Hi survivors, it has been a while since our last update so we want to share some of our development progress. Firstly, be assured that we are working on steadily improving Deadly Days. Here is an overview of the major changes.

Random map generation

Probably the most noticeable thing is the upcoming random map generation. The current static map makes the game feel repetitive and lacks a bit of visual fidelity. A while ago we experimented with a random map generator which builds a different layout for each round. Your survivors will travel to these unique maps by truck. There will occasionally be special buildings with special events tied to them. The survivors' base is in a seperate area. We think this will significantly lower the repetitiveness of the visuals and gameplay and create a more fun experience. In the end there will be exactly 2,147,483,647 possible maps ːsteamhappyː

New art style

In the process of working out the random map generator we found out that the perspective mixing of front facing characters and top-down buildings isn't super aesthetic. So we overhauled the graphics to a front-facing style (see the picture at the top). We know that this is a really a big change but we are confident that this will be for the best of the game!

Changing the flow

One of our biggest goals is to give the game some much needed structure. In the future we want to redirect the game flow. We already have some aspects that resemble a rogue-lite and we want to push even more in this direction. A complete game will be much shorter, and include end conditions and the possibility to upgrade between every mission. You will also not be automatically safe after sunset. As the night looms, stronger zombies will appear. Be fast to reach the truck or dare to gather more loot. Winning once will not be the end of the game; unlocks and unlockable content will be waiting for you. The first feature affected by this change in the near future is night mode. Currently, every night you have the possibility to choose from three different token types (Airstrike, Healing and Weapons) which you can then use for different abilities in the following days. We initially thought this would give a strategic meaning to the game which turns out to not be the case. So we will get rid of the token system and directly tie abilities' cost to scrap. This will change the functionality of the night screen quite a bit but we believe it to be a step in the right direction. Eventually in a later update we want to completely merge the night and upgrade screen to give a more seamless experience.

Overhauling character AI

We see that players often struggle with the survivor AI since it does its own thing. In the last patch we tried helping the players by presenting target lines so they can forecast what the survivors will do.
But this still seems to not be perfect. So our goal is to make the survivors smarter, especially with evading and fighting zombies. We also consider giving more control to the player but we are still discussing this.

Changing the weapon system

One thing we observed when others played the core game was weapon spamming at the beginning of each day. We don't think it's very fun and we want to give more meaning to the weapons. We are currently evaluating several approaches.

Much more...

All the above mentioned topics bring up related topics and systems and it is quite a big chain of changes. We try to split it as much as possible to incrementally implement and bring you these changes, but some major features have to be released together. We'll tell you more about the exact plans in the near future. Further topics that we'll handle in the future are special abilities, end conditions of a game (or run) and side missions. We hope you liked the insight and the direction we are going. Feel free to leave us feedback! - Your Deadly Days Team

[ 2018-05-08 14:13:14 CET ] [ Original post ]