Hey everyone,
Over the last month we worked primarily on two parts of our next game: outlining the story and establishing the animation pipeline for map sprites. Read on for the full rundown of this month's development!
A lot of time this month was spent on the game’s introduction. We started with the goal of having a series of playable missions to get a feel for how the game is played, establish mission pacing, and serve as a test bed for balancing. Starting with the introduction was decidedly not a good idea- prologues need to provide a good foundation for the mechanics of the game as well as the world it takes place in. While we had some success in designing missions that explain the mechanics, the intro missions don’t serve as a good cross section of the game we’re trying to make, due to their partially tutorialized manner. Fortunately, though, the end result was a solid opening to the story and a handful of improvements to our internal tool set to make better content in the future. Over the next month, we plan to revisit the goal of a gameplay cross section with a later part of the story where the player would already be in the swing of things. On the animation front, we’ve added walking and attacking map sprites to several races and classes, and will continue to add more over the next few months. One particular story of interest revolves around the Outlaw’s run animation. To fit their rockstar attitude, we had them perform a power slide to get from point A to point B, because what’s cooler than knee sliding everywhere? A problem arose when they needed to move diagonally, since even with the power of narrative, turning 90 degrees mid slide is impossible (and looks doofy). So on the design side, we adjusted the Outlaw to only be able to move in a straight line. This ended up being a very interesting balancing lever, as up until this point the Outlaw’s ability set lacked proper counterplay. Now, maneuvering around an enemy outlaw becomes not unlike a game of chess, adding a layer of strategy that makes the game more fun for everyone. That’s all for this month! Stay tuned!
A lot of time this month was spent on the game’s introduction. We started with the goal of having a series of playable missions to get a feel for how the game is played, establish mission pacing, and serve as a test bed for balancing. Starting with the introduction was decidedly not a good idea- prologues need to provide a good foundation for the mechanics of the game as well as the world it takes place in. While we had some success in designing missions that explain the mechanics, the intro missions don’t serve as a good cross section of the game we’re trying to make, due to their partially tutorialized manner. Fortunately, though, the end result was a solid opening to the story and a handful of improvements to our internal tool set to make better content in the future. Over the next month, we plan to revisit the goal of a gameplay cross section with a later part of the story where the player would already be in the swing of things. On the animation front, we’ve added walking and attacking map sprites to several races and classes, and will continue to add more over the next few months. One particular story of interest revolves around the Outlaw’s run animation. To fit their rockstar attitude, we had them perform a power slide to get from point A to point B, because what’s cooler than knee sliding everywhere? A problem arose when they needed to move diagonally, since even with the power of narrative, turning 90 degrees mid slide is impossible (and looks doofy). So on the design side, we adjusted the Outlaw to only be able to move in a straight line. This ended up being a very interesting balancing lever, as up until this point the Outlaw’s ability set lacked proper counterplay. Now, maneuvering around an enemy outlaw becomes not unlike a game of chess, adding a layer of strategy that makes the game more fun for everyone. That’s all for this month! Stay tuned!
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