Hello,
I thought I would give an update on some of the stuff I have been working on lately. I’ve largely been working on level design, enemy design and art. Surprisingly little of my time has been spent on bug fixes, because I think for the most part there are no major bugs left in the core of the game (this is a clever ploy, I don’t believe that at all, but I know saying it will result in a ton of bugs suddenly rearing their heads, thinking the coast is clear, but I’m prepared to squash them!!).

So this post will largely just be an art dump of some work-in-progress areas and enemies and bits and pieces I’d like to talk about.

The level I’ve been working on is the ICHOR Labs production facility, which is a big, sealed facility built into the side of a mountain. Of course, you break in by crashing through the roof only to find your enemies have gotten there before you! In addition, the facility’s security system will turn against you, and the first thing you’ll have to do is win a boss fight against the Greeters.

Some of the bosses on this level are a slight departure from the ones from the previous level (the level you can play now in the alpha demo). There’s going to a be a few that are more influenced by the kinds of bosses you’d find in Megaman, or Shovel Knight, in that they’re more around your size and a lot more agile than the big, lumbering bosses you might have seen in prior levels.

The section after this is an elevator ride as you descend into the facility. Things won’t be that easy, unfortunately, and you’ll have to fend off enemies on the way down, but at least there will be some nice elevator music for you to listen to.

This is when things really start to heat up. You’ll then have to start working your way through the different segments of the facility, battling the security systems along the way.

In terms of enemies, things get quite a bit harder from here on in. Where in the previous level you largely fought dumb enemies with just one ability, here there’s a few that have a couple of abilities. Like this guy…

He can vomit up huge clouds of bullets that will prove to be a huge obstacle. But you can stop him from doing that by shooting him… he can’t vomit if he’s being attacked. Unfortunately, he has a shield that can absorb some of the energy of your weapons fire and turn it back against you at roughly the same rate of fire. So, there’s things you need to take into account when shooting at him.

Plus there’s the usual supply of evil lackeys and cannons and other assorted fun stuff!

Most of this level takes place inside, but there will still be quite a lot of parallax scrolling and various set pieces to make the rooms feel large and inhabited.

There are a couple of new enemy types that make things harder by interacting with other enemies, the environment or Pods, too. For instance the dude above can show up and ruin your day by placing shields on Pods, or repairing enemies. He won’t ever attack you directly unless he has no other choice, but he’ll do his damage in other ways. You’ll be able to see on-screen warnings and timers to let you know what he’s upto, and when he’s going to do things, so it’ll be up to you to decide whether it’s worth switching your attention to him or not.

But as you get deeper in the facility, you discover that something has been released that was never intended. This will be the last boss in the level, and you’ll fight it all the way back to the surface and the top of the mountain.

The colour scheme changes as you get further and further in, and becomes a bit more creepy and dark.

Anyway, that’s a little bit of the stuff I’ve been working on, and I hope you liked looking at it. I won’t give away everything, because there still needs to be some surprises!

I will keep things updated, and hopefully will have this level ready to play in the near future.

Special thanks to everyone that has played and commented and rated the game in these last few weeks! It has been awesome to hear from everyone and watching your playthrough videos is still pretty scary and feels very strange! But it’s been really awesome.

If you want to see updates as things progress, or if you would like to see pictures of my dog, you could follow me on Twitter @ mindrelay!