Devlog #12: Less is More... Literally!

Hello, everyone!

How is the development of Code 7 going, you ask? Well, it's going great! We have finished our first alpha test and learned a lot from it. Features and plot are getting even juicier and the best part is: people had fun playing it! We gathered a lot of feedback and would like to show you our decisions and some of the features.

Less is More... no, really!

We have fleshed out the overall plot and also the story arcs of the episodes; together with the fact that Episode 1 is around 3 hours long (in contrast to our 1.5 hours estimate), we have decided to reshape our episode plan. In order to avoid filler plot (hi there, One Piece!) and also add more gameplay, we decided to tell the story in four episodes instead of five. But don't fear, fellow hackers! At the end of the day the game will still be longer than originally planned. Feast your eyes upon this comparison:

Even though we will have one less episode, the fact that we can crank up the gameplay to 3 hours per chapter will result in almost 5 hours of additional content. This will give us the opportunity to tell the story in a more thrilling way and additionally reduces the time until the full game is released (meaning all episodes). With the current development plan, Episode 1 will hopefully launch early to mid May.

New Features

You want to know what will be new in the Episode 1? No problem, we'll tell you right away:

Utilities: You can find utility software on computers and download them to your systems. You can also install them on different computers and use them to help you solve puzzles.

Network Jammer (Utility): Install Network Jammers on computers to help you during Man-in-the-Middle Attacks (Hacking Game). Deploy them to stun a security node for a short time. Knowing the map and where computers are is even more important, now!

Brute Force: Your new Intelligence App will gather contextual data about various persons of interest and store it. You can always look up what you have found out about a person, like their date of birth or names of family members. Use this data to generate possible passwords through a Brute Force Attack.

Network Movement: You can access the Network and freely move between connected computers or other hardware. Forgot to get a software on a computer you have passed earlier? Move back over the network and get it from there, or reach systems that are locked behind doors.

Advanced Feedback: We worked on giving the player more feedback about what options are immediately available. The portrait will now show the number of available places, inspectable objects, and dialogue lines.

We have compiled a little sneak peek video of the current version, so you can get a glimpse on how things are evolving. Enjoy here, or watch it on Youtube.

What are your thoughts about the episode changes? And what are you looking forward to most? Tell us your thoughts and as always, thank you for your support!