Smarter Shadows, Flickering Lights

Hey everyone! We’re back with another devlog for rêver, our 2D horror mirror-realm game. This past week, we focused on AI improvements, polishing player tools, and more interactive systems. Things are starting to feel more playable!

🤖 Enemy AI & Pathfinding

Our enemy’s intelligence is taking shape with several big steps forward:

• Auto Pathfinding: Enemy AI can now navigate the map more intelligently.
• Basic Room Pathfinding: Uses an n-gram heatmap to “remember” where the player tends to go.
• 2D Navmesh: Integrated navmesh pathfinding to handle complex room layouts.
• Obstacles: Added prefabs for movable and unmovable objects, so the AI has to plan routes around them.

The result? The enemy is feeling less like a blind chaser and more like a presence that stalks intelligently through the house.

🔦 Flashlight Improvements

The one thing keeping the darkness away, the flashlight, got some important updates:

• Fixed Flashlight Jitter: Movement feels smooth now.
• Low Battery Mode: Flashlight now changes behaviour based on battery life
  • 50–100%: Normal beam.
  • 0–50%: Cone radius shrinks and falloff increases gradually.
  • 0%: Flickers out dramatically.

🗝️ Interactions

We’ve expanded what the player can do in the environment:

• Pickups: A base pickup system has been built, with added highlighting/outline to make items stand out.
• Doors & Keys:
  • Locked Doors: Behave like normal doors once unlocked.
  • One-Way Doors: After being opened once, they can be passed through normally.
  • Keys: Consumed on use.

💡 What’s Next

Looking ahead, we’re planning to:

• Combine enemy AI pathfinding with puzzles and environmental obstacles.
• Expand the pickup system beyond batteries.
• Start integrating our gothic and surreal pixel art style into test rooms.
• Continue refining flashlight and stamina mechanics for better tension.

That’s it for this update! Thanks for following along as our mirror-realm gets creepier and smarter. Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions.