Hello!
Sorry I don't post on here much! But I'm here to share some details on the art & design side of things!
Josh has been working like crazy on the back end of things lately to make things more optimized and smooth but there isn't really anything visually to show for that quite yet, so it's my turn to post!
After our time at the XPO Games Festival and reviewing the feedback we received there, we have decided to visually redesign most of the current Goblin enemies. There are a couple reasons for doing so, so let's look!
As you can see above, before all of the enemies were Goblins. Now, there is only one and the rest have been changed. Originally, the idea was to have different enemy ‘types’ or ‘races’ for different environments to give it more of that good ol’ RPG feel.
However, upon some testing and feedback, several people actually had a hard time telling the Goblins apart and were genuinely surprised when one would act differently than another. Whether that was due to our poor conveying of “Hey, this is a new enemy type” (granted, we’re still in the early Alpha phase) or an issue with the Goblins not looking different enough, one thing was for sure: something needed to change so that the players don’t feel ‘cheated’ by the system.
Ultimately we decided that the enemies should be very easily identifiable by every level of player.
Here we have the basic Goblin Grunt that takes two turns to make its move. I decided to change this to a Slime enemy which actually worked well for a couple of reasons: 1. I already had the Slime character modeled, we just never could decide how it should behave in game, so this Goblin’s move pattern fit it perfectly and 2. The blue and green of the Slime is MUCH easier to read and identify on the map than the Goblin was.
As we moved forward with redesigning the visuals for the Goblins, we wanted each one to be unique and easily identifiable so that upon first look so that the player would be able to start developing their strategy early on.
Next we changed the Goblin Archer into a Skeleton Archer. I mean, c’mon. Every fantasy themed game needs to have a Skeleton Archer, right? It’s definitely more unique than the Goblin Archer and the whites and creams stand out really well. This one may still be tweaked a few more times depending on how well its rusted armor reads, but basically the design is set.
This one was hilarious to me and fun. The Goblin Crossbowman is now a Mole that throws boulders at you. When I first showed this one to Josh he instantly loved it and actually gave me the idea to make his projectile a boulder instead of just a rock. I eventually added a little helmet to him which I like a lot. I mean, c’mon. Safety first! In addition to the visual update, now if the player is out of range, the Mole will hide underground. It’s just a nice visual detail that Josh added. And I love it.
The Goblin Rogue was changed into the Red Thief. The red stands out a lot better and having an actual thief/bandit in the game just sorta made sense. Though I have to admit, I’m not 100% happy with this design and this could very well change in the future. We’ll see. Maybe not.
And there you have it. Our goal was to make the enemies stick out more on the map and to make their appearance and convey their behaviors a bit more. I hope we have accomplished that.
Here is a comparison of how the enemies look in game. Now the enemies are unique, and easier to see and identify.
Thanks!
Community
