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[abraksil]

Hey and thanks thefoolishbrave Let's hope it will keep going like that

[abraksil]

What we’re often asked is:

“Why did you choose pure top-down perspective instead of for example an isometric view?”

Answer to this question is quite complex But here's a short take on the thought process behind our decision:



Creating a game in which you can express states of character psyche requires designing many different interactions and mechanic through which you can do it. To be able to do everything we want in isometric view we basically would have to create everything in 3D. Unfortunately this takes much more time. The level of gameplay depth we strived for would be very hard to achieve in 3D by the small team like ours. We knew it would most likely mean that we have to either simplify the game or compromise the quality of our art.

“If not isometric, then how about side-view”

The problem here was a combat mechanic we’ve chosen for Soulblight. We didn’t want for our game to be about button mashing. What we wanted is for the player to always think one step ahead while fighting. Because battlefield positioning was supposed to be a big part of tactics we felt that “Platformer” view limited a bit too much what we could do.



And so we’ve decided to go with a top-down view. It is the best way to present to player situation on the battlefield. On top of that top-down perspective works well with sneaking mechanic that we wanted to include in the game. This didn’t mean there were no challenges ahead. On a contrary there are reasons why this perspective isn’t a popular choice among the developers. We had a few ideas how to tackle those problems though. What were they and how we solved them? Well... this is a topic for another update

Cya Around,
Kuba

P.S Don't forget to visit our kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1752350052/soulblight

[abraksil]

Top-down perspective has multiple advantages. It allows to represent battlefield precisely, players can clearly see obstacles arrangement and distance from enemies. This view emphasizes tactical oriented combat and supports sneaking mechanics.

Despite all that, top-down is rarely used in video games. The reason is a difficulty in presenting the in-game world. There are many objects that don’t look presentable in top-down. Their geometry doesn’t allow to give us much chance to properly display them. In front view a simple wall is like a canvas on which we literally can put an intriguing painting on, but in top-down - it comes out as a line. To make things even more difficult there is also an issue with a lack of depth.

From the very beginning we were dedicated to solving those problems. We didn’t want to give up on all the benefits of top-down just because it was hard. We subconsciously started to design assets with interesting appearance in our perspective. Bridges rather than gates. Pits of pipes in place of columns. Flowery shrubs instead of walls. All of this led us to the unique art style of our game.

There still was a problem with sense of depth thought. We solved it with parallaxing effect you’ve all seen on backgrounds in platform games. Assets are constructed from multiple layers which are slightly displaced depending of the camera position. Combined together they create an illusion of convexity like on the gif below

Hope you enjoyed our update!

Cya Around,
Kuba

[abraksil]

Today we have another extensive topic - Character’s Conditions Let’s just jump straight into it



One of the early design challenges during the development of Soulblight was creating a context for all the action the player would have to take in order express his characters. To solve that we’ve decided to add a survival aspect to our game. We’ve done it by allowing the character to be a subject of various conditions. To avoid confusion and allow the player to easily compare buffs he receives we’ve created a special state called synergy. What it does is it represents the character’s overall well being (both physical and psychic) and greatly increases damage and resistance. To systemize the mechanics even further we’ve also divided the conditions into 4 categories:

• Positive Conditions - Simple buffs meant to make you stronger by temporarily increasing the synergy. Example: Rage
• Negative Conditions -Simple debuffs that won’t kill you but make you weaker by decreasing your synergy. Example: Hunger
• Injuries - Serious wounds. With every one of these you get closer and closer to death. You can sustain up to 4 Injuries at the same time. Example: Bleeding wound
• Taints - The personality traits you acquire during your journey besides giving you a passive synergy buff also unlock a new mechanics. Example: Greed

Now the fun part starts when the different conditions start to intertwine. Let’s look at hunger example:



The hunger builds up with the time you play. It starts as a small harmless debuf but can build up to enormous proportion. That’s why It is important to eat regularly especially when you have a concussion injury (it will speed up the healing process). Saving candies for later might be a good idea but their nutritional value isn’t too high. This means that a piece of candy will nullify the hunger just for a short time. It is good thing to have one of these when hunger pins you down before the boss fight. When you run out of food and you’re very hungry you might also consider eating some bad berries. They will give you a food poisoning but sometimes it is better to suffer through it then allow for the hunger to build up even more. If you bump into this dilemma often it might be worth going with Glutton taint. One of it’s secondary mechanics is food poisoning immunity.

As you can see each mechanics condition is pretty simple. Put them tougher though and a deep gameplay full of interesting choices emerges

Cya Around,
Kuba

[abraksil]

As you know our Kickstarter campaign will be ending this week. As the final gets closer I would like to invite you all to join me on the stream this Saturday. I will be showing freshly baked build of Soulblight and talking with Robert from RCandOP about how we designed the game. If you’d like to chat with us and check out how the game plays right now join us on twitch this Saturday at 23:00 CET ( https://www.twitch.tv/mynextgames )

Cya Around,
Kuba

[abraksil]

So our kickstarter Camping concluded yesterday. It was a close call and It went through just like 40h before the end. Thank you very match for all your support! I already started generating the demo Keys for the backers and will be sending them out as soon as they are ready



Also as I mentioned before this Saturday me and RC and OP were running this stream of freshly baked Soulblight build. In case you missed it here's a chunk of it

[abraksil]

With the kickstarter campaigning behind us this week we ware able to focus on development again. We've decided to start with adding some new enemies to the game

Also Indie DB has launch it's annual Indie of the year contest this week. if you have a moment drop by our page there and give us a vote: http://www.indiedb.com/games/soulblight

[abraksil]

This week we've finalized punch cards mechanic. If you find one of thous little plastic plates during your journey bring it back to Quora the Scholar. She will decode them and let you read their content on the camp's floor screen. This way you will uncover Sanctuary's long forgotten secrets. The more you know the more powerful Prying Taint becomes.

[abraksil]

This week we've finished putting together the camp. After playing Soulblight demo many of you mentioned the need of trying out different weapons without warring about getting killed. This is why we've decided that our camp will also include a training dummy.

[abraksil]

Hello and Merry Christmas
So the holiday season is almost here. The decorations seems to be everywhere. A little christmas tree even found its way to my basement-office



With the festive season on the horizon we’ve been working very intensely for a last couple of weeks. As you know - we’ve been founded on the kickstarter last month. To once more show our gratitude we wanted to prepare a small christmas present for all of you And so we’ve taken on the task of closing Soulblight Beta before the holidays. Today I’m very happy to tell you - we’ve made it



So what does it mean that we’ve reach Beta. First of all, the backers that chose to support us with Early Seeker Kickstarter Tier or high will be receiving an access to the beta build (I will send out the keys in the moment). Besides that our demo build has received a significant update (It should update automatically via steam)
And here’s the demo change log:

• Access to the new camp location where you can talk to NPCs and prepare for the journey ahead
• Dual wielding mechanics
• Small improvements to the tutorial
• Rebalance of the taints available in the demo
• The pyraps can now spawn on the top of you when you enter a new platform
• Chrono Inhibitor power will now slowly regenerate over time
• Grip now works more as a tool that you can use against your enemies than obstacle you have to overcome
• The mobility state now increases your parry window
• The combat actions do not scale down when you don’t have enough stamina to perform them
• New spiked boots that you can find and use
• Now you can change targeted enemy with a right analog stick

If you’d like to share your thoughts with us on Soulblight - we’re gathering feedback on our subreddit r/MyNextGames



Meanwhile Take care of yourself, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Cya around,
Kuba

[abraksil]

For this week update I decided to do something new :D
Hope you like it





Cya around and Have a happy new year!

[abraksil]

This week I'd like to show you few more automaton you will have to face while playing Soulblight



And here's this weeks dev blog update

[abraksil]

So This week we've been focusing on music and sound effects. Here's a sample:




And if you'd like to learn more here's our weekly Soulblight  dev vlog update:

[abraksil]

This week's vlog update is a bit late as we're launching Beta Test sign ups today! :D
If you don't have a Demo key and would like to help us you can sign up here: https://goo.gl/forms/LUc8gZ8EOSCMQcS62



And what we've been doing this week? As you can see we've been focusing on Menu. Yee yeee I know it is not the most exciting game element but someone smart once told me:

“Game’s title screen is like a first sentence of a book. It’s not a reason anyone reaches for it but it’s vital for drawing people in”

To be honest I’m not sure how true it is I personally am a slow reader and so books are not the medium I’m very comfortable with. But I’ve always been a fan of atmospheric game title screens

And of course here's vLog Update for this week

[abraksil]

Besides the bosses Pyropes are the most powerful enemies you will have to face on your way to the Soul Tree

And here's vLog entry for this week. Slightly longer then usually as I went in on some design decision details Hope You like it

[abraksil]

Hey Everybody!
For all of you who haven't noticed. We've launched our first round of beta tests yesterday. Don't worry if you've missed sign ups you can still apply for the next round here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFNtX3nbWAx5fnHEnrDNpqZWtdraJLKhQAriCAcjDlM9ybkw/viewform?usp=sf_link



For thous of you who got the access to the game earlier Beta Tests also means a content update. Now let's go through some of the main changes:

• Now when your character get's wounded it emits a pulse that pushes away all the enemies.
• You no longer toggle the grip on and off with Y button. You now need to hold LT to have it active.
• Damage in grip dealt by the main character increased.
• New weapon type - daggers
• You can now use sword as w thrusting weapon by equipping it to the left hand
• Intro Update. It isn't finished yet as it still lacks the music but it already has a profession voice over.
• Menu overall including addition of option screen an credit screen

And of course here's this week's dev-vlog update. Am a bit tired in it as we've been crunching a bit to launch beta tests yesterday





Cya around,
Kuba

[abraksil]

Before we go into the the main subject of the udate here's the gif for this week



We call thous guys Lost Souls they are the adventurers like you who've lost they're mind in the search of Soulblight.

So yee this week was the first week of our beta tests

First of all we had a quick fix update focusing on frame rate issues. If you've been experiencing frame rate spikes and slow downs you might want to update your testing version via steam.

Another thing is the keyboard controls. Some of you who played the game on keyboard mentioned the need of improving controls. I've decided it would be a good idea to have a broader open discussion on that topic with you all. If you have any suggestions on how to improve keyboard controls and would like to take part in the discussion here's the subreddit thread for that:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MyNextGames/comments/7x15r9/soulblight_keyboard_controls_discussion/

That would be all for this week.

Cya Around,
Kuba

P.S This week vlog will be a little late - I have some camera problems :/

[abraksil]

It's almost a tradition by now for me to peeper a gif for our weekly update Today I have one showing a Pyrope Beast warping on top of me when I enter new level.

And if you'd like to know what we've been up to this week here's the vlog entry

[abraksil]

This week we've been experimenting with a new way of presenting dialogs. We’ve decided to go with this:



And if you’d like to know in more details what we’ve been doing her’s my weekly vlog update

[abraksil]

Hello everybody
As you know for last couple of weeks we've been running Beta tests for Soulblight. This week we finally warped them up. It's time to summarize it

We run two rounds of test in which participated almost 500 people! We’re still going through the feedback but we’re quite satisfied as a lot of people really enjoyed what we’ve prepared The thing with which we were pleasantly surprised was the replayability. Although the beta test build included only one short level, most of people spend on it way over 1.5h that we anticipated to be the average.



But not all our predictions were so much of the point. Testers found the game to be quite challenging (exactly how we wanted it to be:) )



Although the feedback we’ve received was very positive it also helped us pinpoint few elements worth improving. To give more exposure to our characters in the camp we’ve decided to redesign the way we present the dialogues:



And to allow players to customize the controls we’ve added the control schemes. You can now select the one you like from 2 gamepad schemes and 6 keyboard schemes (2 of which support the mouse)



“Ok, so what's next?” - you ask. Well... with beta tests behind us we start to sail toward the release... but more on that soon

Meanwhile, Cya around
Kuba

P.S And here's the dev vlog for this week