That is why we designed several split-screen multi-character levels and puzzles for our game.
Below you can find some in-game screens of one of those levels.
Dreamers
Single Player and Multi Character
That is why we designed several split-screen multi-character levels and puzzles for our game.
Below you can find some in-game screens of one of those levels.
Maps and Hints
One recurring feedback was that the players were not fully aware of their position in the gaming area, and the surroundings. As a developer, this is easy to miss, since I know every place in the game and somehow I can play the game without watching the screen, but for a person who is new to the gaming area - yeah - that may be confusing.
This is why we added different hints to our maps, that appear during the story progression as well as some permanent ones that indicate the various areas on each of the maps.
Recently I wrote about the collectibles that we are spreading around the world of DREAMERS, and above the map, you can now see the additional UI we made, displaying how many collectibles you found in that specific area (if any).
Today my colleague suggested adding UI info about the drone challenges and I am working on it. I suppose, at this point, I'll also add the saving spots.
Where Are My Collectibles?
One of my favorite aspects of our game is that not many things are explained and we want you to discover them.
We imagine DREAMERS like one of these deferred experiences where we - at first - plan and hide stuff, and then you - when everything is ready - go on and discover them.
This said it is sometimes very difficult for me to design an equilibrate experience that can be exciting but not frustrating.
One example is the collectibles that we spread in the game world.
Collectibles are collectibles, so we all are familiar with how they work, but since our game has multiple scenarios you may risk missing some.
That's not a big deal for the overall game experience, but if you are a game-completionist as we are, it may be irritating for you not to know how many collectibles we have hidden in a certain scene.
Time ago, in fact, we already added a piece of information about how many collectibles there are in total and how many you already collected.
And this was fine and quite informative (even a bit spoiler-ish) but still useful on a global overview of how you are exploring and collecting stuff.
The problem surfaced only in these final days of deep debugging where, while playing we were saying "okay, but how many other collectibles are in this location?" and "how can I be certain that I have everything before leaving such a big area?".
So yeah, that's it, we spent some time designing and implementing this new functionality in our development framework.
Also, in DREAMERS we have a sort of hierarchy of collectibles and we group them in mysterious milestones, so this way, at least you will always have a clear idea of how many are still out there.
And for what they are and why you do need them, well, this is another story ;)
Extra time for better fun!
As you probably noticed, we initially planned the release of DREAMERS for March 8th, 2022, but recently we had to postpone the Steam version to autumn.
If you are wondering why, here I am, uncovering behind the scenes of what we are doing now by splitting the tasks into three categories.
Side quests and dialogues
DREAMERS has a vast world full of NPCs that actually have their own life while the protagonists go on with their adventures. If you wish, you can interact with them, learn about their opinions and troubles. We took these extra months of development to populate this world in the most natural manner.
Minigames
We decided to enrich the main adventure storyline with small games of various gameplay - puzzle, tycoon, quick-time events, memory... the list is not full yet, since we are still balancing the difficulty and economy of some.
Collectibles
We are better hiding a few more collectibles in the places where you least expect to find them.
Trophies
Some of them are missable, others are not, some depend on the story progression, others on your actions during the gameplay. At this exact moment, I incorporate internal trophy progression in the save and autosave and test that everything works smoothly.
We are nearly there and we want to be sure that the gaming experience with DREAMERS is amazing from the very release.
As a small development team, we are looking forward to your enthusiasm to play our new creation.
Cheers!