On Track - OpenSuspect Devlog #4

Hey, I’m TheSecondReal0, and I’ll be writing the devlog this week.

Art

Despite earlier setbacks, the art team is back on track! The character design has been decided upon (see above), along with the lobby design! As always, the lobby design was decided upon with a vote, see submissions below.

Moxvallix's submission:

Luke_Connor's submission:

NiceMicro's submission:

Luke_Connor’s design won, although the final lobby will probably be more of a mix between his and Moxvallix’s.

Game Design

The game design team had quite a productive meeting, we decided what the first map should be and how the game will play out. Like Among Us, there will be social deduction along with tasks. The first map will be a secret laboratory, where the “good guys” will complete tasks and vote out “bad guys,” and the “bad guys” will try to kill all of the good guys. This first map is more of a proof of concept for OpenSuspect, we have plans for more maps and unique gamemodes down the road.

For me, the most interesting parts of this map are items and maintenance tasks. Certain tasks will need you to pick up a certain item to finish them. This introduces a new layer of gameplay, as it creates a new type of task for the “good” team to do and it offers new opportunities for the “evil” team, like hiding the items somewhere on the map. Maintenance tasks also bring new and interesting possibilities. An example of a maintenance task would be a tank where you need to maintain a constant pressure. The pressure will gradually change over time, so it must be periodically corrected by the players. Perhaps an “evil” spy could adjust the pressure to be a little too high?

A comprehensive gameplay document can be found on GitHub

Programming

The programming team has been hard at work in the last week, adding spawn points, task assignment, and some UI improvement. Additionally, tools have been created to make map prototyping easy, and OpenSuspect now has keybind options!

Come join us!

We’d love to have you on the team, join us on Matrix!