Octopus Goulash

Police interactions have received significant work as well. Among the new mechanics is a corruption/bribery system, where the result depends on factors such as the amount offered and the personality of the officer. Vehicles are becoming more integrated into the world too, including new mechanics involving vehicle theft, recovery, parking and confiscation. 🧬 SURVIVING THE ENVIRONMENT The city itself can now affect your health. A new disease and biome system introduces different illnesses connected to environmental conditions and specific areas of the world. Diseases have their own effects and progression, while new medical systems and items — including the ImmunoBooster — give you ways to deal with them. This also makes exploration slightly less abstract: where you go can now matter beyond simply discovering another location. 💻 SKYDECK & CODE SkyDeck continues to expand. A new CODE section introduces another layer to the computer systems of Octopus Goulash, including progression through C-Mode upgrades and some considerably more powerful possibilities later in the game. The Credit Miner has also become a persistent system rather than a temporary interaction. Computers, hacking, knowledge and exploration are increasingly connected to alternative ways of progressing through the game. 🐙 MORE QUESTS, MORE CONNECTIONS A considerable amount of work has gone into quests. Existing quests have been reviewed and fixed, while new ones have been added across the city. Some situations now have multiple solutions depending on what you've discovered, who you know, what equipment you possess or which systems you've learned to exploit. The path toward some of the deeper parts of the city has also been expanded. Knowledge, relationships, hacking, exploration and specific objects can open very different routes toward the same objective. There are also new larger encounters and choices, including situations where what you decide to do can leave persistent changes in the world. 🧠 KNOWLEDGE, TOPICS & DIALOGUES The Topic system remains one of the central mechanics of Octopus Goulash, but it has received a lot of work. More information discovered through quests and exploration is now connected to progression, while dialogues have been reviewed to better react to personality, relationships and context. The Knowledge systems, dreams, clues and some of the stranger parts of the main progression have also been expanded. I want discovering something about the world to occasionally be as valuable as finding an item or earning credits. 🏙️ MORE OF HUB 38 New areas have been opened or completed. Existing locations have received additional interiors, interactions and purposes, while several previously incomplete parts of the city have been revised. The Fun Zone has received substantial work, as have shops, special locations and some of the more hidden areas of HUB 38. Navigation has also been improved through work on the map, location connections, OWEB guides and other ways of understanding where things are. 👥 NPCs & RELATIONSHIPS NPC behaviour and interactions continue to be expanded. Personalities and relationships are being used in more situations, dialogue reactions have been revised, and several interactions with friends and other characters have received additional work. The goal is still the same: NPCs shouldn't exist only to give you quests. 🌐 LOCALIZATION & INTERFACE A large amount of less visible work has gone into the interface, tutorials, maps, menus and localization. Dialogues and game text have been reviewed across the supported languages, including fixes to previously missing or incorrect lines. OWEB has been expanded and localized, navigation has been improved, and several systems now communicate more clearly what is happening and what the player can do. 🔧 AND A LOT OF FIXES Alongside all of this, I've been going through quests, dialogues and systems that have accumulated problems during development. Quest blockers, missing dialogue branches, UI problems, incorrect prices, collision issues, interactions, shops, tutorials, vehicle behaviour, police interactions and many smaller inconsistencies have been fixed or reworked. Some systems have effectively been rebuilt rather than simply patched. Version 5 is increasingly about making all the pieces already inside Octopus Goulash talk to each other. The city is bigger, but more importantly, your knowledge of it matters more. Who you know matters more. Where you go matters more. And sometimes figuring out how something works is more useful than simply following the quest marker. There is still work to do before the update is ready, but I'll show more of Version 4 soon. Welcome back to HUB 38. 🐙