Combat Arena Alpha
As we put the finishing touches on the new arena and prepare for playtesting, we’re starting work on the next arena as well! These two will add a significant level of variety to the arenas you get to play in.
Buffs and debuffs will have an expiration time, and currently they will expire after 30 seconds. This applies to all stat-modifying abilities (Sharpen, Startle, Rage, etc.).
The ability colliders have been adjusted for better performance; mainly just the cone attacks needed this.
Single Player
We’ve created a follower AI that allows a Kinfolk on your team to be summoned as an NPC that trails behind your player as you travel through the world.
Using the same AI, we added functionality for the human player to become a follower when you summon a Kinfolk for combat. This way the human is always within a certain distance of you while you play as a Kinfolk.
We also created a command that spawns a follower for easier testing.
Here’s a preview of how the follower AI looks when a Kinfolk follows the player character, gets summoned for combat, and then is recalled to continue as a follower:
Avieon is getting combat AI! This is our first combat AI for a flying Kinfolk. Avieon will be more aggressive in the air, and more defensive when they land on the ground to regain stamina.
The water has come a long way in the past few weeks!
Our swimming mode has been fleshed out significantly. In our last newsletter, the only Kinfolk who were ready to swim were the ones who could tread water across the surface. As of now, aquatic Kinfolk are able to swim under the water’s surface! This has been a major task, but it’s coming together extremely well.
We’ve also added splashing VFX for when people, Kinfolk, and abilities collide with the surface of the water.
Some characters are now offset from the center of the screen in order to make aiming easier. In the past this offset caused some unintended and strange camera behaviors, but these have been resolved. We’ve also fixed the camera to move more intuitively during flying.
We’ve improved several movement animations to be smoother. Kinfolk with 2D faces (such as Mechid, Gladias, etc.) have improved animations between facial expressions. The human now uses gesture animations while the Kinfolk is fighting, which gives the impression of the human "guiding" the Kinfolk in combat.
Many character models used to have seams in their textures . We’ve fixed all of these, sometimes going so far as to repaint the texture altogether. It can be a small detail, but the difference is surprising!
We’re very close to having automated internal builds up and running. It’s taken a lot of work with Jenkins and Bash, which has been no small feat. We’re very excited to finally have this up and running soon!
Thanks for checking in on us! We’ll see you next time, on March 11.
