Hello everyone! It has been months since my last post, and during this time, I have been working a lot, albeit in my signature sporadic nature. I have made some major progress in level design and writing the overarching narrative of the game. However, progress halted a lot because I prefer having some assets for when I make certain parts of the game, and I haven't found the game's visual style.

I have actually considered jumping to another software and trying 3D, drawing inspiration from games like "DON'T SCREAM" or "Slender: Return to Rosswood Park". I feel like those games have a lot of missed potential for how visually pleasing they look. Maybe they just have to overcompensate for the high-fidelity graphics though. However, that whole ordeal sounds extremely risky it's probably best to stick with a fairly small project with a program I'm familiar with. I get too ambitious sometimes. However, I've been realizing that maybe I should just keep programming the game without any decent graphics, I'd get things done faster. That's for sure.

So, what have we got since the last time I talked?

• BATTLE ENGINE REWORK

• MOVEMENT REWORK

• HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL COLLECTIBLES SYSTEM

Over the past few months, my focus has revolved around fun. I typically make my games with a lot of mystery and story in mind, often forgetting fun. Sometimes, the convoluted story doesn't even make sense anymore because I'm trying to cram so many things into one. Of course, I have gotten better with that. I don't just mean an experience that feels fun, I mean it feels fun playing the game. So, things have shifted a bit. Instead of an Earthbound type turn-based battle system, I have decided to experiment a little more with a sort of Punch-Out system. Specifically the Punch-Out mechanics in Deltarune Chapter 2. That part of the game was so exciting for me, I was trying to dodge in real life while trying to dodge in the game. I would like to create something similar to that.

Movement was also going in a strange direction for a while. For some reason, I had a plan and didn't stick to it. Like I threw it all out the window? So, after months of no work being done, I finally saw what had to be done and now the movement is working the way it was originally intended. Now we have a bit more of a pseudo-open-world environment. I say pseudo-open-world because though you have a particular playing space, you're not exactly going that far. Think of it as the minigames in FNAF 3 that happen at the end of each night. Your character moves upward, but it's not literally going upwards, it's saying that hey you moved upward, so we're going to adjust your coordinate by one, and because of that we'll create objects accordingly. It's definitely something that would just be easier to show you, but maybe later.

I have been wanting to create a pseudo-3d pixel shader to view some of the objects found in the game. I think it would be really neat to be able to hide some secrets on the backside of some objects. That is sort of working. However, it's pretty buggy right now. So good and bad.

Lastly, fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. That's the name of the game right now. Obviously, we don't have any high-stakes competition going on in-game, so what makes a horror game fun? Well for one, watching horror movies or playing horror games actually comes with a boost of adrenaline and dopamine, so a great horror game should masterfully tap into that. It also has to be unpredictable. All of the game has to be unexpected. Consider iconic games like FNAF. The magic was in being at the right place at the right time; miss a beat, and you'd miss out. The joy came from the small, unpredictable moments that kept players on their toes or just excited at finding a "secret". The obscurity of it all defied logic, creating an experience that was as thrilling as it was unpredictable.

So, I'm doing some more research, right? I want to implement a lot of surprises and make the environment more reactive. I have ideas for that. Something needs to happen every 3 seconds to make the world feel alive unless I want you to feel off-putted by the loneliness. I need to tell a story that other genres can't. I need to make you feel stressed, tense, and paranoid. There has to be a level of persistent uncertainty where anything can happen. Leave a lot to your imagination and keep you on edge. Make you relax enough that you feel safe when you're not. Luckily, I have some sweet ideas. As always, not all of them will make it into the game, but I have some things I'm really excited about.

- Everett

P.S. Sorry if this post was a bit weird. I just had a lot of catching up to do.