A new prototype has landed!

It’s with great pleasure to announce the first update to the prototype version of the game! I’ve spent a lot of time reworking some core aspects of the game that I’d like to briefly share.

First, the story has been completely rewritten to now come from Chelsea’s POV. This is crucial since you now play as Chelsea instead of a nondescript character. Likewise, I’ve introduced a new non-binary character: Sam, who takes the role of the previous “MC”.

Paintbrush, the puzzle system, now uses a more reliable approach to validate puzzle solutions. Although the idea of using machine learning to validate puzzles sounded fun, it was impractical in practice. Paintbrush now utilizes the Protractor gesture recognition algorithm. This approach should be less time-consuming to iterate and develop on, and it will increase performance by reducing the need to use machine learning.

Next, the “random solve mode activation” glitch has been resolved after discovering a race condition problem regarding player movement. This should make entering and leaving solve mode much more reliable.

Finally, some other small bugs in Caslon and the game have been resolved and should be much better.

I’ve released an updated version of the prototype directly on to TestFlight for iOS and iPadOS, and the macOS version is currently under review by Apple for TestFlight. In the next milestone, I hope to tackle some of the bigger problems with the prototype, such as the lack of a tutorial and adding assets to the game to give it a more polished feel.

If you haven’t signed up for the TestFlight program, you can get started here: https://indexingyourhe.art/prototype.