October Update

The year is almost over and a lot has happened around the game. Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done and we would like to take this opportunity to let you know what we are currently working on and what our plans are for the coming year.

Roadmap

Next Fest
Our next “big” goal would be to participate in a Steam Next Fest with a demo version of ‘Beats of Betrayal’. We are currently going through the Steam on-boarding process. Exactly when we will be able to participate in a Next Fest depends on how long it takes for our tax and bank information to be verified.

Early Access
After generating a little more buzz around the game, it will be time to release the game on Steam Early Access. We plan to do this within the next year and have a major content update ready for that occasion.

Release
The actual release of the game will probably be about a year after the early access. Our vision for the final game includes more stages, enemies, characters and skills, and runs where you keep your skills across multiple stages. We are also thinking about things like an adventure mode or earning medals in challenges, although these are just ideas in our notebook right now.

New Demo
We are currently taking all the feedback from Gamescom and our trusty Discord community and implementing anything we feel will improve the game. There is also some polishing going on that may not be obvious to the player at first glance.

Sight Map

In the past, enemies would sometimes move to hard to reach areas. Since some players like to clear the whole stage, this was a bit unfortunate. To solve this problem, we have been working on calculating sight maps on the fly. This allows the enemy to know which parts of a room are difficult for the player to reach, so they can avoid them. However, this also means that they are more likely to hit you with their bullets. How unfair! We look forward to our enemies hunting you more efficiently from now on.

Behavior Tree

We love smart enemies. However, our current enemies are all handcrafted, so their behavior is not as complex as we would like. To address this, we have been working on a behavior tree system that is designed to be extensible and allows us to reuse certain behaviors, such as enemies fleeing when their health is low. In the future, we can take this behavior even further by having enemies try to get close to a healing enemy to recover. How unfair! You can see a behavior tree in action in the preview below.

This also means we are rewriting and refining the behavior of current enemies.
Check out our classic companion mimic being powered by a behavior tree!