So, what's been happening...

Well a lot of thing really. The main map of the game has been reworked completely. Dead of Night is built using GameMaker Studio Professional, and in the beta every screen is technically a level, so when moving between screens you were moving between levels. The problem with this is that having NPCs walk around is very difficult as they are moving between levels, which doesn't really work as the engine won't work on anything if the player is not in the same room. In hindsight I should not have made the game this way but you learn these things as you go along, but now the map for each main area (the castle and the town) have now been put into their own levels, which means that people will walk around more naturally, and also the cops will now chase you around the map and become more of an issue to the player - hiding / transforming to human will me more useful and necessary.

The cops are now a little more deadlier, but can be killed now! Be warned though, more police will show up, and if an NPC spots the player and is able to reach a phonebox or the police station a new cop will appear and will race to the point that the NPC seen you.

Each part of the map has been redesigned to make it look a bit fresher. Some areas are now a little bigger and have a bit more of a maze feel to them, making the player wonder if it would be a good idea to explore a new area depending on the time, or get some sleep and explore without the fear of getting caught in the sun!

Having each area in its own level also meant that the graphics needed to be reworked. The main issue was the size of the graphics which have now been resized to their normal resolution, which cuts down the texture pages and reduces memory usage. Again hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Again with the graphics, there have been more animations added to the game in a few areas (NPCs, Vlad, etc). The HUD has been reworked as well to make everything a bit more uniform, and the day/night timer has been changed and fits in better with the rest of the HUD.

While working on this I have been wondering if I should implement a save system. My whole intention with Dead of Night is to make it feel like the Commodore 64 games that I grew up with, to the point of having very little options to change (key rebinding is available, also the option to have fullscreen and windowed). To this end I have (at this point) decided not to implement a save system. Maybe the lost art of mapping games will come back :)

The music has been touched up a little. Nothing much but I'm loving the feel of the tracks a little more now.

I am working to get a final test version out this month all being well, and if everything is good then the full game will be released shortly afterwards. Stay tuned!