You might recall that I compared our development team with a band of adventurers in the last blog post. Continuing on that note I’d like to give a warm welcome to the latest addition to our party: Robin. I’ve had the privilege of working with Robin before, in fact, he was the first person I ever employed, acting as CEO of another game studio a long time ago. I would describe him as the low-key guy that doesn’t stand out from a crowd until he suddenly just slays the task at hand while spinning a dagger in his left hand with ease. And perhaps throwing in a witty remark as a bonus. Welcome to the crew Robin, lots of adventure and terrifying dungeons ahead of us. Keep those daggers sharp and ready!
Deploy the Fists of Order. The taxes will be paid on time next year, no doubt about that. Let this rabble pay the price of their insolence.
Team tech was supposed to focus mainly on the campaign from a UI and user journey perspective. However, Niklas has instead had the privilege of mainly squishing bugs and increasing stability, along with Marcus. They have solved quite a few race conditions we previously had with the AI. So the AI won’t accidentally take over your troop movements anymore. Some might say that this was a bug, I’m suspecting the AI is just preparing to take over! The tech team has also solved a few online bugs which made it difficult to play online without hiccups.
The Level Editor also got a bit of a revamp. Niklas went on a shopping spree and bought some plugins specifically targeted at level editors. This changed it up quite a bit, with fancy features such as dockable windows and in general a more dynamic look.
The AI continues to improve in the loving and caring hands of Marcus. Lately, he has focused on controlling the AI movement and refactoring the timing in battle to allow the AI to be more consistent when it thinks.
We can draw gizmos in the level editor now. I’ve been told this is a very good thing as it gives the level creator greater control over the AI behavior. Huzzah for gizmos!
Robin has overhauled the Wielder inventory. You can now see what gear the Wielder has equipped, the effects they give via tooltips and use a drag-and-drop system to change the equipment around.
Team look and feel took a deep dive into battle yet again. Emil has mostly been working with user experience regarding ranged attacks and attackable objects. David has made sure that the impacts, hits, and knockbacks feel juicy and rewarding for the player. Much time was also spent on figuring out the general look of our spells. We are trying to find a style that combines both the retro vibes of pixels but at the same time looks modern and fresh. Shaders, particles, and modern VFX combined with hand-drawn sprites. It is a tricky path to walk, but I’m confident we will find something that will look stunning.
It was too long since we showed a new troop sprite. Behold the Oathbound in its fully animated glory!
The art team has been busy looking at the adventure maps. Anders spent a good amount of time analyzing the visual storytelling of the Arleon campaign and creating assets that we felt were lacking to tell the story in an optimal way.
Patrik re-worked a lot of the functionality in how our engine draws the adventure maps on the screen. A lot of plain old boring optimization, which now makes the game run much better. But he has also got a water system to work and we now have slopes so a player can actually traverse up and down from high ground even without wings!
Recently we asked you about how to visualize the portrait for non-wielder hostiles. We got some really good ideas and are now showing the troop portrait that corresponds with the hostiles highest tiered unit. Keep commenting, it makes a big difference!
Thomas has tweaked the Arleon biome, increasing the readability, and improved the visuals overall. Additionally, he did some work on wielders and on the Rana troops. He has now turned his attention to the Faey-parts of Arleon woodlands and is collaborating with Patrik and Anders to give it a dark, magical, and mysterious vibe.
Emanu and Marti are pushing on with animations. We have tried and discarded a few variations of sprites for Cecilia Stoutheart, the main protagonist of the Arleon campaign. And it finally seems we have settled for a style and frame count that works well. It is always tricky to strike the right balance between visual awesomeness and hitting deadlines!
Patrik recently made sure that you can click and re-click on a tile to update the random placement of trees. This will be a handy tool for finalizing the visuals of our campaign levels, making them look just right for each area.
In case you missed it, we lately released a new song from our Soundtrack. It is a moody and immersive piece called “The essence” composed by Reynir Helgasson, the party Bard. Do check it out!
Until next time, take care!
Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.