General Update: 3.0.0 and Plans for 4.0.0

I'm making this post to explain how 3.0.0 and 4.0.0 will be working as I am hoping to pick up the pace with production at least a little.

3.0.0: Animation Experiment

As you may know, 3.0.0 has largely been an experiment with animations for me. I tried some more expressiveness with the Silverfish and Basaltmite that Supporter+ members have gotten to playtest and the final 2 preds of the update will be getting another jump in animation quality due to me hiring an animator. This will not yet extend to the older preds, but I have plans for that in 4.0.0.

3.0.0: Unfinished Struggle Animations

One thing that will be very noticeable in 3.0.0 is that all of the new pred's struggle animations will be very basic. This is because struggling as a whole will be changing in 4.0.0 and I didn't want my animator or I to spend time on a large set of animations needed for a system that will be completely changed in the next update. I hope you can understand this as it will just be for a single update.

4.0.0: Mechanics Changes

Struggling will be undergoing a significant change in 4.0.0. Rather than getting a single check every little while, you'll get multiple back to back, and succeeding a struggle will require a certain % accuracy out of the round to count as a success. You'll have a little more time between rounds with this and there will be less rounds because of it, but the time needed to react with a correct struggle will be decreased.

This also means that each pred type will have a set number of struggle rounds, and instead individuals of that type will vary in the minimum and maximum randomness their struggle rounds can be.

This will keep players on their toes a lot more, meaning it will be more exciting to interact with while still allowing for enough breathing room between rounds.

4.0.0: Animation Changes

One big thing I have in store for 4.0.0 is the complete rework of how struggles will work. The old system of struggle directions matching inputs will be completely removed to match the new rounds system. Instead, preds will get expressive loops interacting with their prey, which will be split into 3 levels. These levels will track the pred's prey slowly getting weaker, meaning you'll get to see yourself or a pred's prey losing their fight in a much more indicative way~

4.0.0: Past Pred Reworks

Lastly, 4.0.0 will be updating all previous preds to have new animations better fitting of the higher level of quality, while also giving the Zombie its male pred variant at last.

Much of the time the update will take will be because of the level of care put into these new animations, so I will be sharing new animations teasers with Supporter and Supporter+ members occasionally.