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Community Newsletter: April 19, 2024Apr 19, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsProgress Our stamina system got a shiny new update! The bar drains and refills smoothly, and it has new support for a "fatigued" state when you run all the way out of stamina. This makes you a little bit slower and unable to use any actions that would consume stamina, like jumping or dodging. The fatigued state ends when your stamina bar is completely refilled. As a result, you have to be much more thoughtful about how often you choose to dodge or sprint. Keep an eye on the stamina bar in the preview below! We completed an initial balance pass on Red Letter mode, which has been a source of many of the improvements we made this sprint! While there’s still plenty left to do, it’s already really fun to play after just a few adjustments. We’ve added nearly a dozen new combat AIs for different NPCs. These are mostly new strategies for specific use cases (ex. a Kodoki that focuses on putting you to sleep before firing one large attack). Our improvements to NPC target selection from last time are complete, and we reorganized our behavior logic. NPCs are now more reactive to player movement, and in general they’re at least 10-15% more efficient. We’ve also created initial versions of a few new human NPCs for the Beta and added them to their respective locations. Lock-on is once again in our sights! We’ve made a host of improvements to this feature since the last time it was implemented, and combat feels so much smoother as a result— especially when playing with a controller. While locked on to a target, the target will stay in the center of the player’s view, similar to other games. When using ranged attacks while locked on, the player can also aim to lead the target and account for the attack’s travel time. There are definitely still situations where it’s best to keep your camera unlocked, like when fighting larger groups of enemies or using more advanced combat techniques. That said, so far lock on is proving to be a huge quality of life feature for both melee and ranged playstyles without providing an advantage to one over the other. We made improvements to how spawn and lob attacks are aimed. The aiming reticle now tracks the player’s aim while a character is starting their attack animation. Previously, the reticle would stop moving when the character started their ability animation, and would only resume moving again after the ability fired. This made aiming these abilities feel "sticky", especially on abilities that had multiple charges per cooldown. Aiming these abilities feels buttery smooth now. The "Fire On Release" setting is now enabled by default when playing with controllers. This can be toggled off in the settings, but we’ve found that this configuration feels far more natural on controllers. With all of these improvements, playing with a controller is starting to feel even better than mouse and keyboard! The human character’s 180 turn animation was happening too often while running around normally, so we restricted the parameters to when ...Community Newsletter: April 5, 2024Apr 5, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsProgress The playable area for the Riverside arena is finished! We’ll be continuing to sculpt the surrounding area in hopes of bringing it closer to an updated version of the Alpha map. Since Riverside is in the most open location of all the arenas, you’ll be able to see more of the world while you’re playing (meaning it needs the most terrain work). As a part of these improvements, we’ll be adding our stylized water shader to the river (we’re using a placeholder shader in the pictures below). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/479912d0-cb6a-4d0c-af85-7c991af42964/hcuo%2C+enoemos+teg+em+emos+eola+ahah.png?format=2500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/78972afa-e827-4a5e-9c99-eea27d76365f/lla+ni+doog+nuf.png?format=2500w Red Letter Mode is far enough along that we’ve started doing some initial play testing and balancing! We’re pleasantly surprised with how quickly many of the core mechanics have come together. While we still need to add a few more features and tons of polish, the foundation is in good shape. We’ve started the early stages of greyboxing for some ideas we’ve had for new arenas. This method is a great way for us to try out lots of different possibilities in a short period of time and see what we like best. We’re looking pretty seriously at one particular configuration that we’ve been excited to bring to the combat arenas for a while now! We’d like to include it in the Beta, but depending on how things go it might be something we add in after launch. The code for our item effects has been expanded in a way that allows us to apply unique, flexible effects onto characters at any time. (Examples of effects: Healing, stat buffs/debuffs, inflicting or removing status conditions, changing the character’s speed.) Designers can easily tweak, balance, and even combine multiple effects to apply simultaneously to one item. They can activate immediately, over time, or trigger at set events in the game, such as upon swapping the character in, on taking damage, etc. This should add variety to the effects of cooked foods and held items, and may potentially even be used for passive and active abilities. We’ve been working on improvements to how NPCs select a target when attacking. The code involved with this is now being run through a system that makes it much more efficient. This allowed us to add many more steps to the target selection process while still seeing performance gains compared to the way NPCs previously chose their targets. Our development team added debugging tools for QA to use that resemble a "Minecraft-like creative mode," allowing them to increase their movement speed and control gravity levels to easily get around the map. This is similar to an old tool of ours, but the new version is way more stable and easy to control. With the old version, testers would sometimes go flying off the map unintentionally, which only became more and more obnoxious as more playa...Community Newsletter: March 22, 2024Mar 22, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsProgress We’ve made some great progress on bringing the Alpha arenas into the Beta! As of this newsletter, we’re finished with the Forest and Ruins arenas, and Riverside is about halfway there. We were pleasantly surprised at how nicely the overworld location we picked for Ruins resembles the original arena from certain angles! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/8ef17a94-10c9-4ad3-b0fc-013219824ca1/bbbb+-+p.png?format=2500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/feaf65f5-ab25-4a31-8a80-b81805852f02/ba-da+ba+ba-da+ba+ba+da.png?format=2500w Since Riverside’s playable area doesn’t have flat terrain like the others, it’s taken longer to ensure it’s as close to the version in the Alpha as possible. We were able to use the original terrain as a reference, though there’s still some room for error. It might not be as exact of a replica as the others, but we want it to be as close as possible. Of all the arenas, Riverside is certain to have the most noticeably different background terrain. This is exciting since it has a lot of room for improvement from the original! Last week, we created both the 2D layout and 3D greybox of the map for Red Letter mode (an unrevealed game mode for the Beta). It was a pretty great turnaround time, and we had a lot of fun putting it together! We've made improvements for ensuring that game modes update more reliably over the network, organized what logic runs on the server vs. what runs on the clients, and implemented some interactable mechanics for Red Letter mode. Some of these required changes to their code in order to work with multiplayer. By making those changes we also made it easier for most other objects to now work with multiplayer. A few basic effects for a Red Letter mechanic have been built in a flexible way that should make it very easy for designers to tweak different values and balance them. For multiplayer, we’re currently testing an important stability milestone that should make gameplay more reliable, even with bad internet connections. Of course the work is ongoing, and we’ll have more improvements in the future. Right now we’re working on what we're calling "seamless multiplayer," meaning you can join another person’s game while you are actively playing in yours — rather than having to go back to the menu to join your friends. This is a bit more challenging, but will be great for the smoothness of the experience. Lexicon The full lexicon can be found here. Client: A player’s computer when playing in multiplayer. All the clients connect to a server to make sure the same thing is happening on everyone’s computers. Greybox: A method used for designing large portions of map, dungeons, or other important areas. It involves constructing the general form of the thing in question using placeholder assets and shapes. It’s like a framework so when the correct assets are ready, they can be placed in the orientation that was already laid out. This a...Community Newsletter: March 8, 2024Mar 8, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsProgress The Alpha arenas are officially on their way to the Beta! We’re able to replicate the exact placement of objects within the arena bounds, so Alpha veterans will feel quite at home in these arenas. While we want the layouts to feel familiar, we’re also excited about this chance to update the look of the terrain. We’ve planned out where to place the arenas within the game’s overworld, meaning 1) you’ll be able to find these spots while exploring in the open world, and 2) some of the distant landscapes in the Beta will be different from those in the Alpha arenas. Here’s a quick look at the Forest arena after about a day of putting it together (meaning it’s very much a work in progress): https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/a3ebed7a-118b-468d-8599-40689d017709/homesweethome.png?format=2500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/32f7fe4b-a687-4fb7-b1c9-d8200c102ad5/themsunraystho.png?format=2500w In the Alpha, gameplay was mostly restricted to a single game mode aside from the occasional April Fools’ event. This is something we’re planning to expand with the Beta. More infrastructure is being built for the unrevealed game mode we mentioned last month. For ease of reference, we’ll be calling this game mode “Red Letter mode.” Initial setup is underway for things like entering and exiting this new game mode, mode-specific UI, and spawning characters. Now that we have a lot of the basics set up for multiplayer, we’re fixing up oddities that were flagged as a part of initial QA testing. We’ve found things like the guest player using unintended animations, human characters’ appearances not being synchronized across clients, both players seeing the menu any time one person pulls it up, etc. It took some elbow grease to make the lighting updates from the last newsletter cooperate with other changes we’ve recently added in multiplayer. The new lighting was somehow turning the water all kinds of colors until we fixed it earlier today. This fix not only has our water looking better than ever, but has sanctimoniously fixed a completely separate long-standing bug! Gotta love a happy accident. We’ve made some updates to the rigging for hair and clothing. We adjusted the rigging on the hair to make it easier for certain hairstyles to move realistically (ex. long hair should behave more naturally and shouldn’t pass through the character’s shoulders as easily). Our QA team is continuing to make automated tests and use the single player portion of the game to manually test their tests. (Can’t tell if the auto tester is getting it right unless you also test it yourself the first time around, right?) The devs have continued to fix bugs and build out new functionality for the test maker. We’ve been going after bugs related to Kinfolk stat modifiers, as well as shrines not working in the single player (found as part of testing QA’s automated tests). Lexicon The full lexicon can be found here. Autom...Community Newsletter: February 23, 2024Feb 23, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsProgress The Beta needs to look its best, so we’ve upgraded our lighting and post-FX systems! It’s a far cry from the Alpha visuals now, and we’re pretty excited about the changes and the new depth and variety they bring to the lighting, especially in the distance. On top of the visual improvements, the new version of this system is much easier to work with in engine. We’re still making adjustments and trying to find the best way to keep the environment’s visual style consistent with the characters. Sometimes it can be tricky to get cel shaded characters to look at home in a non-cel shaded environment, especially across various types of lighting (ex. different times of day, weather, indoors vs. outdoors). Here’s a video with some before/after shots showing our current progress. Multiplayer is improving by the day! We’re making good progress on verifying that important fundamentals are working as expected after being brought into the new project. Ensuring a Kinfolk is in the same spot and firing the same abilities on both players’ computers isn’t something you want to regress on. At the moment, multiplayer is functioning a bit like an early version of co-op, so we’re also dealing with some issues related to the human player and summoning as well. This week we hooked the Beta project up to the account system so players will be able to join the same way they did for the Combat Arena Alpha. We’ve solidified our plans for how to go about bringing the old Alpha arenas into the Beta. There are a few more pieces that need to be in place before we can start in earnest, but it’s on the horizon. Our QA testers have been playing together to look for bugs in the multiplayer, which has been an exciting change of pace. While waiting for new bug fixes, they’re continuing to familiarize themselves with the tool for creating automated tests. We’ve fixed some surprising bugs that have likely come as part of bringing code over from the old Combat Arena Alpha project. For example, the human player was using fireball when they were supposed to be summoning their Kinfolk! Lexicon The full lexicon can be found here. Automated tests: Tests that are programmed to run automatically whenever a new build is made. Reduces the need to manually test features repetitively (ex. making sure every ability works as intended for every character). Post-FX: Changes made to the game’s appearance after everything has been rendered. Sometimes similar to a filter you could put on a photo or video. QA: Quality assurance. The people who test the game and report bugs. Thanks for checking in on us! See you for our next newsletter on March 8.Community Newsletter: February 9, 2024Feb 9, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsProgress Like our other recent newsletters, we’re working on mostly non-visual tasks at the moment. With that in mind, we’d like to share some of the new abilities we’ve been working on over the past several months that are likely to be featured in the Beta! Aqua Launcher: The user launches a series of fast moving blasts of water. If all three hit the same entity the user's cooldowns are refreshed, and they gain a small boost to their movement speed for 3 seconds. If used in snowy weather, this attack deals Physical damage instead of Special damage. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/9d2a0b26-4196-4cac-bbc3-1cbc337c687f/Aqua_Launcher.gif?format=2500w Confusion: The user emits a strange wave of energy in a target direction. Entities hit by this wave have their inputs inverted for a short duration. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/57826df2-e931-4b66-a65c-224da576c3a8/cONFUSION.gif?format=2500w Burn Bane: (Passive ability) If the user strikes a burned target with a fire attack, the burn is cured and the target becomes stunned for 1 second. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/dd13ee5e-c647-4e9d-a833-78d2dfd7be27/Burn_Bane.gif?format=2500w (Awburn used for demonstration. This is not Awburn’s usual passive ability.) We’re making good progress on the revamp of multiplayer functionality. A large part of this effort involves moving the multiplayer side of the game over to our single-player Unity environment. It’s now possible for two players to join a world together and move around in this new environment, but there’s still plenty left to do. We’re currently working on synchronizing the clothes and Kinfolk teams for each player. As part of this, we’ve made it so the all the necessary terrain tiles are loaded while the game is hosting multiple characters. Previously, we only had to show the terrain that one player could see at a given time. Now our world streaming can accommodate multiple players looking in different directions. Now that we have easy-to-use tools for making automated tests, our QA testers can create and run these with far less assistance from developers. While the devs are building out larger features there is less manual testing needed than usual. We’re using this as an opportunity for QA to create a strong base of automated tests that can be deployed alongside manual testing. We’ve started planning a new game mode and its related mechanics that we plan to include in the Beta. A few months ago we did some preliminary work and got it to a roughly playable state, but we need to work out more of the logistics before it can be added. It’s something we’ve seen fans express interest in and that we’ve been looking forward to for a while! Lexicon The full lexicon can be found here. Automated tests: Tests that are programmed to run automatically whenever a new build is made. Reduces the need to manually test features repetitively (ex. makin...Community Newsletter: January 12, 2024Jan 12, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsLast month we posted an announcement about our progress toward major goals. To sum it up very briefly: We’ve completed our internal milestone, a single player demo to share with potential publishers, but because we had to prioritize this we needed to push back the Combat Arena Beta release. We’re really sorry for the disappointing news, and hope this decision will lead to the best possible outcome for the game. The full announcement is available here. As of the beginning of 2024, the Beta is now our highest priority. This newsletter will cover the end of last year as well as the last two weeks of development. Progress We made some improvements to the terrain close to the edge of the playable area. You can now see mountains in the distance, giving the map less of an obvious edge. While they won’t be playable locations, they make the horizon much more interesting, and allow the environment to be more immersive. Here’s a comparison of the old horizon and the new one: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/23b391de-1789-49e0-9248-03bf9f8ff78a/mountain+horizon.png?format=2500w In the coming weeks, it might be more difficult for us to share pictures and videos of our progress due to the nature of the work we’re focusing on right now. (Changing a file system’s structure isn’t the most visually appealing task.) This isn’t for certain, but we wanted to let you know about the possibility beforehand. We’ll do our best to include a visual whenever we’re able! A few weeks ago, we manged to get the project to a known good and stable state. This was a major part of the internal milestone we had been focusing on up until this point. This is useful because it allows us to create builds of the demo that feel good to play, and don't have any major issues. As a part of finishing up our single player milestone we fixed many soft locks, enabled autosaving during cutscenes, and gave friendly NPCs green health bars to help differentiate them from enemies during group battles. With our old milestone out of the way, we've started a bit of early spring cleaning in preparation for the Beta Combat Area. Over the course of development we identified a few problems in areas we had previously completed. It may be an issue causing poor performance, an overly complicated setup that slows down development, etc. Some of these are in areas that were considered too risky to make changes to while we were perfecting everything for the demo. Taking care of these issues now allows us to make the Beta a much better experience. This sprint we went back into those areas and fixed many of the issues we found. A lot got broken very quickly, but even in this sprint we have mostly returned to the previous state and we expect to iron out all the remaining bugs over the next few weeks. We also moved to a new way of picking out what parts of the game go into a particular build. This means that when we release a public build for the Beta we can say “Kinfolk X should b...Community Newsletter: December 15, 2023Dec 15, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsDesign Kinfolk are now able to use group behaviors. This means when the player interacts with a single NPC in certain ways, it can affect an entire group of NPCs. For example, if the player damages an NPC, surrounding NPCs may become angry and also start fighting the player. Here’s a quick preview of the concept (shown on an isolated terrain tile, hence the odd background): A major focus this sprint has been adding more unique combat encounters to the overworld. Most of the battles we’re focusing on deal with fighting other summoners, so we’ve made lots of improvements to how summoner NPCs work. In some cases, combat is only one of the possible outcomes of the encounter. Our cut scenes received more touch ups to their animations and lighting. As we’ve been making small tweaks to fix these animations, sometimes they lead to other animations breaking in more noticeable ways. That’s always fun. Thankfully, most of these have also been fixed. We performed an extensive spell check on NPC dialogue and wrote a few new conversations as well. Some NPCs’ dialogue will intertwine in unexpected ways. Small choices can make differences that will surprise you. We also updated many of the soul flame messages to be even more heartbreaking. Writing them nonstop for the large part of a day was… not easy. We implemented more SFX for various items like beds, money pickups, and various abilities. Once implemented, we also spent a lot of time balancing the new sounds. There are still a few abilities that need touching up, but we’re making good progress there. We got the elderly animations working for our older human NPCs! It suits their personalities so much better and adds more variety to the people you see walking around town. We’ve done a balancing pass on the prices for certain in-game items in our shops throughout the game. They were somewhat out of hand. (If we can’t control inflation in the real world, at least we can do something about it here…) Development We’ve adjusted how far an aggressive Kinfolk will chase you while you’re running away from them. They used to be a bit too relentless, and we don’t want to excessively punish players for choosing to avoid a fight. We’ve made it so the player can interrupt their character’s attack animations with movement inputs. Many of our attacks had long endings to their animations where the player would be stuck animating after the attack was finished. With our new changes, the character is able to transition back into running animations sooner. This gives us more flexibility with longer animations and has a big impact on combat feel. Also, it helped fix foot sliding in many cases. We made some slight modifications to how our saving and reloading works in the editor. Now it allows developers to easily load small portions of the world for rapid testing without having to change a bunch of settings beforehand. Some of our more interesting bug fixes: characters stuck in their shield animation, the player losing their glass ...Community Newsletter: December 1, 2023Dec 1, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsDesign We’ve made several improvements to how the camera interacts with the player and NPCs. Previously, the camera had a tendency to collide with characters in a very jarring way during combat, forcing the camera forward and potentially messing with your aim. It was also fairly easy to get it to clip through certain environment objects. Now, the camera no longer collides with abilities or other characters and we instead fade characters out when they are extremely close to the view. Here’s a quick look: Fighting against flying enemies just got easier! You know that feeling when you’re trying to aim your skill shots at an Avieon, but the grass just keeps getting in the way of your view? No more! The camera now offsets itself from the ground when looking up into the air. This way objects on the ground won’t block the screen as you aim abilities up at a sharp angle. Here’s a video showcasing the difference: The child character models got new rigging, so now their clothes move more naturally and don’t have as much clipping where clothes overlap. We’ve meticulously tested the clothing items to make sure each behaves as expected. We reduced the size and frequency of the speaking text that appears above NPCs so it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. Seeing text displayed above 1 or 2 characters who are speaking in the distance is a nice touch, but when 5 or 6 would all say something at once it felt a little off putting. SFX have been added to various objects in the game that were previously lacking them, including dodging, bond forming, soul flames, and shrines. The SFX can really add to the gravity of these instances. Terrain improvements have been made to some of the world’s vista points, as well as around important landmarks and points of interest. An hour or two of touching up can really make all the difference sometimes. This sprint, we’ve written and started implementing a handful of new small side missions and character encounters that play into the game’s lore and world building. Some of these side missions have branching choices that will impact the outcome to varying degrees. We’ve added several new points of interest to the area of the map we’ve been working on, including a few small environment puzzles. A lot of attention is being given to make sure that the density of interactive content in this area is up to snuff. New VFX were created for an important aspect of the game’s world building. We previously had an idea for how we wanted this effect to look, but we’re taking a new approach to make sure we’re communicating the idea effectively. Development Several performance optimizations have been made to ensure the game is able to run properly on a wider range of hardware and at a higher framerate. In certain areas of the game that were previously problematic, we are now seeing double the framerate we were previously. We spent some time fine tuning an important combat encounter that occurs early on in the game’s story. It’s easy to forget sometimes ...Community Newsletter: November 17, 2023Nov 17, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsDesign We’ve got the squad running in formation! With this, we can have a group of characters that walk in a specific shape. It won’t be used it for every wild Kinfolk herd, but we do have a few specific applications in mind. This is also helpful if we want groups of characters to stick together while walking on winding paths. Here’s a proof of concept video with a herd of Lumala using this logic and making some sharp turns. In the last newsletter we were focusing on adding one large and complex point of interest. With that area mostly wrapped up, we focused on adding lots of simpler points of interest that can be interacted with in a number of ways. The area we’ve been working on is in a decent state, but we’re planning to add a bit more to improve variety. This week, we’ve made tons of progress on mixing our SFX and music for cutscenes and other important story moments. Some of this has involved writing entirely new tracks, as well as reincorporating and remixing some that we use elsewhere. This was the final piece we needed to add for most of these scenes, and it’s a treat to see them so close to their final form. Having that last puzzle piece in place really made a world of difference. The town we’ve been working on has been in fairly good shape, but we found a few more improvements to make! We added some new characters, and updated our townsfolk to walk around more instead of standing in one place for as long. We also made it easier to make them look a specific direction, and gave them the ability to pivot their whole body towards you while in a conversation. These changes helped the town to not only feel more lively, but made the individual interactions more immersive as well. Previously, the character creator’s randomize function wasn’t properly randomizing a few facial features. (For some reason it really liked the red eye color? Very weird. Not at all unsettling.) We fixed this and are now seeing much more variety in the characters as a result. Our tutorials have been seriously spruced up! They now use up to date pictures, are triggered at much more appropriate times, and keep the flow of gameplay going much smoother than before. It makes a huge difference when starting up the game for the first time. Development We’ve polished up the combat AI for NPCs in the story. One focus was on making NPCs more reactive to the player. They are now better at dodging and blocking player attacks, and may modify their behaviors based on active abilities in the world. We revamped our world loading system to improve frame rates. Now instead of needing 9 huge chunks of terrain loaded at all times around the player, we can just load 1 or 2 occasionally, greatly saving resources without reducing visual fidelity. Enemy NPCs now have the ability to show a "Warning Indicator" before firing a powerful ability. This indicator is a useful way to give players visual feedback for incoming attacks that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to dodge or block. So...Community Newsletter: November 3, 2023Nov 3, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsDesign Our mountains got a face lift this week! Previously, we were using an oversized rock texture, which looked like this: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/6100a6e9-7715-4e3a-8d01-4d416e54f3cc/Mountain+Old.png?format=2500w While this looked decent on large mountains from a distance, it had the downside of looking very blurry once the player got close to it. This was especially noticeable in areas that have small cliffs or ledges, like towns. To fix this, we started by making the rock textures smaller, which increases the image resolution but also increases tiling. Not a good look. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/f701455e-08b2-49f8-934a-3bac964deee2/Mountain+Newer.png?format=2500w So to combat this, we used the same tool that we use to create variety in the colors of the grass, which paints a secondary texture in a random pattern on top of what was originally there. Below is the result with that secondary rock texture blended in. You can see that the tiling is less noticeable than in the previous 2 images, and the detail resolution is also much better when viewed from close up. While we feel like this is an improvement, we’re not totally satisfied with how it looks yet, so we’ll continue making adjustments. Let us know what you think! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/4e7701b6-b01a-46c4-8a97-f15a90a90624/Mountain+Newest.png?format=2500w A sizeable selection of hairstyles has been added! Not only does this give the player character more room for customization, but it also means we can create more variety in our NPCs. We’ve finished implementing all of the cutscenes for our internal milestone! This was one of our major focuses this sprint, so there have been a lot of developments. An important human’s custom model has been implemented in cutscenes, and we’re currently replacing their placeholder model in the overworld. A few of our cutscenes needed to be linked together. The way we have it set up right now, it takes some coding changes to ensure that the connected scenes flow together seamlessly. We’ve started adding music to certain encounters and cutscenes. It’s really amazing what a difference it makes for the tone of these scenes. We’re still experimenting with a few of them to get the timing and music selection right, but the one that’s finished is... wow. We’ve made adjustments to the density of our volumetric lighting. It can be a tricky balance- with too high of density the colors in the distance look washed out, but with too low of density we miss out on those gorgeous light rays. With some tinkering, it’s in a good place now. We’ve also added code that allows us to change the volumetric light’s color and intensity at different times of day. A couple different points of interest have been placed in the biome we’re working on. One of these is a fairly significant location that needed to be populated with set pieces and NPCs. Th...Community Newsletter: October 20, 2023Oct 20, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsWe’ve received some feedback that our newsletters have been difficult to understand. Thank you to those who let us know, and we’re sorry for the technical jargon. It’s easy to take that sort of vocabulary for granted after using it every day, but we want our updates to be approachable for everyone. We’d like to try including a lexicon of dev words at the end of every newsletter. Let us know if it’s helpful, and if there’s a word you think should be added! Design The town we've been working on is very close to its finished version. This sprint, we put the houses in their final positions, adjusted the pathways, and added details like mailboxes, street lamps, bushes, and flower beds. We created a detailed map of planned encounters for one of our biomes. This includes physical points of interest and interactions with NPCs, both friendly and hostile. Some of these encounters have been written well in advance, so we're looking forward to getting them fully implemented! On top of this, we’ve worked on writing a new encounter that uses our NPC summoners- more on that below! We created and implemented a new SFX for item pickup. We showed our previous version in another newsletter, and we received feedback that the sound was jarring. We’ve made a new version with a different angle this time, and we hope you agree that it’s an improvement! We also have a different SFX for “special” items. We’ve finished implementing a very involved cutscene complete with new dialogue, animations, set pieces, and several large VFX. It took a long time and hard work from multiple people, so seeing it in its final form is really satisfying! We’ve nearly finished 2 part cutscene that introduces several core features, such as Restless Kinfolk, the Fog, and morality. A human character who plays an important role in the game's story is currently being implemented. We recently finished rigging their model to be able to handle custom cutscene animations, and are looking into options to make a unique piece of clothing look even better during these cutscenes. We recently added a ton of new sound effects for cutscenes, abilities, and various actions. Now that one of the most major cutscenes so far has all the SFX required for it, it feels a lot more real! Development We’ve added tooling that helps improve the workflow for creating and testing dialogues and cutscenes. Cutting down on a few simple but frequent actions is going to save us a ton of time moving forward! We fixed several bugs so that NPC Summoners are now capable of battling other NPC Summoners. This has some interesting possibilities, such as 2v2 fights with NPCs! A large focus this sprint was adding more variety to world exploration in the form of Kinfolk spawners. On top of the points of interest and encounters, this is one of the ways we’re most excited to create density in the overworld. As always, we’ve fixed many, many bugs. Among them this sprint were a stutter in the player character’s running animation, being able ...Community Newsletter: October 6, 2023Oct 6, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsArt/Design We’ve completed some new outfits for child characters! These are the more formal clothing options for children, with a variety of color choices. Here’s the model preview with standard colors (note that they will look different in-engine due to lighting and material shaders). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/41074b77-2880-4177-9744-7ee628d83565/children+clothes.png?format=2500w We’ve polished Tadalon’s animations for Bounce and Tidemark, and added VFX for North_Star. We also improved the rigging and shading for Avieon so their wings don’t clip through each other as much. Many Kinfolk have been given new animations for specific cut scenes. The human NPCs have a newly-adjusted array of colors. This has been a balancing act, and we’ve finally reached a good point! A few months ago the colors were too light and washed out, and then we had the opposite problem after switching to the new shader. Concept art has been completed for a new set piece that will be featured in multiple biomes across the overworld. We think this point of interest will add a unique touch to our world building. A major set piece model is in its final stages, and we’re preparing to implement it in its first of many locations in the overworld. (Thank goodness, since the greybox version was getting stale!) We also adjusted the wind speed settings to improve the appearance of the trees when they move in the breeze. Previously, it looked like they were shivering! New VFX have been created for multiple abilities, on top of the improvements we made to existing VFX like the fountain we showed earlier this week. We also have a lot of new SFX in progress for cut scene sequences, Restless soul flames, and new abilities. Many cut scenes are currently in progress, and a few are fully implemented. We experimented with a different method of switching cameras between shots that had the potential to save time and complexity, but found that our current method is more reliable. Some scenes need to be stitched together with others, which can be surprisingly complicated! The fully realized scenes are looking epic, which is especially satisfying after working on them for so long. We’ve added new dialogue for some townsfolk in a particular situation if you revisit their town. We also finalized some important dialogue for a cutscene that has needed fleshed out after being in the concept phase for a long time, and it came together surprisingly quickly! It’s going to be a big moment in the story. We wanted to give you a heads up that our upcoming newsletters will be lighter on new art and features as we get deeper into the polishing process for our internal milestone. The team is working as hard as ever (if not even harder) to make progress, but the changes we make tend to get less interesting to read about as we hone in on this milestone. On top of that, a lot of the more interesting changes involve story details we don’t want to spoil before you get to pl...Community Newsletter: September 22, 2023Sep 22, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsArt/Design A few familiar abilities have newly polished VFX! Some of these have looked the same since the beginning of the project, and as the visual style has progressed they felt increasingly out of place. We’re thrilled with the new results! Here’s a before/after on a few of these abilities (Fireball and Quicksand): https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/7eb6dcd2-ae89-47c3-b056-6d39c1e76977/Fireball+before+and+after.png?format=2500w North_Star has been fully implemented as a playable Kinfolk! We also created a new variation on one of Tide_Walker’s animations for polish purposes. The major human NPC we mentioned previously has a finished model now! We’ve also created a few variations on human idle animations so different characters can have more unique personalities. Some of these animations are also for specific characters in the story. The concept art for the large set piece we mentioned last time has been completed! We’re now in the process of creating the concept for another major structure and deciding between a few options for its construction style. Whichever we pick, we’ve got something pretty unique in store! We finished adding the new buildings and outer walls to the town. We also spent some time placing ivy on the walls, which really brought the whole town together. All that’s left now is some landscaping, but even now the town has a lot of personality. In addition to the abilities, we also created updated VFX for the capture mechanic. It’ll be more dynamic and much easier to tell how close you are to completing a capture! We’ve started implementation for many of the cutscenes we’ve been animating. Transferring the files into the project can take a few attempts, but with persistence a few scenes are very close to their final version! This sprint we wrote, story boarded, and began animations on a small but important cut scene. It’s going to make a huge difference. We’ve written a sizeable selection of short dialogue lines for Summoner NPCs to shout at the player before entering combat. These cover various situations and motivations, and should help different encounters feel unique. Development/Combat We made it easier to see the cooldown on throwing Summoning Bells! Since this isn’t in an ability slot, it needed a new indicator, and it’s already a good step forward. We improved the timing and graphics for our mission logic. Previously, we showed multiple pieces of information at once on the screen after completing part of a mission. Now we break it up so it’s easier to follow what’s going on. The headlook AI we use on our NPCs received some fine tuning this sprint! We added logic that changes the intensity of the animation depending on the player character’s distance. Patrolling and idle NPCs have a timer for how long they look at the player before losing interest and disabling headlook. If the player fires any abilities, the timer resets and they look again. If the player moves outside the NPC’s view d...Community Newsletter: September 8, 2023Sep 8, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsNew Kinfolk: Tadalon This past Monday, we were thrilled to get to share one of our new Kinfolk with you as a part of GymLeaderEd’s Monster Taming Direct! Our trailer featured Tadalon (a Water Type Kinfolk), some new abilities, a new song, and a touch of lore we hope you’ll find interesting. It took a lot of hard work to put together, and we really loved getting to share a more extensive look at some of our recent progress! Be sure to check out the full Monster Taming Direct for trailers and updates on 33 other games in the Monster Taming community! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/904601d9-a3e5-41a8-b7e9-05112a6edda3/WH.ATB.igG.Er.P.iC.tu.Re.png?format=2500w Art/Design We’re down to the final handful of animations for North_Star, and those remaining animations are in their final phases! This is the final Kinfolk we need for our current milestone. The high-poly model for an important human NPC was completed this sprint! We’ve also completed more hairstyles and clothing items, and improved the rigging for many of our already-implemented hairstyles. One of the new hats is unique, and will require some extra work to make it fit with the hairstyles. We also made improvements to how human characters sway while walking around, especially on slopes. Previously, they leaned over too far in order to stay more or less perpendicular to a slope, which led to some unnatural results. Concept art for a new major set piece is in the works. This is a larger point of interest that we plan to use in multiple locations in the overworld. Many of the final building models have also been placed in the town! We’re currently experimenting with different colors to create more variety between the houses. The result so far is very charming! In addition to the houses, we’re implementing many of the wall models we’ve shown previously. Most of our cinematic scenes for this milestone have fully completed animations now! Soon we’ll be implementing these in engine. While we currently have some preliminary versions as placeholders, they use outdated models and animations. The other cinematic animations will be finished in the coming weeks, if not sooner. Additionally, we’ve been creating smaller cut scenes using standard animations. All in all, they’re really tying the sequences together! We’ve continued creating VFX for new abilities! We also made a fix to the old VFX that indicates a summoning bell’s location after successfully capturing a new Kinfolk. The old version had a dark outline that didn’t look right, and the new version is much cleaner. Our post processing effects have also been getting some love recently with the reintroduction of volumetric lighting, an effect that many will recognize by the stylish god rays it creates in atmospheric fog. Our original volumetric lighting solution was incompatible with the project after our switch from Unity’s Built-in Rendering Pipeline to the Universal Rendering Pipeline several years ago, but th...Community Newsletter: August 25, 2023Aug 25, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsBacker Update Thank you to everyone who submitted designs for the Cryptic Journal! It’s been a joy getting to see everyone’s creativity and passion at work. We’ve reviewed all of the submissions, so if you sent one but haven’t heard back from us, please send an email to [email protected]. Art/Design We have a few new concept art pieces for the new town we’re working on. This one is right on the water, so we need to include set pieces like docks and piers! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/e6a85413-9902-438c-8cf2-6b04a9a6b0bc/dockconcept.jpg?format=2500w North_Star has a selection of combat animations in the works, and will be ready for implementation soon. This is the final Kinfolk we need for our current milestone. We’re in the process of modeling a few more hairstyles and outfits. They’ll be ready for rigging soon, and the implementation process from there will be quick compared to other models that need unique animations. The model for an important human character is also in progress. The current round of cinematics have nearly-finished animations! At this point, making changes almost feels like a movie director giving notes to an actor. “Show some more anger when delivering this line,” “Be more subtle with this gesture,” etc. For VFX, we’re currently focusing on multiple types of environment and set piece effects, such as the fountain streams we showed earlier this week. We’re adding some atmospheric dust and pieces of grass floating through the air, as well as new water splashes for when a character enters a body of water. We expect this to make wandering through the world feel more dynamic. A few important characters toward the start of the game have updated dialogue when you meet them now. We needed to inject some personality into their conversations, and the results are a huge improvement! We’re continuing to iterate on the writing for the beginning of the game. It’s important to balance exposition and action! We’re trying a few new ideas that we think should be pretty interesting. Development/Combat NPCs are now much better at following a schedule, and have increased options for different kinds of behaviors while they go about their daily schedule. All NPCs in one of our towns have been set up with day/night schedules where they go to their homes at night and then return to their daily schedules come daytime. We’ve made it much easier to swap through items in the quick use bar, which makes a big difference during combat. We’ve also cleaned up the appearance of the swapping animations. We polished the colliders and trajectory of summoning bells when the player throws them. The collider was too large previously, which allowed the player to capture a Kinfolk too easily. The trajectory also follows a more predictable path now. Bug fixes have once again been a major focus this sprint. QA and the devs have been hard at work to ensure a polished experience. These were a few of this sprint’s bug...Community Newsletter: August 11, 2023Aug 11, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsBacker Update Our deadline for Cryptic Journal submissions is almost here! Voyager backers and higher: if you haven’t yet, make sure you’ve sent your image to [email protected] by Tuesday, August 15. You can check the full list of details and requirements here. We can’t wait to add everyone’s work to the game! Single Player We’re down to making the final models for the set pieces in the town we’ve been working on. Here are some work in progress shots of the wall that will go around the town: https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/041/920/571/c5b923e1eecdd31f162dd2c10e3d6275_original.JPG?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=700&fit=max&v=1691798688&gif-q=50&q=92&s=539b43b138548086384bb48d2afaa340 https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/041/920/574/ec9fb89afd51a3543b37a19acfd68465_original.JPG?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=700&fit=max&v=1691798701&gif-q=50&q=92&s=2f6c267a553140769ff74a7e72a27de3 https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/041/920/575/847033ba5aec606386d0c6198809952a_original.JPG?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=700&fit=max&v=1691798721&gif-q=50&q=92&s=27b82831107959213bca22ca485b9489 Both combat and standard animations for North_Star are currently in the works. We’ve also been making a lot of improvements to combat, particularly melee-focused Kinfolk. We’ve improved the feature that allows abilities to optionally override the rotation of the user. For example, dash attacks use this to rotate the user in the direction of the dash. We added an optional override for ability damage so that combo abilities can deal different amounts of damage per hit. We’ve improved the damage validation for abilities to optionally allow for multiple damage ticks on the same enemy. Additionally, we improved how NPCs fire multi-charge abilities. We’re continuing to model new hairstyles and outfits for human NPCs, including an update for a familiar clothing item! Human NPCs also have some new updates for their implementation as summoners: We’ve added new options to NPC spawners that allow for spawning only when specific missions are active. We’re now able to use these spawners with Summoner NPCs as well as regular Kinfolk NPCs. Summoners are able to use post-battle behaviors like we mentioned previously in regards to Kinfolk. They can run away, blackout, or start conversations upon being defeated. We’ve created some new summoner NPCs with combat AI. These are being added to the overworld as new encounters. We have new concept art for multiple unique buildings, including the warehouse we shared earlier this week. All of these concepts are for the new town we’ve been building out. For our current round of cinematic animations, we’re getting down to the finer details like specific facial expressions for many of the shots. Some of these scenes have been implemented with their dialogue in the project, though they’re still works in progress. Even so, many of them are already very impactful! The almost-finished town we’ve been working on has a lot of new details! These include improved sculpting, improved lawn grass, fe...Community Newsletter: July 28, 2023Jul 28, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsSingle Player We’ve created special flocking behaviors for NPCs. Certain skittish Kinfolk that prefer to stay in groups now have more coordinated movement in their fleeing state. Here’s an example with a herd of Lumala: Briar_Stomper’s model is finished and ready for rigging! North_Star’s standard animations are in progress, and Little_Bandit has been implemented and given combat AI. We’ve also polished the movement of all Kinfolk followers. Followers also make use of our headlook feature now. We’re continuing to model new hats and hairstyles, and we’ve implemented the completed hairstyles and clothes in our character creator; this has been a huge help for creating more varied townsfolk. NPC humans also have a new pivot animation when starting a conversation. It used to feel awkward when NPCs would face away from the player while conversing with them, so it’s great to have more natural interactions. We’ve added more final details to the first story mission, including replacing all of the placeholder dialogue. We hesitate to call this the final version, but it should give the player a much better introduction to the game. As the animators continue creating and polishing the cinematic animations, we’ve started implementing rough versions of the scenes in Unity using the current animations and camera movements created in Maya. We’re also adding the final VFX to these scenes. There’s new concept art in the works for areas and set pieces related to a new town. We’re also continuing to create house and set piece models for other areas in the world. More has been done to polish the current town, while the sculpting and set dressing for an important location just outside of town is also wrapping up. We implemented a Wind Up VFX setting which allows us to play VFX at the beginning of certain attack animations where we weren’t able to before. Additionally, we’ve changed some beam attacks' colliders to better match their VFX, and fixed an issue with AoE attacks not doing damage when invoked multiple times. Aside from the flocking behavior we showed above, we’ve added a lot of other new features to our NPC AI! NPCs have a newly-created “Truce” state. Now when certain NPCs’ health is reduced under a certain threshold, they will run away while displaying a white flag VFX and slowly fading out. This gives the player an opportunity to spare the NPC while still receiving many of the benefits that they would have received for defeating them. Depending on the situation, choosing to spare or finish off an NPC can seriously impact how your team members view you. We’ve created improved tooling for smart objects. Smart objects are the main way for NPCs to interface with the world in unique ways. The smart object holds all the context of what the NPC should be doing and saying, and can even coordinate behaviors between multiple NPCs. For example, the player could stumble on multiple NPCs conversing and investigating a weird hole in the ground, only for a Shovlet to jump...Community Newsletter: July 14, 2023Jul 14, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsSingle Player We’ve completed a series of new human animations! Many of these will be utilized by NPCs as well as the human player. Here are a few examples: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/1689368666813-6XZX5O9H7JPMJL1DOZJJ/Getting_into_bed2.gif?format=2500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/1689368671375-BSO6ZPKK0RDOBZRNQ1IP/Gardening_Searching_ground4.gif?format=1500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/1689368666383-1ZLUY9K8VHFRZCJR2QCG/Getting_out_of_bed2.gif?format=1500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/1689368934518-PPJYO9ZNPI9ZD73PL554/Sweeping1.gif?format=1500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d0b957a67bac40001fe4b33/1689368968309-1LM4525UR089YFQAI98K/Receive1.gif?format=1500w Violet_Fang has been rigged for animations, and North_Star is almost finished as well! Little_Bandit’s combat animations are in their final stages, and Briar_Heart has been implemented as a playable character. We’re currently implementing the previously modeled hairstyles and outfits in the project. This opens the door for creating a ton of new NPCs with more unique looks! We’ve also implemented the animations for elderly human characters. Mr. Green_Collar has been fully implemented, and we’ve finished the concept art for another important human character. Concept art and modeling are complete for a unique set piece that’s significant to the beginning of the story. We’re currently in the early stages of revisiting another important set piece’s concept art. Since this piece will be implemented in multiple locations in the world, we want to make sure it sets the right tone. The VFX we’ve been creating are now fully implemented for nearly a dozen abilities and characters. We also have SFX in the works for many of these abilities. As we implement new abilities, we get to move many Kinfolk over to using their actual abilities instead of placeholders! As new characters are being finished, we’re adding them to their respective cinematic scenes. We’re making unique animations for these characters, as well as continuing to polish the cinematic animations we’ve been working on. Many scenes are close to completion! The encounters in early story missions have been using placeholder art and fairly basic logic until recently. We’ve gone through many of these encounters and placed final art, improved the logic, and added more developed dialogue. Many of these needed to account for the player accidentally getting into weird states if they didn’t follow the mission directions in a particular way. The terrain and path designs for the side mission we mentioned in the last newsletter are finished and looking great! We polished the terrain in town, and now we’re looking at the surrounding areas and points of interest as well. We now allow melee and ranged attacks to use different attack origins on a per-Kinfolk basis. We’ve al...Community Newsletter: June 30, 2023Jun 30, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsSingle Player We have new VFX for phantoms! They’ll have a slight smoky glow with a sparkling effect. It’s most noticeable when they stand still, and will leave a subtle trail behind them when they move. Here’s an example on a Phantom Lumala: North_Star is waiting on final touches for their model, and will be ready for rigging soon. Violet_Fang’s model is currently being rigged for animations, while standard and combat animations are underway for Little_Bandit. Mr. L_K’s model has been rigged and implemented for his scenes, and Mr. Green_Collar’s model is rigged and awaiting implementation. We’re also in the process of creating concept art for another major human NPC. Multiple outfits for NPCs are currently in the rigging process. We’re modeling a few new hairstyles, including the simple bun we showed on Twitter this week. Human characters will soon be receiving several miscellaneous animations like getting in and out of a bed, sliding and turning while sprinting, and gardening. We’ve given the character creator an option to randomize the initial character! We also cleaned up our character creation, inventory, and quick use menus for a smoother experience. The boss room we’ve been working on has come a long way! We implemented the boss character’s final model, and the model for the room itself is mostly complete, with scaling and a few set piece models still in the works While we continue working on concept art for the opening cinematic, we’re also creating concept art for graveyard set pieces. We’re nearly finished with all the house models for the town. Very soon we’ll be implementing all these houses and adding more NPCs to create the full town experience. Our cinematic animations are out of the previsualization phase and into the polish phase! This means we’re finished blocking out the general animations and camera movements, so now we get to focus on the details of smaller motions in the animations. The VFX for an important scene are finished and we’re really pleased with the result! We’ve been writing NPC dialogue for Guild officers, with different versions for those patrolling the wilderness and those stationed in towns. They’ll have a handful of different lines of dialogue depending on difference circumstances. We’re doing extra terrain sculpting in a few areas for a unique side mission. The logic to run through this side mission has been implemented in its basic form, and we’re currently adding more of the details. We implemented combat AI at different levels for one of our starting area Kinfolk. We’ve also added features related to flying NPC AI and how they navigate when in combat. In an effort to continue polishing the feel of combat, we changed the camera to make it rise up a fair bit while you're using spawn, call-down, and lob attacks for easier aiming. We’re also trying out some changes to how certain ranged attacks can be used while running away from a target. Instead of a Kinfolk being able to fire directly behind themself witho...
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