Noirmancer June Update: Commanding Bugs (Insects, not errors)
This a development update for my mind-erasing stealth game Noirmancer. I usually give some brief status on how development is going and ramble about some aspects of game dev I've been thinking about.
STATUS UPDATE
Hey there, as usual, I'm late on my update. But at least this time it's a lot less late. Life stuff I expected in the middle of June got moved to the start, so the past few weeks were less productive so the next few ones can be more. But now have to get back into the swing of things.
I'm reasonably happy with progress on the next level? A broad shape of the level is forming and there's a lot of ideas for things I want to do at this stage. I keep teasing this big bag of money in a few of the promotional materials and I've decided to try to get it into this level and let the player be a bit of a gremlin with it. It's valuable to have those level props that are very distinctive even if they don't always create the most systemically nuanced gameplay. Sometimes people just want to be able to burn a big bag of money to say that they did it.
A bigger thing I've decided to revisit for this next level is the Command Bugs ability. Something that's been absent so far in most of the marketing material, as it was only in the early prototype stage, and definitely still needed work, and still does.
(Extremely early footage, obviously)
It's one of the abilities I've been less certain about in the game, and I decided I felt like bringing forward that uncertainty and tackling it earlier. Previously the bugs were something you set a target for and they'd crawl along the ground to it. But I wanted to allow you send them up walls. And generally most off-the-shelf navigation systems don't handle just sending things along walls. For now, I'm gonna avoid going down the rabbit-hole of making that possible, in favour of this idea where you draw the line and the bugs follow it. This involved some nuances. Notably I wanted it to be possible for you to draw over a surface or behind a surface contextually.
I like the flavour of this ability a lot, but naturally, it's all about whether I can find enough to do with it. Remote interaction is a neat enough use. Being a distraction is probably the other main one, but I'd like to think of more. I think I can do something with them setting off traps. On the surface of it, I think it's easy to look at this ability and go "Isn't this just a bit of you finding a square peg and putting it in a square hole?" But I think I can make it an enriching enough ability through a few details. The first is the simplest: more options is more room for player expression, and there is something innately satisfying in being able to get a little obsessed with your favourite tools in a game. The second is that Thief-likes are kind of games about searching spaces thoroughly in the first place, and bugs are another thing you can find via exploration. So rather than the interest always being in the actual use of Command Bugs, sometimes the interest will simply be in feeling rewarded for your exploration. The third element is that I can put some limitations on the ability such as limited duration, now the interest can be in figuring out how to get bugs from point A to point B fast enough to use them.
Another random small thing I want to incorporate in this next level is ceiling fans. I swear that's not just a boring interior decoration idea but a gameplay one.
(Extremely early footage again)
A pretty straight forward game design concept is to give the player an ability then give them constraints on that ability. I can generally get away with justifying any kind of forced airflow as an obstacle for Turn To Mist. Which allows for really obvious opportunity-obstacle combos where you can place something you'd obviously be able to mist through, if it wasn't for that damn airflow. And then the player can think about how to address that.
I've also got a rough version of some peep-holes prototyped out in this level, which I think will be a fun detail for really being some prowly-sneaky vibes. So the main New Toys™ for the next level are coming along.
Shout Outs
I've been extremely grateful to a number of people in the Demo launch after-math, including many who have used their reach to share the game with more people. They all have something to offer you, reader, so here's what pay-back I can give them.
If you're into Immersive Sims, you should really be aware of the youtube channel 2 Headed Hero. BawssSawss makes regular videos there that cover stuff happening in the Indie ImmSim space. If you drop them a sub and check out the past videos, you'll probably find some interesting new stuff that you would have never heard of otherwise.
WungusDasPungus streams Thief fan missions, and other similar games, whenever his working life permits over on Twitch. If you're a Thief nerd and enjoy seeing Thief gameplay, it's worth a follow.
If you use Bluesky or Twitter, Sinnoware is a certified ImmSim nerd who has been posting non-stop about the niche for years and is extremely in-the-loop. Following them is another great way to find new games.
Less likely audience overlap, but Cheeseness is a long-time indie dev and Thief enjoyer who gets to claim the title of being almost certainly the first person outside of my close-friends to actually play the game at all. Consider checking out his game Hivetime, a Bee-themed base-builder game.
9th Exodus are making Peripeteia, a Polish dystopian STALKER-esque ImmSim that is a hell of a vibe.
And I have to say thank you to Edwin Evans-Thirlwell over at Rocker Paper Shotgun for some early impressions coverage. Most traditional outlets won't really cover an indie game that isn't already established and popular, but not RockPaperShotgun. If you find the deluge of new indie games that come out hard to handle, and would like a curated feed of some interesting picks, consider checking out their New PC Games topic.
Hopefully I'm not forgetting anyone. But there's always future blogposts :)
What's Next?
Gotta get some life-stuff completely off my plate (y'know, just complete life, just wrap it up, have it present no more challenges). This month I hope to finish up a passable version of Command Bugs. I need to get around to actually assigning gameplay beats to all the areas of the next level now that the shape is coming along. Maybe challenge myself to have a really minimal version of the critical objectives in the level so that it's technically "finishable" and then just needs way more fleshing out? But that one might depend on how quickly life stuff settles.
Follow along
Wishlist the game on Steam. You can follow this project via RSS (Don't know RSS?), or by following me on Mastodon. And of course feel free to contact me via email, or Mastodon with any comments or questions.