Devlog 4

Hello again! It’s time for our fourth devlog on Know Your Wings, and this week marked a major step forward across all departments as we began building out our first fully playable level. Based on the feedback we received from previous presentations, we also made some critical adjustments to our core mechanics and level flow. Let’s dive into what we accomplished:

Game Design & Programming:

This week brought a number of major updates to our game’s design and feel, marking a big step forward for the project.

Level Design:

This week, we made several key decisions to tighten the focus of our level and improve the player’s overall experience:

Art:

This week, several new models were created by Caitlin and refined to support the visual development of our final level and important mechanics:

Music and Sound:

This week, Julian made major strides in polishing audio feedback, refining environmental sound design, and shaping the musical identity of the final level:

• Collision & Impact Sounds: A new set of bat squeak effects were created to play when the player collides with trees or walls. After a thorough license check, three variations were selected and will be randomized in-game to enhance feedback variety.
• Pause & UI Sound Effects: A complete set of pause, unpause, and transition sounds were added this week. Julian fine-tuned high frequencies and created short, snappy cues that suit the game’s tone. These have now been implemented in the current build.
• Final Level Ambience: Meanwhile, the team discussed musical direction for Dracula’s room, aiming for something more isolated and melancholic, but still slightly upbeat to reflect the final stage of the game. Julian is experimenting with violin layers and minimal piano arpeggios to achieve this tone.
• Dracula’s Room Theme: Julian composed a remixed version of Toccata tailored to the final level, now slower in BPM, less intense in percussion, and accompanied by a subtle, haunting violin part. One version includes a creepy audio cue at the end, which might be used selectively for dramatic effect.

Next Steps:

Our next focus will be conducting external playtests to gather feedback from new players and identify any friction points in the current build. This will help us validate the recent changes and guide future improvements.

On the development side, we plan to continue refining the echolocation mechanic, especially in relation to lighting and dark area interactions. We’ll also begin addressing bugs and edge cases discovered during recent testing to improve overall polish and stability as we move closer to the Alpha milestone.