Category Archives: Dev Blog

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 77 / Voodoo or souvenirs?

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Hi there!

This week we’ve worked on adding and improving the audio for the game, having added a lot of new sounds for the characters and even the environments, resulting into a much improved mood, which is getting close to where we want it!

Half of the team was working on a complex and intriguing boss battle, from which we can only reveal that it has two distinct participants. As such, there was plenty of work involved in both programming and in the artistic side as well. The first part of the encounter has been finalized, and we are hacking away at the second phase now!

We also took the opportunity to give some love to the Elk, the control system is being tweaked and improved so it’s much more responsive now!

Wandering in the dungeons.

The work on the canyon-like area we are currently developing is entering the final stage – texturing and detailing. After that the team will focus on the main dungeon of this location.

We really don’t want to spoil the boss fights too much, but we’re all eager to show at least some of the cool stuff everyone has been producing. So here is a little teaser for one of those important battles:

Souvenirs!

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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 74 / I could barrel-y dodge that!

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Hi everyone!

Today we will show you one of the new enemies we added and teased recently, the Mimic Barrel. Even sneakier than the Chomper, it will pounce when you are carelessly looking for some random items inside barrels and crates. It delivers fast attacks and is very agile, which will certainly make killing it your top priority.

The Chomper is also complete, with all the attacks it requires, such as throwing things at the player depending on the zone it spawns in, like mud, sand, etc.

We also tuned the camera a little bit, which now adds a small offset when the player is locked to a target, so he/she can always see the focused enemy.

Oh my God!

The work on the new area is progressing smoothly, we are using the following concept as the main guide for the mood we intend for this location:
Meanwhile, the high-poly model for the new boss is pretty much finished, so the game-ready version will surely be developed during next week!

Mood concept for the canyon.

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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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DevBlog 67 / Not everything is what it steams…

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Hi everyone!

A busy week with a final sprint to finish the steam themed chapter we have been showing off lately, while also performing some final touches and working on logic testing.

The streaming world logic is undergoing some changes for the best. We’re hacking at optimizing the loading of new areas while also removing the stuttering that sometimes happens, which is noticeable on slower hard drives.

The new cutscene system we are using, that was also mentioned it in the last post, is looking great! This tool will be crucial for our emotional cutscenes.

These particles steam a bit out of place.

Don’t just stained there looking at all that cool glass!

For this past week, our artists have been fully focused on producing the 3D models of various enemies, including the new chapter’s boss. The high-poly version of the orphan kid character we’ve shown in the last update is pretty much complete, so here’s a sneak peek!

High Poly of the masked youths, featuring Blanka cosplay.

Hope you all have a great weekend, stay tuned for more updates!

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DevBlog 66 / Jetpacks, picnics gone wrong and tribals!

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Hi there!

This week we continued working on the current chapter’s end boss, nearly all of its move-sets are complete, while the AI polish and behavior are currently in the works. This boss has a lot of extra moving parts and we experienced some problems managing several of its animations simultaneously, but we’ve solved this in the end.

A fully functional jetpack!

We also finished populating the environment of this chapter while also adding the logic to support it, now it’s time for testing and to finish balancing! Here are some combat encounter screenshots:

Two’s a company…

…three’s a crowd!

Unity 2017 released an awesome new tool for cinematics, so we’ll have to port our existing ones and create the future ones with it for a more cinematic and professional feeling.

Regarding the next chapter, players will mostly be facing a new threat, the masked youths that dwell in the depths of the Rift! Their visual concept was inspired by a Portuguese tradition, the “caretos”, as well as Princess Mononoke’s battle costume. Their motives for attacking the girl on sight will have to remain a mystery, for now…

Orphan kid.

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