SIX 2023

We are very thrilled to share that we’ve been officially selected for the 2023 lineup of the Seattle Indies Expo! This weekend, we’ll be exhibiting The BridgeMaster at the Motif in Seattle for this free event on Sunday, September 3rd, from noon to 9pm. It’s just a short walk from the Seattle Convention Center if you happen to be there for PAX. We’d love to see you there!

We’re definitely feeling very grateful to be selected! This year, 57 games applied to be part of the showcase, and after 300+ reviews conducted by the panel of jurors, less than half (25) were ultimately selected to be part of the official SIX lineup. We feel very much in good company with an impressive variety of unique indie games, all made here in the Pacific Northwest. We encourage you to check out the other games in the lineup as well!

Recent Demo Updates

To prepare for our SIX submission, we made many updates to the demo after the Steam Puzzle Fest. Throughout the process, we conducted playtests regularly to keep a close eye on what was working and what was not. There’s always more room for improvement of course, but we’re confident in saying that the game is now in its best state so far!

Here are many of the changes we’ve made recently:

Design

• Expand intro with new illustrated story panels
• Add to, clarify, and rearrange dialogue
• Remove input suppression with bridge tremble
• Implement support for continuous keyboard input
• Raise star thresholds to reward perfect play
• Update villager AI to walk instead of jump if possible
• Make villager spawns static per level

Visuals

• Add VFX for rickety bridge tremble
• Update jump rune icon for legibility
• Display yellow pips for jump segments of escape paths
• Add environmental props to title screen and Worlds 2 & 3
• Include adjacent props when destroying houses

UI / UX

• Add Level Select menu to in-game HUD
• Lerp wood icons to resource counter
• Disable Undo & Restart when moves = 0
• Add pagination buttons and X/Y counter to hints
• Clear FTUE prompts upon activating hint
• Lerp text scale on updates to move and hint counts

First Time User Experience (FTUE)

• Add to and improve hints for all levels
• Hide hints after the magician moves
• Add FTUE prompt about how villagers escape in Level 2
• Add FTUE prompts for (de)construction in Level 3
• Add FTUE prompt for Undo in Levels 4 & 5
• Add FTUE prompt for jump runes in Level 10
• Add FTUE prompt for rickety bridge in Level 16
• Clear FTUE prompt for Undo/Restart once either is used

Music & SFX

• Replace ground rumble and add tile collapse SFX for intro
• Update footsteps SFX per character and surface type
• Add SFX for scroll pickup, rickety bridge, undo, and tile debris
• Add pencil scribble SFX for scroll dialogue and hints
• Play SFX at reduced volume in title screen
• Lerp in/out of paused low pass filter on music

Optimization & Bugfixes

• Limit frame rate to monitor refresh rate
• Self-destruct dust and splinter VFX
• Bugfixes for rickety bridges after undo
• Bugfixes for duplicated actions
• Bugfix for Level Summary scrim
• Bugfix for lerping wood icons

As always, thanks for playing, and stay tuned for more to come!