Hello everyone, welcome to the August 2023 devlog of Hack's Custom Night!

Every month, on the 20th, I'll go over what I have been doing over the past month/30(ish) days! Ever since the workflow changed, progress has accelerated quite swiftly, and made me and the other artists work really hard.

Gameplay Changes

When I was casting the characters for the demo roster, I wanted the gameplay to include enough challenge and balancing as possible, as to minimalize linear flow and cheesing. However, during the middle of development, I realized HCN did not have the proper balance it needed. To go over why, I will be listing off every change including its explanation to give you a better idea.

• You now have a flashlight!

  • In the office, you are allowed to use your unlimited-battery flashlight (subject to change) all around the office. In addition, using the flashlight will halt the office scrolling to compensate on trying to focus on any character. (However, you can still scroll slowly if your cursor is at the very edge of the screen.)

    In Hack's Custom Night, the biggest issue of its gameplay is how nearly every character relies on you to check various areas using Hack's Tablet (AKA, the monitor.) Keep in mind with tablet reliant characters, using the tablet does not consume power. While that does sound like a huge benefit, roaming around nearly every corner of the building with almost no punishment is a big issue, making the office nearly worthless to view.

    The flashlight was never considered to be included to the gameplay, as to minimalize the amount of mechanics as possible, and given how there is so many tablet mechanics all around the building with several technicalities. During the balancing situation, I almost considered making tablet viewing power consuming, but thinking about the lack of office mechanics was enough for me to add the flashlight to the game.

• The duct system is now removed! (for now)

  • While discussing potential character mechanics to the character artists, they wanted their mechanic to be represented more than just getting through a maze with little to no character visuals. To that, I personally agreed with the way the duct system is layed out. Up to this point, there are absolutely no duct climbers that are in the roster.

    Although there are no characters, and the representation is a bit dull, I am still keen to the idea of implementing the Duct System to the game, knowing how it is uncanny to see only two out of three systems from UCN in HCN. I wanted to see how the game will balance out with the Duct System included, but alas, it'll have to be figured out later.

    But what I can confirm is that the Duct System will not be included in the demo release, leaving only the Cam and Vent System available.

Building / Cam Backgrounds

• Figuring out how the cameras would be setup is one of the most difficult parts of crafting the building, considering each camera button position, angle, and their uniqueness. Although I couldn't make every single one of them unique, I am happy to say that the Floor 1 camera base renders are finished, meaning they are ready for any character to be illustrated in the background!

• As for the basement, the map has been fully setup a few months ago, with some adjustments made recently to setup a certain mechanic... The amount of base renders done so far are 75% done! (9/12 basement rooms)

• If you haven't seen the last HCN post, I've mentioned how I've hinted there are 32 cameras of the game. And incase you didn't get it, yes, there is actually an overall amount of 32 cameras of the game! To break this all down, there are...

  • 16 from Floor 1

  • 12 from Basement

  • 4 from Vent System

• Now to a lot of you, that may seem like a lot of cameras, and in hindsight, it is a huge amount. It can create a problem regarding its importance compared to others, to that I say, it is strongly inevitable. The only way I can ease all of those worries out is let the mechanics play out when the final game is released, otherwise, I'll make necessary changes if the testers vouch for you all. The basement camera has more filler cameras than the first floor, but trust me when I say there is a reason in the final release...

• I would like to give special thanks to @StarStreak7 , for providing not only prop models for the cameras, but also creating concept layouts on how the rooms are setup. He has done a fantastic job on making the presentation of each camera fit well for each screen. Here are his following works:

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    Support his social media here!
    GameJolt, Twitter, & Newgrounds

More Character Roster Reveal

• Since the last Night Menu video, character icons has been created for more characters from the demo!

• All character credits will be listed in the video and the game page description!

That's all I have to say in this post! There is a lot more to go over, but for right now, I think it is enough to reveal. I may take things a bit slowly with progress for the next month, since I really want to work and help on other projects.

Please understand it is a lot of work and time to create more progress on this game. If things go smoothly or south, I'll be sure to inform you all.

Hope you all have a good day/night!~

— Hack 💜