Hello everyone.
This week, a new public version of Irsen was released on Steam. The demo is now available to download and try. In the previous devblog, I tried to describe the main updates included in the new version.
I briefly mentioned the global interface systems.
Today, I would like to take a closer look at two new additions.
Bio Scanner.
I have already received feedback from players saying that building gene chains can be difficult to understand. While rearranging chains, the player can accidentally break a chain and lose access to a skill in combat. Sometimes this only becomes noticeable after entering a battle. Although I added the ability to retreat on Easy difficulty, and such a fight does not mean instant death, it still feels unpleasant to lose health because of forgetfulness or inattention.
I gathered several possible mistakes into one system.
This system is the Bio Scanner. Its icon is located to the right of the player panel. The scanner has an indicator. After every step, it scans the character’s state and tries to find build problems. If the scanner detects a problem, the indicator turns red. As a result, the player can now notice after any step that something is wrong.
The scanner can be clicked to open a panel with all scanned systems.
They include:
Inventory — turns red if the inventory is full, meaning that after the next battle the player will not be able to take new genes.
Catalysts — turns red if the player has received a catalyst but has not assigned it to a slot, meaning they have both an available catalyst and an empty catalyst slot.
Implants — works similarly to catalysts. It turns red if the player has an empty implant slot and implants that can be assigned to it.
Gene Map — turns red if the player has empty slots on the Gene Map while also having available genes in the inventory. This should help quickly detect situations where the player forgot to return a gene after using the laboratory, or simply forgot to place a new gene into an empty slot.
Skill Bar — tracks two types of problems. First, the player may have a skill in a slot whose gene chain has been broken. Second, the player may have empty skill bar slots while also having available skills that are not currently assigned to the bar.
As a result, once the scanner turns red, the player can understand that some mistake was made due to inattention and quickly fix it before entering combat. Field Dosimeter.
This device is located to the left of the player panel. During a dungeon run, depending on the game conditions, the player is constantly affected by background radiation. I already explained what this is and how it works in one of the previous devblogs.
The dosimeter allows the player to track the level of this radiation. Previously, it was possible to estimate the current level by watching how quickly corruption filled the right vial. But now the change is visible immediately, for example when descending deeper into the dungeon or when playing in endless mode.
It is important to note that background radiation is reduced by the player’s corruption resistance, which can be gained through genes, for example. In simple terms, if the dosimeter shows a level of 100, and the player has 25% corruption resistance, corruption will increase by 75 points each iteration. In other words, the dosimeter shows the raw level of background exposure.
I hope these two new systems will make the game a little easier to understand for players. If you encounter any other difficulties while playing, feel free to write to me, and I will try to add an explanation, warning, or hint to the game.