Dev Log #2: New Levels, Mechanics, and More!

Dev Log #2: Shelter’s Edge: New Levels, Mechanics, and More!

The team for Shelter’s Edge has been working hard at crafting and elevating its early prototype into a full release. For our second Dev Log, we’ll be focusing on milestones and highlights for Shelter’s Edge made during July 2024.

Polling Battle: The Game Title War

Did you know that Shelter’s Edge used to be Last Refuge? Did you also know that Shelter’s Edge was one of many title options that the team had pitched? In July, our team finally decided on the title of our game, after careful deliberation, market research, and much polling.

Expanding the Shelter’s Edge Universe: Level Design & Worldbuilding

As told in our first Dev Log, the Player has an ability to choose the stops they make on their journey to the bunker. In the prototype, those destinations were built using the level design assets that appeared as brick apartment complexes. The team wanted to diversify these locations, design levels and puzzles that challenge the player’s stealth and resource-gathering, and build upon the narrative of the Player’s journey amidst a road of horrors and desolation.

So, our Game Designer Dany and Lead Artist Con Ray collaborated on level design to pitch a total of 10 new levels for the full release of Shelter’s Edge! 

Additionally, the team worked on putting together a Tutorial Level, ensuring the player is taught how to use objects in their environment to deter monsters, and how to pick up important supplies. The Tutorial Level is within the Starter Bunker, which the Player must escape from at the beginning of the game. Below is an early iteration of the Tutorial Level.

And the following screen capture is a glimpse of the Tutorial Level as seen in-game.

While the Player is exploring, they will have the opportunity to uncover the secrets behind the nuclear explosion that took their city to the dust. The team will be utilizing the prototype’s Notes mechanic, which has logs detailing some of the Player’s origins. In each level, the Player can locate Research Logs or Notes, scattered alongside available resources and monster-infested rooms. Here is a teaser of the story for Shelter’s Edge, as described by Con Ray:

Well, we can’t just give the whole game away! :)

Other deliverables in Art and Narrative Design are underway, such as:

• Animations for Player Character
• Animations for Monsters
• New Creature Designs
• Environment Concepts for New Levels

Code of the Apocalypse: Implementation, Feedback & Improvement

Our Lead Programmer Vit has taken the time to detail the improvements made on the gameplay mechanics, visual and audio design implementation for Shelter’s Edge.

Vit: “To enhance the player experience, we’ve overhauled how objectives are displayed and tracked in the game. Each level now has clear, dynamic objectives that update based on player progress. For example, in the first level, you need to gather certain resources and meet certain objectives to learn the game. The objective system will guide you through that process."

Vit: “With the help of our new Objective Manager, the system can easily handle branching paths in later levels. We wanted to ensure objectives feel purposeful and tied to the narrative while keeping the focus on survival.”

Vit: “While making progress on these features, we ran into some challenges:"

AI and Light Detection

Vit: “Our original AI system wasn’t properly implemented to handle player flashlight detection. Instead of overcomplicating the system, we were able to solve this by reducing the detection distance of monsters when the player's flashlight was off.”

Balancing Resource Depletion

Vit: “Initially, players found resource depletion too punishing. We’ve tweaked the system so that while resources are still essential, the depletion rates give players more time to plan their next move without feeling constantly stressed.”

Vit: “We’re always listening to your feedback, so don’t hesitate to let us know what you think of these changes!”

A Melody Rippling in Misorder: Original Soundtrack & Ambience

Our team’s Audio Designer and Composer Antongiulio worked on composing the Truck and Main Menu Themes, completing the Master versions of each track in July. The beautifully eerie strings, gentle piano keys, and mysterious ambience pull the world of Shelter’s Edge together into an experience of unease and curiosity. You can preview these incredible tracks in our showcases for the Truck Design, available on our Instagram and YouTube!

 A Learning Curve: Junior Game Devs Leveling Up!

Two members of our team, Con Ray, our Lead Artist, and Polly, our Community Manager, have been learning how to use Unity to support the efforts for developing Shelter’s Edge!

Under the expert direction of Null Jam Games Founder and Producer for Shelter’s Edge, Vitality began to teach Con Ray how to implement the amazing pixel art assets he was producing into our game’s engine, Unity. Con Ray describes his experience learning Unity for the first time:

Con Ray: “The biggest hurdle for me was the fear of how hard working in Unity would be, since I exclusively had just done art assets, but once you get a run down by someone like Vit who actually knows how the program works, it is so much easier than I originally thought. The fear of doing something new, you know? By doing it more and more, it becomes easier and easier, which makes a lot of sense, lol.”

Polly, the CM for Null Jam Games (Oh, that’s me!), had previously learned some basic knowledge of asset implementation for Unity. Through Vitality and Dany’s guidance, Polly had grown to become more accustomed to navigating scenes in-engine, in order to capture footage for the promotional campaigns of Shelter’s Edge! 

What’s Next?

We’ve got some exciting new features to share in our next Dev Log, covering milestones in August:

• Expanded Enemy Types: We're working on some creepy new foes to add more diversity to enemy encounters and improving enemy AI.

• Showcase of Art Pass and Level Design for New Locations: We’ve been chipping away at building the eerie and thrilling universe of Shelter’s Edge.
• Continued Playtesting & QA: We’ve been coordinating with our UI/UX Designer Zethal to host further playtesting of Shelter’s Edge and its new features. 
• …And more? You’ll just have to strap in.

Thanks for reading, survivors. See you in the wasteland.