Hey guys!
Welcome to the October monthly update! During the time of spooky season and turning leaves, The Pedestrian is nearing completion. We had an internal goal to release the game around the 20th of October. But a couple weeks back we decided we’d rather not rush the marketing portion of the release. Also, as we’re getting close to the holiday season, we wanted to avoid any of the unknowns that come with a release during sales and holidays. So we switched our 20th of October goal to be more of a “Game is complete” deadline. While pushing our actual release date out. So without further ado, The Pedestrian is scheduled to be released in mid January. We’ll have an official teaser trailer before the end of the month for the masses. We just wanted to give you all the inside scoop. Ok, now that the major announcement is out of the way we’ll move on to our normal monthly update!
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Video Devlog
Above is our awesome video version of our update. It contains the contents of our written update just in a more visual format.
Updating a Train
Our train received an update that made the train more useful and prettier. We reallocated some of our gameplay goals to be inside the trains and elevators. The hubs were getting a little cluttered with everything being piled up inside them. So with moving some stuff to the train, it’s helped clean up the hubs quite a bit. We’ve also added in an awesome stylized video while the train is going.
Level Audit Tasks
Downtown level swapped, assigned signs static, improved some internal sign spacing in puzzles and hubs, and tweaked the locations of various signs. All of these were part of a gameplay/level audit. This is where we went around and made notes on sign related changes, we also made changes based on tester feedback.
Puzzle mode Tweaks
Recently we’ve made some improvements to the way that puzzle mode works. Many of the concerns with puzzle mode in the past have been from things happening without being clear what exactly caused it. So now we have a much better system where you are given a preview of what will happen before anything needs to be committed. So if you want to break a connection, just drag the node off and before you release it will show that the puzzle will reset, and which items will move because of it. If you don’t want that outcome, just place the node back in its original location and nothing will change.
Camera Shake
We use this tool called a sequence object to animate many of the movable objects in our game world. This week we added in a function that makes the camera shake while animations are going off. Not only does this help notify the player when things are happening, but it’s also one of those easy wins that improve immersion.
Smashing Bugs
Our virtual controller had some issues when the frame rates would rise above the 150 fps mark. Moving signs around would cause them to fly recklessly across the scene. Apparently you could also walk through closed doors, which wasn’t intended. So those were fixed.
Additional Improvements
We’ve always had a door opening animation, but the ladder opening animation has just been squashing and stretching of the ladder visual. So we now have an actual animation for when you connect two ladders to each other. Another thing is our player is no longer actual mesh, he’s now textures on various quads. This helps make the player fit in better with the rest of the sign visuals. The blending on the edges of our player is now much less harsh because of this.
Kickstarter design
We’ve been working with various kickstarter backers on finalizing their rewards. A few of the big ones are in the works now, but we won’t show anything to refrain from spoilage. It’s something we’re super excited about, with it being the first “secret” thing besides our story.
Feature Videos
Jed has been doing a series, walking us through different features of The Pedestrian. The first video is about how we’ve implemented our end credits system and the second delved into the ins and outs of a virtual cursor, why we chose to use it and how it was implemented. If you’re interested in more detailed behind the scenes updates, then these videos are for you.
So what’s next?
Our plans for now are to wrap up any of the small projects we have going on and continue to put our efforts towards testing. Since we have a little extra time, we’re going to focus on gameplay and user experience. Taking any chance we have to get those easy wins. While we’re doing that, we’ll also put more focus on the actual release process. Getting all our marketing material in order, creating trailers, and pushing forward with the Mac and Linux builds.
Thanks so much, as always, for being an awesome community! We’ll continue to create updates to keep you all in the loop. Bye for now!
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