Blight has been out since May 31st 2024, and while that’s not been hardly any time I was able to see a stream of someone playing an early version of it; several revisions back to be exact. I understand why people may not want to watch their own movies they act in, or see comments on a YouTube page, but I think that is where I ended up finding myself. I was hoping to have much more feedback on BLIGHT since its release, but the streamer has been the only commentary that I’ve had outside of testers.
I specifically asked for play testing, but what I got was a whole colorful commentary on some things that needed addressed. Mix that in with an echo chamber of viewers, it was hard to weed through the actual constructive criticism and the profanity-laced anger from the difficulty of some of the maps. I did respond to the streamer and thanked them for the comments they made once they reached the end of their attempt. There was some good suggestions mixed in, it just took a bit of time to hear it. I had to watch the entire stream, and unfortunately, that wasn’t the best experience to sit through; funny comments mixed in with sharp insults.
With all that said, I have had to take into consideration the dreaded revision phase. I expected to get a little more feedback on map design, combat, and general playability before having to do maintenance on the maps, but after that stream, and what seems like the lack of interest so far (perhaps due to said comments above) I’m having to do some major re-tooling of the maps. The biggest culprit was E7M5. That map was a figurative Hell to go through.
I completed it on Ultra-Violence starting with only a pistol and I don’t consider myself an expert on this by any means. But it was hard and I wanted it that way. I wanted that by design, but the curve was high from E7M4. So I’ve gone back through and removed many of the enemies, or changed them. I’ve added more health and ammo. I’ve kept the munitions the same as I do want players to engage the enemies with more unconventional weaponry. Berserk and Chainsaws are very effective for many monster types and its a shame that they don’t get the love they deserve. That lead to a lot of the ammo starvation when players fell back on using only the Shotgun.
Despite how I wanted it, I had to take the play-style of the majority of players into account. I’m sorry, you’re not getting a Super Shotgun in this game, and if I made a BLIGHT sequel, its not going to rely much on the SSG like so many like. But I digress. I’ve added some additional game mechanics like randomly spawned monsters, and will incorporate an additional puzzle. In other words, I hope that version 1.1 will be worth the wait that people who were looking forward to BLIGHT will actually enjoy.