Weekly Recap - Week of 8/30

​This week we spent more time focusing on the tutorial version of the game and got to the point where we are just about ready to start playtesting it. We aligned on the map layout and overall flow of the game, but still have a couple of things to iron out before we are ready to play.

One valuable thing we’ve learned from developing the tutorial version is that we will likely need to make some changes to our existing map and/or adversary in order to make them more conducive to variation. What I mean by that is that our current adversary relies heavily on line of sight, and our tutorial map is very lacking in that area.
 
Similarly, the adversary in the tutorial version is largely dependent on the ability to move through walls. This comes in very handy on the tutorial map, but will not be quite as useful on our existing map. Had we kept playtesting / fine-tuning our existing map and adversary (as opposed to taking a break and working on the tutorial version) we wouldn’t have found this out until much later in the process.
 
Our goal is to have multiple maps and multiple adversaries, so this was a very important finding. It means we need to go back and do quite a bit of rework, but it’s better that we found it out now instead of 2-3 months from now. Back to the drawing board we go! OK, not quite back to the drawing board, but we’re definitely taking a couple steps back.
 
We also finished creating the new flashlights, including their 3D models and UV wraps, so they are now ready for playtesting in TTS. We have made quite a few changes to the game since our last playtests at Gen Con, so we’re in for some potentially interesting games in the near future.
 
Peace,
 
Jeremy