Two Weeks Later…

…and I’m back to coding again. Now that the dust has settled and all of the nasty bugs have been found and hopefully fixed I’m back to thinking about content instead.

There are two things I’m working on now - A Waves Update and Game 2. I’m splitting my time roughly 50/50 between the two and today is the first day of working on the Waves update (as opposed to just thinking about it).

The Waves update is going to consist of two parts. A big boat load of new achievements and at least one new game mode. Most of the new achievements have been suggested by the community over on the Steam forums and if you want to suggest some more then go ahead.

The new game mode is as yet undecided. This is because I’m actually going to be prototyping a bunch of new game modes and picking the one that’s actually any fun. So far there are three candidates and I expect this to increase over the next few weeks.

I’ve always had an open development philosophy with Waves and I plan to keep that going so here are the potential new game modes:

Outbreak - This mode was planned for the full game before the combo system and bombs appeared. It got ditched as a result of those mechanics making it completely trivial and very boring. Essentially this is based entirely around the self-replicating Virus enemy giving you a single life and a mission to stay alive as long as you can. This mode is NOT going to work as it stands because it’s missing a whole bunch of stuff that makes the rest of the game work (Virus kills don’t give XP for example). However it’s on the list for being brought back if I can find a way to make it work.

Chase - This mode has a time limit of 5 seconds. It could be the shortest mode ever. It is the speed metal of game modes. It’s a little like Bombing Run and a little like Rush. The mode is based around rolling over timer pads as quickly as possible in order to keep resetting the timer. You will be fully armed in this mode but with a 5 second time limit you’re going to find your route around the arena determined entirely by where the pads spawn.

EDIT: I’ve been messing about with Chase all day and it’s definitely going into the update. It is absolutely insane.

Hold - (Yeah I suck at names) This one is inspired by what a whole bunch of people did at the Eurogamer Expo: Not move. There will be an area roughly 25%-33% the area of the arena in the middle. Stay inside this area and all is well. If you move outside it for more than a few seconds though you’ll explode. Normally the edge of the arena is the safest place to be. This mode turns that around by forcing you to stay in the middle.

Those are the 3 modes I’m going to be prototyping up first and if it turns out that all 3 of them are fun then all 3 of them will appear in the game.

Now on to other business.

If you happen to be awesome with video editing software and interested in making a new snazzy trailer for Waves for no payment then I definitely want to hear from you because I suck at it. Also if you happen to be a marketing guru willing to work for compliments then I have a job for you as well.

There was an interview with me at True PC Gaming and some reviews of Waves here and here.

To end the post here are some statistics from Steam: