Hello, hackers! How have you been? I hope you're having fun. We're busy working on Episode 2 and wanted to give you some peaks into development. In case you missed it, we're streaming a lot of it live on Twitch! You can watch all the archived videos on Youtube.
We have settled into our new office in Cologne, from which we can even see the Dome! With a bunch of other cool devs we're part of the so called Cologne Game Haus, some sort of shared office space with game developers in the heart of Cologne.
Not fully done yet, but this is our new cozy wolf's lair
We plan to invite other developers over into our stream and talk with them about their games and indiedev life. Our first guest was Utz Stauder from Ludopium, you can watch the full stream here.
Development
We've been working on the finer details of Episode 2's story and we're making good progress. You'll follow the adventures of the agents Bear, Raven (some of you might know one or two things about them from the gamescom booth!) and Geron.
We're working on a lot of gameplay mechanics, that evolve the ones from episode 2. They should feel new but also familiar at the same time. We've been prototyping a so called Binary Logic puzzle and tested around with it. In the end we decided to scrap it again, because it was too limited in terms of complexity and too easily solved by just trying (you can watch the progress in the twitch archive). Prototyping and scrapping mechanics is part of game development and very normal. It's good to know early if something just doesn't work the way you want it and stop working on it. Instead we will tweak gameplay with other means.
(minor gameplay spoilers ahead)
There will be different missions that you can do with each character and every character will have their own little addition to the gameplay. Following Bear will mean stealth levels in which you can distract guards with sounds (prototyped with flushing a toilet!), Raven is the mistress of disguise and if you give her enough information about a person she can turn into them. Geron will be able to use simulations to interrogate people, very similar to the Life is Strange dialogues in which you can rewind time after learning something.
(minor spoilers end)
Cyberpunk Cityby artursadlos
The Vibe of Episode 2
With this episode we want Code 7 to feel a lot more cyberpunk-y. With New Berlin you'll be visiting a crowded location for the first time with lots of interesting and weird places, like anon-clubs in which you enter with a holographic costume to keep your identity hidden.
We've researched a lot of art and music and even though Code 7 will not show most of it, we can still recreate the vibe and atmosphere of a cyberpunk hotspot through maps, animations and sound. Expect obnoxious advertisements to ring through your headphones... do you want to buy the new HexLab ImproVein Implant to run 25% faster? Probably not. It's experimental...
Antibiotics Challenge
If you have missed it on Twitter: We're doing a special challenge! The first 10 to complete the Antibiotic achievement in Code 7 - Episode 1 will be able to name a computer in Episode 2 after them and maybe also have some references in emails. Six brave hackers have already completed the challenge, four more chances are there! Send us a screenshot of the achievement with the unlock date, like this:
Don't forget to join us on Discord to stay in touch
and please follow us on Twitch to follow live-development!
Cheers,
Kevin & Zein