devlog – void room

the endless mode is coming

The endless mode is coming soon. If you’re looking for it in the game, it is called “tasks”. You can switch to it without finishing the story but I strongly recommend playing the story first. The endless mode took a bit of time to develop as it required significant parts of the game to be modified to support the idea of missions/tasks. As it is now, it is a playable framework that will be extended in the future. Having “tasks” in the game makes it possible for me to have more and smaller content updates. Just add an enemy or two. Weapon nodes, new weapon types, EXMs, devices, items. I…
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void room 2024-04-22 0

the interface boxes and tasks reasons

I wanted to have some devices to operate for the endless mode. The problem is that I wanted to avoid adding completely new stuff that would not be seen in the already familiar locations. That’s unless I would add that there as well. I needed something that could be reused for various purposes or could just work as a decoration. Enter interface boxes. These are devices that hang on walls. If they’re important for the task, they will open automatically if required. This is all justified by the narrative/lore. The first tasks you are given are about reconnaissance. You wander around the place, automatically scan the surroundings and transmit the…
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void room 2024-03-26 0

the task structure of the endless mode

The endless mode is going to be divided into, what I initially call, chapters. The idea is that chapters are completely different parts of a bigger story. And each should end with some mini story arc but the core of the chapters are going to be tasks. As I’d like to avoid just a pure mix of various tasks, I came up with a system that helps the game to choose which tasks to offer to the player. The basic idea is that the player should start with simple tasks that narratively provide some knowledge about places to visit and things to do, then they may choose to do these…
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void room 2024-03-15 0

about the endless mode

As I am working on the endless mode for Tea For God, I’d like to share some details describing the initial release and plans for the future. The current mode will be still available as “story mode” and it will be possible to switch between the two. My main idea about the initial release of the endless mode is to setup a main loop for a mode that can be worked upon. With all the basic elements in place, it will be possible to provide more gradual updates more often. New weapon nodes, new EXMs, new enemies, new places. Some of the new content may appear in the story mode…
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void room 2024-03-07 0

page malfunction

A few days before Christmas I woke up to learn that the downloads were not available. Then came the realisation that it was the whole server that was inaccessible and within another hour I knew and had it confirmed that I had something broken into my webpage. I expect that it was just some auto script looking for certain holes and bugs that ended up by installing a trojan in WordPress. I quickly separated various functionalities. The downloads, the privacy policies etc. are now on separate subdomains and held in separate places. First, it is now more tidy. I no longer have things mixed. Second, I can easily disable or…
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void room 2024-03-07 0

plans for September

I took some vacations recently that I was looking forward to for a long time. This is the reason why there were no updates for the game. For the next few weeks I should be mostly focused on porting the game (submissions). During the waiting time I don’t want to start any bigger tasks for Tea For God but I should be adding some small content (EXMs, weapon nodes, enemies). Most of that will find its place in the main story for time being. But the main reason for adding them is the next big task. And for that I decided to focus on the endless mode. I want it…
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void room 2023-09-01 0

update 1.0.3 and roadmap

Another update mostly about fixes but there are some other changes as well. The most important change is proper preparation of play-area size that is based on boundary points. It works now on SteamVR/OpenVR and OculusAPI. I will be investigating OpenXR as well. Other non-fix changes are related to some gameplay mechanics. Hitting (melee) is now easier as the speeds were lowered. You can get health and ammo from hitting small robots to make it consistent with hitting other objects. If the last hit is a kill and you have appropriate EXM installed, it won’t give extra bonus for a normal hit. Also, melee kills provide loot now (same as…
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void room 2023-08-10 0

preparing play-area from boundary

Since Quest link has been introduced there was one thing that was a bit problematic. It was impossible to read “play area”. It was incorrect, too big, rotated, reaching outside the actual boundary. I reported it only to learn that there were other developers before me who also reported the issue but it has not been fixed. When providing details for the bug and possible solution I found out that Oculus API is reading the boundary points correctly. The only problem was that the play area instead of being the biggest rectangle that fits INTO the boundary was just a rectangle that contained the boundary (with orientation just “as it…
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void room 2023-08-10 0

update 1.0.2 and roadmap

This update is mostly fixes but there are some changes about unlocks. For run-based mode, unlocks can be unlocked only if there’s no run in progress. You have to either fail or finish the game or – you can end the current run from the unlocks menu. I was a bit reluctant about this change as a long time ago I specifically made unlocks available during run as the unlocks do not affect the current run. But there were side effects I found attractive – if you buy an upgrade, consecutive permanent upgrades in the game will cost less. I have no idea why I liked this idea as it…
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void room 2023-08-02 0

first update and roadmap

The time after the release was quite busy and I know that I have lots to do now. With the game and with getting the game to the people. In the first update, I fixed some of the bugs as well as changed a few things in the game. About the bugs – there are still plenty of them to fix and they will be my main focus right now with smaller updates coming more often. The experience mode is no longer available in the full game. It was confusing, there were no explanations. Was ending abruptly and if you tried the actual game, after a few minutes you were…
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void room 2023-07-26 0