often players would have multiple saves not because they wanted to see the pearls of wit and wisdom I'd given the characters but just because they had no real idea of what any decision made would lead to. Now, some players like to play blind, just relying on their own instincts or by putting themselves in the MC's place (I confess that this was my game design intention), but some don't.

What's worse is that some players might really enjoy a particular type of content but have no idea it even exists in the game. What brought this one home to me was I was talking to a player shortly before the crash and, although they liked Sarah as a character, they didn't like VR. I mentioned Caverns of Creatures and they'd never heard of it. They just didn't know it was there. Given the range of content in the game, this one is a major design fail on my part. How many other players are just not aware of content?

And even worse that that is all of those multiple saves can become just a confusing mess in themselves. Is the 23rd save the one where you'd had Mike to teach you how to cheat with the die or was it the 37th? Who knows? You've really no way to tell.

It was this third point which really has been the driving force behind making the GUI. To make your gameplay more enjoyable and to help you find content you want. 

I finally get to the point!

So let me run through the new GUI with what I've been able to do to try and rectify the above.

First off, the PDA has a revamp.

Of special note is that the MC themselves now have their own character sheet. I'm hoping that this will be a major help, not only on a playthrough but also when you fire up a save. You'll notice we have an inventory section as well as a weapons skill section. On that, the more you use a weapon the more proficient your MC will become with it.  

12 rounds is plenty, right?

The other major change on the PDA are the achievement icons. These will show you, not only what achievements you've obtained in this playthrough, but also gives you the option of seeing what achievements you've made in all of your playthoughs. The concept here is that achievements are generally content paths and so you as the player will have an idea of what exists out there and whether you've seen it yet. There is one of these for each chapter of course. In terms of finding the content, I've also given you a brief nudge as to how to get it. I think this solution has a certain elegance in that if you prefer to play blind, you can. But if you're curious or stuck, you have a bit of help at the push of a button. Black and white icons are achievements still to be obtained of course.

But this is only really for major events in game. Given the sheer number of paths and events, even this might not be enough. For example, you may wish to focus on a certain NPC and not really care about the other paths in a playthrough. That's fair enough, and so what I've done is try to help you there.

So opening up the NPC information allows you to pick the character you're interested in. 

Let's say, for example Chris.

This pulls up her character sheet and there, at the bottom right, is a discrete little box which will give you the major path events for that character in each chapter. Greyed out means you haven't unlocked them.

Hovering over the icons pops up another box with details of the event

Now the keen eyed among you will have noticed that there is some overlap here with the achievements and that's not just because all of this has come from Chapter One. It's my attempt to give you a bit of flexibility in how the player aides work. You might not want to know the major content paths storywise - but do want to know how to access a characters content. Avoid using the achievement button and just use the event guide and you're sorted in that case. 

And still more PDA stuff....

I've also taken the opportunity to buff up the lore section as well, making that cleaner and more interesting. As you imagine, you click and then up pops another menu allowing you to drill down. Now, you don't have to bother with this, of course, but I know some of you are interested in the lore and the universe and so I've given it all a bit of a buff.

I've also added a music button and given you nine tracks to be able to play (or have silence of course). These tracks will fade out when scene music kicks in, but it just gives you a bit more choice. Oh, and things like the orders screens have all been tidied up.

There's even a bit more...

Back when I made Chapter One I only had one decent** machine and so it was always a choice between coding, rendering stills or animations. Accordingly, the animations in One were a bit....simplistic (the same can be said for Two and Three really).

So, whilst I've been busy on one machine doing all the above, one of the others has been busy churning out refreshed animations. They're a lot better. A lot. It seemed silly not to, to be honest. I've more power, I'm a better animator and it wasn't as though it ate into any time as the machine was just sat there gathering dust.

Oh...I also buffed up a lot of the background noises too. Spaceship interiors should sound like spaceships, no?

In conclusion...

So, I'm working my little socks off as you can see. But, I also realise that this work is really all down to me getting it wrong at the start and so it's on me to fix. I've often said that you don't pay for my mistakes and so Patreon will remain off until this is done and Chapter Five comes out. Best guess, we're looking at January in order for me to run this throughout the five chapters and for it all to be tested.

A bugger I know. You'd rather have me release Chapter Five. Well, to be honest I'd rather release it as well. But, I think this work is so important it has to be done and until it's done I'm not taking a penny/cent off anyone. THAT's how important I believe it is.

And that's about it.

Stay safe, be lucky.

Notty

*You might have more of course, but I'm running with these three :)

** Compared to what I had before. The bloody thing burned out twice on me making Two and Three.