Here we are! Two weeks since last time. Most of the feedback I got last week was supportive of moving to bi-weekly posts, so we are trying that format going forward. The development is thundering ahead and the new plan of action is, so far, working out great. That plan, more specifically, is to add all content and features in an “ok” shape to the game over the coming months. Meaning that we are going for quantity over quality for a while. We’ll then do a feature/content freeze and polish everything like crazy while we also test the game in a more cross-faction balancing way. What does that mean from an Alpha perspective? Well, we are slowly getting there, and as soon as we are ready we’ll let you know, for sure!
Here’s a first look at the Wielder sheet. As you might notice, the name and portrait doesn’t really match that well. But nevermind that you, this is work in progress screenshot, it is supposed to be littered with errors. Makes it more real if you ask me!
In the spirit of our new development focus Niklas has been working on adding content & buildings for all factions these last two weeks. As well as made sure that we can identify our placeholder art with text. The placeholder art, sometimes grey boxes, will now gradually be replaced with either pure concept art or basic pixel art.
Before we went into “add content like crazy” mode David was expanding the messaging system. We use it to create cutscenes and now we can also show hints and trigger sound effects. He also did some work with the wielder character sheet together with Christian. Primarily focusing on the Essence and skills section. But apart from that he has been setting up troops and buildings for several factions. The same goes for Marcus, who also spent some time optimizing troop stacks placement within the Wielder inventory.
This is the first time we share pixel art that shows what lies outside the island of Arleon. Kordian has been hard at work in doing this first draft of the Rana environment. Do you think we are on the right track?
Carl has been working on troop stats, abilities and how they become available through buildings. Basically he's trying to make sure that the game has many different builds for each faction. Right now he is making sure that each faction can go down three different paths of research, resulting in different play styles. And these paths will be based around what exotic resource you acquire at the start of the game, resulting in different armies and kingdom compositions from game to game. Or you can just use the marketplace and play whatever suits you better!
The essence spires grant magic powers to the Wielders that controls them. These sketches are just but a few of the concept variations Felix has created. So far I think we have an interesting and wide visual range, do you agree?
Anders has focused on giving loads of art feedback, mainly troop animations and new adventure map buildings. He has also performed sexy tasks such as setting up folder structures, aseprite files and spritesheets on Dropbox. Making sure that the programmers can add at least temp art for troops & buildings for the remaining factions (as well as adding any existing art that wasn’t already visible in the game). Meanwhile, Kordian has been doing first pass art for all three remaining biomes beside Arleon. Felix has focused on concept art for battle assets and now shifter over to doing faction buildings. Furthermore we have a new pixel artist called Joe, who is helping us with more adventure map buildings. As if that wasn’t enough we have a new portrait artist, Andi, who has redrawn all troop portraits and started working on building portraits.
Here is an example of the works from our new portrait artist. This is Cecilia Stoutheart, a Wielder that you’ll get closely acquainted with in the Arleon campaign.
Patrik has continued his ongoing adventures with building the perfect inventory system. He has also made sure that the faction you've selected to play with affects the tiles around your starting town. Meaning that if you chose Rana, your town will be surrounded by a swamp!
Finally, please let me know in the comments if you want to hear some more music soon. If so, what tunes do you want? Adventure music? Combat? Faction themes? Do tell!
Take care and stay safe!
Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.