Hi,

This or next week I will release a new demo update. As I'm not good at sharing progress on social media I've decided to start writing devlogs covering more details. Also, since the last publication, I've been working mostly on technical elements of the game that were hard for me to show in small posts. Finishing this clumsy beginning, here's my progress:

Save System

The biggest new feature will be a working save system (I've finally managed to learn this process^^). Save is collecting data of player's equipment, solved puzzles, started puzzles and changes in position of grabable objects. Saves can be named manually, deleted, overwritten and  you can create as many of them as you like. Originally I wanted to make only one save slot for a game, to limit the player's ability to fix mistakes, but in the end I abandoned this idea to leave a more open approach.

Audio

Another big change is the update of implemented sounds of the surroundings system. Now trees, grasses, bushes, furniture, windows, and some other objects with player around will trigger enviro sounds. I intended to conjure by it a feeling of "something is in the dark". Normal forest and house are now more alive spaces, yet of course everything is as calm as it was before. In this area of gameplay I will have to make the map more diverse from what I have now. My goal will be to make more distinctive soundscapes for POIs by adding (most likely) trees and plants appearing only in certain locations.

Level update

Mostly you won't see it in the demo, but I've added new content: new riddles, new secrets, new locations and planned a couple of later-phase areas. Also I've finally started sketching new spaces before implementing them onto the level, so final implemented areas are more deliberate. Another new thing you will encounter are POI bells signaling monster's presence. For this I refreshed my animation skills (more likely I learned anew how to animate in Blender) and so, bells are moving on the nonexistent wind^^

Journal UI Remake

I will be remaking journal layout for collected notes. The current one is so far a very gamey one built of miniatured-notes-buttons. For the last weeks I’ve been watching different solutions from games and I’ve devised a super original idea to just visualise stacked couple of notes on top of each other. For now all I have is a sketch of it, but believe me, until then every layout I’ve seen didn’t fit my vision.

SteamPage - Soon

I'm in the process of creating steam page for Star Tower. Don't know how many time it will take me to finish, as it's based on visuals I cannot say it's gonna be an easy task for me. Nevertheless I am working on it, and I will share everywhere I can, when it will be ready^^

Things I’ve been watching/reading/listening lately:

Controlling Crowds - Archive

As I've lately got a car from my grandfather, I dusted off my collection of music CDs. Among them I found this beauty. The last time I listened to this album was 4 years ago on my way between my home city and uni. I love composing synthetic instruments with analogue ones and vocals, it's done perfectly here. From the first 10 minute title track, the album takes the listener into a dreamy train-like space where all you can observe buildings and people passing by the window.

Storm in a Bird Hide - Hidden Sound

A beautiful field recording album. Author managed to record the amazing storm colliding with the titled bird hide. It’s raging, turbulent and extremely alive. Droplets hit walls and roof, wind rushes through slits and slots moaning lingeringly. The recording perfectly captures the intensity of sheltering under unperfect cover. 

Manazuru - Hiromi Kawakami

I do love dream-like books where you're put in a world with unexplainable laws. After reading "Record of a Night Too Brief" (btw in Polish translation title is "I've stepped on the snake") by Hiromi Kawakami I knew I had to get another title by this author. Manazuru calls for unexplained loss, pain of moving on and helplessness over emotions. It's surrealistic and oneiric, the heroine keeps crossing the border between real and other. My favourite is the theme of shadow people following the main character whenever she thinks of her lost husband. They are scary, but whenever Kei starts contact with them, they act as if they knew their existence is false and wrong and act as hesitant children.

Fantastic Four: First Steps

I've watched Fantastic Four, it was a fun adventure, with very nice visuals, yet I don't think I will ever return to this movie again. I mean it's fun and it's nice to watch, but it was also kinda empty in terms of conflict. The only threat that heroes approached was the big evil guy (literally). I couldn't find any emotional or character conflict that would be longer than one/two scenes. Characters didn't grow, they kinda didn't have to become better themselves, they just had to do what they've written to the ToDo list. This movie was totally too naive for me to be fully immersed.

Superman

This movie is super fun, especially in terms of the clumsiness of the hero. This one is also naive, but at the same time the hero's main problem is his naivety and oversimplifying of the world, so it's working. I liked the humor, the thread of Super Dog was one of the funniest for me. Superman here is a nerdy cringe and that's good, he's very likable and very human by it. Weird thing here was kinda-Palestinian theme about a bad dictator trying to destroy a small nation in the country next to his. I mean, it's unfortunately true, this scheme is real, but it was very disturbing to watch a big western star saving these people when Palestinians are dying at the same moment and no superhero is going to save them, because the West is letting them die. Felt like a new approach to the old bad white-westerner-saviour theme.

Thank you for reading and have a good day

PlayGodly