Developer Diaries: sound design and the plans for the further development

Hello everyone, it’s Luden.io again — back with some fresh news!

[h2]Great news[/h2]

As we mentioned in the last dev diary, our endless berserk mode is finally over. The result? Impressive average playtime stats on the Poki platform! Just to remind you — hitting those numbers was a requirement for releasing the game on the web. Right now, we’re ironing out the details, but one thing is certain: the web release is happening! Stay tuned for updates, we’ll share more soon. Don’t forget to subscribe in the Discord not to miss it when it happens!

[h2]Game design ideas[/h2]
Now to SuperWEIRD development news. What did we manage to achieve over the past month?

First of all, we finally sat down and drafted a design doc for the big Steam version of the game. For those who don’t remember: our plan is to first release a smaller version on web platforms to test the core gameplay. Once the basics are polished, we’ll expand the experience with more depth so there’s plenty to do in the midgame and endgame for the players.

So, behold our grand plans for the Steam version. And instead of a thousand words — here’s one picture:


Now imagine dozens of islands drifting in the sky, with the player starting out on their hub. The player flies between islands, each guarded by its own boss. Why floating islands, you ask?

Well, there are a few reasons. First of all, we wanted a dynamic map. One of our references — Cult of the Lamb — like many roguelikes, uses procedurally generated maps. In roguelikes, that system keeps runs fresh and varied.


But in our case, progress on the map is permanent. So the islands shifting around serve a different purpose. The idea is to make players analyze how the map moves, plan missions based on that movement, and add a bit of pressure and randomness to keep things interesting. Basically, to mess with the player’s plans. What do you think — will islands moving between rounds stress players out, or add a fun layer of chaos? Let us know in the comments.

At first we thought the map would be a set of rotating rings. But later we scrapped that idea in favor of floating islands. Why islands instead of rings? Honestly — simply because we love floating islands. And hey, it’s our SuperWEIRD game, so we get to have our quirks!

So, the goal is to defeat the boss and liberate the island from the mysterious alien slime — the corruption.


The corruption, of course, won’t just sit idle — it’ll try to get in your way. Our task is to strike the right balance: not too idle-casual, not too stressful. That’ll mostly be a matter of tuning, so we’ll get to it later. For now, take a look at the enemy spawner and the evil robots going to battle our good robots.


And here are our experiments with how the сorruption spreads over areas the player has already freed. We made these animation sketches before finishing the overall world map concept, so what you see here is the old radial version without islands. What do you think? Does it look cool?


On each island, the player builds production chains to quickly craft and arm robots that will take on the boss… But you already know this part from our earlier diaries — nothing new here.

But here’s the most important part.

Remember the pig in shades? Over time he’s become a fan favorite of both the community and the team, and we tried hard to keep him around. In a previous version, we thought the locals would settle at the shop hub. But players ended up just playing shopkeeper instead of automating, so we scrapped the shop system. Along with it, sadly, the locals disappeared too. Our game designer always reminds us: “Don’t fall in love with your ideas.” But sometimes… you just can’t help it!

In the new version, the player still rescues locals on each island and brings them back to the base. But the base is no longer an economic hub with its own gameplay — now it’s a place for progression and upgrades.


The result? A cleaner, more focused loop with the hub being just a metagame. And most importantly: the pig lives on!


Of course, keep in mind these are plans and concepts — things may shift after web release feedback and Steam playtests. But this is the direction we’d like to go.

By the way, we’re planning a closed beta playtest on Steam in the near future and really count on your feedback to make the game even better and more fun. Don’t forget to subscribe to our Newsletter so that you don't miss the playtest!

[h2]Another big step: music experiments
[/h2]
We started sketching out tracks in our usual style — ambient mixed with electronic sounds. Then we realized: the music should also capture the vibe of worn-out old machinery and clunky robots. That led us to revisit the great references — Transformers and WALL-E.


We noticed how the sound designers there often remove high frequencies to make everything feel low, muffled, and weighty. And we thought — what if we do the same, but with music? What if we go with muted strings and handpans instead of bright synths?

Below we’ve put two music options over gameplay footage:

• The familiar ambient style you know from our other game
  
• The dynamic muted strings version we made basing on our low frequencies theory
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Please tell us in the comments — which one fits the game vibe better?

Honestly, we’re really tempted by the “no highs” approach. You know what the biggest pain in game sound design is? Everything sounds amazing on the expensive sound designer’s equipment… but on cheap headphones it instantly turns into a mess. And, let’s be honest, probably 90% of our players use headphones. Cutting out high frequencies might solve that problem — since that’s where low-end gear usually distorts the most.

So we’re still at a crossroads with sound — your feedback is super valuable here.

And finally — smaller things.

We’ve started working on buffs and debuffs. How do you like these aura effects? We borrowed the idea from tabletop games!

We’ve also prepared a big, detailed update for you about how we spent the whole summer reworking automation in the game — and why.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Thanks for reading, sharing your thoughts, and testing the game with us. Your feedback truly helps us shape SuperWEIRD into something special.

See you soon in the next update — and don’t forget to add the game to your Wishlist and recommend it to your friends.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3818770/SuperWEIRD/