Hey everyone,
What have we been working on?
This last sprint we built the first version of our tutorial quest. After April's playtest, we realized it was getting really important to properly onboard players, as many playtesters were getting frustrated due to not quite understanding the loop. It's really important for me that the tutorial NOT be a slog, but it's actually quite complex to balance this with proper teaching. Unfortunately for us, Surfpunk's loop and many of its mechanics are a bit unusual for the genre, so we need to fight expectations. Notably, the game is NOT a Roguelike, and it's a challenge to message that when so many indie top-down games are. Especially since I think Surfpunk still appeals to Roguelike players and that's totally ok!
I'm hoping that for most players, they'll just get onboarded by their friends, but we want to support folks who want to pick up the basics at their own pace. Most likely, we will allow the tutorial to be skippable if you just want to jump into an online game with friends. We all know that feeling of wanting to try a new game with your buddies, but then being forced to play through an extended intro. So, yeah, Surfpunk WON'T do that.
🎬 Here's a video presentation on the new tutorial:
Other than onboarding, we've been doing the usual bug fixes, balancing and general refinements, etc.
We also completely overhauled the results screen to be much clearer and juicier. It even gives you a letter grade so you know how well you did! Although it's not fully functional yet, we're also planning to have "reward badges" so you can boast with your friends about who did best (currently, everyone gets "Ultimate Warrior")!
We're now focusing our attention now on improving performance and adding more things to do in the metagame, notably side-quests you can pick up from NPC's. More on this soon...!
CRUSH 'N RUSH! 🤙
- Eric
🏄🧀