A new public build!

I’ve decided to publish a new public build of Predatory Pursuit. It’s been a hot minute, so I figured it’d be nice to give people a look at what’s been going on.

If this is all tl;dr for you, just skip to the last section, please (:

“Legacy” build

Since this is still not feature-complete (Fen can’t step on you), I’ve left the old public build up as a “legacy” option. If you’ve used the Itch client to download the game, you’ll need to explicitly download the new legacy version – the “preview” build has the new stuff in it.

What’s in here?

The game has been significantly reworked. You can now play it as a complete sandbox, spawning in characters (just Fen and the gryphon for now), customizing their stats (1 second digestion time, burp), and taking control of them. So, you can play as both predator and prey.

I’ve done some grunt work on a bunch of game systems. A few examples:

• The Director is now a fair bit more pleasant to use. You can spawn entities, then possess and unpossess them at will.
• I’ve implemented a way to configure any entity in the game. So, you can set Fen’s stomach to digest people faster, for example.
  • You can’t save and load these customizations yet. It’s already possible, technically, but I need to come up with a nice interface for it
• Lots of UI has been spruced up. Control hints look nicer, and everything’s been made a little more consistent.

What’s missing?

• Internal views, stomping, and throwing haven’t returned yet. The first one will take the longest, since predators can now be devoured by other predators!
• A few niche things aren’t hooked up – for example, you don’t experience fear when being chased by Fen
• There are only two scenes at the moment. The campsite is definitely returning soon. The village will also be back later.
• Some animations aren’t done yet. For example, you just walk super-quickly instead of actually running.

Some tips

I have not fleshed out tutorials yet, so here’s a short list of things to know:

• Hit backspace to un-possess an entity and go back into a spectator mode.
• Hit R to perform an action. The gryphon can make a noise. Fen can grab prey, devour prey, and belch
• If you want booooones, set “Visual Violence” to anything other than “Tame”

Known issues

• I forgot to put in prey vocals entirely. I’m going to wait a bit for these, since I have Plans(tm)
• The Aural Violence setting also doesn’t do anything right now. It will control rough or gory digestion sounds.
• A few accessibility settings aren’t useful right now – I don’t think anything causes camera shake, and nothing can obscure your vision right now either!
• Walking backwards feels…bad. I’ve switched to using root motion, meaning that the animation actually drives movement directly. I might disable this for the possessed player.

What’s the plan?

I’ve gotten pretty serious about developing this game. This has a few implications:

Other games won’t be worked on for a while. I want to put as much time and energy as I can into Predatory Pursuit. That means Synth/Resize won’t be getting any work done on it, notably. Sorry to anyone who wants a horny macro soulslike, but this is taking priority!

You’ll be seeing more frequent updates. Experimental builds will come every Friday, and public builds will come every few weeks.

I need your support. The donations I’ve received so far have been incredible, and I’d be pretty comfortable working on this full-time if they grew just twice or thrice. I don’t run a Patreon (maybe I should?), but if you like what I’m doing and want to see more of it, your donation would much appreciated.

And with that – happy belated New Year! Don’t let Fen get you (: