Tweaks and balancing for initial release!

Over the past week, we have been making tweaks, and smoothing out any issues to get to our initial release!

• Added in checkpoint system
• Added in cutscenes
• Added subtitles for accessibility
• Gave sonar, flashlight, and metronome their own buttons
• Death animation
• Gave the monster footsteps and showed them on the minimap
• Flashlight stun the monster and retreat
• Optimized the flow of the map
• Balanced the audio and atmosphere

Together, all these work to reduce player frustration when navigating a dark environment and increase the horror ambiance.

However, we did have some plans that did not get into this week’s release.  In the future, we plan to continue working on the on-player ambiance, so footsteps, breathing, and a more advanced shroud of darkness over the player’s eyes.  Similarly, we plan to improve how dynamic the monsters are to give the player a variety of escape experiences while navigating out of Echo Cave.  Once all of these things start to fall in place, then we’ll begin to re-evaluate the level design to make the horror experience longer and more immersive!