DEVLOG 3: “Combat tweaks”

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2680280/PAPERHEAD



This time, I want to share some info about what’s changing in combat in the full release of PAPERHEAD.

After watching a bunch of let’s plays and streams of Ep.0, it became kinda obvious that the current state of the combat is not ideal.

In short, fights were kind of unbalanced:

• Weapon balance was done roughly by feel, which sometimes made them way too strong or too weak.
  
• There was often too little time between getting new weapons (I mean level-wise) to try them out properly, or they came in a weird order (like pencil bombs appearing almost at the end).
  
• Level flow was often cutting off the action too soon.
  

So for the release, I’m rebalancing weapons and enemies, tweaking the level design, and adding new mechanics to make players actually utilize all that toolbelt the game offers.

[h2]Level Flow[/h2]

In the release version, weapons and abilities will be spaced out more evenly across levels.
You’ll get time to play around with each before getting the next.
Levels will also be more clearly split into "action" and "story" sections, so one doesn’t interrupt the other.
Something like: first a full action level, then a chill one to jump around and explore the lore, then action again, and so on.

[h2]Enemies & Weaknesses[/h2]

Enemies will be more tied to specific weapon or ability weaknesses.
For example, some enemies will have armor that might require switching weapons to specific ones to deal damage.
Like, for example, one enemy might be immune to everything except a kick, so you’ll need to run up and kick him, not just spam shoot with whatever weapon you were holding.
Or maybe another might only lose armor from explosions, so you’ll need to switch to the weapon dealing explosive damage (or kick a barrel), etc.
And so on and on.


Art here is a placeholder, ofc

[h2]No Ammo[/h2]

In the release version, you’ll be able to recover resources more easily (compared to ep0), especially with the pencil. Corpses will drop ammo, and corpse-erasing would be the main way to heal yourself. No more regular boring healing items or coin collecting heals (although coins will remain, but will have a different role).



So in the release, you’ll always have a way to recover ammo or health when needed.
Exploration will not be required to gather ammo, tho it will be useful for something different - I’ll probably talk about that next time.

There’s also a bunch of smaller things coming sooo….

Wishlist PAPERHEAD
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2680280/PAPERHEAD