The gameplay of Samudai consists of fast paced arena action where you try to push you opponent out of the screen or into hazards.
Both players start in the middle of 7 stages, the Waterfall stage. The stages represent different parts of a mountain and both players must try to reach their respective end stage. The good characters go to the right after winning, ascending the mountain while the evil characters try to descend it.
Samudai is local 2D versus game where gameplay is inspired by games such as Super Smash Brothers whereas you don't defeat your opponent by hitting them but rather outmaneuver them to either knock him off the stage or into hazards.
The objective is to keep winning, facing your opponent through multiple dynamic stages which will culminate in a final battle with the losing player turning into a Boss.
We want to give each stage a unique style and feel as well as a different hazard next to simply hitting your opponent out of the screen.
The Waterfall stage is probably one of the hardest stages as the entire bottom is hazardous. Players can maneuvre over logs that come down the Waterfall and have a rock to rest on at the right and left side.
We made this stage hard op purpose to start the game off sooner. We knew people would probably see this stage the so we didnt want the fights to last very long here.
We did however made it so that a skilled player would have no trouble maneuvreing the terrain.
Our second stage is the Lava cave:
This stage is the 5th stage in line and players will go there if the Hero won the previous round. This stage has physics based ropes on the wooden bridges and rising lava making it a dynamic stage to play in. The stage is constantly changing and the player needs to adapt to survive here.
Our third stage, The Sakura Meadow:
If the Villain wins and both players decend the mountain the first stage they find is the Sakura Meadow. This stage has an added gameplay mechanic in wind. Strong gusts of wind alternate between the top and bottom half of the screen. Being caught in one of the gusts will push players towards the edge of the screen making them easy targets to hit out of the stage.
The Art style for all the stages is based on old Japanese paintings from the Edo period mixed with a more cartoonish style. We just felt that it would be a really cool style to try and pull off and we like to think we did
Please note that the stages shown here are all mockup images and will be changed when implemented into the game.
(Ill add some more of the stage designs later)
CharactersAt first we started out with a more traditional aproach to the characters making them black with a ink texture to make it look that they where ancient beings straight out of a old scroll or book. This was also because we wanted to make them completely emotionless, serving solely as an avatar of the gods.
After playtest sessions and feedback we found that the characters could be improved upon, both in looks and in background so we decided to give them a complete overhaul.
One of the first things that we wanted to change was visibility. Because most of our backgrounds have darker colors it became increasingly hard to distinguish the characters from the scene. This also helped with the second problem which was that people had trouble staying focused on their own character when they did some fast combat maneuvers. Adding the color of the respective character's element with a bigger white outline changed that while still holding on to that traditional inky look of the old animations.
While our lead desinger was redoing all the characters he decided to build upon what he had learned so far to animate them even better and give each of them a sort of peronality. In the final animations that we are implementing now, everything is really dynamic and flows together.
We are aiming for four characters in the initial release of the game with possible more coming later.
Here are some of the ingame sprites UPDATE: We just uploaded our latest character, Akashi. He is the second character for the Evil side and will be playable in the full version of the game. What do you guys think?
UPDATE, 12-08-2014: To make Samudai more exciting we added the ability for the losing character to transform into a giant boss version of himself. You may have seen some of them in one of our trailers or posts but now these bosses are completly redone to match the new style, including color and new animations.
We are currently working overtime to implement all the new animations and stages but are making good progress.
We released some Demo’s in the past to get user feedback which really helped a lot. You can ofcourse still download these but they are so far appart from what we have right now that it would probably give you a bad first impression.
We are however planning on releasing one last Demo before the game comes out so ill be sure to give you guys a heads up when it’s time
MusicFor the music and soundscape of Samudai, we use the gifted Barry Pietersen
He really tried to implement the old japanese style with a more modern approach.
Listen to some of the music here:
https://soundcloud.com/barry-pietersen/sets/samudai-music-teasers
TrailerCheck out our latest trailer showing some of the new animations and art
For the full trailer check out this youtube link:
ConclusionFinaly I would like to say that ill try to update the devlog everytime we have some new changes or want to talk about new stuff. Please give us any feedback that you can so we can make Samudai the best game it can be!
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