State of the Game
As of right now the game has totally moved on from the prototype. The screenshots and trailers are from a build that I'm fairly sure won't run now. Dissected and broken up, and even if it did it would run with many things missing or broken.
Nearly every aspect of the game from that build is going to be touched on. Keena's movement and general gameplay is going to get a complete overhaul to perfectly capture a fluid, dynamic underwater experience for the player. My primary focus there is to greatly improve the animation's and the blending. This has been the focus of my side projects, to improve my capabilities with Unity's mecanim animation system and humanoid controllers.
Right now Keena has some situational awareness, but I want to ramp this up to bring her character and personality to the forefront of the experience. Small things like how she'll flex when reversing direction suddenly, spin and react to gravity when she breaches the water, brace against objects, react to external forces like currents and damage, and react to slamming into walls at speed.
The game is also going to expand into more 3D areas. As you recently saw the Crystal Palace was made fully 3D (and will be getting a major graphical overhaul) but I want to bring more gameplay here. It won't feature combat, but you will explore a few key areas in 3D, and solve puzzles and deal with traps. A whole questline was added to bring more of this gameplay in the form of a treasure hunt across the game world.
So all in all, the game is in its 'dark age' as I can't really show anything right now because everything is dissected and rough, but it's been tested several times over and big changes are coming that will greatly improve the final experience, combat has also received its 'final touch' to give it the substance it needed to stand on its own. Will be going over this in a future combat focused post.
To-Do List
I'm currently work on the game's final script. The game features a lengthy main quest featuring a few key characters, and a few side activities. While the game can't boast hundreds of side quests, it has a smaller number of focused questline's that build on characters, the world, or lore. I expect the script should be done this month, but I am a little behind schedule, so it may run long.
Combat is at a mid-point. While all the key ingredients are there and functional, it has not received any polish. A third of the enemies have been made, but only a few of their abilities function. Enemies are intended to be somewhat dynamic, mimicking iso-adventures like Diablo and Titan's Quest. Their weaknesses and abilities vary and bring interesting challenges to battles with the final area of the game going all out with this concept. All of this is functional, but again, not polished or balanced. This is going to wait until the script and world is finished. After the script is done the conversation will be reworked into a 3D visual novel style that allows the characters plenty of expression without interfering or bugging out gameplay.
The world will be my next task after the script, it's in a rough state with many of the final areas in the grey-boxed stage and may be overhauled as necessary to fit the story. The world map is also in need of a variety of touches, such as making the map and glitter trail work from anywhere, a feature that was fairly hard coded in the prototype. So a few key things need to be reworked here for playabilities sake.
The game features 10 bosses of varying intensity. While they have all been planned out, design work is still in progress and they are not yet functional. This is something I'm planning to work on after the combat and gameplay/movement overhaul.
Crafting, equipment, and customization functions, but many of the assets still need to be designed and made. Keena can equip from 12 different armor sets and cook meals that give her a single major boost for a long period of time. The game also features a hub area where rescued NPC's can fetch items for the player later in the game, as well as provide various fun side activities. These are all in 'kinda functional' states but will definitely need attention. This will all be part of the Crystal Palace overhaul, as this is all intertwined with the hub area.
Sounds and Music are still actively being R&D'd as I don't really know exactly how I want to handle it all. I certainly can't afford a custom soundtrack, so we are going with some fantastic royalty free music that hasn't gone too mainstream. We have an excellent solution for a cute 'Aegean' language utilizing Vocaloid software. Many of the sounds are going to be totally reworked as I've discovered a much more satisfying solution for handling sound sources in Unity without needing some complex framework.
Finally things that still need research are in regards to Steam achievements and integration, customizable controls, the final UI appearance, a website, and general marketing elements.
A lot of work ahead, but the 2024 release date still feels fine. Milestones have been on track so far.
Please consider wish listing us over on Steam : Store.steampowered.com
Keena, and all of the characters in the game were designed by Nemi over on Twitter, you can follow her over here : Twitter.com
Thank you for reading and I'll see you next time!
DevDre,
Carrionwave
