Category Archives: Level Design

DevBlog 83 / Pole-ishing things up a bit!

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Hello fellow adventurers-to-be!

Hopefully you’ve all been having a blast stockpiling gifts for your dearest ones and yourselves too (come on, you deserve it!) during this week’s amazing sales! If not, that’s fine too!

But we digress… the DevBlog post #83 is here for your delightment!

We’ve been performing the final pass on building the Canyon Area, which includes the logic for the area’s content, gameplay and general flow.

Some NPC interaction events have been added as well to provide some additional story and lore, as well as some new assets such as…

Boats goin’ on here!?

The main puzzle we mentioned in the last DevBlog post, within the Roratory Temple, is now complete and fully functional, and all that is left now is to build up some dungeons and spice up the already existing ones!

The renowned dancer that was waving his weapon around last time we wrote you, or the Royal Guard if you prefer, is coming to life in terms of gameplay… basically he’s being taught how to make your lives miserable!

And he’s really committed to it!

The Canyon Kids have also picked up a couple of tricks, we felt that despite being really agile they were but lacking in the sneakiness department, so we fixed it!

Don’t worry, they’re in battery saving mode!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s post, stay tuned for more and thank you for reading!

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DevBlog 82 / Boy does she look puzzled!

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Hello friends!

We are almost finished with the largest puzzle that you’ll have to tackle in the game, it’s been a blast designing it and seeing it come to life as we all expected!

This puzzle will be present within the Rotatory Temple, and it draws inspiration from the Rubik’s Cube, which was part of our team’s childhood and maybe yours as well, so without further ado here’s a little something for you!

This gif puzzles me…

Our QA barbers have combed the lands thoroughly for even more nasties, trapping them all in neatly organized cages for the programmers to do some pest control… we take bug hunting seriously, honest!

Oh, the Elite Guard you saw in the last DevBlogs is already in the game, and he’s picking up some groovy moves, look!

Just Albert swinging its Halberd.

Lastly, the Canyon zone continued being spruced up, and it’s looking damn good! We’ve even added the interior for a Windmill that you may or may not find… what’s up there you ask? Well, you’ll have to find that out for yourself as well!

We promise it’s not flour!

That’s it for this week’s DevBlog, we hope you’ve enjoyed it and that you have an amazing weekend, see you next week and thank you for reading!

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DevBlog 81 / Oh my guard!

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Hello all!

A lot has happened this week, we’ll do our best to keep it short and sweet with all the juicy details, so let’s jump right into the news!

Pun intended!

The Canyon area has been under heavy construction, our chief mason has been busy chipping away at all the rocks and cliffs so it won’t be long before we share some details on this zone!

Some of the dungeons have been blessed with added complexity and intricacies and several new sounds have been added to the game, as some are still temporary, but there is still a handful of work to be done here.
Also, here’s a shot of the Royal Guard in-game, on a scale of 1 to Big, he’s pretty big!

And as tough as he looks!

We also came up with a new solution for the torches and their mechanics as we weren’t at all pleased with how they were working before even though they were working as intended. As it was, our beloved main character had to look for a torch every time one was needed because she wasn’t able to store them, but it quickly became more of a chore than a complementary mechanic to the game. For this reason, we’ve changed their logic and now a torch is available at all times, yay!

Our QA army has been combing the game for all those nasty pesky bugs, much squashing was heard throughout the week with more to come in the next!

What’s this? The Royal Guard is being animated already? Uh oh!

Oh no!

We honestly can’t wait to see them in action, terrorizing our protagonist!

Stay tuned for next week’s DevBlog, thank you for reading!

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DevBlog 80 / And there was much rejoicing!

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Hi everyone!

Hope you’ve all had a great Halloween and hoarded a ton of sweets!

Let us start by celebrating the 80th DevBlog Post, yay!

And there was much rejoicing!

We kept working on the Boss for the Canyon area, concluding its fight mechanics and animations that will surely provide a memorable challenge with a unique twist!

Some extra animations were also added for the main character, allowing her to dash diagonally in order to give players more freedom in dodging melee and ranged attacks, we’re pretty happy with the new dynamic they bring to combat. Here, have a sneak-peek!

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!

On a sidenote, we’ve already added the first animations for the Magic system in the game, more information on this in a future DevBlog!

There were some polish passes on the AI of all enemies regarding their behavior while engaged in combat, mostly in terms of rotating towards their target, to be more specific.

The Royal Guard we’ve shown in the last DevBlog is already in the Low Poly phase, looking as awesome as it looks menacing!

Finally, the architecture for the massive Canyon puzzle is mostly complete, here’s a screenshot just for you!

Plans for the weekend? Spelunking!

As always, thank you so much for taking the time and interest to follow our blog posts, see you next week!

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DevBlog 79 / No tricks here, only treats!

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Hi everyone!

We’ve been working on the final modules for the massive puzzle in the Canyon Area, which should be finished soon enough! Here’s a beautiful scenic shot of the Canyon, taken from higher grounds.

Such Canyon, much windmill, wow!

The Elk also had a few more tweaks and polish in its behavior, including proper fear mechanics that have it getting scared and running off when enemies are nearby, which wasn’t quite working as intended before. As a result, it behaves more realistically now and helps with creating better immersion.

The Boss for this new zone is short of being completed, we’re setting up the third and last phase of its encounter, which can be harder or easier depending on how you handle the first two phases… but you’ll have to find that out for yourselves! No tips for you!

Regarding combat, we reworked and improved the Bow logic, providing a much smoother experience for those who like to grab that opportunity to land some extra damage from a safe distance before fully committing to melee combat.

Speaking of melee combat, here’s a screenshot of the Royal Guard’s high poly model… and yes, these foes will be as tough as they look, beware!

You don’t want to mess with these guys!

Thank you for reading, hope you have a great Halloween and enjoy the treat we’ve prepared for you, here goes!

Happy Halloween, Om Nom Nom!

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DevBlog 78 / Hey there, how’s it hanging?

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Hi everyone!

This week we continued working on the Elk behavior and polish. The challenge was providing a smooth control and feeling inside dungeons, mounted or not. The canyon has a huge rotatory temple so dealing with ramps and slopes forced us to rework some path-finding logic.

With our animator in-house now, it has been easier to iterate the animation tree and logic. For a long time we intended to add acceleration and stopping animations when the player is in “exploration mode” (when there are no enemies around). In our prototype we had this feature but we removed it temporarily. Below is our first test:

Small run/walk acceleration and stopping animations.

Here’s a possible encounter in the dungeons!

Hey there, how’s it hanging?

Regarding the environment art, we are finally focusing on the previously mentioned dungeon. It’s a huge structure, with an overarching puzzle. Meanwhile, the outside areas are awaiting a final pass, which will include some texture variation and plenty of vegetation props. Here is a work in progress shot showing the current state of things:

Another canyon WIP view.

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DevBlog 76 / Dungeons &…Hold the Door!

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Hi everyone!

This week we’ve added a new, simple mechanic to add more diversity to the main puzzle of the zone we are currently working on. Inspired by the Indiana Jones Movies, specifically where stone doors close slowly, you’ll have to sprint and slide in order to successfully reach the other side.
We are focused on maintaining a smooth learning curve as far as puzzles are concerned, so we’ve increased the complexity of previous puzzles in the game in order to prepare players for the challenge this latest one provides!

*Indiana Jones Music intensifies*

Using our modular dungeon system, we’ve also done some extensive dungeon building tests, however, it still remains to be decided whether we will add randomly generated dungeons or at least different layouts for them in NG+ and beyond!

Custom dungeon example.

We decided to add a new threat to the player – elite soldiers, members of the royal guard, that will surely be a tough challenge to those who dare face them. Here is the concept:

Royal Guard Concept.

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DevBlog 75 / Canyoning

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Hi there!

This week we added a lot of new sounds to the game, both character and background related. And with that a very important immersion component of the game was improved. This is of course an ongoing task, and with new zones and enemies, new sounds must be added.

We worked on the logic for the small lakes too. The drowning, walk in deep water and splash interactions were implemented, but without the proper polished particles we intend to show at a later stage.

As stated before we re-used armors from enemies as player items, so there’s now a scary version of the main character!
Shadows in general have undergone some small but crucial modifications; basically we now use the same technique used in CryEngine/UnrealEngine and other custom engines.

Left: Scary mask! Right: New point light shadows

Same as before, the new canyon-esque area is progressing nicely, and we are spending quite some time adjusting the mood and materials to achieve the proper feel for the place. The work on the new character models is also headed on the right path.

Some progress on the Canyon Mood.

Check out these moves!

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DevBlog 72 / World Design inspirations

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Hi everyone!

This week we worked hard on the Bottom Rift Windmills area, It’s pratically done, and ready to apply the workflow we talked about on the Devblog 58

For this particular zone, we did some research on real locations and came up with a lot of architectural influences. The image below show places like Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park in Spain (Pyrenees), Phugtal Monastery in India, Canyon de Chelly National Monument in the US and Puente Nuevo in Ronda, Spain.

From left to right top: Puente Nuevo and Phugtal Monastery. Left to right bottom: Ordesa y Monte Perdido and Chelly Monument.

Like we said before this is a very early blocking of the zone, it still needs a lot of detail and beauty props on top.

Top-view of Bottom Rift Windmills blocked zone.

This zone is perfect for a stroll by the riverside!

Our animator is almost done with this little fellow that will be haunting you in the Rift Windmill zone!

Acrobatic attack no.2!

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DevBlog 71 / Survival rule #1: Cardio

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Hi there!

Half of the team members are enjoying their much deserved vacations, and our programmer and game designer is back and working on the blocking of the final zones of the game! Most of the ideas are in paper and sketches including the puzzles, encounters, cutscenes and events. Blocking the final zone of the game provides an opportunity to look at the game as whole, while also considering its pacing and mood building and performing small tweaks here and there.

Right now we are blocking the Bottom of the Rift Windmills, the area inhabited by the previously revealed canyon kids. We’re aiming at a spicing up the place with a lot of exploration opportunities while taking advantage of the topology of the terrain to include plenty of vertical exploration as well. Here’s a small preview below.

Bottom Rift Windmills blocking preview.

Like we mentioned above, small tweaks and polish passes were made in the previous zones in order to achieve the intended mood. Below you will find two pictures, the first one being of the Old Woman’s House, and the second one an encounter with two cursed soldiers that are into jogging.

Old Woman’s House in the woods.

Survival rule #1: Cardio.

Hope you’ve enjoyed our devblog update, have a great weekend!

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