Backer 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 SkymillCrypticJournal@gmail.com by Tuesday, August 15. You can check the full list of details and requirements here. We can’t wait to add everyone’s designs 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:
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, fenced gardens, and more NPCs. We’re currently starting to work on giving these characters their own AI and schedules.
We’ve continued to improve the logic and dialogue for the missions at the beginning of the game. While they’ve been in a functional state for a while now, we’ve been iterating on the dialogue and building out the logic to account for more contingencies in gameplay. (For example, how does the conversation change if you lose the fight instead of winning?)
The townsfolk in the first town have been given new dialogue that’s specific to the beginning of the game. We also have new functionality in xNode that allows us to direct NPCs to look a certain direction while speaking.
We’ve spruced up our Restless Fog VFX to make it stand out more from how you might expect typical fog to look. We also continued to create tons of new ability VFX and SFX!
As we get further into the polishing phase for our internal milestone, the dev team is focusing more and more on bug fixes, hence the somewhat lighter newsletter. We look forward to coming back with more exciting updates soon!
Thanks for checking in! We’ll see you for our next newsletter on August 25.
