Heat Signature dev log at Stugan week 3.5: The Visitor and the Snake

I'm halfway through my time in the Swedish woods to focus on Heat Signature, and the interior game is really coming together. Here's what I'm most excited about.

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Closed Caption:

we're nearly there just over halfway
student at three and a half weeks and 1
30 words and it's still super fun
the weather is still about as great as
it was my first video
it's kinda goes back and forth it's been
when it's nice it's really nice
and as a like super unless it's nice
that's my thoughts and links right now
he's gonna do me so getting more work on
an ocean of almost done and I feel like
I think that's what I like a cluster
system and maybe segment system a bit
last time but I the cost of guards are
done now
I wanted to talk too much about others
I've divided shipped up into segments
which means segment is like a
rectangular area of gameplay i'm going
to say we're like all those rooms are
strongly interconnected as always to be
brown lot of roots but then that segment
is almost saved contained and it barely
connected on the segments it's good like
one door between the two seconds and the
reason for that is I want you to be able
to fit the actual screen easily a decent
level and i also want to give a good
like progression of like you can make
this better then you move on to spin
that's going to clear objective
so that's kind of dull but it's done it
was good i think is working well the
more interesting stuff is a made a bunch
of teleporters and i think i had like a
basic teleporter working last I made
they did one of these
but now i have three different types and
they are the visitor which teleports you
a decent distance but it's going to pull
you back up to 3 23 seconds
so you can kind of jumping grab a key
garden then get pulled back out and if
you're an assassin you can jump in kills
off getting back out if you need to
retrieve somebody pick somebody up you
can jump in and pick them up but then
when you get pulled back over you get
back and drama of it
next one is the swapper where you can
search places on any person just a
second person to questionable can't
remember what the range is currently but
i might make it limit us like within the
ship or maybe just kind of the rock
slides worship so the rain is not really
consideration it's more about like I can
do this but i will then be where the
guard was and is that a good thing since
guards tend to be in clusters now and
I'll vary from situation to situation
the final one is the snake which is
available to the conqueror through walls
but it can go any discipline
pretty much any distance and it doesn't
care how a labyrinth of rooms has to
take
so if there is a clear path between you
and where you want to go you can use
this neck and it actually trace the path
it would have taken so it's almost like
it's kinda like time forces and you go
there and then time start again I heard
you see it from in real time so you can
instantaneously there and a trace of the
roots that are going to take him to get
that and it doesn't matter what was in
that route as long as it wasn't a solid
so you can pass through no security
cameras or targets enemies field of
vision and just feel the fire there were
no you're over there and it's completely
invisible instantaneous but you can't
pass through even an unlocked door to
door shut
even if it's not locked target or the
snake so you get interesting situations
where like you could wait for a guard to
open a door and then sneak through it
and its really really soon before like
loads of time for you want to get past
security to the outside of it
that one I think you can find a lot of
those things going to be relatively
common time to teleport to find all of
these can be limited use or they can be
rechargeable there are no different ones
that have another have one that just
confused limitlessly but a rechargeable
one would be charged for free every time
your transfer station
so it's more like you get to tell what's
this mission and most the time finding
disposable ones i think is the one I
feel pretty safe giving you quite a lot
of access to because it doesn't let you
get through secure get through security
doors and that's kind of how I structure
the levels of security doors
so terrible to let you get through those
need to be fairly rare otherwise
security cards that matter all the ways
of hacking that kind of stuff doesn't
matter you don't need to do with the
cost of guards to do with the key cards
things about immediately
these led to a whole bunch of awesome
situations and
little tricks and fun things
so if you need to get your rescue nation
for shipping agents unconscious person
you need to get back to the station and
usually have to get through the
different levels of security and try to
either kill people or get past them get
to the body then take him all the way
back out sometimes there's a shorter
route back out and is that but getting
in there is no trick about as a black
high level guards for high security
stuff around the body itself
so you can use this offer right you
could swap with the first in front of
ask you which would put them back where
you started and put you in their cell
basically which is not so great because
although the cells are locked right now
that surrounded by all the security and
if you didn't think II got a second to
get in the first place you would have to
got to get out so it's tough dealing
much security
but the visitor after you teleport calls
you back to where you were and so if you
have a visitor and a supper
you can use the visitor first just
teleport like three feet in front of you
then use the top of the switch places
and then three seconds later the
visiting says okay you need to come back
now and pulls you back to where you were
so now you and the body about the start
and how is the thing where like I just
realized that logically from as a
consequence of how the way it is these
two things work that tactic should work
and then try to make it work
there's like a million and I just lived
with us up that is like the heart and
soul of the kind of games i want to make
is cool consequences of interesting
abilities that are not overpowered
or maybe they are but they're not like
not boring and powerful they're
interesting powerful give you some
really good advantage of as I'm very
strong disadvantage as well and so I'm
very excited about that
the other thing I wanted a visitor you
can use it and then just like shoot the
window of the ship and be rocking it out
into space and all the guards are in
that room come with you in your world
flying space and that was different
about your back on that ship in your
fine which actually ties into the
suction fields because previously that
might not work construction would still
be happening when you pull back but now
suction is instantaneous so you can that
the suction force field like stabilizes
the pressure of the ships are coming
back as a good thing
surprising to hear that you can also get
use a visitor and then get shot
she's a visit to teleport to a bunch of
guards we're gonna show you can figure
out trying to get the airlock and three
seconds later you're going to snap back
to a shorty we're probably unconscious
but if you only like if you're bleeding
that's really bad things the guards need
to kick you out
you know if you have any hope of
survival if you're just unconscious
though you're going to wake up in a
minute
so it's fine to talk to mr. passed out
in some quiet car or somewhere and you
just wake up again and you survived
that's awesome and the other thing i've
done just today and yesterday the
Pirates kind of resistant times for long
time because i thought i did that
doesn't come . because i didn't want two
possible solutions being forced to kill
anymore and targets
although you know you could make not
only four times it starts to get a bit
weird starts to defy the way players
expected to work so I felt arts in and i
will have been eating sugar because they
make you feel ready to to really
interesting or two three important goals
or one is to give like texture and and
danger to the ship lay out right now our
league are dangerous and everything else
is fine
target's have really long line of sight
but they're totally autonomous automatic
brother
so they can't chase you they can't
during an intelligent orders worked
between the different entrances to the
room they're in
and that's a neat system because i can
use it two different ways one is if the
room has multiple axis then the turret
makes interesting lines of threat
you can call them fields of danger and
her staff like film titles and the
player can always get past them so
that's cool
the last thing I can add any where all
the time and then if i put a dead end
then they're not interested in your ex
again facing the same way all the time
and I made them that everyone fire
bullets they fly like an instantaneous
beam of death they're just going to
completely and I let you the second
makes you so they are hard obstacle and
if you put them in a situation with
another turn around
you just can't get past them unless you
have some kind of special tool and
that's how the whole white whale system
is meant to work is that the final shift
that you have to board to complete your
objective to do what you want to do in
life is going to be a ship where you
just can't board without special
equipment you going
something to get past it fortunes even
the snake teleport and get you past this
time because that you know lets you skip
a bit of space basically and that's what
I wanted for you more of those i don't
know how many more
I'm but stuff like that we used for the
soft obstacle and the heart obstacle is
really really good
I got more than that great and for the
interior
that was kind of my mission was to
material more interesting and the last
bunch of changes have done seem to have
really hung together well they connect
to each other well they say that kind of
a feel a lot more like and a level and
I'm just having so many more situations
where something unexpected if I happens
or I think of a cool tactic targets I
had a few different checklist things to
make them do want to kill you
mysteriously one is to be turned awful
so you can get to them have been
dropping your search and off the other
is the use of vertical and for that I
need some kind of hacking thing I don't
really know what the final hacking thing
is going to look like
but one thing that everyone attack right
right if you go scramble an agent there
yet
I love their greatest explorers and just
it's hack
ok within your advice jack it's
incredibly gamey but the kind of game -
I enjoy
so about happenings in like five minutes
and throw a grenade at Eric and then
it's yours
and now she's guarded doesn't shoot you
and that's really cool and found ways to
like like I got past this pirate but I
can sneak past it and then I can throw
happened back at it and then a bunch of
guards that I just sneaked past
I can just fire government so that all
come running here and there I can sneak
past them and they will run to the
source of the gunshot which is now with
the hat stories and it will just go from
football down quick
so I really good about where the
interior games that's my 10 minute
warning and and the thing I'm trying to
remember is that my job is making . game
better i would need to be good enough to
choose my words carefully
but I don't need to be perfect because
you know my old philosophy that I start
with most development is you just get
things in there get everything in there
and you can see where things in the
improvement i did and i saw it . and
improvements are moving into your game
but i need to keep going back to that
they were like don't try to affect
anything like no one thing is so
important that it must be perfect before
you move on
so maybe the interior game is nearly in
the state it needs to be for now maybe I
should move on to not structure stuff
yet
the personal goals that while stuff and
i do want to do that eventually but I
don't know if we have student thing but
what really why I'm here is first of all
quick pass on the first experience the
player has like how there's a new player
get into this because right now I had
always complexity and right now just
poured it all over your once
everything's big
everything starts every ship has armed
guards and the guards all that stuff but
I want obviously to be able to lead the
player into that and previous have done
the dynamic difficult stuff and it's not
a good approach I don't think because
just the development reasons because it
means every time we test the game
like I don't know what difficulties on
now and I'm trying to test some advanced
features a nice morning it's like if it
has been reset to zero and visibly and
it just it hide so much important stuff
from the player and that's bad for me as
a developer and probably bad for a
player as well so I'd much rather system
where you choose what jobs you do and it
tells you what difficulty are so a new
plaque and just choose to do an
intermission
in fact when she's a character i can
tell them this is an easy characters
characters loads of perks right now put
on and that's what every matter what
mission is definitely you should be able
to just say i want an easy mission and
if you're feeling good about it then you
can choose a hard mission and just let
the batteries in every single stage
that's that's kind of how I work
I want I was not difficult to work with
the players i just wanna say i want to
choose up front when i start the game
I want to choose all the time all always
been saying all that was the other one
the toilet that means or chip that was
impossible to get something easier so i
can just like get a grip on how the game
works
so I love you that while i'm here
because it is doing and also because i
haven't been doing a play testing with
other people here
android early on but other than that I
haven't really been asking people to
come and try it because I continuing our
but I just had this really complicated
thing that's gonna be me to bring that
and it's not optimized for new users and
therefore i'll just learned a bunch of
stuff I already know
yeah I knew that something you've got
your pic is what I knew this would work
so I'd much rather do some work on that
initial experience and I don't think I'm
I don't waste too much time in the
ability because things might still
change but this feels pretty fundamental
the idea of the players choose the level
of difficulty and then all kinds of
things about the complexity of the game
can be tied to difficulty and that will
wrap up media and hopefully will not be
changing after I've done it so that i
can play testing and then while I
testing is happening or kind of you know
mixing and matching up a testing
I would like to do some polish off
because I've been adding all these
things like touching the laser appears
for a second you just vanish and it's
like there's a silenced pistol sound
which doesnt sit and there's no impact
at all
grenades still just make a kind of faint
exposure knives there's not a single
trace of visual effects just vanish and
when people fall over
there's loads of other good really
beneficial to polish on your screen Jake
on ventures to smack probably Johnson
great animations for that haven't put it
in yet - uh stuff would be good to be
working on last everything else is in
play and also just a decimal tell me
you're the highest priorities are
I don't know whether you know maybe i
just ate people like oh my god interior
damage to the best thing ever now you
start working on that completely and
move on to structure stuff or maybe more
probably it will have some problems in
some bugs and some shortcomings and
maybe people then just realize all this
other thing after that because it will
just really solve this problem little
time so i think that's my plan for the
next few weeks will be called like i did
one week of new user experience stuff
and then another week of Polish stuff
and that would leave me like one of the
bit weeks maybe to kind of finish up in
an orphanage it looks like that's what
it