Devlog #1: Dehumanizing the Data

[p]Hello! I'm Finn, the solo developer behind Denied.[/p][p]This is the first official devlog for the game. If you are new here, Denied is a dystopian corporate simulator where you compare complex documents, hunt for policy loopholes, and deny claims to meet a strict daily quota.[/p][p]Today I want to talk about the mechanic I am most proud of: The Patient Decay System.[/p][p][/p][h3]THE DECAY SYSTEM[/h3][p]A while ago, I posted a prototype showing how patients visually decayed as you played. The feedback I got was very useful and honest. The old effect looked like a lazy saturation filter that makes patients look more demonic, and the screen getting brighter was actually hurting people's eyes.[/p][p]I went back and reworked the whole pipeline to focus on the psychological toll of the job.[/p][p][/p][p]It is not just a filter anymore. As you reject more claims and the days blur together, the decay targets the specific elements of humanity on your screen. You might be reading a handwritten get-well card from a patient's granddaughter, but the photo attached to it is slowly turning into a featureless mannequin.[/p][p]The whole terminal corrupts around you to match. The screen gets darker, and scanlines creep in, giving everything that yellowish tint of an old, dying monitor. Even the text begins to rot. Patient names slowly turn into IDs, medical histories turn into jargon, and by the end of the week, the forms barely read like they are about real people anymore.[/p][p]You hopefully won't even notice it happening while you play (so by the time this game comes out, you should forget I told you about it...). You will be too focused on hitting your quota to care.[/p][p][/p][h3]COMING NEXT: RECLASSIFICATION[/h3][p]I am currently finishing the new Fabrication Mechanic. This isn't just about finding reasons to deny people. It is about making them up. I am building a tool where you physically black out a patient's real diagnosis and write in a corporate-approved reason instead. I will talk more about it in my next devlog, so stay tuned![/p][p][/p][h3]A NOTE ON SCHEDULE[/h3][p]I am also in the middle of my final Master's exams, so devlogs might be a bit irregular for the next few weeks. I plan to pick up the pace once exams are done later this spring.[/p][p]If you want to support development (and help me procrastinate on my revision), the best thing you can do is Wishlist on Steam and tell others about it, too.[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]