Games W.I.P Thread

Quote from TheOnlyDoubleF

ULTRAFLOW is now available for FREE on Android! Merry Christmas! ahah

Fuuuck yeaaah, you rock! Merry Christmas mate!

Nice going Pampers!

Been slacking off to post here recently but here we go!

Devlog Update #10 – Teamwork!

This is our tenth Devlog post, ain’t that a thrill! As usual we are working like rabid animals to get more stuff into the game and here goes our latest recap.

The Tenth Steam Concept Video!

The biggest change we did in terms of gameplay is the addition of Teambased Gameplay! That said we now have two game modes for the game, FFA Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. We are not sure how many game modes we will end up with but we are for sure willing to explore the lands of different game modes. As you might have imagined this addition pretty much turned the current balance of the game upside-down, but don’t you worry! We will put big efforts into balancing and testing in the future.

[Blocked Image: http://www.frogsong-studios.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/SpellswornHeartSteam.png]

Steam Integration

As our team values playability and availability we decided to finally integrate the game with Steam. Currently it’s very basic and you still have to connect to eachother via the console and shows your steam name. More integration features coming soon!

What’s more?

We are closing in on our second run at Ubisoft Massive’s testlab and this time we are going to have external testers and be there as observers, pretty much the most exciting event so far. We are also delving the depths of different grants we are to apply for, everything to keep us going!

We are going to have a test run this Friday, if anyone is interested to have a go with us, send me a PM!

Quote from Vilham

My main criticism would be that it doesn't look visceral enough, the pacing seems quite slow which atleast the trailer suggests you don't want it to feel.

To be honest I dun even know what visceral means in this context! Please elaborate!

And about the pacing, from I spectators view I totally see how the pacing seems slow and maybe some think it would be slow in-game too. The problem is though the game is a lot about dodging and responding to enemy spells and projectile where a part of the problem lies in the movement speed. If the movementspeed would be increased, so would the projectile speeds which then results in a lot smaller timeframes for counter-actions.

I do think we could increase the general speed overall a bit but nonetheless it might be hard to balance.

Another solution we thought about is just upping the playspeed in the trailer, though that is quite dishonest and might upset some players.

Quote from Pampers

think the characters should pop out of the environment a bit more

You're totally right, I'll give that a mention.

Also, thanks for replying guys!

Quote from Vilham

One of the reasons is the lack of gameplay sound, having low levels of gameplay sound in your trailer massively helps, its one of the key aspects of any game, it would be interesting to see a video of it with the actual sound. Another thing is the particle effects appear a bit lackluster, this is reinforced by the height of the camera, the majority of your screen has not much going on. Not sure if it works in your case as you appear to have a camera that can be freely moved but minor screen shake. General things that give feedback to the players.

Maybe that isn't what the game is going for. But the high tempo of the music in the trailer sure makes it feel like it's meant to be. Here is an example of something that certain feels like every hit and move has a bit more impact.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/261180/

Yepp, I haven't reflected all too much about the trailer but I think you're right. I will see to it that we add in-game sounds for the next trailer. The whole deal with the camera height is very complex and I've been vouching strongly for limiting the camera height to a closer distance, though the team insists that you lose too much gameplay readability if there are things happening off-screen. My side of it is that the problem with things happening off-screen isn't as big as they think it is (as it is not a problem in StarCraft 2, Dota, LoL etc.) I do agree that due to our long range spells there is some problematique, but not big enough to counter-weight the other disadvantages. We're in a state where everyone agrees it's a "personal preference" and thus hard to decide on.

We do have some screenshakes in the game but I think they are only present if you are the player who get's hit by a spell.

Now I've heard the music tempo vs game pacing enough times to actually put some weight into it. The problem is it's really hard to find fitting and royalty free trailer music. We do have a composer but he's really busy as it is right now and we need to put him on sound effects asap so we're not gonna get new music resources some time soon. Doesn't change the point you're making though, we have to do something about it.