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[zero_studio]

Zero Studio - Lost Soul Dev Blog, April 5th, 2021

Alpha Update

This week, our dev team focused on the completion of our mansion and puzzles, the creation of our story and cutscenes, and some thematic/atmospheric tweaks. We have moved on from our original 5 room, 1 floor, milestone scene to a deluxe 2 floor, 8+ room mansion! We have also added some fantastic animations and dialogue to give our game some badly needed exposition.  

This update is very feature based and did not significantly alter our existing game mechanics. The reason we made these changes is because we had always planned for a larger house and unordered puzzles in order to give our game an exploratory feel. This seemed impossible in our old, tiny apartment. The puzzles we added are also more interesting and challenging than our original test puzzle. Our animation/dialogue changes stem from the thoughts and complaints of playtesters. Many people who played our game were a bit confused about the story and explanation of our characters. We've certainly tried to clean up a lot of confusion in this update, and we've also given the player some motivation on their puzzling journey.

For our next iteration, we are planning an additional puzzle if gameplay time is too short, and further plot development in our story. We are also planning on gameplay and AI tweaks depending on feedback. Lastly, a lot of work for the beta will probably be bug fixing and game polishing as well.

In the meantime, here are a few shots of our spooky mansion!

Windows Build: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ncjPDDDS912w6JGDGA89wiFR_mgG36T2/view?usp=sharing
Mac Build: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ljpWLGvsdIhpNF3mQ7kYdi5C1nTftaTB/view?usp=sharing

[zero_studio]

Zero Studio - Lost Soul Dev Blog, April 12th, 2021

Beta Update

This update to Lost Soul brings widespread polishing and quality adjustments to the game. Being so close to release, our team has pivoted to rapid bug fixing and game polishing changes. Firstly, performance optimizations were made to fix framerate issues. Cutscenes and voiceovers were also added to this iteration, providing a more immersive and engaging experience. We also made a host of visual and auditory improvements to the game, including a new ghost model, sound effects, wallpapers, and volume balance adjustments. Finally, we made substantial simplifications to our most difficult puzzle, the kitchen, and we made our AI enemy both smarter, and more difficult to escape.

These changes both came from our original plans for the beta, as well as playtesting feedback we received from the alpha. Voiceovers, cutscenes, and a ghost model were included to make for a more engaging and varied experience within the game, these were always in our plan, and we just had enough time to complete them this week. Performance adjustments were also made due to some troubling playtests with very low framerates. Our sound effects and visual improvements centered around improving the juiciness of the game and making gameplay feel much more responsive. This came from our playtesters wishing for a more juicy, engaging experience. One of the big complaints we received last week was the deafening rain and unbalanced audio. This was a high priority and was quickly corrected this week. Also, our kitchen puzzle received many complaints about its lack of guidance and hardly any playtesters managed to complete it. Thus, we made changes to make it clearer and easier than before. Lastly, we noticed that our enemy character took a backseat during most players games and that he was incredibly easy to ignore most of the time. This took away suspense and adversity in the game, so we increased his eyesight, intelligence, speed, and hearing, to make him a more interesting and dynamic element of the game.

Our plans for next iteration are going to be highly dependent on playtester feedback. We now believe we are feature complete and are putting our focus on making the game more polished and more fun. Next week we expect to be fixing any bugs that are caught by playtesters, addressing concerns among players, and overall just making the game as complete as possible.

Windows Build: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iG1UmzPmC9t1pyt08PU8A3nqN9vzsG8M/view
Mac Build: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jSNyK9krLR4YdS930qNmSkFq-ZgZ2DAd/view

And of course, some new screenshots...

[zero_studio]

Zero Studio - Lost Soul Dev Blog, April 21st, 2021

Gold Update

This week we have focused primarily on finalizing our game and hunting bugs. This means we made very few functional changes to the gameplay/experience. The new features include graphics optimizations, new voice overs and subtitles, and UI improvements. We have also tweaked the AI behavior, added player respawn, and improved player guidance.

One of the most important elements we added this week was player respawning. This saved the player from re-watching the intro cutscenes and hearing the dialogue again after they were defeated, which is something that our playtesters found quite annoying. Another addition was our player guidance, this included moving the family portrait to a more visible spot, clarifying some hints, and adding in a noise when the player was detected. This was important to ensure that the player would not get frustrated and could beat the game in a span of about 15 minutes. Adding juice to the game was also an important consideration this week. New juicy elements include a brand new health bar, AI enemy soundbites, and the populating of a few more interactable items throughout the house. This was done because they are fairly superficial changes that would not cause new game-breaking bugs, and we felt that it would enhance the player's engagement and experience.

This is the final iteration of Lost Soul. Here are some final screenshots/gifs. Enjoy the game!

Windows Build: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1APszPaU0g3yazdc9iyjMMaxrMILvmRFU/view?usp=sharing
Mac Build: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OPuq2ybAtiqtw2HG0ylNvHIIw0jg9dk0/view?usp=sharing