Conflict of Interest is now available on Steam! Wishlist it here!

This is obviously a very large milestone in development, and there have been changes across the board, so here’s a quick rundown:

Shadows

Godot’s 2D extends shadows infinitely by default, which doesn’t work well for objects that would have a finite length. But with some shader magic by jess-hammer on GitHub, fake shadows can be applied to anything that can have an occluder stuck to it (read: anything) with adjustable length, angle, and color.

Day Trading

Day trading has been given a visual upgrade and now plays a main role in the main game loop. The player earns a 1% commission on their day trading profits if they exceed the previous day’s sales. This income can then be used to purchase weapons and equipment for night work.

Night Missions

This is where most of my work has been focused for the past month and I’m still refining everything, so I’ll make it quick:

• Guard AI has been rewritten entirely and is now much easier to expand on. Guards are smarter and will react to each unique situation.
• Turrets can be hacked to disable friend-or-foe identification, allowing them to fire on guards. However, they’ll be quick to radio in and request the turret be disabled.
• Movement speed can now be adjusted smoothly. This is done with the scroll wheel on PC and will also have support for analog joysticks/controllers. Move slow to sneak up behind guards, or move fast to move out of the light.
• Moving the mouse will now offset the camera, allowing the player to look slightly beyond the screen limits.

Conversations

Dialogic forms the backbone of the game’s dialogue system, but sometimes NPCs will need to make quick, off-hand remarks, or the player still needs to be in control without starting an entire dialogue scene. NPCs and guards can now have text appear above their heads which fades depending on how far the player is from them. You’ll need to get in close if you want to know what’s being said, but not too close…

Visuals

Gunfire, bullets, and muzzle flashes have been given a visual upgrade to create more intense, chaotic gunfights. But you won’t last very long in a real shootout.

Level Design

The main night level has been redone from scratch. It’s much larger, more structured, and lots more fun to go through. Stay in the shadows, watch for opportunities, and remain undetected.

Demo Release

Now that the Steam page is up, the next step is to get everything ready for the demo release. When that is, I really can’t say. There’s still a lot of polish that needs to be put in and a lot of testing. So right now, the demo will be released when it’s ready.

There’s also a mailing list that you can subscribe to to stay up-to-date on development progress and important dates and announcements.

And now, back to the grind.