October was a very productive month for us! Strange Seed is beginning to feel very “playable”, even though there’s much work left to be done. [h3]Combat lock-on[/h3] Combat feels completely different with this change: locking-on to enemies. This includes an auto-rotate to attack and auto camera rotation while moving around. [h3]New creatures: ant and bee[/h3] [img]https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2191624307495692711/350176CE2870EF3A72046E5C08CBC1C5C42E2C8E/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false[/img] 😀 [h3]Controllers (of all types!) enabled[/h3] Pretty much everything should work now! I’m a controller-first guy and being able to constantly test Strange Seed using a controller is a huge, positive change for me. … actually, I haven’t tried playing with a joystick or rhythm game accessory yet, so I can’t claim “everything” 😅 Let’s just say, any typical game controller. [h3]Controller: ranged attack hold to aim[/h3] Once we had the controller in, we realized that ranged attacks need a special control scheme when there’s no mouse. With a mouse, you just click wherever you want to attack. With the controller, hold L1 and move the joystick to position the landing zone. (This makes me want to play Valkyria Chronicles again…) [h3]Final word[/h3] Originally I thought we’d have a rough demo out by now, but the plan was to have very incomplete combat mechanics. When it came down to it, combat felt so central to the game that we needed to work on polishing it before the demo. So that’s what we’re doing right now — in November, we’ll be running some private playtests of combat in greybox levels, ensuring that our attack timing, movement scheme, encounter design and so forth is really solid. Thanks for reading!