Hello All!

So it’s late August now, and that means it's The Pedestrian update time! We didn’t have an official update last month, mostly because there wasn’t much to share at that point in development. But this month we’re switching back to the normal update structure. Some fun stuff has been happening that we’re excited to share.

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Monthly Update Video!

First and foremost, if you’d like to see this update in video form then please click the link above and enjoy. Otherwise, continue reading below.

So, what have we been doing?

Music

We had a big leap in Pedestrian music implementation. Just a couple weeks ago our sound guy, Logan, came down to Skookum Headquarters for about a week. During that time we delved into the ins and outs of implementing the music with all of our game systems. One of the big hurdles that was solved is how the music interacts with the save system. We needed to make sure that if you load into any part of the game, then the appropriate music piece starts. It’s so crazy to think that our game will have sound in it, since we’ve been playing silent for years. We have a nice little preview of a song that will be in The Pedestrian. Click the video above to listen to the sweet tune!

Story

Our story points are mostly good to go. The majority of the story used to be told at the end of the game. But now we’ve integrated a key story element into the gameplay to help guide the player towards our story’s finale. The story remains very minimal, so it is non intrusive on your experience. But we’re excited to see how players will interpret the story if they choose to pay attention. And really all that’s left for story is some animations and visual/audio effects to support some of the bigger story sections.

Area transitions

We also worked on the loading between area sequences. Before when you were switching between areas there would be a distinct change in the way some of the objects looked. Lighting settings were different from scene to scene, which caused an odd lighting switch when scenes loaded and unloaded. Now everything is consistent and you visually can’t tell that anything has changed. This really is crucial for one of our design goals of seamless gameplay. We’ve also added more visual effects on top of the loading to give some visual feedback on what’s happening during the transition.

Working on more testing feedback

One of the main puzzle mechanics wasn’t as clear as we’d liked. This made a later section of the game much more difficult because of this poor communication. So we added in some animations and visuals that should help players learn what they were missing.

The rooftop mechanic has gotten an upgrade! We worked to get the rooftops mechanic up to snuff. Meaning we tweaked it to use rules and design choices that are more consistent with the rest of the game. This should help players use the rules that they have learned up until now, but in a different and more interesting way.

What are the next major steps?

• Implement or fulfill Kickstarter rewards

• Continue to add in sweet sweet musical goodness

• Create fun marketing stuff (like updating the steam store page and an official trailer)

• Optimize the game

• Conduct a bit more testing

The minor tweaking and testing of the rooftops puzzle mechanic change is our highest gameplay priority. And the rest of the listed items should wrap up the game nicely. So thank you all so much for reading and/or watching our August update. Keep an eye out for future updates on our socials and wishlist The Pedestrian on Steam to be sure to be notified of release.

Be safe out there.

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