Big changes on Waddle Isle!
The November newsletter is here and it brings a lot of information on what we've been working on since gamescom.
Achievement unlocked
Completed Inktober 2024
As you may recall from last month we participated (once again) in Inktober 2024. After 50+ hours, and 31 drawings we are proud to announce that we have completed the challenge for the very first time. These art pieces will be used as unlockables in the full game too, so be sure to collect them all after release.
The team chose their favourites too, and these are:
- Adrian: Day 18 - Drive 🚗1
- Alex: Day 05 - Binoculars 🔎2
- Raiford: Day 14 - Roam 🏔️3
What was your favourite drawing from the challenge? We have a full playlist you can view on our YouTube Channel4. Pick yours and let us know in the comments!
Back on Twitch.tv
Starting Tuesday November 19th we’ll be back to streaming and playing games live on Twitch5. Come hang out with us while we discuss the latest gaming news, talk game design, and enjoy some of our favourite games. If you want to know which game we’ll play first then be sure to stop by this Tuesday at 6:00pm MST. Your clue is this: 👀
Now some Penguin vs. Pirates news
New features!
We’ve been hard at work implementing new features into the game. We’ll talk about two of them in this newsletter:
Mackerel
Mackerel is the main currency in the game. Whenever the condition is met, such as when a pirate is cleared, the player can slide into Mackerel to collect it. The uses for this currency will be expanded in the full game, just know that it is worth your while to go out of your way to collect them.
Abilities
Abilities have been a feature we’ve been wanting to implement since the beginning of the prototyping phase. We needed to make sure the main loop was in proper shape before we started adding modifiers to the gameplay loop. As of the writing of this newsletter we only have two abilities implemented. We’ll do a proper breakdown of the abilities in a future newsletter. Hmmm we’re just teasing things today, aren’t we? 😅 There is a good reason for that though:
Phase I is coming to a close
As some of you may recall from an earlier email in the year, we got Prototyping Phase funding thanks to the Canada Media Fund. As per the terms of that funding we must submit some paperwork and showcase the work we decided in advance we wanted to complete by the end of this month. Once this phase is completed we can dive into some of the more advanced features we want to implement into the game. We have our work cut out for us for the next two weeks, so like this update the one in December might come a little later than usual.
Gameplay changes?
After returning from gamescom in Germany this past August we talked about some of the features players loved the most about the game. Universally it seems that being able to line up and clear multiple frozen pirates feels like the biggest win for players.
We tried a few things but nothing seemed to feel right. There was no real strategy to it, it always felt like luck rather than skill. After discussing internally and trying to replicate that feeling as often as possible we got to thinking: “what if we slowed the game down?”.
The game was built in with a grid system in place which allowed us to create new objectives, walls, drops, and other elements into the game in a way we could always control. Every piece of the game respected this grid except for one – the penguin character (PC). Thus we changed the game from a real time action game to a more methodical tactical game. This meant overhauling many parts of the base design and code for the game.
Is this the direction the game will have going forward? Well, while we’re still in the Prototyping Phase will continue experimenting until the game feels as much fun for everyone as it feels to us. We’re very excited for people to try this new version of the game and give us feedback. Remember to join our Discord Server6 to know when the next playtest is.
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- Inktober 2024 Day 18 - Drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnp5s0EMsRo&list=PLJDB63d6Kxb9e-giGY1aEpsf5vrsNV7-X&index=17
- Inktober 2024 Day 04 - Binoculars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7mANmm2dr8&list=PLJDB63d6Kxb9e-giGY1aEpsf5vrsNV7-X&index=31
- Inktober 2024 Day 14 - Roam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYM2wcx-Rmk&list=PLJDB63d6Kxb9e-giGY1aEpsf5vrsNV7-X&index=21
- Inktober 2024 Compilation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuD0HTaPmOM&list=PLJDB63d6Kxb9e-giGY1aEpsf5vrsNV7-X
- Frozen Machine Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/thefrozenmachine
- Frozen Machine Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/XXHGEe3Vqn