Getting in to Alpha!

Author: Tyler Clardy
Date Posted: 5/30/2024

This week marked the end of early development and the beginning of our Alpha. We had to pull a lot of things together fairly quickly to get the game in a stable and cohesive state before we pass it off to QA testers this weekend. We also needed to make some promotional materials.

I started by rebalancing a lot of what we already have, tweaking health and damage values, stamina costs, ammo values, and a variety of other things to tighten up the gameplay loop and offer a reasonable challenge to our players. Then, I set about creating a tutorial level. Previously we had a short description and some controls listed in a ReadMe document, but we wanted something in-game to teach players how to play.

For the creation of the tutorial level, I decided to start from a baseline we already had - our early prototype level 1.


I expanded the ground area, reworked the walls to be much taller, and added some nooks to showcase pickups and enemies. Then I added a whole new wing to the level, featuring a long hallway, to showcase our trap types. Then I overhauled lighting and the skybox style, for a moody and shadowy experience. I replaced the default level 1 music with a new music track, and created static versions of the enemies and traps, placing them in their nooks. 


Next, I needed a reliable way to communicate information to the player, so I created small sci-fi-themed obelisks that pop up glowing text when the player approaches them, and then hide it when they walk away.


Lastly, I created a button blueprint that can be used to trigger various effects. I made one to end the tutorial when the player is ready, one to grant the player currency to test out the trap system, and one to showcase some HUD functionality.

Finalized Tutorial Level:

With a solid tutorial level in place, I began to focus on creating some promotional materials. I took several screenshots, a few of which have been uploaded here to our Itch page, and recorded about 10 minutes of raw gameplay footage in a release build of our game. I used the footage to do two things. First I created a trailer for the project, which was definitely outside my comfort zone. I am not a voice actor or a video editor, but I wanted to do it right. It feels a little silly and was clearly made by someone who is not a professional, but I am proud of it nonetheless. It has also been posted here on our Itch page. Second, I used the gameplay footage to record some developer commentary with my teammate, just chatting about our game and the experience developing it. The commentary can be viewed here: Developer Commentary

Now we look forward to the future! There is still a lot of work to do as we push toward a Beta version.