New area playable preview

New area preview. No new encounters or scenes set up. I've sprinkled the other monsters across the place, but that's just to have something to bump into. I won't be putting this area into the coffee demo. This is purely to test for feedback and update game progress.

Some minor important details:

Ghosts have had some changes to their mechanic. The act more like ghosts now.

Items sparkle when within 200 pixels now, every 10 - 15 seconds.

The master key is available from the starting area, if you're stuck. Normally, this will be assembled through 3 different items in the area, then in subsequent cycles, picked up by using Will (Green Stat) for easier access to the area. That's currently disabled.

Would like to take the opportunity expand on what the non-demo would look like. I feel I've been somewhat vague, even though I have it neatly organized in my head.

The game is split into separate time periods.

The dream cycle part consists out of a hub area, akin to the house where you wake up in the demo, followed by a dream location.

The demo area will not be present in the game, but that's the gist of what you can expect from a "dream location", but with less encounters.

At the moment, I want to have 4 dream areas done before a first pass of a full game release: sci-fi based lab, mansion, woods and a "meat world". These are in various stages of development, with the mansion probably being the most complete, hence the preview. 

The areas will be interconnected with one another, and each one will have sub areas, for expansion when I'm done with the initial four. In example: the cellar in the mansion can maybe transition into a crypt.

The hub functions like the house, with unlockable unique interactables. Scene replay, changing appearance etc. The idea is too add interesting things you encounter in the dreamworld to it for ease of access. i.e the DNA reconstruction machine, the mirror.

Dream locations can have both persistent events (locks,encounter,scenes) as well as those that reset. To be honest, the later is to pad the gameplay somehow.

The real world consists of a morning, afternoon, evening(night) period.

I want to have 3 areas ready for a release, to explore.

The starting home will not change from the demo, though I still want to add a cooking mechanic to it, that manipulates the 4 main stats further.

About stats.

Body. Upon reaching 0, Will and Mind are reduced to 1. You are transported to a short precision maze, regardless where and when. As there is no lose state, this is purely to punish the player for doing reckless things. Upon reaching the end, you wake up in the "morning" period.

Mind. Certain events, encounters, items vary based on the Mind stat. As dreams are "configured" during the shift, they will for the most part remain based on what the Mind stat was at the moment. This is incredibly hard balance around short demos, so I don't think I'll be able to demonstrate how Mind affects interactions and gameplay until much later in development.

Lower Mind will generate or unlock weirder outcomes, while hiding some of the common sense approaches. Realistically, this is to make the same areas feel more unique per cycle.

At 0 Mind you experience a "nightmare" (i.e Fleshwall or spider hugger animation) and, afterwards, spat out into a dream location. The stat is reset to 50%. I'd like this to be area or cause specific, but that will require a lot more animations.

Will. Is a consumable stat. It allows manipulating some outcomes in creative ways. Will be used in the dream hub to utilize its features.

Stamina. Functions as it does in the demo. 0 - shift to dream, 100 - wake up. Most actions either consume or replenish stamina

The intended game loop here is to manage and maintain your stats as needed through various objects and items through out the game, before shifting.

Writing

Aside from Rin, I have 3 more named NPCs *planned*.

Nameless NPCs provide basic dialog messages, not unlike standard JRPGs.

Dreams for the most part consist of encounters that can't or won't reason.

All written text will be through dialog. I don't write prose.

The story itself is rather basic:

You lose your body and seek to get it back. Things get worse. Try to get bit back and stop further changes.

I'll talk more about it when I get the intro done.