Combat Arena Alpha
We were thrilled to finally get our latest update out to the community! The major change was the addition of the ability Shield. You can read more about the latest patch here. We also made sure to get a hotfix out for some bugs that made their way into the bigger update.
We’ve been working on some updates to the Combat Arena’s music and expect to include those in the next build.
The biggest changes that are needed before the Practice Arena can go live all center around getting the NPC combat AI up to snuff. Work is steadily progressing on this and we’re currently thinking it should be ready within the next few weeks!
Single Player
We’ve had a lot of progress on the art/writing side:
We began concept art sketches on two very promising water type Kinfolk designs.
Work on another combat song is well underway and progressing smoothly. Rob and Tori are particularly excited for this one.
A full outline detailing each act of the game's story from start to finish (including all possible endings) is now complete. This also includes many key decision points and how those decisions affect the story's path/ending. Work is also well underway on outlines for each individual story mission. As many of you know, creating a compelling story for Kindred Fates is something we really care about. We can't wait for you to play what we have in store.
The dev team successfully implemented a proof of concept for world streaming terrain in the open world. This is a major technical milestone for the open world portion of the game that allows chunks of terrain to load in dynamically, rather than all at once. This has already been a HUGE frame rate saver but we still have several kinks to iron out before we can call it done.
NPCs and their AI received even more love this sprint! Our end goal is to make every Kinfolk’s AI match their personality and feel lifelike.
We’ve implemented patrolling pathways across the map, and added noise to these paths to let the Kinfolk wander around instead of maintaining rigid lines.
NPCs are now able to gang up on a single player! We’re also looking at the possibility of having NPCs fighting each other in the overworld.
The past few weeks, we’ve added a new state, “suspicious,” that occurs before they enter active combat. This will help to make NPCs feel much more lifelike.
We now have the ability to spawn NPCs programmatically, which makes it much easier for QA to test their behaviors.
An AI behavior tree for one of the more simple combat AIs!
Community
Tomorrow marks the 2 year anniversary of the Kindred Fates community! It’s been a joy and an honor having so many amazing fans along for the ride. This game wouldn’t be what it is without all of you, in a very major way. We’re so proud to be able to include community-created characters, music, and items in our game! Every time we give you the opportunity to showcase your creativity and passion, you blow our expectations out of the water. Making an ambitious game like this can be stressful at times, but seeing your support and positivity gives us the encouragement we need to keep moving forward. Getting to play in the Combat Arena Alpha with you this year has been a treat, and we can’t wait to show you more! We have a lot of exciting work underway that we hope to be able to share with you in the coming months (fingers crossed)!
Andrew Reading + Alpha Giveaway Stream - Saturday July 3 at 3pm EST on Twitch
Are you ready for a throwback? Andrew has some rather interesting Kindred Fates stories to read to you this time. We’ll also be giving out 5 champion packages in honor of our community’s anniversary! We hope you’ll be able to join us, it’s gonna be a good time!
Thanks for joining us! We’ll see you next time on July 16!
