Shy Snake’s got their hands full

We’re working on a few things here, one is almost done, and the others will follow soon after.

Thing One is one of those quick changes that turn out really big and involved. The idea was to switch out the scripting language we used in missions and dialog flows to help Alex write and debug missions quicker.

If you ever did a DIY project of your own, you know that sometimes, you open things up and go, “Well, while we’re in here, might as well do that other thing I was meaning to do.” And soon you have a disassembled motor on your dining room table and tools on every available surface, and there’s no turning back, just through. So, good news, we’re almost at the point where the motor goes back in. Jason will write up a blog post about that soon. Once the motor is in, that is.

As soon as the motor is back in and running, we’ll push an update to the Beta channel on Steam. You should see some stability and performance improvements from that. The maps should load quicker, for example.

Now Thing Two is directly tied to that first bit. While Jason’s been working on pulling things apart and putting them back together again, Alex was using the new scripting language to create new missions, which are now just waiting for a bit of testing and polish before they can be added to the game for you to play. That bit will come a little while after Thing One is up on Steam.

So stay tuned, and we’ll have a new shiny version for you to play with soon.

December 2019 Spy DNA Beta update: Equipment

Spy DNA handles equipment differently than other games. We attempt to simulate the real world as much as possible. So I will talk about encumbrance, uniforms, and accessories.

Encumbrance in Spy DNA involves two mechanics: weight, and free items. Weight will be familiar to everyone. More weight means it becomes harder to move and you have to slow down.

We also add the mechanic of free items. The idea is that to carry an item, you either need to store it in a pocket, backpack, or other location made for the purpose, or you have to carry it in your hand. Because of this, even a few free items will quickly make it impossible to move. This represents the character’s inability to hold everything without dropping anything.

Too many free items

To clearly show why a character is slowed down or can’t move at all, we now show two distinct icons over the character portrait to indicate the two encumbrance conditions: a kettle-bell weight for weight encumbrance, and juggling hands for too many free items.

Uniforms are used to ease the management of character equipment for missions. Each playable character has four uniforms: base, casual, field, and fancy. These act as preset slots for equipping characters.

Too much weight

When heading out on a mission, you can select one of the three non-base, uniforms. You can customize the appearance and equipment. Whenever you modify a character’s uniform, it is saved and will be loaded the next time you select this particular uniform again. So if another similar mission comes up you can click a uniform and start with the same equipment you used last time, or modify it to suit the needs of your current mission.

Note that when a character returns to base, the leftover equipment isn’t kept. Any storyline changes or resources advancing the characters’ progress is applied to the state of the base level when you return from the mission.