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[Chris Polus]

The eye tracking device I have to say is pretty cool. Currently, it's a Windows and Linux only device so I cannot use it directly on my Mac but it works beautifully in a VM in Parallels. I calibrated it and played with some tech demos Tobii packages with their drivers and one can clearly see the potential of that thing.

What excites me most about it is that it's very natural to use. It's not like a brain device that you have to train and learn how to use. Just use your eyes like you'd normally do. The accuracy is astounding for a device that was only used in usability testing and marketing labs (how long do people look on advertising) not long ago. These things come to consumer price level now. And a device like that opens a lot of possibilities. Not only in gaming, also for apps. So I'm positively surprised, hadn't thought it works with a relative low level of setup required (basically stick the bar below the screen, calibrate, done). I hope we're allowed to show more in the near future.

[Chris Polus]

We were at Expo Games, a games fair in South Tyrol, Italy. There were tons of people on the weekend and they tested the hell out of what we had (Tutorial, Edge, Wind Temple, Cinder Vally, Fire Temple).

We got so much feedback and it was probably the most valuable testing experience we had so far as there were really so many different people (it was a computer and board games fair).

• What we're really happy with is that in general people liked the mechanics, the terraforming and telekinesis. People played for 30 minutes, sometimes an hour and didn't want to make room for somebody else.
• Another big win was picking up Sarahul with telekinesis. People loved it, it seems it's a lot of fun.
• Jumping on scarabs to kill them made testers laugh. They liked it very much.
• Also, exploring levels seems to entertain testers. Some looked into every corner.

But we have a nice list of things to improve, too. So here are some lessons learned.

• Sometimes telekinesis handling of rocks is not intuitive as you can also shoot backwards.
• For us, fighting a boss is quite manageable, but for everyone it was very very hard. We have to make it easier.
• Wind magic was perceived to be too weak compared to fire magic.
• Same with using telekinesis to bridge gaps. We place a rock and use it to jump over a bigger canyon. Others build solid bridges with multiple rocks, which takes a lot of time and usually doesn't work as well.
• Some puzzles, especially one in the wind temple, is way too hard. It takes 30 minutes to solve, lol! We have to make it waaay easier.
• Fighting shielded warriors is too hard, 2 of them almost certainly kill you. It's too hard grabbing their shield, we will make that easier.
• Testers would like to tear out trees. It was almost expected that one can do that after all the things you are able to pick up with telekinesis.
• Player guidance in level 4 (fire temple) seems suboptimal, we need to make it more clear which doors can be opened with wind magic.
• And many more level design issues where people don't know where to go which is easily solvable if known.

These are all things we can improve quite easily and tweak some parameters, but just getting this stuff was so valuable and great. We're so used to the mechanics and know where we're supposed to go in a level to continue, that we don't notice the small quirks  anymore. I can only recommend going to any kind of game fair or game jam and let others play your game and make as many notes as you can.

[Chris Polus]

We give you a sneak peek at our own cutscene editor. And its bugs.

• This week: We were at Subotron in Vienna, Austria, talking about our Kickstarter campaign. Then: dialogs, cutscenes, funny bugs in our NPCs and cutscene editor, many new sounds in the Wind Temple, crosshair adjustment and doing a fire burst with a wind push (both based on forum and tester feedback).
• We're especially interested in what you think of the crosshair and the fire burst idea.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

FIRST REAL video of our eye-tracking implementation. And the play-feeling is really cool. And as the eye-tracking device is non-intrusive (no glasses you wear, no helmet, nothing, it's under your screen...) it really feels like magic!

• So... This week: Valve's Steam integration into Son of Nor, more work on the menu with multiplayer waiting rooms, more work on the triplanar shader, eye-tracking demonstration.
• We're going to be at GDC! You will be able to test out Son of Nor with eye-tracking there! Contact us if you'll be around.
• We're especially interested in what you think of the eye-tracking.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

Something is wrong with this week's dev diary.

• Hear new sounds. Tearing out crystals from their pedestals and tearing out rocks from their original shape. It comes with a really cool camera shake! After watching Vlambeer's talk about camera shakes and big explosions...
• Alex, our producer and level designer interrupts our original broadcast to show a time-lapse video of him building one of the levels you'll play through almost at the end of the game. Check how the first block-out is done and how testing as you build is really important! Don't forget you can ask Alex any game-related question at his ask.fm account.
• Argh, so who was that woman?
• We're going to be at GDC! You'll be able to test Son of Nor WITH eye-tracking there! Contact us if you'll be around. We'll be at the Tobii eye-tracking booth!
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

We have destroyable barrels in the game. And they're not empty.

• This week: More work on Yant'shaza, our fire effect, fire burst effect, fire tornado effect, a lot of cluttering in level 00 tutorial, destroyable barrels with contents, Sarahul dancing bug.
• We're going to be at GDC! You'll be able to test Son of Nor WITH eye-tracking there! Look for the Tobii eye-tracking booth!
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

This week we have a limited time offer you just can't refuse! Hehehe.

• This week: We put a lot of vegetation and cluttering into The Edge level, lighting and cluttering in the cave circuit that takes you to one of the temples, improved gameplay going around and new game objectives in Yant'shaza, new destroyable stuff, commercial break advertising wind surfers, a lot of info about the Lur god.
• We're especially interested in what you think would be cool as statue of Lur in Yant'shaza (see video).
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss YOUR opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

Lots of testing this week. We also show how we do sounds in Son of Nor and how our staged testing approach looks like.

• This week: We added more atmo (haze, steam) to the Fire Temple, new enemy in the fire temple, sounds for this new enemy (no spoilers but you can hear the sound), I discovered a very old piece of coder art while testing, some pillars of a temple try to escape when destroyed, playtesting Yant'shaza a lot, sounds for the scorpion enemy and behind the scenes of making these sounds.
• We're especially interested in what you think of the different ways you can take in a level. Do you prefer options or super linear gameplay?
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss YOUR opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

This has been a long time in the making. We've completely overhauled basic game mechanics in Son of Nor. Today, we're introducing a new praying system and in-app purchases.

We've prepared a blog post that explains the new mechanics in detail: READ HERE.

[Christian]

Wow, this looks great. I love the style, the look of the mechanics. Probably the coolest use of terraforming since Fracture or Red Faction. Will definitely be following this project now

But what the hell, why is no one else posting here? I hate seeing threads where it's just the dev posting for months.

[Chris Polus]

Nobody is interested in this project

[Franklin's Ghost]

I'm definitely interested.  Think you guys are doing an amazing job, just have horrible internet usually so don't get the chance to watch the videos.  Might be good to try and post some short gifs sometimes.  But great job and been following this for awhile now.

[Chris Polus]

Thanks Franklin's Ghost Always appreciated!

Hmm, animated GIF, I'll check if any of my programs can export that. Thanks for the idea.

[Chris Polus]

So, another Sunday, another week. We polished important gameplay elements that increase immersion, or at least don't take you out of it We've optimised some spawning point logic for enemies.

• This week: Polished AI group formations after battle, enemy spawn points and the iterations necessary to make them work, progress on Lur's statue.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss YOUR opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

Ricardo recaps our April Fools' joke and shows progress on beautifying and cluttering levels he works on.

• Welcome Natascha (human concepts) and Drew (animator) to the team.
• Our April Fools' joke was quite successful this year
• Cluttering and sounds in Yant'shaza: tearable obelisks, market places and more. We're really happy how the atmosphere comes along. Here, too, there are different styles for traversing a level.
• Something big is coming. But it's quite ugly still.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

Look for the egg, we've hidden one in this week's dev diary beside loudness metering and grotesque sand statues.

• Us devs have Son of Nor now in our Steam library for testing. It's a cool feeling seeing one's game there.
• Yant'shaza cluttering progress.
• Grotesque sand statues when getting rid of Sarahul. Statue pose competition as soon as our alpha starts
• Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill.
• Diving into tech land: Loudness metering for games is important as with any audio product in the digital audio world. Chris shows how he does it.
• There are so many strange websites on the internet, some of which are just not necessary. But to whom is this any news...
• We're slowly climbing the ranks in the cracker universe even though our game isn't released yet (we're getting to alpha state now). Starting from bedrock, a cracker has taken up the task to distribute Son of Nor WITH CRACK even though everything we've released so far wasn't protected AT ALL Funny if you think about it...
• HAPPY EASTER. Did you find the Easter Egg hidden in this dev diary? Happy searching!
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

[Chris Polus]

We're working on the game's intro. The story of Son of Nor has never been told in this way before.

• We've overhauled the havoc spell. The spell that happens when all 3 elements (wind, fire, essence) are combined.
• Julian himself narrates the intro to Son of Nor. For this, he even wrote additional text to extend it. Just for this dev diary.
• Music by our composer Mike Skalandunas. Go check him out when you're interested to hire him for your project.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

This week there's progress on a level we showed some time back as well as the last temple, the essence temple.

• Our last story time dev diary was well received and we reached rank 7 on IndieDB, which is always a nice feeling.
• We showed you a timelapse video of a dripstone cave blockout a while back. It didn't look much like a cave then but we made progress in this area we'd like to show. Take a look and listen.
• In this level, too, players can choose among several paths, depending on their playing style.
• Don't break the eggs. Other than that there is fun to be had with them.
• The essence temple with dragonlings that are immune to damage (at first), some puzzles, Indiana Jones style abysses and leaps of faith and more.
• Some infos about the Essence spell.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

Another look at strange places Son of Nor popped up on the internet. And a lot of MUSIC!

• I got some more Google Alerts this week about places on the internet where Son of Nor suddenly appeared. I like to investigate these as they sometimes are quite funny. Cracker sites advertising to have a crack / serial / activator for Son of Nor (a game that isn't even released yet and only has demo versions that don't need any crack) are a source of humor. Places claiming to have lifetime licenses (what a funny choice of words) or instructions that say you have to make sure to install all the software components for the game to work (which tells me that maybe more pieces of software get installed than you actually want).
• We showed music of Son of Nor a few times but always rather quick. I like to dedicate this episode to music and to our composer Mike, who does a great job. I picked scenes for which we have the soundtrack more or less ready and cut it together, resulting in a Son of Nor medley. Enjoy.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!

[Chris Polus]

Every day we are closer to final release so we concentrate more on polishing everything, this goes from effects to even voices!

• Dev Diary #80! Another round number. Will we reach #100 before final release?
• This week has been all about improving stuff. Daniel has improved the light setup of various levels, Ricardo has been improving cutscenes, and Chris made some voice tests for one of the characters! Listen to him trying to be a bird with different accents to find the right personality for him! :D Background is that we want to have speech in Son of Nor and try to nail down characters for different voice actors to take over and develop from there. We have no idea how this process will work so we're trying different things.
• Son of Nor Alpha has been released and soon enough we'll go beta. Ruben, our talented high res render guy, has been working on a new high definition render for promotion purposes.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss your opinion in our daily team meetings!