Hi there!
I wanted to share some progress we’ve been making over the last few months on Demon Spore.
At the moment we’re taking every feature that’s not up to scratch and polishing it till it’s as shiny as possible. One big area that we did that with recently is fire.
Fire in a lot of games is often just background eye candy or just a barrier to stop you going somewhere. In the spirit of making everything as interactive as possible, fire in Demon Spore is a dynamic element that can be a dangerous threat or a useful tool.
Some chemicals you find in the game are flammable, meaning you can throw these to set fire to objects like chairs, or lab equipment. When an object is on fire, that fire will spread to other objects, allowing you to create a barrier to slow down the creatures growing towards you.
Fire will also spread between any entity that sets on fire, so it will also spread between enemies. Using fire on a group of enemies can be super effective in causing them to panic. But be careful - enemies on fire can also burn you so don’t let them get close!
As you get further into the game, the lab becomes more unstable due to the creature spreading. This means some floors you enter have environmental hazards present such as power failures, gas leaks and fire. A floor on fire will have a number of rooms that are affected, meaning you have an extra element of strategy in trying to avoid the burning rooms while also trying to avoid the creature.
If you must enter a room on fire, then you can push your way through using a fire extinguisher or by throwing water to douse the flames. You can even use the fire to your advantage by throwing chemicals at it to get it to spread to other areas, in order to cut off a path that the creature might move through. Just watch out for any tentacles that might try and grab you…
We’ve put a lot of work recently into all the chemical reactions in the game meaning that all the chemicals now interact with each other in different ways. Acid will boil water to create damage areas, acid will explode when added to a flamable substance, the fire extinguisher will freeze water etc. More on that in a future newsletter!
During the last few months we’ve been slowly gathering playtesters to get feedback on the game and find any obscure bugs. It’s been super helpful for improving the game and making it as polished as possible, so thanks to all of you that signed up so far! If you would like to become a playtester, please use the button below to join the discord.
Sign up to the playtest
That’s about it for the moment, I’d better get back to work!
Until the next time.
Ed
The Dino Boss