Blogs - AGdevs

Hello gamers,

We just finished first gameplay teaser from our prototype. Still miles afar from perfection, but step by step we are marching towards our dream.

You can find it in preview section as last video before screenshot.

Any feedback would be fantastic :))

Hello folks,

finally we created Steam concept page, so you can check us there and ask any questions, you have :)

Steam link

Hello dear gamers, long time no see!

As you know, we are part time devs. Implementation phase of our alpha build is taking longer than we anticipated. Therefore, I’ve got time to rethink some major ideas about secondary mechanics, that I would like to share with you in today’s blog. But first things first, let’s learn something about leveling, training and skills mechanics.

Leveling is essential feature in every RPG game from prehistoric times to nowadays. In Elothia when you get enough experience to advance to the next level, you don’t get any new stat points like you usually would. Instead you raise your trainable stats cap and get older in-game. So the real strength of the main character is unlocked by interacting with the world itself, like battling, exploration and more, while the level shows the overall unlocked potential of the player. As an addition, players get one skill point when they level up.

Training is much as it is in the “real world.” So if you want to raise strength, you need swing your sword more. If you want to raise you magic, use your spells. It’s simple, yet an interesting way to breathe some life into the mechanic of level up = stats up. This mechanic is inspired by the awesome mmorpg from ancient times “Ultima online.”

Skills in Elothia are the main differentiator between player play-style. We don’t have classes in the game, but instead, we leave the paths open for free choice, so the player can create many classes, from ordinary warrior or mage to some combined exciting dual, or triple class characters. The skill tree is in the form of focused spiritual rings, which could be opened by meeting stats requirements, or by certain storyline choices, or by some completed deeds. Each spiritual ring is tied with specific place in the world. This mechanic is influenced by “FFX”, but from fresh new angle, and it connects the player with the game world itself.

As I mentioned before, after many long discussions, we decided to tweak some things.

First of all, we implemented permanent death system, so when you die, you … die. But to compensate the possible frustration we added new action to the battle mechanic – run. So if you see that battle could end tragically for you, you can try to run for your sorry life. Another way to escape the reaper’s scythe is spiritual bonds with the world itself, which can in certain circumstances save the player from the death door. But this form of high spell needs huge amounts of spiritual energy, so when used, it consumes few skill points invested in the ring. So in the end, player will be a little weakened, but alive.

Ultimately, every bad news like delays and bugs give us time to polish the better gem out of muddy stone. Next time I will share the current dev status with you, few amazing peeps from our story and the world background.

Wishing you good hunting!

Martin and team

In our first blog post we let you guys know the basic premise of the game as well as some of the more major themes. In our second installment we wanted to bring you further into the lore as well as some of the core mechanics of the game.

One of the founding ideals we had for the game was that it had to be open world, even though it is at heart a hardcore RPG. This allows the player to explore the world to their heart’s content, freely exploring the deep lore and engaging side-quests that can be found hidden away almost everywhere. The maps function as 2D regions in which the player can move around and explore points of interest such as NPCs, dungeons and hidden places. The map also contains random events, treasure and other surprises.

The view changes to first-person for combat or conversation. Whilst in these situations, such as a dungeon or cave, you cannot leave until the area is cleared of enemies. There is no retreat. The cramped, confined areas offer no escape to the badly prepared so it is a sudden, desperate fight for survival that also offers the possibility of great reward.

Elothia is first and foremost a hardcore RPG. No handholding, no freebies, no quarter given. With this in mind, be careful when you face the final bosses in each area. They are not only tough, but many will evolve physically and tactically to shake things up and keep you on your guard. Your favourite playstyle won’t help you for long once the demons learn how you fight and what they can do best to counter it! Fear not though, it’s all worth it in the end as the rewards are more than worth the risk.

Treading carefully isn’t just for the deep, dank depths of dungeons. Conversations with NPCs throughout Elothia can go many different ways depending on your reputation, history and responses during the dialogue. There are no highlighted ‘good’ or 'bad’ options, no warnings or future insights. Seemingly harmless decisions made today can bring ruin or glory to you tomorrow. Be careful who you make an enemy of, and even more careful of who you befriend. Not everyone in Elothia is honest, and how you deal with this special breed of person can have whole consequences of its own.

Hardcore RPGs are our inspiration but we’re working on breaking the current mould in how our combat system works. Turn-based strategy is over-used and under-innovated so we’ve gone with time-based attacks and abilities. Learning when to use a quick attack or action and when to spend several seconds gearing up for something big is vitally important during the intense, fast-paced first-person combat.

We’re putting a lot of our efforts into a responsive UI so that our players can make the most of this immersive and lore-deep world.

Keep an eye out for our third blog post, covering the major RPG staples – levelling, skills and training!

We are a small indie team of passionate hardcore RPG players from around the world who have spent the last year investing all of our collective time and savings into the creation of our dream:

“Unique visual experience”

Elothia is 2D open world dark fantasy RPG with multi-choice narrative storyline, unique handmade graphics and a whole new approach to the genre mechanics.

A longer description of each of these, along with snippets of and insights to our work, will be available in future blog posts.

We are currently in the final stages of implementing the core game mechanics and will then be working hard on polishing Elothia to be the best that it can possibly be, ready for its playable Alpha build to be shown off to our loyal fanbase.

The artwork is entirely complete for Chapter 1 of the 3-Chapter storyline, from which we will be sharing non-spoiler examples from time to time. VFX and Animation development are now on full throttle to support the player immersion which is so dear to us.

Up until this point we have financed everything from our own savings because we felt that players deserved a proven, workable concept and a playable demo before we could ever ask someone to put their money on the line. We’re that confident in the quality of our game. Now that is almost complete and people can begin immersing themselves in our world, we are now ready to start building a community of adventurers with which to share our new world.

We want to know what you love about our game, what could be improved and what other features you want to see included. That last one is possibly the most important because we are soon to be launching a kickstarter campaign to get us across the finish line and we want every single penny to go on features that our players will love.

We are a group of hardcore gamers who have turned our coding hobby into our gaming profession. We are greatly enjoying being on the other side of the looking glass and are amazed at the tight-knit community of passionate, creative, loving people we have found there. We share collectively our love, and at times hatred, of gaming and game development which really helps us through the tough times, as well as making the good times that much sweeter.

Our motto is and always will be:

“From Gamers, For Gamers”

We hope you enjoy this journey with us.