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Wow, thanks for the comment! I didn’t expect it to become a classic in high schools!

This past week I focused on several fixes that were already planned for release, but I decided to push them early to improve the demo experience.

One of the biggest updates is a new blue flash overlay to indicate when an enemy is vulnerable to a front stab, this should make combat feedback much clearer. I’ve also added a new VFX that triggers when an enemy is defeated to further improve combat feedback, along with a green visual cue when picking up healing items.

Thanks to various gameplay videos, I’ve been able to spot and polish several small details as well.

Even though the demo isn’t among the most popular ones out there, I’m genuinely happy with the progress, creating a game like this in my free time is already a challenge, and just having it out there means a lot to me.

Thank you!

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of gameplay bug fixing, things like adding the ability to skip cutscenes, fixing broken UI, and dealing with enemies getting stuck, so I don’t have much new content to show. 

Here’s one of my playtests from Stage 4. I still need to tweak the enemy lighting in this stage, but they’re already fairly visible.

Thank you, I really appreciate it!

Crates can be smashed with a dash, it’s super satisfying to watch wooden pieces fly everywhere. 

There are "super weapons" like the axe: they deal more damage than your main weapon, but break after about ten hits, so use them wisely. 

A strong tactic is to parry, which grants you a short window of invincibility. Perfect moment to land a heavy attack and hit multiple enemies at once. 

This stage is a bit dark visually, hope it still comes through okay despite video compression.

Thanks! I do not use Discord but you can send me a DM on Itch.io if you want, but I'm not interested in partnerships at the moment.

This week I updated the Axeman enemy by giving him a new character mesh, so he’s visually distinct from the Swordsman. I also changed his lunge attack to strike from above, adding a bit more verticality to the action.

On the technical side, I optimized performance by converting the level to World Partition, and I fixed several bugs, including one where enemies would shift slightly in front of the player with each hit.

Citizen Pain is officially on Steam!

My dream of releasing my own action game is finally coming true.

I’ve been working hard on the trailer over the past month, I hope you like it!

 Wishlist it now on Steam:
:https://store.steampowered.com/app/3752240/Citizen_Pain/

This week I added a lot of new things, but they’re not ready to be shown yet. So for now, here’s a clip from Stage 1.

Thank you! Glad you like the tone. And good catch on the typo, I’ll fix it, appreciate the heads-up!

Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I appreciate the support and hope you'll like what’s coming next!

Lately, I've been focusing on finishing the third scenario. At the same time, I'm refining the first level of the castle by increasing design density: adding more variety in encounters, improving progression, and fine-tuning the level design. I’ve also updated the enemy death animation (now they get launched) and started implementing breakable crates containing items. It still needs some polish, but they will eventually hold energy and currency for players to spend.

I replaced the skeleton enemy with a new character since the pirate theme didn’t quite fit the game’s overall vibe. Visually, I think the new design is on par with the pirate (though I was a bit attached to him, haha).

What do you think? Does this one work better, or did you prefer the pirate?

I went back to one of my old environments, tweaked the lighting and added a hitstop on the parry.

In my opinion visually it is better than my previous video. What do you think?

I'm testing various environments for Chapter 2, right now this is the one I like the most because of the composition and it conforms to the game's story. I am also experimenting with implementing a Perfect Block (like in Stellar Blade) and some tweaks for the enemies.

I have yet to bring the various lighting and VFX tweaks I made to this new map. What do you think so far? Do you like the environment?

Hey, I'm sorry but I don't think that's possible, it's a very old (and abandoned) project, and I don't think I even have the original project somewhere. :(

Prototyping a section with various enemies. The soldiers throwing arrows are protected by the soldiers in front. This makes them difficult to reach unless the soldiers in front are eliminated first.

Fight against 2 spearman soldiers. Their sweeping attack has a wide range but is not very fast. Since there are 2 of them better to use a dodge to avoid being hit.

Blocking, like attacking and running, will consume stamina. Blocking an attack that empties your stamina will break your guard and temporarily stun you.

Today I am focusing on the UI Options menu. Among the things implemented are the Tab Selector at the top of the page and a runtime creation of list entries from a DataTable. The page is still placeholder, there are graphic things to adjust (like colors, slider shape etc.)

One of the traps in the game are the rolling boulders. Besides hitting the player they can also damage enemies. For now, the rolling boulder is in the prototype stage, it has no textures and collisions still have some problems.

This week I am focusing on the UI. I am implementing the main menu. I added some logic such as highlights on mouse-focused UI elements and some transition animations between the main menu and loading screen.

This week I am focusing on implementing some VFX, starting with the Bonefire. I’ve been tweaking the fire particles, especially the lighting intensity. A bonfire produces lighting intensity in the value of between 10,000 and 50,000 candelas. I used these values to get a more physically realistic illimination.

The backdash can be followed by an attack so that a lunge attack can be performed. It can be used to avoid the enemy attack and attack immediately afterward.

I’m focusing on the wall area, where the player will have to walk to reach the top of the tower. I was thinking of adding a boss battle at the top of the tower. I still have to finish writing the game script, but I already have clear ideas about what needs to happen in this section.

Possession is a useful skill when there are many enemies. You can possess an enemy to use it as bait and gather enemies in one spot and then attack them all at once.

Axemen are a variation of soldiers who fight with an axe and shield. The main difference is that they have more health and do not go into stunlock if you block their attacks. Only parry can make them go into stunlock.

I fixed a problem with lighting, where in build the lighting was much higher than what I was seeing in editor. I found that it was a problem related to the volumetric clouds, I removed them since they were a bit too heavy for performance anyway. I will be working on the castle again soon, I am in the final stages of the first art pass.

Fighting a Soldier Swordsman is more complicated with a Soldier Spearman performing ranged attacks. Performing a strong attack can work but you have to aim accurately to avoid missing. When I shot this video there were many rooms still in a greybox state.

An enemy soldier throws firebombs from a distance. The way to the enemy is blocked by boxes, which makes the enemy harder to reach.

In indoor areas the brightness is low, so I added a small light around the player, very similar to the light in Dark Souls. I’ll probably remove it, in a first person view it doesn’t look good especially if you have an enemy in front of you, the light illuminates the enemy in an annoying way. I’ll place more torches to increase overall visibility.

I placed the 3d assets of the part that takes you to the high area along the castle wall. There is an enemy soldier with a crossbow at the top who shoots the player on sight. There are covers along the way where the player can take cover from the arrows.

The Silver Knights are the first enemies that can give the player a hard time at the beginning of the game. Their attacks can kill the player in a few hit. A good strategy is to strike them from behind, for example by using the invisible cloak skill.

I have finished with the dungeon for now, replacing most of the dungeon greyboxes with 3D assets. The dungeon covers a good part of the area below the castle. Compared to the greybox I decided to raise the ceiling of many rooms but fortunately I did not encounter any major problems as overlaps with other rooms.

Fighting a skeleton enemy. They are among the first enemies you encounter in the game. If they see you from a distance, they start running and perform a running attack. Relatively easy to kill when alone, they are not to be underestimated when there are many of them.

I am focusing on the last section of the castle garden. This square is larger to accommodate 4 enemies without restricting the player’s movement, as this is not intended as a difficult combat.

Often using Possession Ability as the only way to kill the possessed enemy can be a good alternative strategy. The slowdowns you see in the video were before the optimisation, they don’t happen anymore fortunately (for now).

By using the Invisibility Cloak I can make myself invisible so enemies don’t detect me. It’s useful when there are enemies in the rear, for example soldiers equipped with crossbows. I need to remember to update that enemy character model, it’s currently a placeholder.

I am adding 3d assets in the castle area. I changed the layout of the original greybox a bit to fit the stylistic side of the setting, it doesn’t affect the gameplay so I think it was a good decision. I’m changing a little bit the workflow of how I’m placing the 3d assets, so for now there might be a difference in the detail between the castle and the city, I’ll fix it in the next art-pass.