Random and unfinished stuff, Delay. (because Covid)
Well...
time flies by, and its already 2.5 months since I wrote something.
Lets get the bad part out of the way first, quickly:
- Delay - because I got Covid, twice, in the last 8 weeks. (3rd time in total) - and the 2nd time was bad, and doesnt really want to go away again -.-
Sorry, not much I could do about that. PS: Yes, I am aware that some of you have been waiting for a long time now, and I am honestly sorry about.
I dont have much to show, besides unfinished things. This is because I do not want to show off everything that is in the game at the moment. (some things shall be a surprise when playing :P)
So, lets start with something small I added to the game, which is the option to change the pattern on the colored walls. It is now possible to choose between the patterns from RT2, RTE2 and RT4 - whichever you like the most. The game can switch between them on the fly, no restart needed.
Now, some random Screenshots of very unfinished areas. Please dont mind any missing walls etc. I am showing these to show an accurate picture of things progressing.
Random Staircase I found visually interesting, due to the reflections on the walls:
Just a random area, with some missing walls in the Background:
And for the last Screenshot for today, a random (smaller) puzzle from the early part of the game. (obviously unfinished etc.):
The game is in a good state, it works well, some minor bugs here and there, but it needs more content. There is nothing wrong with it and I am not hiding anything, its just a very messy time at the moment, therefore progress was not as quick as I had planned.
Again, I am sorry for the Delay, but this was not something that I could do much about. It was only a matter of time until I get unlucky when catching (bad) covid, now was the time.
But that said: I will not rush the game, I did that with RT3 and I think the game suffered from it. RT4 is more complex and larger, which makes it more difficult to build, and I am not going to throw away all the effort just to release a few weeks earlier.
Thats all for now, hopefully the next time I have more to share, since there definitely is more in the game.
Time for an Update.
Hello,
since it has been 5 months since the last Update, I think its time for a new one, especially given the fact that I can finally show off one of the bigger changes in the game.
In the past I have said, that the game will be "a lot more open and nonlinear" than previous games, which wasnt something I could easily show at that time due to there not being enough progress yet.
The Screenshot below shows one third of the whole area you will have access to after you leave the tutorial. (There are more puzzles, but you cant see them because they are behind walls or out of view.)
You can freely move around, solve (most) puzzles in whatever order you want, and there are almost 20 puzzles to choose from, spread across 3 connected areas. (Thats just this area, the game is a lot larger.) Puzzles will also not be numbered anymore, so that there is no incentive to follow a specific order, I want players to roam freely, explore.
While we are at the topic of "puzzles", here is one from the area shown above, which you can not see in the first screenshot (its unfinished though):
I will not explain how it works (thats for players to figure out themselves.), but its one of the many changes/improvements over ReThink 3. (I did not forget about the Puzzles while improving graphics, as some were concerned about.)
So, then lets talk about the tutorial, since I squeezed it down in comparison to previous games if we take the new features into account.
I have not yet found "the ultimate solution" to allow players who played the previous games to skip the things they dont need explained again, while making sure that new players dont skip the tutorial because they think they know how things work.
The fundamental issue here is, that there are players who do not know (for example) how light and its colors mix, in fact... at some point one of the games got slapped with a negative review for this. (The player removed it once I explained it, and linking Wikipedia.)
On the other side are players who have played the 7 previous games, which means that they dont need any of the tutorials for things that were already in previous games, but they would still need the tutorials for the new features.
And then there are the players which are "somewhere in the middle" and may have played (for example) only RT2 and RTE4, which means that they need different things explained than the aforementioned players.
Therefore, RT4 will feature a shortened tutorial for all, one puzzle per feature, which puts it at roughly the same length as previous tutorials due to the new things.
To compensate for the "puzzles taken away by the tutorial", the game also will be larger than previous games. (and also because the free roam requires it :P)
I also tried to already have the tutorial be somewhat "open world" after the first map which explains the basics.
For example, this is one of two areas that belong to the tutorial after the linear part (There are still visual issues, I will fix that before release):
and while I am talking about the tutorial, this is the first puzzle/area you will see shortly after starting the game:
Now, time to talk about a compromise which some of you wont like, but I had to resort to using teleporters again due to me "playing it safe" with the unfinished Unreal Engine 5. That said, the teleporters are not as "lazy" as the ones in RT3, or RTE3 for that matter, they usually come with their own seperate "decorative area" where they are located.
An (unfinished) example of where a teleporter might be located:
Future games are not planned to have teleporters to travel from one map to another, I would rather use them as shortcuts instead. I dont like to use teleporters for map-travel either, but they do have a legitimate reason to be used in this game, its not "me being lazy". (In fact, I did built things to connect the maps by different means, but performance was "unstable", so I played it safe.)
Thats it for now, I dont want to spoil too much at the moment, but I am reasonably confident in the game. (otherwise I wouldnt show it off so unfinished :P)
If you have any Feedback, concerns, feel free to use the forums (there should be a thread thats automatically created for this post.), I do read everything and will try to get into the game what I can possibly get with the time left.
Spilling the beans, UE5, Release Date
Hello,
since I am aware that many people are waiting for the game, I want to share what the plan is now.
I want to keep it short, to not waste your time, so lets get started:
1. Release Date is now "Early 2022" (ignore the store page, its a placeholder date.) 2. The game will be using UE5 now. 3. There will be big visual improvements in image quality and graphics quality. 4. The system requirements do not change*, if you can run the previous games, you can run this one at the same graphics quality as previously. (You still get the sharper image, even if the new graphics are not enabled.) 5. The game will be larger than previous games.
*Except that its DirectX 12 only now, but the system requirements always covered that. (The minimum required cards were DX12 capable.)
So, how does the game look like now? See below.
These screenshots are from an early version of UE5 and from an unfinished game, I am aware of some issues (like too dark areas) and missing things - I will fix this before release.
