Category Archives: WIP

DevBlog 104 / More weapons, more fun!

Hello everyone, hope you’ve all had a pleasant week!

We’ve always intended to develop some new weapons to add even more variety to combat as soon as the major areas of our game were completed, and the team has decided that time has come! Our in-house carpenter has just been shifted to the smithy, where he’s currently tackling the following blueprints:

One of these weapons lets you be one step ahead of your enemies, guess which!

There has also been some further planning and discussion regarding our older animations, while also taking into account all the feedback we’ve received so far from testers, QA and players at PAX, which has lead us to start working on tweaking and improving some of them. Below you can see our old dodge animation first, and then the new one, which is still a work-in-progress, which provides better visual feedback to the action, and provides a better feel to combat:

Guilty feet have got no rhythm!

The new dodge animation, wip!

Last but not least, we kept the QA and bug squashing going, and every week that passes the game feels better and plays better, which is extremely gratifying and motivating!

That’s all for this week, have a pleasant weekend and stay tuned for more!

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DevBlog 103 / Statues and visual story telling

Hey!

This week the team has worked hard on finding and fixing the bugs that have been spotted during PAX. Simultaneously, all of the game’s audio has been converted into FMOD, which grants us greater control over how we want everything to sound like, with a much more flexible workflow.

On the art side, the development of the last area of the game is progressing nicely, with all the final meshes and textures already in place within Unity, awaiting the detail and polish passes.

The statues we have mentioned previously are also pretty much finished, and we can’t wait to start placing them around in the various locations of the game to really strengthen the visual storytelling.

Scary Statues and palace props.

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DevBlog 98 / Our interface has leveled up!

Greetings!

As the time to showcase our game draws near, we’ve been polishing and tidying things up a bit in our latest build, more details will be announced in the near future!

We’ve also added FMOD to our game, which allows for greater audio fidelity while also providing some nifty features such as setting our music dynamically according to certain fight stages or events, improving the overall experience.

Epic battle music ensues!

Regarding our UI, it’s being completely revamped as it was still an old placeholder from the dark days of the early alpha stages, here’s a sneak peek at what its shaping up to become, feedback appreciated!

Elegant and functional!

As we finish building the last zone, which we’re REALLY looking forward to share with you as soon as its complete, we’re adding new, unique materials that are specific to its architecture, can you guess what each of them represents?

Those are some marble-ous materials!

That’s all for this Friday update, stay tuned for more next week, and thank you for reading!

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DevBlog 96 / Ada Reborn

Dear readers,

Another week full of polishing touches and bug fixing has passed.

The development of the final area is going well, and it provides some breathtaking visuals together with a good opportunity for introspection as you make your way through its scenery.

Fabulous!

Regarding the new version of the main character, she is now in-game, as you can see in the following gifs.

Old Ada served us well throughout development, she will never be forgotten!

The way to the Elk’s heart is through its stomach, obviously.

We’re still retouching some animations because her anatomy is a bit different, and our new smith is refitting the armors as well for this same reason, of course.

Fly like an eagle, sting like a bee!

It’s hard to express in words how we are all pleased with this new version of the main character, we feel it was the right call and everyone worked extra hard to put her into the game prior to the game’s release.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this post and the sneak peek we’ve provided into the reborn Ada, see you all next week!

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DevBlog 95 / Debugging, Polish and Beautify

Hey there!

The team is still hard at work preparing the show build areas by fine-tuning animations, enhancing the mood through color grading, as well as placing new assets in the scene. All this will serve as a guide for the remaining parts of the game, particularly regarding the level of polish.

New particles on the way! Echo shells sound like waves in the distance.

Debugging some stuff on the editor, always fun!

Another cutscene is finished and now it is time to begin focusing on bug fixing before integrating the final zone of the game, adding mechanics prefabs, manage the streaming logic and such. After this last step, the whole team will be on the “polish phase”. Almost there!

In other news, Ada’s high poly model is pretty much finished, as you can see below. We are still testing which should be the main color of her clothes, as you can tell from the polls we’ve posted. We’ll share the final version once we’ve settled the matter!

Ada High Poly is done!

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DevBlog 94 / What? Ada is evolving!

Hello, travelers!

Today we’re excited to bring you exciting news, pardon the redundancy, regarding our protagonist, which has received a full overhaul! Feast your eyes upon her new look!

Hello, gorgeous!

The reason why we’ve reworked her visuals is because her original version was inspired on an old concept of a different artist, and the game’s visuals have been taking a slightly different path than what was originally planned.

What should we be wearing today?

We’ve decided to do it at this stage since we have much more experience in creating something that melds with the current art direction and visual style, and we’re already done with the High Poly version, so she will be in the game soon enough!

Some of the initial areas of the game are being further developed according to this logic, as we enter the final stages of production.

Regarding the last area, we’ve been fleshing out both the Palace and the encompassed region, and the following screenshot might be related to this!

Hold it!

One of the cutscenes is being actively worked on and will make its debut on the show build, some new animations were… animated specifically for this, and some additional logic as well. This build is nearly 100% complete, we’ve been squashing some bugs and will perform further QA in order to make sure it’s buttery smooth!

That will be all for today, we look forward to next Friday!

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DevBlog 93 / Jumping Ada, Hidden Blacksmith

Hey there!

We weren’t expecting our plaster DevBlog post to become so popular, so we considered talking about bricks today..! Jokes aside, we’ve had alot on our platter for this week, so let’s get right into it!

Woah, we’re half way there!

We’re working hard… I mean, we’re always working hard, but lately we’ve been putting some extra muscle into a show build for the upcoming Expo’s! More information will be shared when the time comes, please bear with us.

A new NPC has also been added to the world, her name is Nuri and she’s a large blacksmith that will be tucked away inside of her shop, providing additional conversations and a new mechanic to the game.

Where’s this Blacksmith I read about on the blog?

She will offer to repair your items, if they are worth her time, that is! Don’t bother trying to get her to fix your flimsy, rusty swords and battered straps of wood, pieced together as makeshift armor!

You can jump but you can’t hide!

And here’s the latest, new and glorious animation, the new jumping while sprinting that will be invaluable for bypassing gaps and traps.

On a final note, we’ve also been doing a pass on all the cutscenes for the game, revamping the old and starting to work on the new!

That’s all folks!

Have a great weekend!

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DevBlog 92 / Today, we bring you…

…plaster. That’s all you’re getting today. Hello!

Today’s post will be a little bit technical, since we’re still working on the last area of the game, which should have no plaster, planning and tweaking the final battle, adding some new animations and working on an unexpected and surprising new… thing, which is not plaster.

We aren’t ready to share any details yet since we want to make a full reveal of it when it’s done so, for now, all we have to give is this tease! … and did I mention that we also have plaster?

Plaster.

In all seriousness, we’ve implemented these two workflows to achieve two different types of results that, albeit simple, convey different moods. The faded plaster on the right is simply one mesh with two textures blended through Vertex Paining, while thick plaster technique is achieved by combining two meshes, as you can see on the right wall.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the fine plaster we brought you this week, we promise to make it up to you in the near future with some exciting revelations!

Have a great weekend!

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DevBlog 91 / Elk used Charge. It’s super effective!

Hello world!

We’ve just finished the last character for the game but, unfortunately, it’s not going to be revealed in this post… not sure if we want to keep it a secret yet… we’ll share this instead!

What if I told you…

Here’s a sneak peek into some artsy, performant trickery that we use to simulate world elements in the distance, it’s not pretty seen up close but it does its job pretty well if you’re far, which you will be!

There’ll always be room for some more polishing in regards to every aspect of the game, up until release, and characters won’t be an exception, of course. Still, it’s an important milestone and we’re glad to share it with you!

She was not the only one to knock, after all!

Some additional logic has been added to the Elk, meaning that our faithful companion has a couple of additional mechanics under its metaphorical belt ( saddle? ), as you can see in the image above.

The dialogue system has also been further tweaked, and the order by which you meet and talk to NPCs will now affect what they’ll say, adding some additional depth to the narrative and exploration even though you have no conversation choices, which is intended.

And that’ll be all for this week, everything is shaping up nicely as you can see by our most recent posts, soon we’ll have the last area finished and more effort will be put into the polishing of the game as a whole, perhaps even adding a couple of new surprises and extra content, yay!

Happy weekend!

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DevBlog 90 / She’s the one who knocks!

Hi everyone!

This week we’ll have a “slightly shorter than usual as far as words are concerned but always great in content” DevBlog post, and while you can expect a few more like these down the road let us assure you that we’re always at full momentum behind the scenes!

During most of the week we’ve focused on the final area of the game, as well as its characters, which are still work-in-progress but will make their appearance in the near future.

There was also a major review and overhaul of the dialogues and lore text for the whole game, which has been a bit time-consuming as the whole team has taken some time to express their thoughts and pitch some suggestions, we’re nearly done with it though, phew!

Oh, and the game manual is being reworked as well, as it was ancient, dusty and full of spider webs.

Also, here’s a special treat, just for you, a screenshot and a quote from one of our characters, take it, it’s yours!

*epic battle music playing*

“But you listen to me, and listen closely… when blue blood drips from your fingers… don’t let it taint your spirit. There is just something rotten about the Royalty…” – Some Misterious Character

And on the subject of Magicae, which we approached in the last DevBlog, we’ve put some thought on how it may be used outside of combat and have taken the first steps in that direction, as you can see in the following gif!

Nothing can stop us now!

That’ll be all for today, wasn’t as short as we initially expected it to be but we just love writing! Feel free to get in touch with us with suggestions on what you’d like to see in future posts, we read all emails, messages and comments we receive on our social networks and it fills our hearts with joy to get your feedback!

Have a great weekend!

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