Infernal Affairs - Dev Blog (Current: Week 2 - The First Level)

[Luximora]

Premise:
Alright, so this is the first dev blog for my new project, that I’m naming Infernal Affairs. For those who missed my earlier posts, I'm making a horror game trying to go for a liminal vibe, the protagonist is an incubus soldier working for the human resistance against the demon lord. I originally had a more grand idea for a story that you can see a bit of in that old post, but I abandoned it after reading a post replying to it about smaller scope stories that are more character driven, which after sitting on that for a few days, I find more fun to write anyways. The game will have survival horror elements where you're scavenging for items. The sex scenes will be unlocked through the story, in between missions you can talk to characters in a hub to level your friendship with them, that part won't be super in depth, as I don’t want to balloon the scope of this game but I want it to feel at least cozy and fun.

Past Weeks:

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Week 2 (5/17/2025) The First Level:
Shorter update this week. I've been grinding away on a few key systems and spent a ton of time on level design, which doesn't translate to a big changelog but was still a mountain of work.

Inventory System
After much deliberation, I went with a radial menu for the inventory system. The player will only be able to hold 8 items at a time, which is intentionally restrictive:

• The limited inventory forces players to make tough choices about what to carry
• You'll be able to store excess items in chests located in safe areas
• This creates a nice tension between exploration and resource management
• I might adjust the size depending on playtesting and how many resource types end up in the final game

It took a surprising amount of time to implement this seemingly simple system. Had to refactor a bunch of code to make it work properly:

• Created a proper item class that's more flexible
• Remade the weapon class to extend from the item class (much cleaner)
• Revamped how items are loaded to work with the new inventory system

Level Design
This ate up most of my week but doesn't look impressive in a changelog:

• Completely finished the concept for the mall map
• Labeled all important locations, locked doors, key placements, etc.
• Started blocking out the actual 3D space for the mall
• Working out enemy placement and resource distribution

The mall is going to be the first major area of the game. Think of it as a twisted, liminal space version of a shopping mall. It's familiar enough to be recognizable but warped in ways that make it unsettling. I'm going for that backrooms vibe where everything is just slightly wrong.

Camera System

• Finally implemented proper camera switching for the fixed cameras
• Still need to tweak the transitions to feel smoother

Next Week's Goals
I feel like I might have jumped the gun a bit on level design. The core gameplay systems still need refinement, so next week I'm planning to:

• Clean up the player controls to feel more responsive
• Actually add enemies you can battle (right now I've got the systems but no actual enemies to fight)
• Work on the overall game feel and polish the combat
• Add proper hit detection and feedback

I need to make sure the moment-to-moment gameplay feels good before I get too deep into environment building. No point having a cool mall if moving around in it feels like crap.

Until next week,

Media

 

[Luximora]

Week 1 (5/10/2025) Getting Started:
Game Foundation
Making a proper foundation takes forever but once it's done, the other stuff gets done alot faster. Here's the basics I've implemented so far:

• Player character with movement
• Camera system (both fixed cameras that’s meant to feel like a camera on a wall watching you and a 3rd person option just for testing purposes)
• Scene switching
• CRT filter and color grading for that liminal vibe

Player Controls & Combat

• Built a state machine for the player (this makes everything cleaner code-wise)
• Added/removed/re-added a dodge mechanic (toned it down from DMC to more Dark Souls-esque with harsher timing)
• Added a jump then removed jumping entirely after testing, felt too empowering for the vibe I want
• Fixed animation issues
• A parry, I’m still not sure about this but I feel like if i make sure it's not op and the reward for parrying isn't too high it’ll be nice, like a last resort that you don't want to use unless you have to since it's not super reliable when your about to be attacked

Weapon System
I was worried about this since this is one of the more important parts of a survival horror game but so far I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out:

• Created a weapon class with different types (Melee, Gun, Punch)
• Added weapon properties like damage, durability/ammo, and cooldown
• Added the ability to swap current weapon with items on floor or drop weapons

Combat Feel
Related to weapons, it was important to make this work well, so far I think it's good, it could be a case of game dev glasses though, since I'm the one making it I may have gotten used to anything that isn't great so lemme know if anything looks bad:

• Created attack animations with variations (so you're not seeing the same punch over and over)
• Added animation canceling code
• Built a move queue system for those moments when you press attack 0.1 seconds too early but want the game to remember it
• Added placeholder sound effects to make it feel less empty

Camera Decisions
This was a tough one to figure out:

• Started with fixed cameras only
• Added 3rd person option to test out, I was worried that combat would turn really hard and tedious with the fixed cam
• Current plan: After testing, im not really worried about the fixed cam being annoying, the 3rd person cam does seem to give a very different vibe as well for what I want to do so I think I’ll abandon it, just keeping it as a dev option if you hit a specific code or something, it’ll be nice for debugging though so it wasn't a waste to implement

Enemy Development
Just started on this toward the end of the week:

• Refactored player code so enemies can share the same base
• This makes interactions between them way cleaner
• Beginning to implement enemy behaviors and AI

Concept Art
Nothing to show off since they're so sketchy right now but heres what I’ve drawn:

• The player, tried to go for a tacticool look
• A brawler like enemy
• The map for the first mission of the game, little be a compact, almost suffocating warehouse, at least that's the vibe im going for
• The first love interest, she’ll be a hard ass, and your commander, telling you your missions and stuff

What's Next
For next week I'm planning to:

• Implement the health/damage system fully
• Create at least one proper enemy with attack patterns
• Start designing the first mission area
• Begin work on the inventory system

Honestly, making a game with this vibe is pretty challenging but fun, there were some parts where I had doubts, the weapon system and animations were a massive headache but I’m happy with the progress I got in a week, I hope I can keep this momentum.

Everything is still using placeholder models and the environments aren't ready yet. But I promise it’ll eventually come together, I went outside on a walk yesterday taking a bunch of pictures for inspirations on environments since I live next to a place I always found sorta creepy, so I’ve been using that as inspiration and also took some screenshots of some places on google earth too so I hope the environments will have a nice vibe.

 

[Luximora]

Week 2 (5/17/2025) The First Level:
Shorter update this week. I've been grinding away on a few key systems and spent a ton of time on level design, which doesn't translate to a big changelog but was still a mountain of work.

Inventory System
After much deliberation, I went with a radial menu for the inventory system. The player will only be able to hold 8 items at a time, which is intentionally restrictive:

• The limited inventory forces players to make tough choices about what to carry
• You'll be able to store excess items in chests located in safe areas
• This creates a nice tension between exploration and resource management
• I might adjust the size depending on playtesting and how many resource types end up in the final game

It took a surprising amount of time to implement this seemingly simple system. Had to refactor a bunch of code to make it work properly:

• Created a proper item class that's more flexible
• Remade the weapon class to extend from the item class (much cleaner)
• Revamped how items are loaded to work with the new inventory system

Level Design
This ate up most of my week but doesn't look impressive in a changelog:

• Completely finished the concept for the mall map
• Labeled all important locations, locked doors, key placements, etc.
• Started blocking out the actual 3D space for the mall
• Working out enemy placement and resource distribution

The mall is going to be the first major area of the game. Think of it as a twisted, liminal space version of a shopping mall. It's familiar enough to be recognizable but warped in ways that make it unsettling. I'm going for that backrooms vibe where everything is just slightly wrong.

Camera System

• Finally implemented proper camera switching for the fixed cameras
• Still need to tweak the transitions to feel smoother

Next Week's Goals
I feel like I might have jumped the gun a bit on level design. The core gameplay systems still need refinement, so next week I'm planning to:

• Clean up the player controls to feel more responsive
• Actually add enemies you can battle (right now I've got the systems but no actual enemies to fight)
• Work on the overall game feel and polish the combat
• Add proper hit detection and feedback

I need to make sure the moment-to-moment gameplay feels good before I get too deep into environment building. No point having a cool mall if moving around in it feels like crap.

Until next week.

Media

 

[zARRR]

Oh that’s where you have been, I’ll be sure to answer your posts later