Feb 2025 Update

It's basically a whole new game!

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Hi everyone! The ACE team have been hard at work making progress on our game. We've made some huge changes and advancements to the game overall, and would like to share that progress with you.

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Gameplay

The central concept of the game is much of the same - you're looking for clues and adding them into your inventory for examination later. How we've structured this concept is what's different. The "Chronoscanner" is no longer a hand-held device that you use, rather will be a glove-like gadget that you will wear and utilize throughout the game. The process of "scanning" items is still the same, just dressed up differently. We did this because we believe the direction we were heading was stuffed with to many moving parts. It wasn't bad, but wasn't good either. Now, the player will "analyze" evidence in a separate section of the game that we are in the process of developing as we speak.

How item interactions look this time around is where you'll see the most major of changes. We have defined and established three core types of interactions that will exist throughout the game. Basic interactions, in which the player clicks on an object, and the main character make some kind of comment or observation about that object. 360 interactions, in which the player "picks up" an item and is able to rotate it 360 degrees on a fixed axis - except for flat/paper object which are clamped to a specific turn range. Why? Because we said so :-).  And scan interactions, in which the player "scans" a piece of evidence into the Chronoscanner. Scanned items will be saved into an "inventory" that will be accessed when it's time to analyze all the evidence collected during the level. And yes, there will be evidence that you can miss! Only the sleuths with the sharpest eyes will be able to find everything!

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Assets

Our art team has been knocking it out of the park pumping out assets like it's nobody's business. It's like they like their job or something. Yes, we're still using some filler assets that we've obtained from the Fab asset store, but we plan on ending up with a demo that has at least 80% assets created wholly by our artists. In the build we have for you today you will see a mix of about 50/50 assets from our artists and free assets from Fab. You'll also see some assets with place-holder textures or materials - these will obviously be updated with permanent textures/shaders/etc. as we go.

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Layout

The map is entirely re-worked. It feels a lot more like a floor to some well-to-do manor. The library is an entirely new space where several pieces of evidence will be hiding, and the potential here is nearly endless. Honestly, I had a lot of fun designing it and putting it together, and putting everything in place did wonders for my motivation and excitement to keep building. Overall, it's more of a "map" that you have to navigate rather than two rooms connected by a hall. The most frequent critique that we've gotten so far in regards to the layout is that is needs to be bigger! It's a little cramped right now, and the people demand it be bigger. So, next update, we'll give you bigger!

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Enemies?

You've got enemies now! Run! Hide! Don'tgointoacorneroryou'llbesoftlocked! Yes, we've added a rudimentary ai system of guards patrolling the areas. Right now, if the player enters their line of sight, they'll start running towards the player (they just wanna hug). Nothing will happen, as it's been implemented as a conceptual display of what we're planning on having. In the next update we'll introduce a sneak mechanic that the player will use to sneak around the guards as they navigate the area looking for evidence. The idea, however, is that the player could potentially be caught by the guards which will ultimately reset the level.  There will be more nuanced interactions surrounding ai that we'll develop alongside the continued development of the Chronoscanner. But, for now, they really just wanna hug. :)

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Where We're Headed...

In the next update we hope to have a refined/polished interaction, and sneak system implemented, a scan ability complete with a fully animated hand/glove model and scan action mini-game, and the addition of the exterior gray box, which will act as our "tutorial" level for the vertical slice we ultimately plan on producing. The interior map will be near-polished, if not in the process of being polished, and we will be beginning to expand our work into the exterior map. The exterior map already has a sequence planned, and since it will act as the lead-up tutorial to the "actual" level on the inside, should be relatively straight-forward and simple (famous last words.)

Beyond that, we have two capstone "levels" that will serve as book-ends to the fully produced demo. The framework has been planned, but a lot of it is loose due to several other aspects that still needed refinement and codifying, both from a gameplay and programming standpoint as well as a narrative one.  The first capstone being more of a narrative introductory space that introduces the player to our main character and what they're up to. And the last capstone being the "investigation" and "analysis" mode where the player will have a chance to go through everything they've scanned in the previous sections.

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Final Thoughts

Thanks for reading! We're really excited to share our progress, and maybe hear some feedback from the greater community. We have so much planned for this game. The team is all super excited to continue work on this project, which is highly motivating. Give our alpha a go and see for yourself the potential this game has. 

Interested and seeing where we go? Follow the project for future updates! Leave a comment if you have any thoughts or suggestions!

Check out the release trailer for this update: 

Follow our lead programmer: https://www.youtube.com/@Spim918

Follow our lead designer: https://www.youtube.com/@fyrfly

Follow our studio channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MonsterHatStudios