In an effort to make more progress - and relieve a lot of pressure on myself during the pandemic - I’ve switched to doing month-long sprints. September is the second monthly sprint I’ve completed and it’s been a really great sprint for a few reasons.

Review, How did it go?

But before I get into those reasons I wanted to do a quick recap of the sprint.

The sprint isn’t 100% over yet but I’m close enough to feel confident in posting the results. I closed out 22 issues this sprint, 6 Bugs 🐛 , 12 Enhancements 💡, 2 Core Refactors 🏠 1 Documentation ticket 📄 and 1 Art task 🎨.

Overall the September sprint went really, really well. I was able to focus really well on the sprint goal of testing, fixing and tweaking combat which had been a big problem in the weekly sprints.

Also, it allowed me to think more clearly about goals for the sprint. This helped me pivot midway through and get some minor changes done to product the first monthly demo of Electric Noir.

That’s right this sprint will be the start of Monthly Releases of Electric Noir!

Yep, I’m going to try to push out a new “demo” each month with changes and tweaks. This will give folks (hopefully a few of you fine people) the ability to play small sections of the game and give feedback to help shape the game and help me refine the systems and gameplay up till I get to “beta”.

What’s the difference between these releases and a “Beta”?

A beta is much closer to a release. My first beta will contain a larger vertical slice of the game featuring 90% of the games systems in a playable, and more importantly shipable state.

These monthly releases are more like an early early access. Small segments of the game with a lot of things left unpolished, unfinished, untested to express an idea or feature with hopes of getting feedback before a ton of time is invested in it.

That all being said I really want to avoid regressions during these releases so I expect my testing process to get some love and attention at some point in the future.

Full v2020.09 Release Notes

Combat Changes

  • Screenshake values have been increased for every player attack.
  • Player dashing has been re-enabled
  • Enemies now wander while they wait for an opening to attack
  • Enemies attack and block more frequently

Bugs

  • Enemies no longer get “stuck” and play their walking animation while stationary
  • The published game will now start correctly

Foundational Changes

  • Moved from a custom build of SInput to the newer Unity Input System. This was a big deal actually, it increased the performance of the game significantly and allowed me to start building out more complex attacks and combos.
  • Effects are now powered by the Reanimator animation system, instead of our custom animators.

Other

  • The release contains a playable demo level showcasing the dialogue and combat systems.

Where can I get the demo?

Ok, here it is, the v2020.09 of Electric Noir. This is a very simple demo to get feedback on the following:

  • Art
  • Writing
  • Combat/Gameplay
  • Bugs

I encourage you to play this months demo and send me your feedback, either on Twitter - @electricnoir or you can email me about at electricnoirgame.com.