Sharpen Your Needles!

The first people have played our game! And so can you!

Their feedback had a drastic impact on the Desert Temple - the level that can be tested on our Discord-Server.

Yeah, in case you missed it: We're on Discord now! We'll tell you more about that and the Desert Temple in this update.

Game Design

We learned a lot from our first testers and, of course, acted on their feedback.

First, the level has been too long and a playthrough would eventually lose momentum. So, Oliver got rid of some superfluous areas and put the focus on those parts that had excited the testers.

Now the Desert Temple contains a well-sequenced variety of environments - from claustrophobic corridors to open-air arenas.

However, the arena fights got shortened as well. Encountering smaller groups of enemies turned out to be more fun than fending off huge waves of enemies at once.

There were also some smaller modifications. For example, the Armadillo Lizards are protected by their shells during a roll-attack. The testers found that the protection's duration holds on too long after they opened up again. So we shortened it.

All together the new version of the Desert Temple is more compact, showcasing every important feature of CACTUS in a more concise and compact package. 

Community News

That new version of the Desert Temple can now be tested on our Discord-Server.

We're looking forward to meet you there and have a chat. Of course, chatting is not all you can do there. Whenever a new version of CACTUS is ready, anyone enrolled as a tester will be able to play and give us some input on our feedback-channel.

Read here why we can't open up the testable levels for everyone.

Don't worry though, there will be other fun activities for you to join. For example we'll run some development livestreams, where you can join Oliver while he's working on CACTUS. He'll let you in on his decision-making process and who knows, maybe you can even bring in your own ideas?

Art

The devil's in the detail - so is Pierre at the moment. Particles might be small but they're important to make the world feel right. Similarly, mannerisms may seem to have a minor effect at first glance, but it let's them appear more alive.

Here you see the impact of Needles on different surfaces: Sand, lizard and wall.

That's why Pierre is now working hard to animate those tiny movements and bring those lizards to life.

Code

Nils too is preoccupied with improving the credibility of our lizards. A few tweaks here and there gives them a more responsive touch. 

Outlook

We've arrived at an incredibly exciting point in development.

We get to see first reactions to our work. So, for now we'll stay a bit at that point and focus on improving the Desert Temple. In the process we learn what is important when moving forward to the rest of the game. At this point many things might still change, but the questions remain the same: Which parts of gameplay work best? What makes combat most exciting? How does the environment impact the players experience?

This is also the best moment for you to weigh in on these decisions. So, make sure to join us on Discord.

One way or the other, we keep you posted.

Have a great week!

Get In Touch

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