Category Archives: Level Design

DevBlog 117 / Hammer to the Forge, Mace to the Face!

Hi everyone!

We’re excited to share with you that we’ve finished the combat animation overhaul, they’re all in-game and being tested as we “speak”!

This brought dramatic changes to the combat’s feel and pace, bringing it much closer to our vision. Here’s a taste to brighten up your weekend:

Mace to the Face!

There’s also another noticeable change which should be quite apparent in the above image if you’ve been following our devblogs for a while, and that is the visual polish we’ve been doing. We’ve tweaked the post-processing and illumination of our initial areas, and also took the opportunity to tweak environment sounds, improve loading times between different zones, tweak the enemy placement, add some ambushes and even some additional surprises throughout the game!

Some new assets were added as well, including new item icons and the town blacksmith’s tools:

Hammer to the Forge!

That’s all for this week, thank you for reading!

DevBlog 116 / Vines and Warfare

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Hello!

Curious title right? Hope you’re having a great friday, we’re back with some freshly baked goodies just for you!

We’ve been working on vines lately, and we’re not talking about those short and funny clips, but the pesky plants that will get in your way until you can find the means to get rid of them for good. Since we’re so considerate, we did add a few ways of doing so, yay for us!

Vine burning down, still work in progress!

Fire is the key here, you can use a weapon buffed with fire, a spell or even your torch if you get it lit. These will be temporarily blocking certain doors or treasure, and if you’re not able to deal with them at that time, you can always return later to explore. Also, do note that the effect shown above is still a work in progress!

Hope it doesn’t have anything inside that melts!

In order to provide more immersion and some visual storytelling, we’ve built ( and then destroyed, mwhahaha! ) some trading carts, used by merchants and plebs who obviously wanted to take their belongings from one place to another.

Such a lousy parking spot!

There was also an overhaul of the Vallis Sanctum puzzle, which is the largest and most complex obstacle you’ll face in the game.
We’ve actually decided to have 2 floors instead of 4, in order to make it more accessible and feel less of a chore in future playthroughs, for those who enjoy the additional challenge of the New Game plus mode.

Lastly, here’s another work in progress animation for the new movesets, which are nearly done and are adding such a better feeling to the combat overall!

Sword uppercut!

See you next weekend, hope you’ve enjoyed our progress!

DevBlog 115 / Let the old be new again!

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Hello friends!

This week we’re starting you off with a little treat, a comparison of the old version of the game with the new one!

Let the old be new again!

We’ve also been having a whole lot of fun with the new combat animations, both in their conceptualization and in the in-game testing!
They truly add a whole different feel to combat, putting additional emphasis on the weight of the weapons and the effort put into each specific attack, also allowing for better feedback when it comes to executing the combos. Also, we’re about half-way done with them!

Together with the combat animations, the logic for the Knuckle and Spear weapon classes has been implemented, both being new weapon types that have been discussed before and will definitely provide more options and variety on how to keep baddies at bay.

The canyons sure seem inviting!

The cutscenes are also continuously being refined, we really want them to convey all the emotions and personalities of our NPCs and scenarios, so we’ll keep on tweaking them until we believe they’re perfect.

Always mind your surroundings!

Last but not least, additional props have been created to embellish our world, as the new windows and shrubberies were a good starting point but not nearly enough, so here are some of the latest additions that are specific for caves and the likes, spider webs and roots!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this post, see you next friday!

DevBlog 113 / Polishing like there’s no tomorrow

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Hi there!

This week we’re bringing you some polish-in-progress screenshots and details, so lets get right into the news!

New environments!

Our workflow has improved ever since we’ve started working on the game, and new materials and assets were added and improved throughout development, so we’ve decided to do a major overhaul of the initial areas of the game, as we’ve shared in a previous post.

More new environments!

Alot of work has been put into this but it payed off tremendously, we’re extremely happy with the result, especially considering how consistent the world feels and plays with this improvement!

Taking into account all feedback we’ve received and our own play test sessions, we also continued working on adding new combat animations and tweaking the ones already being used, in order to provide the best feeling and feedback we can to combat, which is one of the pillars of the game.

Take it, it’s yours!

For the next week, we’re going to add a new cutscene into the game that will introduce players to the basic logic on interaction between the Elk and Ada, here’s a sneak peek!

Have a great weekend everyone!

DevBlog 111 / The calm before the storm

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Greetings!

While our teammates from the tech side of Amplify were busy showcasing our products at Unite Berlin, the rest of us kept working on the game… So we do have some goodies to show!
To start things off, here are some shots from the last area of the game. The Palace is still work in progress, but we feel like we can already offer some sneak peeks.

Imponent King Statue !

The calm before the storm…

The process of revamping the terrain meshes is pretty much complete. Below you can see a “before/after” comparison – we added more geometry to help with both the silhouette and the vertex painting.

Terrain mesh revamp!

Meanwhile, the last cutscene is finally in game, featuring perfect integration with gameplay. Also, the intro of the game is going very well – it’s a mix of a cutscene and gameplay.

Next week we will recap the Unite Berlin experience, have a great week everyone!

DevBlog 110 / Meet us at Unite Berlin!

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Hello!

This year we’re going to be present in Unite Berlin with two booths, one for Decay of Logos and another one for our Amplify Creations gamedev tech, so you’ll have a chance of trying out the game AND also to know more about our products!

Visit us there!

If you have the opportunity, come and visit us to meet the developers and play our game, we will definitely love to meet some more of our community members and fans!

Regarding this week’s progress, we have started working on using our newest asset within our game – Amplify Impostor Editor, which has already been submitted and is going to hit the Asset Store VERY soon.

We’re going to be using it in great scale in objects like bushes, trees and other small props, in order to achieve a considerable performance boost without compromising the user experience – you won’t even know they’re there!

New Bushes and Impostors LODs!

In addition, this is also extremely powerful for further optimizing our console ports, so we’re very excited to test the results.

We’ve also continued polishing textures and animations, doing Q&A runs and fixing bugs, so every day that passes the game matures into our vision!

To those who are visiting us at Unite Berlin, looking forward to meeting you soon!

Have a great week everyone!

DevBlog 109 / Hoarders, rejoice!

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Hi everyone!

We’re here for another weekly devblog post, this time with some fresh, new screenshots to share, and some additional information regarding our progress!

Hoarders, rejoice!

We’ve finished adding some additional content and logic to the village, such as the bottomless well, that you can see in the screenshot above, which allows you to stash all the goods you find without any limits.

Perfect for anyone who, like us, loves to hoard stuff!

Look how cozy he is now!

The NPCs’ positioning has been adjusted, and they will show up as you meet and interact with them during your adventure, and the village’s mood will be changing as you progress in your quest for the truth.

We’ve also continued to work on polishing the game, adding some further detail to the characters’ textures and animations while also reworking the terrain for certain areas, as we’ve mentioned in a previous post.

And now for something completely different!

We’re sharing a sample of the music that’s being worked on for the village, which will also change dynamically throughout the game, let us know how you feel about it, all feedback is welcome!

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Next week, we’ll do another extensive bug fixing run with all the issues and nitpicks we’ve found during out daily QA sessions, which have been both fun and gratifying as we see the game shape up to our expectations!

Enjoy your weekend!

DevBlog 107 / Gotta get them all!

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Hi all!

We’re going to be present in a big event here in sunny ( but somewhat rainy as of late ) Portugal during this weekend, the Euro Gamer – Portugal Summer Fest, in which a demo of our game is going to be available to be played so, if you’re currently in Portugal, come and meet us! This also means that we’re going to get even more invaluable feedback from many different players, and that is very important to us as developers since we get to see all the distinct reactions and gather all sorts of input that will definitely help us shape the game.

Come and visit us for a chance at playing Decay of Logos!

Regarding this week’s development progress, we’ve continued reworking the terrain meshes for the first areas, working on the cutscenes and preparing a build for this event, while continuing to fix issues and polish certain mechanics.

We’ve also got a few new weapons, fresh out of the forge, which will add variety to the combat and also work as sweet rewards for players who enjoy exploring. Our blacksmith focused on crafting many types of equipment so that we have at our disposal a balanced number of swords, bows, caestus, shields, among others. Here are some of these tools of war:

Gotta get them all!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s DevBlog post, stay tuned for the next one and have a great weekend!

DevBlog 105 / Treats for the eyes and ears!

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Hi!

Remember us mentioning in the previous post that we’re cooking up some new weapons? Some of them are already modeled and ready to be pushed into the game, feel free to let us know what you think:

Pro-tip: poke the baddies with the pointy end!

Also, the small introductory area, that will serve as the starting point for Decay of Logos, has just been completed! It will provide some gameplay and a cutscene, allowing for players to be introduced to the game’s Lore and mechanics just before being set free to roam our world.

Next, we’re going to overhaul the initial terrain and environments, bringing in some of the workflow that we’ve adopted while setting up the more recent areas, since these zones are ancient in terms of their development stage. In practice, they’ll be tweaked to look better, play better and feel better!

The new HUD is also in the game in its entirety, and its a treat to the eyes while also providing an overall better user experience while navigating those menus!

New UI, simple and elegant!

On the more technical side of things, namely audio, we’re done with fully implementing FMOD, a sound engine used by many popular titles, both AAA and Indie, that melds quality with flexibility. Trust us, your ears will love it!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this update, tune-in next week at the same time for more Decay of Logos goodies, and have a great weekend!

DevBlog 98 / Our interface has leveled up!

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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!