Recently the main focus has been around combat, how it works and how the other characters in the world might react. I set out to have melee attacks, and with the bare bones of it working - even a 'wrench' that needed collecting by the player to begin combat - it just hasn't turned out to what I was hoping. The game was trying to be too many things and a top down combat game this isn't.

Returning to the core pillars of what I'm hoping the game will achieve is very much about exploration and puzzle solving. I do want to have some challenge to the players life though, and so I changed focus to something a bit more stealth like which folds nicely into the puzzle element. After a rewrite of chunks of code, there are now autonomous robots that can be interacted with and woken. These have a line of sight, so crouching behind objects starts to become a game-play mechanic. If they spot the player they can attack on sight, they also have close range defence fields which again impact a players health if you get too close.

All in all I feel at the moment this is the best course to take. Removing combat away from the player and instead posing challenges around avoidance and stealth feels more fitting.

Below is a shot from one of the newer rooms with one of the robots taking a pot shot!

That's all for now, thanks for reading.