What a busy week it has been. Unfortunately, I haven't had a ton of time to work on Live Die Escape this week. It is still not quite at the level designing stage, and I don't think it will be for a couple more weeks. My hope is that these next few weeks I can continue to implement a few more key features, and progress past the point that I ended the prototype at. That being said, I'm very happy with the progress I made this week in implementing the Inventory and Control Points.

Inventory

As mentioned in the previous devlog, I decided to give the player a 4 slot inventory, matching up with the player character's 4 arms. Not only do I like how this is directly correlated to the player design, but I also think it is a good balance between giving the player room to store multiple items, while still creating a necessity for strategizing which items to carry and at what point in the level. The design is relatively simple. The player can pick up items by walking over them, and drop them or use them with right or left clicks, respectively. Creating the inventory also involved creating the base capabilities of the items. I have only implemented 2 items at the moment, a key and a control chip, just like in the prototype.

The key is used to unlock a specific locked door, and is consumed on use, meaning that it is deleted from the player's inventory, but the door will stay unlocked. I don't currently have door sprites, so for now, the red means that the door is locked, and it is white when unlocked.

The control chip is used to reboot the laser turrets in the corresponding room. These can only be used at designated "Control Points."

Control Points

The idea of the Control Point is simple. It is a stationary object in the world, which the player can interact with to control the state of the laser turrets. This shouldn't give the player too much of an advantage, and I believe it is balanced relatively well. The player can use control chips to reboot the turrets in a room, disabling them for 10 seconds.

This should allow a good amount of mobility through restricted areas, while still creating a challenge for the player in terms of managing their time, resources, and planning out their actions in advance. At the moment, these points are only used for controlling laser turrets. I don't think this will change, but I'm always open to feedback on it if it seems illogical or not fun. At the moment, there is no other enemy implemented to be able to control, but I'm hoping as I reveal more about the gameplay and the story, this choice will make more sense.

Moving Forward

I am finally getting close to a point that I will be happy to release a short demo of this game on my page! It will be very similar to the prototype, but will hopefully seem more polished, and will have some real goals for playtesting. I expect this to be possible in the next 2-3 weeks, assuming my schedule allows ample time to implement the features that I would like. These features will most likely include: more stat related features (stat modifiers), a guard enemy (as seen in the prototype), rotating turrets, the disruptor item (as seen in the prototype), a shield item, and a short level design. I would love to include even more if possible, so stay tuned!

Thank you for reading this week's devlog. I realize that these aren't interesting, and nobody really reads these anyways, but I enjoy posting them to keep track of my progress and keep my motivation up. If even one person reads this and found it even remotely engaging, then I'm happy I could be of service. I'm looking forward to next week's post!

Calvin