Virtue's Heaven News

Hi friends,

March was an important Month for this game's development, despite how little actual progress was made. More in the video below:


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hi friends,

Another long video! Talking a lot about the Steam Next Fest experience, managing expectations and also car racing for some reason.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hi friends,
Another small update to the Demo:

• Changed the Upwards Dash Tutorial, to make it maybe a bit less frustrating
  
• Changed the placement of some helping Birds
  
• Some tweaks to the Walljump
  

This is probably going to be the last update I'll do for this Demo, aside from fixing bugs that crash/break the game. The upwards dash tutorial now teaches you specific elements in sequence and I also changed the wording of the initial message, because I noticed that the previous message implied, that you *have* to press "up" after you started a dash, when actually you can just hold the input and then start a dash.

I hope this makes things at least a bit less frustrating for people.

The Walljump is going to remain a work in progress for the game, but I think it's fine for the Demo right now. I only fixed a problem that caused the game to crash and made it a bit less likely that you accidentally initiate a walljump, after performing a Dash.
My biggest problem with the automatic walljump is that it can lead to players unintentionally activating it, but I also understand why having a simpler initiation makes the overall movement a bit less complex.
I think I found a good balance, but I also haven't done a ton of testing with it so far. Still I'm comfortable enough with where it is right now, to just not touch it for a while.

As always, thanks for taking an interest in this game, and for all the feedback over the past week.

Hi friends,
[Insert empty "we heard your complaints" Gamedeveloper PR Statement]

• Wall jumps and Ledge Grabs now only require you to hold a direction
  
• Changed Tutorial messages regarding both mechanics
  

So I took notice that folks didn't like that you had to press a button to do a walljump and over the last day or so I've been thinking about ways to change it, while still maintaining the core idea, of it involving a deliberate decision.
You now initiate a walljump, when you hold your directional input, while colliding with a wall. However, you won't be stationary in that state, and instead slowly slide downwards. In order to remain stationary, you still need to press that evil "grab" button.
This way you can do quicker vertical movements, without having to hold a button down all the time, while still having an option to have a higher degree of control, if you need it. You also don't end up accidentally get stuck to a wall when you don't want to, since you need to hold your input for a few frames (3 to be exact) for the walljump to register.

Obviously this is a very quick change and I did not test it very thouroughly, so things might break. Please let me know, if you ran into any kind of strangeness. I also did not change the tutorial stage, so that frustrating vertical section is still there. I still hope the changed mechanics make it a bit less frustrating though.

Also I'm going to keep the demo up for at least another Month, so if you've bounced off of it before, feel free to maybe give it another go.

Hi friends,

With the Next Fest being basically done, I figured why not do a video where I talk about how it went overall?
(Spoilers: It wasn't all that pleasant)

I also talk a bit more about how I want to make sure that the problems that have come to my attention are being dealt with properly.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]