A roguelike FPS about corrupt magic. As a lab rat for a mad wizard's experiments in bloodcraft, endure his crumbling property, a maze full of trials and tribulations, and fight your way to the top to end this accursed experiment.
You can follow the devlog here on Reddit, but all posts will also be reproduced below.
THIS PAGE IS BEING CONSISTENTLY UPDATED WITH PROGRESS.
The New And Improved Pressure Point
Current devlog (2: More Rooms, More States, Higher Stakes)
Intro cinematic
Supplemental sketches and screenshots
Reproductions of Reddit devlogs
Devlog 1: Map Generation
Hello everyone!
As an introduction, my name is Maxwell, I'm a game designer living in Montreal. While taking full time French classes to try and get a job, I'm going to be making this title in my free time. I'll be keeping track of it here on Reddit and reposting all text to my portfolio blog, along with additional materials like cinematic scripts and sketches.
An RPG roguelike, Pressure Point / Creepy Crawler (WIP title ofc) puts you in the shoes of a magical labrat trying to escape a mad wizard's grasp. Navigate and endure sprawling dungeons of traps and enemies as you're forced to test out Sherokar's cursed bloodcraft. Burn goons, grapple creatures, make allies, try again -- just don't use all your blood up!
I recorded the video above to show my progress so far, but it is about 20 minutes long, so I will summarize the baselines of it now.
While many of the systems of Pressure Point will be repurposed (which you can see all about here on my portfolio), I knew that I first had to tackle the basics of this new idea before overhauling anything already made, most of all the AI. Getting the chamber generation and general vibe down was essential to me before diving into anything else, so I've spent now a week or so refining the room generation blueprints before moving on to anything else. As they form the core of the world the player will explore, getting their paths and movements right seems paramount.
You can see in the video that a lot of the rooms' aspects are controllable via variables, even if they sometimes only have one thing in there right now. Even though the rooms have the same walls, I've found that randomizing and adding subtle variation in obvious respects, such as the lighting or the roofs or the grassy-stone floors, helps a lot with immersion and believability.
Next, I will be adding more "challenge" chambers, rooms that will force the player to use their vine or move more strategically. You can see in the video that one is already blocked out, a triangle-tower of sorts, but I have plans for a few more for this introductory stage.
Next devlog goals:
~Starting and ending room
~Randomly placed physics objects
~Refining vine to grapple physics objects
~Reintegrating interact system and blood banks
~Doors between chambers
After that:
~Pickup / Throw-away gun system
~Basic AI interactions with dialogue
~Basic enemy (perhaps two types)
~UI Redo for expanded systems
~The beginnings of powerups
This project is very different now from when I made this subreddit originally, but I still see it as a great way to share my progress. Hopefully you guys can share your insights and ideas for this game as I go, and we can make something really fun together.
Thanks for reading!
À la prochaine !
--Maxwell
Devlog 2: More Rooms, More States, Higher Stakes
https://youtu.be/btBK-7zSkxU?si=LiwgKdZmac-yqPr1
Salut tout le monde!
Another few weeks, more progress made on Pressure Point every day! Yes, I've just decided to return to the Pressure Point title and drop "Creepy Crawler."
Today I get to show off this new modular scaffolding system I've designed, the rooms I've made with it alongside the start/end rooms, UI state screens (victory, death, loading), swimming, and the integration of the original demo's interaction system.
This week brought a lot of challenges, but some renewed confidence. The blockers are an eternal problem, but I fixed completely their original spawning issues. Now it seems that each room added can provide some odd nuances, but I've refined it to a point where basic 3-door rooms are seamless in implementation. As that's the basis of the game, the goal feels largely accomplished. Safe to say, that boss room was hell to get working perfect.
The same goes with the swimming, as I have never had to program a change in complete player control in such a confined space. In the end, I'm really happy with how it looks.
What was easy? Implementing all of the original file's interaction scripts. The visuals need some higher degree of unity, but the control scheme is certainly coming together.
What comes next? I don't even think I said this in the video, but certainly more rooms. The damage-inducing rooms (outside of water) like I had planned in the last video will have to wait for higher implementation of AI enemies. Either way, these entirely-movement-based rooms really help me get to the core of the basic gameplay loop.
Outside of the game, I plan on making more writing and graphical supplements in the process of developing the game design document. In fact, the GDD will have to come before the enemies so that I can really linger on the diversity of threat and the ultimate tone of the game. I'm still not sure if I will head back to the body-horror of the original Pressure Point prototype or if I will go further down the fantasy path. The second seems more inspiring right now.
Well I think that's overall it for this devlog! I will be sure to check in soon with progress on the GDD or added rooms. I feel that it may be nice to do smaller updates in between these videos.
As always, reach out to me with any ideas or motivation!
Cheers,
–Maxwell