Devlog #15: Facing Episode 2

Hey there, hackers! It's time for another update.

The Steam Summer Sale is near and Code 7 will be part of it, so if you have friends or family waiting for an opportunity to become a world-saving... nay, universe-saving hacker: this is it!

We try to keep you updated on a regular basis but the further we dive into the episode's development the less spoiler-free content we have to share. We still try our best to give you tidbits of news now and then!

Story Progress (Spoiler-free)

The last couple of weeks we have been finalizing and tweaking the story for episode 2. We want it to be exciting, dramatic and suspenseful but also tying into the previous narrative. Even though we know what we want from each episode's story, there are so many fine nuances of how to get there. What are the character's desires? Their fears? How does everything play together? How does Episode 2 develop its own story while still feeding into the main story? 

At this state, we're very happy with the story of Bear and Raven and we hope you will be, too! We have started to think about the key art and Paul has already worked on a composition and color draft of it that we really like and we'd like to share with you!

Three characters standing in a futuristic city alley, a menacing giant overshadowing the skyline

A while ago we announced that we combined two episodes in order to have a better story flow. This also led to a little change in the main characters. The agent Bear / Berhanu who was initially planned to be portrayed by Zein is being portrayed by the main character from the episode that got fused with the current one. We also now have a face for Raven. So meet our heroes for episode 2 (portraits not final):

Programming Hacking Game

A new mini game will be introduced in the next episode in which you will be able to program a cute little robot named Muffin in order to cross air shafts and reach rooms you otherwise couldn't. Don't worry! You don't need knowledge in programming in order to control Muffin. With simple lines of code you'll make the little robot move in different directions, push buttons and find the way out.

This mechanic ties together with Bear's stealth mechanic. You need to send Muffin through air shafts to reach rooms in which you can distract enemies. Sometimes you need to "park" Muffin in another room to access it without your partner being there. 

Alex distracts a guard with sounds of a printer

Also the MiM hacking game gets expanded with switches and buttons. The message will sometimes only be triggered manually by the player so they have to time it right. This way the hacking games get a little trickier and tactical.

Event: Open Squares

We'll be on the Open Source Festival on July 14th in Düsseldorf, showcasing the game and the escape room hacking game that we showed at gamescom. A lot of people enjoyed it, so if you missed it: here's another chance to be a real-world hacker!

That's all for now! Don't hesitate to shoot us a question if you want to know anything about the game and don't forget to join our Discord Channel to get more frequent, little updates.

Your Kevin & Zein