The main change I made is Planets.
And the story is: We are not ON Pulp Planet.. we are on a discovery mission, looking for Pulp Planet.
We're exploring the overgrown ruins of a Fallen Alien Empire, in the Far Away Galactic Archipelago. We teleport from planet to planet, we gather data to find more planets. We have to reach a high level of XPlore to find Dark Planets. And only here we can find Clues that lead us to our goal: Pulp Planet.
We are an Alien being of Glow Matter, we feed on this Glow, and we use avatar bodies built from Glow. We cannot touch anything that moves, unless it's made from Glow. Or we virus our avatar and eventually destroy it. We can fix it with Glow Stones.. It's where we also find Mr Raven now. Short for Space Raven.. Carrier of wisdom and stuff.
Another important update is the Compass.
No, there will be no map. You can explore randomly and you won't get lost. The Compass shows you the only thing you really need, the Exit. It's attracted to the Glow Gates / Teleporters. So.. I didn't want levels to be either very small or purely linear, I like that you can spawn anywhere in the level, and the exit will be at a fair distance from you, and that the level is only semi-linear. You can get a little bit lost. I didn't want you to be reaaally lost, and hop around in circles like a frustrated pigeon. You're supposed to move fast, collect fast, avoid all-hell. If you spend too much time in one area the creatures will increase aggro and become unmanageable. The Compass, streamlined interaction, simple action, simple UI, no brainy tasks, and aggroing monsters to top it up [in a future update, I need to rethink and redo the AI], will ensure fast, fluid gameplay.
At some point I wanted to make a running game, inspired by driving and parkour. But driving for me is not as interesting as exploration. It's purely linear, you only need to get to the end of the track, as fast as possible. While exploration comes with more possibilities, it's a lot more open. And parkour.. well.. that would be tough to design around. So fast exploration is my idea for now: collect glow, collect clues [future update], find boosters [future update], find the exit. Avoid dangers.
I want the game to move fast and have many, small, manageable obstacles. You don't get punished for making one mistake.. but make a few more, in a short time span.. and.. : / Difficulty increases tho, and when we reach the Dark Planets, we reach the Void [future update].
The Void swallows you whole.. No more Friendly Caustic Ocean here. You hit the Void, you are lost to it in a split second, during which you can rethink you entire life..
And then you're back at the start. Rogue-like. Your old avatar has been virused, corrupted, erased. The only thing you keep is data about Pulp Planet. And there will be an Intro Area [soon!], maybe you're on an Interstellar Mothership.. You chose a new avatar and start a new journey.
Last but not least... XPlore is now a Sign.
Instead of Accel [which is again part of Run. Run + Accel]. So we gather more XPlore and Pulp [Planet Clues] points if we lvl up XPlore. We also gather a bit of extra Glow. Similarly, if we lvl up Glow, it gives a slight boost to XPlore and Pulp. They friends. ^ ^ They reinforce each other, and I think this works great! Now it's much less likely you will get to a high lvl without getting any boost to Glow or XPlore at all.
So 6 basic signs: Run and Jump lvl up locomotion. XPlore and Glow lvl up the 2 forms of XP: exploration and glow. Life and Protect lvl up life and damage reduction. The last, seventh Sign, is Skill. Or Power. As in.. Superpower. If the old power/energy is now called Glow.. we can call the old skill.. Power? Maybe.