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#4 A new character, and some cozy particle effects

1/28/2018

Hey there!
Say hello to a new character: Doctor Martinez! He's in charge of performing the autopsies on Chris and Diane. Everyone knows him as a kind and caring citizen of Pineview, and he's always ready to lend an ear to those going through tough times. We know a few people that'd be happy to meet him, right? :)

Along with the Doctor, work was done on the autopsy room level as well. But after visiting dreary, lifeless and cold rooms such as these, you need to visit a place that's warm, cozy and full of life. And there's no place better for all of that than Mark's cafe!
The previous week was spent creating a warm, early morning atmosphere for the cafe. This week, some time was spent focusing on the details in the cafe, and seeing how it works with a rainy mood. Turns out, it's still pretty cozy! :) Here's a gif showing some of the details inside and outside the shop. The rising steam specifically helps, don't you think?

See you next week!
-Armaan

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#3 Work begins on new levels!

1/21/2018

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Hi everyone!

The past couple of weeks since the release of the demo have been quite busy, as they've mainly been spent responding to player feedback and working on releasing an updated version that dealt with most of the major bugs in the first release.

After many months of creating the foundation and preparing the demo, it's a pretty good feeling to cross that milestone and to finally start work on completely new content and new levels for the full game! The best part is that a large number of assets have already been created, which means I can focus more on designing levels, and less on creating new assets from scratch.

I've also spent time thinking about and working out two ideas for the full game:

1) A diary/ journal system - Important facts picked up during investigations will be noted down by the Detective in this diary, including his thoughts about suspects, locations, people and a possible timeline of events. There may also be a provision for the player to write their own custom notes so that they can jot down their own observations quickly (and feel like a real detective!)

2) Ability to choose order of locations to be investigated - For each day in the story, the player will be able to choose which location they want to investigate/ suspect they want to interview etc instead of going through the day's events in a linear fashion.
Most of the days this week were spent working on two new levels: Mark's cafe (interiors) (I particularly enjoyed creating the early morning cafe atmosphere!) and the police station's conference room. I'm tempted to share screenshots, but I don't want to give too much away either ;) So here's an old piece of concept art that I stumbled upon; I'd completely forgotten about this one! Thought it was pretty decent so I replaced the old character art with the new ones (still not sure about that text's positioning though, but oh well... "WIP") It'd work pretty well as a cover for the OST, don't you think?

See you next week!
-Armaan

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#2 Demo now available for Mac OS, and updated for all platforms

1/14/2018

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Hello!
So for the past 10 days, as promised, I've been working on fixing and improving the demo based on your feedback. I've also released a Mac OS build for the demo. Here are some of the changes in this new build:

Speech bubbles - Speech bubbles are now colored! Many people found it confusing to identify the speaker of some dialogues, especially when characters stood close to each other. This is still a temporary solution, just for the demo (as the speech system will be overhauled for the full release) but it should do the job for now.

Dialogue skipping - You can now skip dialogues by pressing Space/ LB! This is only applicable for those dialogues that the player has already heard at least once before. This will make the market section easier, in case you mistakenly end up asking an NPC the same question you'd already asked before.
Fixed some collision bugs - Preventing the player from walking off the scene, and from pushing other NPCs around.
Made the investigation scene in the kitchen a little less cramped up.
Fixed the main menu - and gave it some new, fancy effects! The camera now moves down when loading the options, or when starting the game. Cool, huh? ;)

Loading/ Saving - Added manual saving/loading and save slots.
Slightly more fleshed out negative dialogue choices when conversing with the local cops.

There were a couple more improvements that were planned for the demo update, but they'll require more time and work than had been anticipated. They will be carried over to the full release.
Hope you enjoy the demo! Keep an eye out for weekly updates, and don't forget to wishlist the game on Steam!
-Armaan

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#1 Response to the demo and future plans

1/10/2018

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Hi everyone!

I launched the demo for Rainswept on 2 January, and the response has been much more positive than I could've expected! It's really encouraging that so many people have played and loved the game, and for that, thank you!
It's also been pretty wild (and I must admit, a bit nerve wracking) seeing Youtubers upload let's-play videos of the game. Seeing people play the game and react to its moments has been quite surreal, and encouraging.
It's also been very useful for me to watch and gather feedback. That, along with the feedback forms that players have submitted have allowed to me to identify problems with the demo, and potential problems with the full game. I plan to release the demo on Steam next, which will include a Mac build (that I will share here too) I'm hoping to have this done within a week. Some of the issues that'll be addressed in the updated demo are:

Speech bubbles - As many of you have pointed out, sometimes it gets confusing to identify who the speaker of a line is. This especially happens when characters stand too close to each other. For the updated demo, I'll give each speaker type their own color. For the full version, the whole speech bubble will be recreated from scratch, with animations and comic-style arrows pointing to the speaker.

Collision bugs - There are a few scenes where a player can walk off the scene and fall through the geometry. This will be fixed, along with a scene where the player is able to push Officer Blunt around due to buggy collision on her.

Cramped objects - During the crime scene (interior) the observable objects are positioned too close to each other, making it difficult to interact with them. I'll also look into providing mouse controls and the ability to rebind keys if possible - whatever can solve this issue.

Menu menu - The options screen will be fixed.

Loading/ saving - I'll look into providing an option for manual save slots, rather than only auto saving every level

Ability to skip dialogues - To avoid listening to long dialogues that you might have already heard.

Making it clearer to the player that the market area can be skipped - This is a long, slow paced area, but it can be skipped by just talking to the Priest. This will be made clearer.

Some inconsistencies in dialogues will be fixed, and the reaction to some of the choices players make during dialogue (arguing with the local police) will be made more interesting/ rewarding.

Some players had issues with the UI, where the interact icons were tiny - almost invisible. This will be looked into.

These should be pretty quick to implement, after which I'll get back to making progress for the full game!
For the full game, you can expect some of these things to receive improvements:

Improved visuals - Some of the colors don't work perfectly with each other, and this will be improved on. I'm also working on new lighting techniques, to give a better, softer "glow effect". The progress with this shall be shared here!

Better characters - This is a part of improving visuals, but mainly this means more polished character animations, small improvements on art and detail and maybe more detailed eyes and multiple expressions - to replace the current blank stare.

Gameplay - I will look to provide more opportunities to engage with the game in a more "traditional" manner. Which means a larger number of, and relatively more complex puzzles than were seen in the demo, and a couple of new mechanics such as a diary/ journal system. I'll also look to integrate the clues picked up during the story into the diary system, which can help the player keep a track of the facts related to the case and help them form their own conclusion before Detective Anderson himself!

Agency over locations/ movement in the world - In the demo, the player gets carried from one location to the next for each scene in the story. For the full version, I'll look to provide the player with the option to choose from one of the few available scenes/ location for each day's investigation. This will require me to work out the plot to accommodate all choices of the order of locations visited, so the scope of this mechanic is still undecided.

Expect to see more locations, and of course, the full story!

There's a lot more to come than this of course, but this is the core of what will be improved from what has been shown in the demo. There'll be regular updates here, and on my twitter: https://twitter.com/Rainswept_Game. And if you want, you can also wishlist the game on Steam as well: http://store.steampowered.com/app/772290/Rainswept/
Again, thank you so much for playing the demo!

-Armaan

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#4 A new character, and some cozy particle effects

#3 Work begins on new levels!

#2 Demo now available for Mac OS, and updated for all platforms

#1 Response to the demo and future plans

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