Oirbo devlog #54 - New Oirbo coming up!

(Posted originally on our blog)

Hi guys!

Last week was a super productive one, it been a while since we've done "so much" in so little time.

First off, Oirbo final design is taking shape, we decided to simplify its overall design since most of the details we had before didn't really show in-game, by minimizing his design, Oirbo silhouette is now a lot more recognizable and cleaner. We decided to maintain the Orange color for consistency and world build "reasons", and also since it is a bright eye-catching color. On its previous empty back, we now have the gravity controller (more on it soon, but its an ability that you will be able to unlock in-game) which gives it a little more style and recognition points. 

Finally, the all-important face was changed to be more similar to the style we used on the Assembly Pods, so it faces is just a monitor where we can pretty much put anything we want, this will open up some doors while we develop the lore and story elements.

We are ecstatic with the result, what your thoughts on the new Oirbo? Let us know below!

Oh but that is not all, last week we also implemented Medical area first enemy! Entering the Anesthesiologist!!! (I have to google search how to spell it every time xDD)

Now this one will be a pain! First of all, it will be totally passive if your HP is at full, so that is good, but now if your HP is not at 100% it will chase you everywhere until it catches you:

Besides it running at the same speed as Oirbo, it's also the tallest enemy we have so far in the game, but before you try to jump over it:

Think again, it also jumps!

There are a couple of strategies to get past it, but those I will leave it to you guys to figure out, so what happens when it catches you?

It gives you a quick smack and restores all your HP. Seams good right? Here is the catch, for it to restore the HP it needs to send you over to one of the  Anesthesiologist offices scattered around the area, meaning that it can send you into an unknown section or make you repeat a bunch of challenges all over again. (Each  Anesthesiologist will always send you to the same office).

Just as an example, above is an image representing the ongoing discussion on where to put one of these enemies, no matter where we decide to put it when it catches you will be sent directly to the border of the med and warehouse areas (the white rectangle on the bottom right).

Initially, we were very wary of putting this enemy in the game, mostly because it will probably be the "hardest" enemy (besides a boss) on the loose, and the backtracking can be a deal-breaker. So to soft this up, we added a "player training section" with a couple of these where you don't backtrack a lot, and to ensure that the player understands exactly what it needs to do in order to avoid it. The other mitigation strategy that we will use throughout is making sure that the player always gains something even when its caught, e.g a new route (only available from inside the offices), a collectible, a shortcut, etc. Finally, if you kill it when you are not at full HP, it will drop enough health energy balls to put you at 100% HP, giving the player a reason to kill it and not just avoid it. 

The  Anesthesiologist is still not final, we will need to work on its animations and overall effects, but it's ready to be placed on the medical area. We also use it very sporadically since we built it to the only function on a boss like section but more on it soon XD.

Finally, we ended the week with the new button mechanic, a health draining button, where you need to sacrifice HP in order to trigger the button:

It's still in the early stages, and we will talk more about it soon, but the goal here is the reverse of what the Anesthesiologist does, with this button the player sacrifices HP in order to proceed. The concept is easy enough, the hard part is ensuring that we don't create any dead ends to the player with it, basically, we will have to use these with extra care to avoid forcing the player to kill itself in order to get the necessary HP to push the button.

Now, for the daily screenshots of the development of the medical area, this week since we worked mostly on the new mechanics there isn't much change, but we still added some new sections :D and all the camera triggers.

We will have more to talk about next week, do don't forget to join us on  Discord, Twitter and steam!