New Map!

Howdy! In an effort to make something new and moderately low-epic-logic-overhead as an exercise of leaning heavily into verse for the first time, I figured I'd make a Find The Button map. So far so good, as far as general gameplay goes.

At launch:

• 10 rooms

• each room has at least 1 button, many have 3, so you won't know exactly which is active.

• currently EVERYONE gets moved to the next room when someone scores.

  • originally unintended, I meant for it to be time-based, but...

  • the person that threw the switch is the one who gets a point, so it still works competitively.

  • I might keep it this way, for the scramble.

• I have a "shuffle buttons" device that's not available other than for testing for right now. It just re-picks which of the available buttons are active.

I have a list of other fixes/expansions (more rooms is obvious) elsewhere, and would love discussion of what in-genre would help this out here.

I'll get a "planned short-term additions" list up shortly.

Hey, thanks to those of you who played for a bit during that initial discover window. Was cool to hit the "new" page for nearly an hour.

Also for the post likes here. that was encouraging to see, and that it was worth doing the "shows up in fortnite" community post thing.

Seeing a bunch of new people running through maps, noted a few other things I need to fix.

more on that later (updating that external list)

Small update!

1. visual updates

   1. hut level: extended floor radius to match the barrier.

   2. tree cove: raised the floor on the deep water so it's less bad. still needs adjustment so camera can't go below water (or make sure people can swim).

   3. geyser impact: LESS running-on-sky area, but needs another visual pass.

   4. Mason's Office: can't exit the door anymore (i know, sorry).

   5. Treetop: water and bushes. fidelity and visual guides. (so far, I promise not to hide buttons in bushes. that's cheap).

2. Mechanics/scoring

   1. Rounds are 5 instead of 3 now. Mainly to make sure I'm not STOPPING someone from playing as they're getting traction.

   2. Scoreboard is visibly now POINTS and TIME ALIVE.

Upcoming small changes (still 0.x internal beta builds):

1. visual goals:

   1. hide all "cliffs". I don't like things getting cut off on the edge of the volumes. Should be as good of a diorama as possible, and never confusing.

   2. add scatter "foliage" gravel/etc if possible.

   3. related to 1: more small detail objects, so things in the center of the room feel less sparse.

2. Mechanics/scoring

   1. Add more buttons. Probably get closer to having 3 in every room.

   2. I want to add a couple more audio clips.

   3. Maybe set up race mechanic for lap time?

   4. STRETCH: If possible, get statues to work correctly

   5. STRETCH: late entry emergency teleport goes to current room, not room 1.

Publishing short term goals

1. Update thumbnail? A/B?

2. Fix Lobby to look better (cropped too tight right now)

3. add gameplay screenshots.