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[Juan Raigada]

Ok, so we got a LOT of feedback from the alpha (thanks everybody). This is the last Kickstarter update explaining were we are heading next:

Two days ago we launched the alpha and received an incredible amount of media coverage and feedback.

We have already started taking notes on that feedback and implementing changes. Some of the bigger changes (combat pacing) will come later, since art is one of the reasons the combat sometimes lacks punch, and I want to bring the new artists into the team before committing to such a change. But a couple of things are already in progress.

We are working in:

3D minimap: The current minimap is hard to read, and it doesn't rotate with the camera. We are halfway through implementing a 3D version that will rotate to follow the orientation of the camera and will better show geometry and height. This will be done by this week's end the latest.

New Weapon upgrade system: In the alpha, when you try to upgrade a weapon or body-part, you have to upgrade sequentially. You start with level 1, then go to level two and finally to level three. We have implemented a new system where those upgrades are not sequential, but you can choose between them. This will allow me to define more meaningful upgrades (upgrade damage, or speed, but not both) and to give the player more choice on where to spend their experience points. This feature is already in, but we are lacking a good looking enough menu to show this. As soon as we have this working 100% we'll show you how it works (ETA, next week).

Discrete health: In the alpha, due to the (not very well explained) way resistances work, some of you had trouble knowing when you were damaging enemies. Well, you were always damaging them (as long as the hit particles where triggering) but that damage could be so small it was not noticeable. I have switched the damage to be based in integers (discrete steps) and made it so that every attack is guaranteed a minimum amount of damage. No longer you have to hit an enemy 20 times to bring it down! This will make enemies in general weaker, and thus make the game *slightly* easier. This is already in the game (hey, we are working hard at this!).

End of level boss: There are three systems missing in the alpha (that is, things not even implemented yet, not things that need improvement). Those are: secret rooms, NPC quests and boss rooms. Of these, boss rooms are the priority, since the alpha right now lacks an ending and a goal. Thus, we have started design work towards our first boss. This will take time to implement, given all the other work we have to do before, but we'll share something soon!

We are excited to share all these developments with you, but it's going to be a while until we can release an updated alpha (too many concurrent changes, so we need to close all branches and make sure everything is stable). We'll keep you posted on the progress so you can be the first ones to test the changes.

Don't forget to share this project with everybody you think may be interested! With your help, we'll soon reach our goal!

[Slader16]

More than 3/4 of the way there and 20 days left? You guys will have no problem reaching your goal!

[Hangedman]

Juan, at some point (maybe after you're not buried in the kickstarter business) I would enjoy the chance to pick your brain about your thirdperson character/camera controls. The movement feels good and I've been having a tough time getting a decent feel going in Unity.

Either way, best of luck! Seems like you're well on your way.

[Juan Raigada]

Juan, at some point (maybe after you're not buried in the kickstarter business) I would enjoy the chance to pick your brain about your thirdperson character/camera controls. The movement feels good and I've been having a tough time getting a decent feel going in Unity.

Either way, best of luck! Seems like you're well on your way.

Yeah, I will definitely write an article on how it's done after the Kickstarter is over. Just remind me!

[Juan Raigada]

Ok, so Kike, my friend and new lead programmer, has just posted an update that is very Dev-focused, so I'll paste it here (since this is the place for it). the gifs he used on KS are too big to upload to imgur, so sorry for the wall of text...
 
Anybody knows where I can upload GIFs bigger than 5mb?

Hi again! 

For this update, we'd like to talk about weapons and equipment variety. In our campaign we have mentioned Bayonetta or DmC as references, "but where they go for depth, we aim for breadth." What do we mean by that? 

Good games in the hack'n'slash genre (or spectacle fighters, whichever you prefer) are those which, after several hours of fighting enemy after enemy, still have something that keeps the gameplay fresh. The most usual way to achieve that is having a deep combat system, and forcing the player to learn and exploit new tricks as she progresses. Ideally, a player in the last levels would be playing a completely different game than she was at the beginning. 

We don't have the time, money, or desire to design such an intricate combat system. It would be very complex and require lots of testing and balancing. Bayonetta probably had more people just working on balancing the combat than we have in our entire team! Accepting this limitation, Juan decided to go for something different. Taking inspiration from our beloved ADOM and other roguelikes, he went for gameplay breadth. Instead of a few exquisitely specialized combat options, Heart&Slash will offer a lot of them, but only a few per run. Each weapon will, of course, be considerably shallow by itself. Swords have a few combos, usually not hard to pull out. Guns are just guns, close combat equipment favours speed and damage over safety... But, even in their simplicity, no two weapons will be the same. Each will have its particular quirk which you'll have to identify and learn to take advantadge of. Some are pretty obvious, like the current combination of Metal, Fire and Lightning Katana. Others are more nuanced. 

Let's have a look at our current set of ranged weapons, to get a little taste. 

Old shooter: 6 shots, with slow auto-aim. Laser: dual elemental damage, must recharge after each shot. First person aiming. Shortgun: 1 shot, no auto-aim, but wide damage and deadly at very close range. Duelist gun: 3 bullets per run, bougth with experience. Each bullet is guaranteed to kill an enemy (it's a one shot kill weapon). Your "get out of jail pass", if played wisely. 

These four weapons, although similar in intent (kill'em before they get too close), ask for different play styles, and are useful in different situations. The laser allows you to precisely aim at your enemies' weak points, while the shortgun is great when jumping inside small robot hordes. The old shooter plays somewhat cooler, with its ability to pinpoint enemies as they get closer. 

And with these combined you would be save from almost every enemy in the game. But still, there will be ocassions when being armed to the teeth is not enough. Enter the duelist gun. 

The duelist gun will feature the most extreme risk/reward step in the game, unless we (or one of you, backers) come up with an even crazier idea. This gun requires sacrificing a weapon slot for the remaining of your run, and lots of XP. And only for a bullet. Then another. Another. And then it's over. you will never make more than three shots with a duelist gun. 

But those three bullets can make the difference. Each one can kill any enemy in the game. So, three bullets, three enemies killed. Any three enemies. From the lowliest thug to the most wicked boss. 

Still, you must cock the gun, aim and shoot, which takes a very long time. And let me warn you: robots have received no training in sportsmanship. Don't expect them to patiently stand still, turned sideways, while you complete your little ritual. But be faster than it is and your enemy is done. 

Finding the right moment to use each bullet will be key in successfully getting the most of it. When does Mr. Boss give enough time to prepare the shot? But more importantly, which boss or special enemy should your bullets be reserved for? 

These four weapons exemplify our approach to design. Each one has something special about it, to have its particular place in the world of Heart&Slash. Even minor differences should once in a while make the player doubt which combination would work best. Add special sets which interact to open new possibilities, and you can expect new surprises for a considerable amount of replays. Ideally, a player with lots of weapons unlocked will have to play a completely different game than one barely starting to know the world. 

Kike

Lead Programmer

[Juan Raigada]

Ok, so this is going to be up in Kickstarter very soon. I find these news very exciting and I hope you guys do too. Finally having artists helping me is going to help a lot in letting me fine tune the gameplay and balance (which is what I'm focusing on, after all the feedback from the alpha).

TEAM UPDATE: HEART&SLASH HAS NEW ARTISTS!

Hey there Heartful Backers! 

Over the past few weeks, we've received some really good feedback on the art style of Heart & Slash. Most people seem to really dig it, and we are proud of that; but we know that there is lots of room for improvement.

Additionally, the nature of our game is such that there is a huge amount of content (75 weapons, 60 items, 15 enemies, 3 bosses...) that needs producing. If we want Heart&Slash to be the game we envision, it's clear to us that we need to bring more people on the the team to really focus on the art. It's going to make financing tighter, but it's going to make the game come much closer to what we want for it!

So, after thinking a lot about who would be the best fit for the game (and getting them into the project), we're really happy to announce to you that the team has grown!

Julen, Xabier and Sendoa, three young artists from DigiPen Bilbao, have decided to bring their creativity into Heart&Slash.

We've asked them to write a little paragraph to introduce themselves and to show off some of their personal work. Enjoy!

SENDOA BERGASA

I'm a Junior student at DigiPen Bilbao. This is the first time I'm professionally involved on a videogame, although I have previously worked on three other game projects: A couple of 2D platformers, 'Twisted' and 'Future World'; and 'Iona Coded Will', a first person 3D game that is currently in development. By the way, my website is www.sendoa-bergasa.com.


JULEN URRUTIA

My name is Julen Urrutia, and I'm about to finish my Fine Arts in Digital Art and Animation. I am very excited to take part in Heart&Slash as an artist and I hope that together we will make this project as big and fun as it deserves to be! Check out some of my other projects https://www.behance.net/Julenurrutia!


XABIER URRUTIA

Hi, I'm Xabier Urrutia, a young artist about to finish my art degree. Concept art and video games are two things I love and I'll be pleased to help doing both in Heart&Slash! Take a look at some of my portfolio https://www.behance.net/xabierurrutia


MORE WORK FROM OUR ARTISTS:

[clemzio]

One more backer! 
This project amply deserves to be funded:
- Awesome art/visual style,
- Fun & dynamic gameplay,
- Catchy music (that somehow reminded me of musics that can be heard in Sonic Adventure (1/2) on Dreamcast).

Anyhoo, good luck for the campaign, I will be following this thread closely

[Juan Raigada]

Thanks!

[OniWorld]

I'm loving this project, just backed their kickstarter. This isn't even the type of game I'd go out and buy, but I love the team behind it.

 

[Juan Raigada]

Thanks so much!!! 

[Juan Raigada]

Another piece of music (still not mixed & mastered).

And a sneak peek at the new 3D minimap (which Kike did):

I will post this on KS later, but as usual things tend to come here first!

[karlozalb]

BBBBACKED!!! :D

[Juan Raigada]

And this was a surprise...

there are VERY generous people on Kickstarter, let me tell you.

[Vanhail]

Congrats! Been keeping an eye on this, glad you made it!

[William Chyr]

Great to hear this. Congratulations!

[Thomas Finch]

I knew you guys could do it. Congrats!

[Juan Raigada]

Thanks guys! The support I got in this forum meant a lot to me during the campaign!

[Juan Raigada]

Out new artists have started the brainstorm process on our first boss, and they have come up with three preliminary ideas that we want to share. Please comment on these ideas and give us more suggestions. We can use either of these, or, most likely, a combination of several.

The main idea we are toying with is to have a "room" boss. Not a single enemy that moves around (we'll have many of these already anyway), but something quite different to the normal, mid-level gameplay.

IDEA 1:



A vertical room where that triangular screen is hanging in a column, it follows and shoots you as you go up, fighting robots that will come out from the walls.

In the lower level there would be incomplete robots, and those wouldn't move, but on the higher ones, as they would be assembled, they will fight you.

There will be platforming involved in reaching the top, not just fighting.

When you reach the top you enter in a room where this triangular screen fuses with 4 mechanical arms, each one with a different weapon, that would be the real fight.

And when you beat him, you go to a higher level, where we see the brain, that little triangular screen, with lots of cables growing from it, in a blue calm ambient, unable to defend itself. Breaking that would be the end of the boss.

IDEA 2:



This is a simpler idea: a big robot built together by assembling parts of the factory itself. A "defective" robot, like Heart, but one that channels it's non-conformity in a violent way. Think the Frankenstein monster -the book version-.

It's stuck to the factory walls, unable to move, and full of loathing. Instead of destroying it after your fight, Heart just breaks it's connection to the wall, freeing the robot and allowing it to try to find its own way.

However, he's doomed to fail (unless you complete an overarching quest) and to find itself trapped again...

IDEA 3:



A robot that comes out of the four walls of a room (therefore you never know where it's coming from). It's the factory main robot disposer, and the room is where all the defective builds are melted and recycled.

It moves in a crab like manner, very alien and not humanoid at all.

So, yeah, let us know what you guys think!

[Beaulamb1992]

Congrats on getting this funded! it deserves it

[knifeySpoonie]

Great work on the kickstarter!

And out of those posts I like Idea 2 the most of the 3, A frankenstiens monster constructed in secret and lashing out at anything he can destroy... Nioce...