Hello everyone, welcome to the September 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! There isn't much to go over as much as the previous months, but I still think it's neat to showcase what's been done over the course.

GAMEPLAY UPDATES

BALANCE CHANGES

While developing the demo, I did my best to balance each character and general mechanics together to create a really challenging gameplay when all are activated. Some changes I wasn't really proud of, knowing some people are willing to stick to what was best before. So I apologize if some of these changes are a bit disappointing to you, but I hope you understand where I am coming from with the following changes.

• Door keybinds no longer work while viewing the tablet. There was a lingering issue throughout all of HCN's development that more tablet/camera mechanics are in the gameplay than the office itself, which makes the office completely useless to view. Unfortunately, due to how the mechanics are layed out, there is no way I can change them due to already being too far in development.

• Flashlight now has a limited battery. This is subject to change during the demo and testing, but I wanted to implement tiny mechanic additions to some characters who may be prune to lights generally. The main reason why I've made the limited battery feature is to avoid a leeway to infinitely dealing with some particular characters who indirectly can be dealt with, so make that however you will.

• Vent snares will cause the tablet interface to slow down! That's right, this is a new gameplay mechanic introduction! Any permanent damage or slow downs will cause the tablet to take a bit more time whenever you select a different camera, different tool, and even flipping to the tablet! This mechanic will be implemented into some characters that causes a small nuisance that can subtly affect both casual and challengers.

  • You might be thinking, "couldn't the consequence of Vent Radar/etc. be the cost of power usage and such?" Well, the situation is how I wanted the vent system to be a bit unique in HCN compared to the original games. I didn't want to completely copy UCN, seeing how it's a bit linear to deal with the characters at ease.

  • Having it cost more power would mean I have to make the vent radar have a cooldown upon use, and for a strategic and fast game like this, it can cause gameplay flow and balancing issues. I wanted to make sure the player can have fun while also being challenged with the cost they've given to themselves.

CAMERAS

For the current state of the cameras, none of the cameras have been renovated during the month period due focusing on various aspects of the game. Furthermore, it won't be focused during this month period as there is still a lot to work through.

However with that being said, I have some good news regarding the cameras. For one, 11 out of 12 basement cameras have a base render! While not decorated, we have a great foundation on what angle and position each camera is at. We only have ONE more camera to setup its composition until we can implement any character to the game.

To end this section, I would like to thank @TarBunny for creating artwork concepts for some cameras, and @StarStreak7 for creating the base renders. All concept art and initial stages will be public at some point down the line.

CHARACTERS

I'm not sure if I had explain this before, but the character assets drawn for this are created by the original artists themselves. Which for example, Hack is drawn by me, Twig is drawn by twig-sprigs, Rosa is drawn by rosiee204, and so on. As of right now, 11 out of 24 characters (excluding Hack) have all of their art assets (or references) made by the original artists, meaning after I perform post-production on the character assets, they'll be able to be FULLY implemented to HCN! In my point-of-view, it isn't as much as I hoped for, due to the expectations I have set for everyone at a given time, but I am willing to still give more time for the final product.

NIGHT MENU

Introducing, the NEW Night Menu for HCN! As you can see, the entire menu has been revamped to give a much bigger presentation on the characters and the environment around you. The functionality shouldn't be any complicated on how it navigates. In Assignments (night presets section,) you will be given a dynamic view on every character that'll be included to the level preset. If you prefer to view the icons like the original Custom Night menus, you can hold the Shift button to view the entire AI LV table in one frame/screen!

WEEKLY LIVESTREAMS

Starting September 22nd, I start doing weekly livestreams (every Friday) of me working on Hack's Custom Night over on my YouTube channel. There isn't a real category or setup to the dev streams I'll be doing, but they'll primarily be me doing the following:

• Programming menus and gameplay

• Post-production on character sketches

I've always wanted to do development livestreams for HCN (in exposure here) for a variety of reasons. For one, I like to showcase the work I have created and formatted to a wide audience. Second, it is a great opportunity to utilize the time to interact with you guys as I am working. You are free to ask questions, even though I won't be able to answer all of them. Third, as I get further into HCN, I want to get through tedious work that is crucial to the game, that being post-production on everyone's work.

As of Sept 20th, 2023, Hack's Custom Night's progress has went much farther in terms of the supplemental aspects of the game, albeit with some setbacks. I can't wait to work on and implement my friends' work into the game seeing how much time they've spent sketching for the game.

Let me know what you all think of what is presented here. I cannot wait to get even further into the demo's progress.

That's all I have to say in this post! Like I said before, there is still a lot more to go over, but I rather keep it hidden for now. Progress has been a bit slower with the amount of stress, time management, and other projects I need and wanted to focus on.

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 💜