[Background Blog] Beek 2.0 Development Update

Hey Patrons, Compymono here!

It’s been just over a year since our last update on Beek: Familiar Spirit v2.0! Oh the time has gone by so quickly. 😭

As a refresher, this is a small project I’ve been working for on the side. The goal is to remake Beek from the ground up with our current tools in order to ensure it remains function going into the future. [For more info, see the previous blog]

And now for the news!

Over the past few weeks I had the chance to really knuckle down on Beek— and I’m glad to say that the new version is almost complete!

Although, that’s not to say it’s ready to release right now. While the core development tasks are done, it’ll take some extra time over a few months bug testing, polishing, and preparing the public announcements in-between our usual work.

A early look at some of the changes.

In the previous blog we covered some of the bug fixes and improvements made during the process of rebuilding the game. This past month we implemented those changes and much more, such as:

• Selecting a response is no longer on a time limit— giving the player time to read the chat log before responding. 

  • However, the game will still advance if you do not respond within 12 hours.

• Ignoring a response is clearly marked as an option in the response UI.

• A new gameplay mechanic allows players to type out their responses! 

  • This idea was planned in the design document but scrapped due to technical reasons. 

  • It really helps with immersion, doesn’t it? I wonder if players will also think, “Perhaps there’s some greater meaning behind the symbols on the keyboard?”

• The Bookmarks menu now functions as a dedicated save/load menu.

  • You can make up to 3 saves and swap between them at any time.

  • Unlike the previous version, your chat history, choices made, and flags are correctly separated between each save.

  • Achievements, unlocked CGs, and general progress are persistent between saves.

• The User Manual has been removed in favour of tutorial popups when relevant.

• Skip Mode has been removed and replaced with a new mechanic— Timeshift.

  • Timeshift is available upon reaching any ending on day 4 in the story.

  • Whenever Beek is offline, you can use your Timeshift power to alter the flow of time between your world and Beek’s. (i.e. You can skip to the next message instantly)

  • This differs from Skip Mode as it allows the player to better understand how much time is passing in Beek’s world— improving the story pacing for players on PC or those replaying the game for different endings.

• The Ending Journal has been added.

  • The Journal catalogues every ending in the story, and gives hints on how to achieve each one as you replay the game.

  • In the design document, a flow-chart UI was planned to guide the player to different endings, however I felt revealing so much information detracted from the story experience and immersion.

• All sound effects are being replaced.

  • We’re working with the sound designer of Astatos and Nekojishi L&P to add new UI and cutscene sounds to the game.

  • The original game had a grand total of 9 sound effects, so this will definitely be a big improvement to the gameplay experience.

• Certain cutscenes, and sequences in the story have been overhauled and given new UI.

  • It’s difficult to mention this in detail without spoilers, but players who finished the original should understand!

• The credits sequence has been polished.

  • With the expanded list of names including new team members and many Patrons, I had to rework the credits while remaining faithful to the atmosphere of the original game.

• It’s easier to unlock the beast-man lover flag.

  • Originally you had to make somewhat archaic choices to get this flag. The scripting has been slightly altered to make this content harder to miss. After all, 5 CG’s in the game are locked behind this!!

• Some important responses are clearly telegraphed to the player.

  • ‘How’ you ask? Just don’t doubt your own power.

While not visible to the player, a huge amount of work went into reverse-engineering and updating the story scripting for the game. Aspects like flags, choices, relationship values, music scripting were remade while revising of the scripting format.

Including all languages, approx. 1932 seperate csv files have been reduced to just 1!

This severe fragmentation of story files made it fail difficult for the translators of the game as dialogue and responses were separated in different files— causing much of the context between conversions to be lost.

While we aren’t in a position to revise the Japanese, French and German translations at this point, we are working on a complete revision of the game’s English translation for this update.

There’s likely some other optimisations I haven’t mentioned here, but this should cover all the major points. (Quite a lot has changed, hasn’t it?)

But maybe it’s not quite a 2.0 update anymore?

One thing I discovered when talking about this update with friends is that saying ‘Beek 2.0’ made everyone think I was talking about Beek 2…

So in order to reduce confusion and better reflect the extent of changes being made— we plan to announce this new version as Beek: Familiar Spirit - Remastered!

I hope people will look forward to trying the game or replaying it when it’s ready! (So much work to do!)

- Compymono