New player abilities

We have a Summer Update for you, fresh and ready.

Let’s begin with new abilities. As a player you have to choose one of 4 basic ship configurations: Rocket, Bullet, or Laser. Previously every ship had, in addition to a boost, also a power boost, which can be activated by pressing SPACE by default.

As we continue to expand on player modules and upgrades it made sense to give each ship configuration a dedicated ability.

Starter Ship: Front Shield

Bullet Ship: Power Boost

Rocket Ship: “Rocket Rain”

Laser Ship: “Infernal Sphere”

Visual Overhaul

We are in process of improving the first three district environments as well as all four bosses, which are now more detailled than before. They have evolved from simple geometric bodies to actual flying machines. Here is a comparison in the 3D modelling software Blender 3D:

Boss 01 Old | Blender Workbench

Boss 01 New | Blender Workbench

Boss 02 Old | Blender Workbench

Boss 02 New | Blender Workbench

Boss 03 Old | Blender Workbench

Boss 03 New | Blender Workbench

Boss 04 Old | Blender Workbench

Boss 04 New | Blender Workbench

Regarding districts: At festivals we realized players don’t always see the boss area when completing the kill threshold to unlock them and some fly around in the area and don’t know what to do next. To help mitigate confusion, we added neon coloured geometric shapes at the position where the boss will activate.

Every district is assigned to a specific shape, so this is an opportunity to make the districts more distinct.

District 01 | Blender Eevee

District 04 | Blender Eevee

We made a decision and have a new name!

And finally … we have chosen a new name for 9 Dystricts.

After countless whiteboard entries and social media polls we arrived on something unique, hopefully SEO friendly and somewhat descriptive.

We realised we can’t have everything, as much as we tried it didn’t seem possible for us to describe every important aspect in a name that is short concise, easy to read and to pronounce, but I think we have come pretty close.

9 Dystricts > Nion Forge

Logo reveal in next devlog!

Next steps

Now we need to focus on a new logo, new capsule art for Steam, and an announcement trailer to get the steam page looking like something that could be interesting. Generally speaking we need to get the marketing machine going. This is our first commercial game so we have to swim a little bit in murky waters.

Don't forget to wishlist our game on Steam, if you are interested. I would really help us out:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2954090/9_Dystricts/

Currently it can still be found as "9 Dystricts", but that will change soon. Should the link not work, please check the comments section as the new one will likely be put there by us, in case this page cannot be edited afterwards.

Stay tuned and read you next time!

-Richard and Martin