Development update #19

Hello, strategy game lovers! We’re back with another update about Songs of Conquest. This week I’ve still been pretty much focused on contracts and administrative tasks. We are signing up four more freelancers that will help us with sounds, texts, portraits, and pixel art. As I added them to the ever-growing credit list I realized that this game now has had over 25 active contributors. Wow. I truly feel privileged to be a part of this team, on a journey, to create an amazing fantasy world and game experience. Currently, there are around fifteen of us working on the game, spread across different parts of the world.

Christian has been working on visual mockups for the Spellbook. This just one of several variations, but it gives you a general idea of which direction we are heading in.

This week Niklas has been working on getting our songs mechanics to a basic state. This is a bit of a big reveal really, as we haven’t talked much about it until now. Basically it means that our musically-oriented troops will be able to play songs that give certain stat boosts/nerfs for a single round in exchange for their entire turn. Further on we will share more about just exactly how you learn new songs. But, in order to create the system, Niklas had to make changes to our Bacteria (the all mighty stat-changing system) and add filters. I’m sure it was a breeze.

Here’s the Songs editor in which Carl can create and tweak songs for the game. Good thing Carl is actually a composer AND a game designer. He was pretty much born to do this.

Furthermore, Niklas has been tying the whole team together even more strongly around a specific development target. We now have a clear strategy of adding all content and features, at least in a rough state, to the game up until the end of July. After that, the idea is to do a content and feature freeze and polish away while we play the heck out of it.

Anders has created more Wielder sprites and remade the Arleon Fortress building to better work with our 2.5D system. He has also been involved in the animation process of Arleon units. Kordian and Felix have both been taking a stab at new textures, trees, mountains, and blockers for the Doneria and Rana Biomes. All in the spirit of getting more content into the game at a higher pace.

Andi, who has just started working with us, has worked on the portrait of Cecilia Stoutheart. She is a character that has stayed with the game from the start of development and is one of the protagonists in the Arleon campaign. Later on, I hope to share an evolution of Cecilia portraits so you can get an insight into how the look of the UI and portraits have changed over time. This time I think we have nailed it though, fingers crossed!

You can now split troop stacks. Which is… a good thing. Each stack gives you the amount of essence associated with the troop. So, going for many small stacks or one big can make quite a difference from a strategic perspective.

A final thought that I want your opinion about: I’m thinking about switching to bi-weekly updates. I think the dev blog would have slightly more… substance if we allowed two weeks to pass between each update. I’m also thinking of mixing up the format a bit and doing interviews with team members some weeks, where we only focus on one aspect of the game, such as UX, design, or art direction. Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

Stay safe and take care of each other.

Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.

Development update #18

We’re back! Two weeks since the last blog post, did you miss us? It was good to get a break during Easter. I think the whole team needed to get some fresh air and sun. In fact, it feels like many people across the world are in dire need of fresh air and sun! Speaking of current events, we have now also had our unfortunate share of hampered development progress. Mostly because some of us have been sick and some of us have had kids that have been sick. Development continues but at a slower pace.

As for me, these last weeks have mostly been all about preparing freelancer contracts. I’ve also done some exciting bookkeeping stuff, preparing for the yearly audit, and had plenty of discussions with Niklas about our general workflow, etc. We are used to remote work, but as the team is growing, we need to make sure that we get new people into the right routines early on. Also, we are soon signing up a great portrait artist to work with us on Wielders, Troops, and Building portraits. Can’t wait to share the results with you guys!

Here’s another preview of how we can interrupt gameplay and pan the camera to specific points of interest while we show a text. As you can see we didn’t exactly spend lots of time creating an immersive level to show off the system.

David has been working on basic spell book functionality. I asked him what “basic” meant and he told me that “spells will only be listed with an icon, with no filtering, ordering, good looks or any of that stuff.” No good looks huh? Knowing David I’m pretty sure it will look fairly good anyhow. He tends to care about the little, but oh so important, details. But then again, implementing functionality comes first, making it shiny comes later.

Behold the mighty “Runtime graph plotter”! It’s a system where you can plot and visualize a graph-like object (at runtime!) Whenever you desire. Personally I just hate visualizing graph-like objects outside of runtime, so this is… eh. Perfect for me!

Patrik has been focusing on the inventory UX. You will be able to drag and drop artifacts to equip and unequip them (and also perhaps drop them to the ground). It’s very much work in progress as he’s not getting to put a lot of work hours in at the moment.

Our lead development code guru has, among other things, gotten Kordians home computer up to speed with git so that he can work properly from home. Kordian is now working on textures for our Adventure maps cartography system. Niklas has also been looking at refining the development strategy for the team. What we should focus on next and how to get everyone tied together, working towards the same goal. And he’s now finished the system for outlines and shadows on the text! 

And finally, he’s worked along with Emil, they worked quite extensively on getting the zooming hotkeys (both keys and mouse wheel) to work in a way that felt good. Much more complicated than we initially thought but they solved it!

We can now add outlines and shadows to our fonts. I expect this news made Christian dance with joy, but I wouldn’t know for sure as we are all working from home. In fact, I don’t even know if he wears pants when he’s working anymore. I mean, why should he? Why should anyone really?

Carl has created our first tutorial map to see which interactions need explaining and what kind of messaging we can work with. On the side, he’s been working with Arleon troops, upgrades, and magic and how that all goes together. Carl even asked me to create an army to “rule them all” and the good news is that I couldn’t really do it, meaning that there is always a way to beat any army given the right circumstances. We’re very much trying to develop units and army composition that doesn’t have a “best” army. Any army can be beaten by another type as long as you spend the same resources, at least that’s the goal!

Until next time, take care of yourselves and the ones around you.

Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.

Development update #17

This past week I’ve been handling the process of recruiting a new sound designer. We have a few candidates and I feel confident that we’ll find someone who can do an excellent job. We’ve also been able to sign a new pixel artist which we hope will dazzle us all. The first thing on his list is a boatload of map objects. Things like buildings, pickups and all those points of interest that are scattered throughout our adventure maps.

Kordian recently did some blockers for the Loth battle terrain. All living things are slowly decaying and withering. That’s life in Loth for you!

This week we’ve also expanded the team with a new programmer. Marcus has worked with some of us before and we are really thrilled to have him join the team. He kicked off his first days by playing the wrong version of the game. (We all work from home, so nobody noticed!) He continued to give outdated UX feedback to David. Time well spent and a big welcome to Marcus! Better luck next week :)

Patrik let his inner artist out and made it possible to draw on top of the bug report screenshots. We have interesting reports to look forward too, me thinks!

Carl has been working on skills and level up again. More precisely how the player gain skills and what the different skills should actually do. We're nearing the end of the tunnel on this one and can soon start implementing it for proper testing, feels great!

David, Niklas, and Patrik have worked on a story tool for the level editor. We want to be able to show interesting camera angles and immersive story text that doesn’t look like a regular popup. Niklas has also been continuing with the bacteria system refactoring, along with Patrik. Nothing fancy to show here though, it’s just the BACKBONE of the full game. But you can’t see it. (If you ask me, it might be something the programmers made up to sound important!)

A work in progress screenshot showing the new lore text “popup”. We can trigger these types of messages based on which tile the Wielder walks on.

Anders was off sick this week, but thankfully slowly recovered. He let me know that he got a lot of sleep as well as finally beating The Witcher 3 AND Ori and the blind forest. Sounds like he did pretty well to me, but we missed him still. Hope we are all back in action next week!

Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.

Development update #16

Another week has passed! Things are coming along nicely even though we are all working remotely. It has some challenges of course. Communication can be tricky, but we generally manage quite well. Personally I’ve been focusing a lot on communication regarding our graphics production this week. Things like discussing the backlog, what to do next and simply make sure our freelancers get feedback in a timely manner. I’ve also marveled at how visually interesting the levels are becoming as we start to add more map objects.

I put together a small moody map detail, just for sharing with the blog. Looks pretty nifty don’t you think?

Patrik has been working on getting the adventure terrain to the next level. He’s also worked on getting automatically tiled roads that can be themed to a specific faction. And finally, he added autosave to the level editor, which Carl was immensely happy about!

Roads! You won’t miss them until you don’t have them. We’ve missed them sorely and are happy to be able to design levels with roads yet again!

David has been cleaning up some menu systems and worked on functionality to move and split troops along with Niklas. Niklas has also been working on getting the bacteria system up to speed with the research system all week. The bacteria system are little nodes that spread across the entities in the game and mainly modify stats on an object. But in theory, it can alter most objects from anywhere. It’s a large system that we use for artifacts, spells, research, and many other things.

I’ve been told this is something called splatmapping. And we are apparently using 4D in our game. The future is truly here!

Felix has moved on from Arleon concepts and is now working on more terrain details for the Barony of Loth. Carl has been working on the text in the game. Setting the tone and writing and re-writing descriptions, dialogue and lore texts.

Here’s a humble farm. The backbone of most feudal societies. Something to crush with taxes and the occasional raids, right?

Stay safe and take care of each other. We’ll be back with another devblog soon again!

Development update #15

Back in action for another dev blog! I’ve been going through over a hundred potential map objects. They’ve been sorted by type and fleshed out with better descriptions, so a freelancer can help us out with getting them done. I’ve also discussed potential sound designers along with Carl, who has mainly been working on Wielder progression. Level ups, skills, abilities, spells and how it all fits together. It's not done yet, but getting close to testing. It will be exciting to see if what Carl’s come up with will be as fun as I think it will!

Meanwhile in Loth: The trees are basking in the spring sun and getting ready to explode in a bounty of alluring green leaves.

Niklas has been working with the new research system. It is very much based around large buildings. Since large building slots are scarce, you really have to think about how to spec your research. Imagine a research tree, but which branch you take is decided on what building you decide to build. Right now we have 3 research buildings for Arleon. The Academy, Sacred Woods and War Quarter.

An early test for building research functionality. Niklas pointed out that all visuals are “programmer art”. Well, whatever happened to a simple grey box? All programmers secretly want to be graphics artists, that’s what I think!

David has been working with the Adventure UI this week. Among other things, some important quality of life fixes for the "action bar" so buttons can look disabled when it can't be afforded. He has also fixed so buildings or build sites don't get deselected when a player builds or sells a building. For some heavier interactions, he’s been trying out a fixed camera angle, so the camera can focus on a building when it's being interacted with.

Patrik has put a new and basic artifact inventory system in place. The picked-up artifacts currently get auto equipped into their appropriate slot if their power level is greater than what's already in there. In the long term, we will, of course, have a more advanced inventory so you can shift around your gear and artifacts as you please. Patrik also took the time to do a first pass on the mini-map.

Did I hear intensive clicking from Davids desk earlier this week or was I imagining it? I’m pretty sure I heard it.

Finally, we are looking for an experienced freelance pixel artist to join our team. The work can be performed off-site and we are offering full-time compensation for the right candidate. We primarily need help with objects, buildings and such. A proven track record is a big plus and expertise with buildings (and potentially environments) is also preferred. If this sounds like you, send an email to info@lavapotion.com along with your portfolio link and we will take a look!

Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.

Development update #14

Welcome to yet another dev blog! 

This week I’ve been working with managing our graphics pipeline. SoC has a lot of visual assets that need to be sketched out, tested and turned into production quality pixel art. Some team members work remotely and it can be a hassle to get all material into the game for testing and approval. We are now figuring out ways to make this process easier and remove bottlenecks. 

This is exactly the type of stuff that gets me excited: Making sure great people can deliver great content, without having to worry about the technical side of things!

Niklas has been working on creating a new system for the UX states. This system relates to the wielder interactions with map entities, buildings, and hostiles. He has also made sure that the outlines have correct colors depending on the states.

A small sample of the new outline system, showing a few pickups in an Arleon biome setting. It also includes an unintended blue loading circle, feel free to ignore that.

David has been working on the Adventure UI, updating it with new assets and layout. He’s shifting away from using a world space to a screen space canvas for some of our UI elements.

Carl has reworked the general structure of all faction campaigns. He also made a song specifically for the Arleon campaign, which he subsequently threw away. Because it was apparently not good enough... 

I’m not sure though, he usually makes pretty darn good songs. But he is still very enthusiastic about the new campaign design though. So I’m confident he’ll nail that song sooner or later!

Patrik has been working on getting the marketplace to a functional state. This is just a temporary solution and not the final UX experience, as you might have guessed.

Emil Gustafsson has been working on getting the Order-spells up and running according to the new spell system. We have been getting a lot of questions about the Essence and magic system for the game recently. Carl has been following the community discussion and just from small clues and questions they seem to have worked out a lot of what we have decided. Including lore bits and thoughts around mechanics, it's been a blast to follow!

Felix has been working on how Cecilia Stoutheart, an Arleon wielder, could look on the adventure map. Do you have a favorite? Let us know in the comments below!

And finally, some people have asked us about the Corona situation and if it will affect development of the game. We can’t know for sure, but most of the team members are currently working from home, as a safety measure. And this is something we have excellent preparation for. Feel free to check out this old blog post about how we allow team members to work remotely and decide their own workspace.

Development update #13

Niklas has been spending a lot of time with our backlog. He has prioritized features and content from a development timeline perspective. But since he is a developer (and not only a product owner!) he has also reworked our debugging system. You can now hide and show content based on different profiles chosen in the options menu.

Patrik has, among other things, been working on getting team colors on our buildings. He showed me a neat demo of an animated grey banner that could be instantly recoloured into another colour. I asked him how it worked and was told that “He simply matched the color from the black and white image on the team color ramp according to the brightness”. So simple, right?

Imagine a world without banners, what kind of crazy world would that be? How would you know who is your enemy? HOW?

David has been planning the coming UX and UI work. A lot of details and specific details need to be documented for the upcoming adventure UX work. He has also worked with Christian on the Adventure HUD.

Carl has created more battle maps as well as worked on skills and our level up system. At the same time Anders has been hard at work with something... secret! Very hard at work indeed. But I can’t tell you about it yet. 

Felix has been looking into terrain, vegetation other unique and mysterious things you might stumble across in the lands of Arleon. This would mostly be assets visible when a battle occurs in the Arleon biome. Felix would also take this opportunity to thank you all for your support. Your enthusiasm makes all the work so much more rewarding for him!

A continental climate with trees that reach for the skies are all well and good. But what happens when you add the power of the essence into the mix, and what ruins of old lies beneath the moss ridden ground?

And finally, we are looking for a sound designer! If you have the skills to make a unique fantasy world come alive and have worked with the Wwise engine, please check out this page!

Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.

Development update #12

This week Carl has been updating spells and units for the reworked essence system. Basically he has streamlined the system to make it fit tighter with the overall design. This will hopefully make the system easier to understand as well.

The people of Rana are small but numerous and ferocious. Our pixel artist has worked on a few variations for the basic hunter troop. Which one do you like best?

Anders has continued his quest of finding optimal pickups, buildings, and objects that a player can interact with on the adventure map. We have a list of over 80 items of which some are small pickups (like a sack of loot) and some are large buildings (like a toll gate). There is still some work to do in order to harmonize all map objects and find a good mix that will please the eye and add gameplay value.

Who doesn’t like loot? Nobody, that’s who! We are trying to find a great variety of interesting things to come across on the adventure map. These are but a few ideas for a small supply depot. Do you have ideas for great pickups? Share in a comment below!

Patrik and Niklas have spent some time with the backlog. Basically meaning that they are prioritizing what features we should develop next. A strategy game has a lot of content and features that need to be carefully planned in order 

In general, we are utilizing an approach where we get a feature working (even if not perfect!) and then we start to try it out in the game. The same goes for graphics, we are trying to get something fairly ok into the game so we then can scrutinize and potentially change without having wasted too much time.

Celestial ore is mined from rocks fallen out of the sky. It makes swords sharp beyond belief and armor durable to withstand almost anything.

The last words of the week is a reminder that we have a Discord server. Feel free to join it if you want to enjoy friendly banter with the developers or just hang out with other people who like strategy games in general. See you next week!

Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.

Development update #11

Another week another dev blog! Patrik and Niklas have worked with the level editor and you can now specify the number of units each hostile should consist of and how they’re set up on the battlefield. It is also possible to define more specifically which team owns what when the map starts.

Patrik is happy to finally share something visually he has worked on, which isn’t still kept secret. Behold the mighty hostile editor!

Carl has been making good use of these new features. He has reworked our adventure maps accordingly. He's pretty thrilled to finally be able to set the exact challenge level that he wants for each hostile. In earlier versions of the level editor, this was not possible.

How many steps does it take to create a single UI element? Not a single step too much, claims Christian. Yeah… I don’t know.

I, Carl and Anders have had a lot of discussions about map objects. All the good stuff that goes on the maps, like pickups, buildings, treasures, etc.  We have also worked a lot with building portrait feedback to Felix.

The importance of iteration. These portraits will be fairly small on the screen and need to be readable and visually connected with their building. The last rendition is not the final version, but something we’ll try out for a while and see if it sticks!

Kordian is back doing buildings and is finishing up the final pieces for Arleon. Phew! One faction done, three more to go. Stay on target! 

David has been working on purchasing wielders from the town and also collecting internal UX feedback regarding the battle experience. Emil is still doing menus, and probably will for the foreseeable future. Lots of menus in a strategy game!

Finally, we were recently featured by the Jean Baptiste Show, a french YouTuber. If you speak french, please check it out and let us know what his verdict is. Because my French is… erhm, not what it used to be!

Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.

Development update #10

This week has been a lot about boring, but oh so important, bug-squashing. No spectacular new features, but rather making sure that the current ones work as intended. After the long and intense battle focus, a few frustrating bugs have inevitably sneaked into the code. Personally I don’t know much about coding, so I have focused on getting our new Arleon troop lineup ready for animating. We are working with a talented freelancer (Whose middle name is Antonio Banderas, so you know he can kick ass!) to be able to get all the new animations done. 

David has been working hard to make a lower animation frame count look snappy and responsive, and so far it’s looking very promising!

Here's the mighty “Landsknecht HQ”. As you can tell, not all things are 100% designed yet. This will be some form of research building for Doneria though, that much I know!

Patrik has been stabilizing the project by fixing broken tests, adding new unit tests as well as eliminating a bunch of bugs. Niklas has been working on updating our Jenkins system with new plugins to automatically run our unit tests. He has also been working on bug fixes (Surprise!) and stabilizing the game.

Look at all those unit tests not failing. Now that’s a sight for sore programmer eyes!

Christian has been reviewing the start/main menu and the options UI – making it look great. It also now looks consistent with the overall design while being a “separate” visual layer for the player. Emil has had the privilege of not fixing bugs and instead worked hard to implement the wonderful new UI element Christian has come up with.   

We do listen to feedback! These are new variations for the Necromancer. The semi-new and old versions are at the bottom of the image, newer iterations are in the two top rows. What do you think?

Kordian has been revisiting Loth and as you can see, we have taken your feedback regarding the Necromancer to our heart. We are trying a few things out to see what sticks. Again, thanks for all input! After returning from a well-deserved vacation, Carl has been reworking the essence system and testing the game thoroughly.

Finally, in case you missed it, we revealed Ranas’ theme earlier this week. Let us know what you think!

Please note that this is a dev blog. Features and graphics mentioned or displayed above may or may not change during the development process.