Devlog #8 - The Dark Mine: New New New
Introduction
Wow its been a while... But WE ARE BACK! Welcome to the 8th devlog of The Dark Mine and let me tell you there is sooo much new stuff to show! This devlog is completely dedicated to showing off these new things so sit back and just enjoy this one.
Settings
First things first I made a few changes to the Settings. Before it looked like this:
The settings are listed in a window and you can check the corresponding boxes to activate or deactivate a setting. Sounds good right? Wrong! You know what's better than having boring settings in one window? Having settings split up in multiple ones! So this is what it looks like now:
(WIP)
As you can see having a tab system makes this far superior☕. The settings are more organized and animations are better than no animations.
New Gamemodes
You might have Lightbulb Mode, Torcer At Ceiling Mode or Infinite Mode in mind when I talk about gamemodes but no they are gone now. Well TAC Mode stayed but drama is good i've heard. So why did I decide to remove Infinite and Lightbulb Mode? They sucked. But don't let me explain it let me show you
Have you managed to stay entertained or did you just scroll down here? See it's just not fun. But what about Lightbulb Mode? Maybe it's more fun? Well you might remember this mode as you being the lightbulb instead of TORCER which at first glance sounds pretty cool and you can even fly around levels!
But that is also the problem. The levels are made for TORCER but he doesn't fly so the puzzles are made with a "How do you even get there" mindset. In one level there is a trick to push a box on a ledge making it possible to get up on a platform. Now imagine this with lightbulb mode. You could just fly up there and that's it. So to summarize: Lightbulb mode didn't make it because it was too OP and I didn't find a way to get around this issue.
But now to the title of this heading: There are some new gamemodes in place of the old ones, namely Twin Mode and Ghost Mode. In twin mode there is an Anti-TORCER that you can't touch so you have to find a way around it. Because there is a counter part to TORCER now he always moves in the opposite direction as TORCER. Also there is this really cool effect when they get near each other:
Level 1 now becomes the introduction to this new mode as you have to walk all the way to the right with TORCER to prevent touching his anti part.
Another new mode is Ghost Mode. In this mode you experience a completely new world in every level. There are ghost objects which are only visible in the light cone of the flashlight. TORCER can never interact with ghost objects because his flashlight is in front of him but every other object can. So now you have to figure out where to shine your light and how to position other objects to interact correctly with ghost objects making every move count. Unfortunately this gamemode is still a work in progress so if you want to see some actual footage of it you'll have to wait or join the discord. But here is a first preview:
New Mechanic
When I said theres new stuff I meant it. Yes there is a completely new mechanic. But as always let me just show you:
When TORCER stands on a movable object and you switch the gravity the object will lift you up into the air. This mechanic makes puzzles so much more dynamic and I think it adds a unique touch to the game.
New Levels
I have talked about it before in the last devlog. The old levels weren't fun so I redid most of them only leaving in 3 of the 18 levels we had before... Throughout this devlog you have already seen one new level and you will see more so here is one more level you haven't seen yet (even if it is incomplete):
New Tutorial
Lastly there is one more thing new to The Dark Mine. And it is the tutorial. To be fair it is not completely new, I have kept the footage of Devlog 2 but there is no cursor actually moving TORCER. As a reminder this is one stage of the old tutorial where a fake TORCER showed you what to do (video not completely accurate to the invisioned gameplay):
This is the new tutorial (same stage):
The button on the bottom right brings up a sign that shows you what to do using the same footage as in the old tutorial. Along with that there is now a skip button on the upper right under the pause button which was much needed. Everything else remained the same in the tutorial.
Conclusion
And this is it! Now you know what is new in the game and I hope you liked this devlog. If you made it this far thank you. At this point others would tell you to follow the development further or read our last devlogs or join some kind of discord you don't even know about but in reality it is the best server where you get the best game for free, you know exactly what discord server I am referring to. Ok now go do something useful for humanity, bye.