The theme of this 2-week development cycle was combat!! We couldn’t help ourselves so we wanted combat to be one of the very first things we tackled on Blacksmith Bay =P. We all sat down and talked about what type of combat we wanted to accomplish and all quickly came upon the same idea.
Basically, the rolling, blocking, stagger, and strafe systems of Dark Souls mixed with rewarding combat experience of Breath of the Wild. The time stopping in BOTW allows you to take a quick second and really feel rewarded for landing a hit. It's something we hadn't seen in all that many games and when we started playing with it in Blacksmith Bay, we knew it was here to stay.
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Yes, indeed we dooooo! Another huge element was making sure that the animations were different for every weapon class in the game! That means they attack differently and even will roll differently. This all will have huge gameplay implications for you! Heavy hammer wielders may not be able to nimbly roll out of harm but can easily stagger even some of the more menacing monsters. But not only that, but parameterized animations =O. Want to be a daring rouge with weapons that can beat a lightning bolt? Well, I mean, you can’t make it that fast, but you can make it pretty darn quick. Grab some lighter materials from Cole and think about using a piercing weapon like a dagger or spear.
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This was a big step for us to pave the way for the alchemy/cooking system later but it was still important for combat. Basically, monsters and items can apply buffs/debuffs to you that can make your life easier or harder. Spiders can throw webs at you that apply a slowing debuff. But if you plan ahead and go fishing you can get the upper hand by eating some speed boosting fish. Don’t ask me why the fish makes you go faster, we’ll figure that bit out later.
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Like everything, we’re still pretty early on this system so there is loads of temporary art on it. Our goal is to have it a bit more wrapped up by the time you all get to play it for PlayNYC.
Prepare yourself to square up against some challenging foes! It’s pretty important that all the monsters you run into are pretty different. So, for us that meant building bespoke behavior trees for each one! My personal favorite is the spider who will try to scurry away from you and lob more webs unless it feels like you are too close.
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The theme of this 2 weeks in development was Skills! Our focus was on getting to a final look for how the player interacts with their in-game menu and the skill tree.
For that, we needed to take a step back and work on how we were awarding the player the XP they spend in their skill trees, UI work, and a lot more. So, buckle up while I walk you all through all of the new stuff we worked on! |
It’s certainly a bit rough around the edges but it feels massively better already so it’s a really great start. Our plans are to have items/3d elements use a mixture of fading, scaling, and disintegrating in so that everything doesn’t just pop in.
We’re super excited for this change to the menu. It finally has the physicality that we’re trying to make everything in Blacksmith Bay have. |
The inspiration for our skill system is Graveyard Keeper. What we liked when we were studying that game was that every player action was rewarded with XP orbs. It gave you the sensation that you were never just wasting time, even if you lost a fight with some bats or messed something up.
For Blacksmith Bay, actions you take in the world will reward you with different amounts of three types of orbs (Red: Crafting Essence, Green: Nature Essence, Blue: Exploration Essence). The essence type is related to the action you are taking. An example of that would be picking a plant and receiving a little bit of nature essence for it. Broadly the rarer/higher level something is the more essence it grants. Spawning essence orbs: Here’s how the player interacts with trees in game: |
You asked and we delivered! Cameras are now able to be rotated. Currently, you rotate the camera by holding down middle mouse button and pushing forward & backwards. This is likely to change when because of accessibility concerns and general usability. We’ll revisit the exact mapping when we work through the hotkeys again.
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We want to avoid Blacksmith Bay becoming something that is not-so-lovingly referred to has a Wiki-Game. Basically, what that means is a game that is nearly impossible to play without looking online for how to actually play it. Wikis are great, games that are only playable by looking at a wiki are not so great =/. The recipes for the alloys/foods/etc. you make are a prime example. We wanted a system that:
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