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[thelemba]

PROJECT OVERVIEW

A retro-inspired 2D Action RPG in which you play as a Bellwielder to retrieve souls of missing people and restore the world's fallen civilization.
Inspired by Quintet ENIX classics (Soul Blazer, Terranigma). Anuchard tells a story about rebuilding civilization from scratch also the relationship with its deities.






WISHLIST ON STEAM, DEMO AVAILABLE!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1386620/Anuchard/

ITCH.IO
https://stellarnull.itch.io/anuchard

GAMEJOLT
https://gamejolt.com/games/anuchard/532658

PRESSKIT
http://stellarnull.com/presskit/

JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER
https://discord.gg/9AtzQd


Key Features

Rebuild Anuchard's fallen civilization

Throughout the game you will retrieve more villagers. It could be a chef, farmer, herbalist, or even seaweed enthusiast. Each villager will contribute to your town and also give you various benefits in combat.



Action-packed knockback battle system! Your weapon? It’s a bell!

With Audros Bell in hand, use it to knock enemies, objects, and solve puzzles! Battle various enemies with different Armor types in hand-crafted retro style dungeon.



Solve Dungeon puzzles!

Master the knock back mechanic and solve various puzzles inside the Dungeon!


Cook a hearthy meal in the Orchard!

Cook different kinds of foods before going to the Dungeon! Different foods will grant you unique abilities and status increases!


Get powered up by food!

Different food will grant different abilities, try out different dishes to discover abilities that suit your play style!



Follow the devs!

Coder, Game Designer
http://twitter.com/ricolemba
Artist, Writer
http://twitter.com/lazcht
Composer
http://twitter.com/clealeshlick

[thelemba]

Hello! It's been quite a while (months! omg). We've been doing a lot of planning and polishing stuff and it gave me burnout about devblogging, I don't understand why some devs can be productive at development and blogging at the same time  

Okay so for today I'm going to explain project Anuchard Combat!

In this game you have 2 types of attacks:

• Light Attack : Your standard 3 hit combo
  
• Heavy Attack : Slow, heavy attack that knocks enemies away
  

We also give Armor Property to some enemies (see that icon above monster?) If an enemy has armor lvl 1, it means you have to break the armor by knocking it to wall/objects, using light attack at this state will deal very little damage (we're still working on balancing, but for now armor blocks 100% light attack damage )



To make things more interesting, we decided to make a lot of Armor types!
for example in the GIF below, the enemy has Armor Type : Explode, it emits 3 projectiles toward player  



We've been tweaking this combat system for months and so far we think it feels good. We hope to share more details very soon!
*I hope I can do this regularly though*

[thelemba]

Been working on boss this week, rough draft should be finished tomorrow..I hope

[thelemba]

Hello! I've been working on boss, going back and forth in different concepts.
I don't really like how my previous design doesn't utilize player heavy attack so I added new phase called "vulnerable phase" and added arkanoid minigame to it 



will post more details about my process in designing boss later!

[thelemba]

Hi!

So as I've mentioned before I'm going to share my process in designing this boss.

I had to make some decisions here because there are so many types of boss like for example 3-phases type like in Zelda or many Nintendo games, boss in Mana games, kingdom hearts games, they all have different structure.

I really like the direction that Nintendo games usually take, it's the idea that you have to do something to the boss before you can deal actual damage, and usually the thing you do is the mechanic of the dungeon, I think that's pretty elegant design. However, we don't have many mechanics in the dungeon like in zelda games, so I decided to create 2 states and split the boss into multiple parts ( body and hands) :

• Normal State : In this state, you can't deal damage to boss body, in this state player has to deal damage to boss hands, if boss hands hp <=0 , it changes to vulnerable state
• Vulnerable State : This is similar to Zelda games where the boss is vulnerable and usually shown tired/unbalanced, however in this state we choose to utilize heavy attack, in this particular boss we added 'minigame' similar to arkanoid

As for the behavior in Normal State, please take a look at this flowchart (this is just a rough flowchart! I've just made this to explain the pattern   )


The concept for attack pattern of this boss is Salt & Pepper :

• Salt is slow moving & bouncing projectile as you see in the GIFs, the boss spits 3 rocksalt at the beginning of his normal state, this is the Zone attack ( attack that limits player movement )
• Pepper is fast moving projectile shot from its hands, we haven't made the asset yet so it doesn't show clearly how it shoots pepper. we're working on this right now!

the real challenge here is to make the transition from normal state to vulnerable state as smooth and natural as possible, but I think we did quite a good job so far, now we'll continue to polish this later!

[thelemba]

I'm planning to write about how I design enemies this weekend, for now I'll showcase one of the enemy types, Nest!

[Jasmine]

I LOVE the color palette for this game! Big ups to the artist/animator!

Thoroughly looking forward to more programming posts and gifs!

[thelemba]

I LOVE the color palette for this game! Big ups to the artist/animator!

Thoroughly looking forward to more programming posts and gifs!

thank you! yeah our artist did amazing job in this, we actually went through couple of revisions in art direction but we eventually decided to make the environment darker & less contrast in order to make VFX more standout, now I understand why in some JRPGs, they darken the screen when we use magic/skills, for example :


this is how the game look before :

[RuinousA]

Looks fantastic, and I always love me some townbuilding-RPGery. Keep up the great work!

[thelemba]

Looks fantastic, and I always love me some townbuilding-RPGery. Keep up the great work!

Thank you! your game looks fantastic as well!

I've been preparing for my next post, probably will write about enemy AI let's see if I can get it done this weekend!
for now, please enjoy this GIF, new mechanic in boss dungeon

[thelemba]

Hello, as I planned before I'm going to share how I design enemy encounter in this game, encounter design is one of the important parts of the game since it takes in isolated room, so that I can have more control of space player's going to play on.

These are core elements in anuchard's combat :

• ZONER
  
  Something that limits player movement, this can be Fool type(Slime in our game), or 4 directional Gun type enemy, having zoner is important because it splits combat space into two zones : safe zone and danger zone. However, having only zoner isn't good
  
  
• CHASER
  
  Just like the name says, it is something that chases player, this means punishing player that keeps its position for too long, one of the chaser types in our game is Wild enemy type, this wolf-looking enemy will chase you until its death, this forces player to keep moving and to be honest, it looks more active and engaging.
  
  
• MAP OBJECTS
  
  We think, having only Zoner and Chaser is enough but we want a bit more, so we added map objects to our combat, player can knock enemies to Jars to deal more damage, knock enemies to Trees to gain Healing Orbs, etc. This gives extra variety to the combat

This is one of encounter in the game :


As you can see, there's Wild enemy type (wolf/dog-like) that keeps chasing me and at the same time there's 4 directional Gun type enemy that punishes me if I enter danger zone carelessly, I also added 2 Fool types to give it a little bit of extra zoner.

And last,

From that, it's all low-level stuffs, tweaking enemy position, AI, attack delay, enemy speed, etc. the goal is to get good sense of rhythm, All great action games like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, and Hyper Light Drifter have good sense of rhythm . Imagine pressing dodge and attack button is like a beat, it feels rhythmic and great.

I can't really explain this in theory because you just have to feel it. I hope this game will have distinct rhythm and feel good to play!

[thelemba]

We're working on this "Diamond" mechanic, it's a little twist to the dungeon exploration aspect, here's our iteration :


wall collision, at first I didn't use screen transition, just camera movement back to previous position but that didn't look good so I changed to this, I really like how this look, kinda feels retro-ish like when you fall into pitfall in Mario games.



added particle effects



our artist wanted the diamond to be hidden before in contact with player, it turned out quite good!

[thelemba]

Hello! our artist (Lazcht) has been working on decorating boss room this week, i'm liking the look!
We planned the bossfight to feel playful with a bit of intense feeling, so we went with garden/greco-roman era with flowers and fruits

[essencescape]

Art's looking good, concept seems fun and seems very integrated. I agree with the sense of rhythm!

A suggestion, art could use a bit of an ambient lighting pass (2d textures, sprite light sources with a visual effect for transparency and emission, etc) or code some clever stuff in order to make it feel more atmospheric. But that could really be dealt with later on.


Awesome job!

[Lazcht]

Yo! I'm the artist (also in charge of narrative) of this project, been too busy and honestly a bit unsure what to write since I had written several devlogs at indiedb year ago but it just stopped, it was so hard to keep on going (and weekly). so if anyone interested: https://www.indiedb.com/games/anuchard

I LOVE the color palette for this game! Big ups to the artist/animator!

Thoroughly looking forward to more programming posts and gifs!

Hi, a local friend said you're the composer of his projects XD Nice to meet you here! 
Ooh thanks for the flattering words, I'll do my best to keep art direction fresh~ (and not to get burnout on the execution  )

Looks fantastic, and I always love me some townbuilding-RPGery. Keep up the great work!

In my childhood I replay Azure Dreams a lot, I like that we can buy and upgrade unimportant stuff along the storyline and town-building Hope I can offer that kind of experience..somehow with lower budget. 

Art's looking good, concept seems fun and seems very integrated. I agree with the sense of rhythm!

A suggestion, art could use a bit of an ambient lighting pass (2d textures, sprite light sources with a visual effect for transparency and emission, etc) or code some clever stuff in order to make it feel more atmospheric. But that could really be dealt with later on.


Awesome job!

Thanks for checking out! I'm so glad the concept sorta delivered, we really want to cut down the usual budget of visual (from our previous projects), but in the end we made the overall game scope wider than planned lol.

As for the suggestions, your idea sounds like more modern approach of pixel art games, plus that way it'll be putting more weight on programmer side rather than me (as I'm yet to learn modern visual tech). If possible I'd like more "crisp" direction (prolly close to GBA or PSX's JRPG aesthetic) to "trigger" old-school players. Index sprites + additive layers, cutting off alpha sprites as much as possible. Rather, if our programmer have time for graphical post processes, I'd like to see him implement old school shader (like wavy effect we see a lot on SNES), but he still has so much work to do now.

Also so far (we're reaching 1 chapter) total of graphic sprites on project is = 21MB ish, it's not like we have to cut down the size, but i'm just... idk, kind of satisfied with current graphic asset optimizations, haha.

Thank you for finding this thread and reading, please enjoy some digital foods I made for the cooking session! 

[Superb Joe]

extremely good.

[thelemba]

extremely good.

Thank you so much!


Hello World!

We're currently preparing our pitch to publishers, hopefully we will get this done by the end of this month 

Level Design

I'm a big fan of nintendo/capcom games level design, I think their level designs are well structured, had well integrated core mechanic/gimmick, consistent throughout the game. However I don't think I could pull that level of quality like those games.

In platformer games, usually the character doesnt have much progression compared to action rpgs ( we have attack damage, hp, potions, etc ) so designing levels will have to consider those variables. I don't think I could make every level to have unique mechanic & interaction so I need to find the other way to make the level varied.

Level Design Narrative

Player's goal inside the dungeon is simple, go to point B from point A and defeating monsters along the way.



However, having only linear path and defeating monster isn't really fun and it can get boring really quick, now I understand why in past JRPGs they sometimes add little puzzle even though it's too simple. So we added locked doors and key system, basically after you clear certain room, it locks a door somewhere in the dungeon. Now I can make something like this.



The path is still linear but it doesn't feel like you're just walking on a straight path like a racing game. I feel I could stop at this but I think I could add a bit more without adding new content ( enemies, obstacle, etc).



We added a little bit narrative in each dungeon, Imagine after you clear a room, it activates a switch that spawns new enemies in previous rooms. Now this feels like that classic trap activating switch in treasure hunting films, I think this is cheaper way to make the dungeon more varied.

Here's one of the level designs from our game, I also added secret room to make things more interesting, anyway this is not a full map!
So far I'm quite satisfied with the result, I used this level design narrative to make level more interesting by just arranging the content and I found this quite easy to do.

There's still a lot of things I want to share about level design process but that can wait 



Thanks for reading!

[thelemba]

wow hello! it's been months! we're currently polishing each dungeon and tyding up the codes and stuffs for pitch.

we also added low health effect (overlay and more details in the audio ) I will post more details about this later

[thelemba]

STEAM PAGE IS NOW LIVE, TRY THE DEMO AND WISHLIST!

Finally, after a long time, we have the steam store page ready, with demo included, please try the demo! we're currently gathering player feedback to improve the game!





WISHLIST ON STEAM!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1386620/Anuchard/

ITCH.IO
https://stellarnull.itch.io/anuchard

GAMEJOLT
https://gamejolt.com/games/anuchard/532658

PRESSKIT
http://stellarnull.com/presskit/

JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER
https://discord.gg/9AtzQd

[Lazcht]

Hello~

we noticed couple of gameplay videos of people playing our demo, showing one of them might interest you to try it yourself 




if any of you are streamer or youtuber we really could use help to spread the title to your audience!
meanwhile, we're working on bug reported by players, and improving this part:


this image was sent from a friend who said "I got stuck after certain part of the game" then we figured out it's because he didn't realize there's a basement room in the said room...cause there are two blinking objects inside the room which makes the arrow sign unnoticed....

so, a temporary solution!

why temporary? cause if more people still have the same problem on not finding the basement entrance, i need to consider major changes.
 
ah, Rico forgot to put this link:
Website: http://stellarnull.com/games/anuchard/

Happy weekend!