Eddie Von Walt and the Infinite Bulb is a roguelike for Meta Quest where you tend a bar in 1984, seated and with hands only: you grab, pour and throw, no controllers. If you want to know why I made it, I wrote about it in the post "Behind Eddie Von Walt". Here I'll tell you about the latest thing I'm working on: night events.
The car first, then the event
Every event gives you a warning. A few seconds before, the Red Corvette rolls up outside the bar's windows: it turns slowly toward the door, stops, its headlights sweep the glass and the wall, and the engine roars. Then the bulb sign on the pillar lights up with an animation, the border chasing around and a few flashes, and tells you what's about to happen. When the event ends, the sign goes out bulb by bulb.
There's no announcement at the start of the night. You see it coming.
What can happen
Events are drawn from the run's seed, so the same night of the same seed always has the same event. There's never one on the first two nights, never on the boss night, and never two bad ones in a row.
- SURGE: too much power, and every throw that lands chains to the cubes nearby.
- VIP: an important customer walks in, big tip and almost no patience. Serve him and he sits at the little table and, once, saves you from a cube.
- RUSH: the bar fills up, tips are doubled, and during the storm every cube you take down is worth double.
- DRY NIGHT: no beer and no vodka for the whole storm. You only have what's already on the counter.
- STEAM: a pipe bursts, the room fills with dark fog and the cubes come in soaked, so shocks jump from one to the next.
- SLOW MODE: everything runs in slow motion, the cubes, the throws, the music. Except your hands.
- BLACKOUT: the big one, and the one that gave me the most work.
The blackout
The whole street's power goes out. Eddie pulls out the bulb and sets it in the middle of the counter: it's the only light in the bar, and its charge slowly drains. In the dark, new creatures show up:
- moths, which land on the bulb and drink its light through a thread of blue light. You swat them with your hand or knock them out with a throw;
- the snuffer, tall and thin, with a torn cloak and a cone hat with a little green light on its tip. If it reaches the bulb it takes half the charge; it takes two hits to stop it;
- the will-o'-the-wisp, harmless: touch it and it drops two tokens.
The voltage probe and the breaker don't work, there's no electricity. At the far end of the counter there's a red lever: pull it and you find yourself in front of the fuse box, with a timed sequence of buttons to repeat. If the bulb dies completely you lose a life to the dark. And if you lose your last one, there's a game over all of its own.
The first test and what changed
I tried it on the Quest and the verdict was clear: beautiful, but too short. In about thirty seconds you couldn't finish the puzzle, and with five lives you were never really at risk. So in the version I'm testing now, the blackout lasts two nights in a row, each one much longer. The fuse box is clearer, with a big timer and an alarm, and you can actually see the moths drinking the light.
I don't know yet whether that's the right length: I'll find out in the next tests, and if you've played the game, tell me what you think.
*Eddie Von Walt and the Infinite Bulb is in Early Access on Meta Quest: free during Early Access, 5€ at the final release. The events described here are in the update I'm testing now, not yet in the published version.*