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[Leetzor]

Hello everyone,

I'd Like to share the progress on the game I've been working on:

Heroes Ravage

Now on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/536396237/heroes-ravage

Website: https://heroesravage.com/

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/WRVg5bF

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PixelDinos

Heroes Ravage is an Online Multiplayer Game where the players can play as Heroes or Villagers. Each match has a fixed duration and the team that manages to hold the most "Axis"(crystals) will win.

There are two phases in the game.
 A preparation phase where the villagers will hide their axis, craft and setup their traps and the heroes can kill mobs to gather materials and craft some items(bombs/weapons/potions).
The heroes can only reach the villagers house after the preparation phase is over.

We call the second phase The ravage time.

During the ravage time the villager team has to protect their Axis until the match ends while the heroes have to try and steal them.

Features

• Online 4 versus 4 multiplayer using the Photon Engine.
• Two teams with very unique aspects (Villagers and Heroes).
• Character and room customization.
• Lots of different craftable items per team allowing different approaches to every match.
• Characters with unique skills.

Current Status

We have most of the basic features implemented and we did a few tests with friends so far. We are planning on hosting a wider playtest soon.
You can check the current state of the art bellow.

And here is a quick look at the gameplay.

Next Steps

• Ranged Attacks
• Villagers Unique Skills
• More mobs
• More traps
• Lots more Sprites
• ...

Who are we?

I'm Marcelo and I'm the programmer of the team. We are three friends that got together just over a year ago and decided to create Heroes Ravage, a game we wanted to play. And now we are here!

I look forward to being part of this community and hear your feedback while showing the game's progress until release!

[Geoff Moore]

Looks impressive! I'm guessing the 'heroes' element of the title is ironic? They sure seem like villains to me...

[Leetzor]

Looks impressive! I'm guessing the 'heroes' element of the title is ironic? They sure seem like villains to me...

Hey glad you liked it!

It does have a hint of irony as our inspirations for the game were old RPGs like The Legend of Zelda for instance, where Link would go inside peoples houses breaking their pots looking for goodies and the NPCs inside the house would just stare, but he was the "Hero" of the story.

We decided to take those elements and make a game where we put players against each other as both "Heroes" and "Villagers".

Here is a look at one of the mobs of the game The Octoboom and some of the design decision behind it.

Design

From the moment the team saw The Legion Commander’s(team's artist) concept art for the Octoboom we agreed that this had to be a mob that gives off a troll vibe.

The Octoboom attacks his enemies by spiting bombs so his body had to be able to expand and shrink as he blasts everyone away. With that in mind we decided to make his body be made of some sort of jelly material which would cover both the need for the flexibility and also help with his foolish style.

As mentioned above the Octoboom attacks using his infinity amount of bombs that he stores in the void of his stomach, while those bombs are deadly and can easily kill anyone who’s in range they cannot harm the Octoboom as his body is immune to explosive damage.

Although it may sound that the Octoboom may be too powerful he has weaknesses as well. Although he can create unlimited amounts of bombs there is delay between each bomb that he creates.

Another thing to keep in mind is that all the bombs in the game damage the other mobs, so if you can get the timing right you may be able to get Octoboom to help you!

Octoboom takes damage from every weapon in the game except bombs.

Audio Design

When sound designing a monster sometimes one can take inspiration from real life animals, but other times, such as this one, the monster is so… gelatinous, that you have to think outside the box and experiment until you find something that feels right.

From the sprite motion we knew that it’s body was made from some sort gelatin, and as the Octoboom walks one should identify that the sound is coming from him before you even see him, in other words the gelatin should be the main actor.

This is when you get creative and experiment with all kinds of sounds, from the outside looking in, you could argue that a lunatic was running around with a microphone on a stick making all kinds of unworldly sounds, lucky I found something that felt right before getting put on the arkham asylum.
The answer? A bottle of shaving cream, combined with puddles of mud being slapped, and some secondary sound of small footsteps would mix to give the right feeling for the Octoboom.

Think I’m crazy? Check it out yourself!

We love feedback so if you have any please let us know!

[william.equal]

That's very cool, great trailer!

[Leetzor]

That's very cool, great trailer!

Thanks!

One more mob desgin, The Mummy!

Design

The Mummy had a very straight forward design, lots of bandages to cover up its rotten body and deadly eyes from something that was once alive and now is moved by dark magic. It also moves like a zombie because when you think about it a Mummy is kinda like a zombie with lots of bandages covering whats left of its body.

The bandages on its body are embedded with magic and it uses this bandages to unleash a medium range attack. So just because its arms look like they can’t reach you don’t let your guard down!

Even though the Mummy can attack from a medium range its attacks are only aimed towards one direction. So if you ever find yourself in front of a Mummy maybe you should considering rolling to his side after he unleashes an attack.

The Mummy can be damaged by all the weapons in the game.

Audio Design

Ahh, the Mummy sound design, contrary to the last dev blog where we discussed the Octoboom difficulty in imagining what a monster would sound like,  this one is easy to imagine some kind of bandage/cloths rustling sound effects… well not quite that easy.

The first rule of sound design is that a sound that you will hear a millions of times in game cannot become annoying, it must blend with the environment and again it must feel right. Here we quickly found out that simple cloth sounds would not cover it, they didn’t feel right, so we had to dig deep.

The Mummy “habitat, is in the northern part of the map, where there are ruins of an ancient temple that has withered and crumbled with time, so grass has grown and sand sediments have covered most of the floor plates of the temple. If a Mummy is going to walk around that environment its gonna get a lot of stuff inside its bandages, what I came up with as a mixture of highly modified sand sounds and gravel sounds with… wait for it…

A handsaw cutting wood!

Call me crazy all you want, but after I modified the sound, slow it down and cleaned the high pitch impurities, it made exactly the sound that decrepit old bandage would make on a decomposing body.

Still think I’m crazy? Check it yourself!

We welcome any feedback

[Leetzor]

One More update, by the way we are hosting an alpha test december 8th and 9th, everyone is welcome to sign up at https://heroesravage.com/

Now lets meet Rocky!


Design

As the name suggests Rocky is tough. With a body made up from an extremely hard rock that makes him the most resistant monster in Heroes Ravage.

His body makes would make it difficult for him to attack swiftly but Rocky found a way around this issue. Through intensive training Rocky managed to learn the ultimate spinning skill that allows him to roll at high speeds towards his enemies.

Although his attack can deal lots of damage it works as double edge sword. While Rocky is spinning he has less control of his balance and if you can manage to throw something in front of him that may just cause him to fall over exposing his weak spot, the belly.


Rocky usually only takes damage from Hammers or Bombs, but while he is flipped over you can damage him with any weapon as his belly is softer than the rest of his body.

Audio Design

When looking at the Rocky, the first that poped to mind was that it look liked some kind of dinosaur, something kind of like the “Talarurus”. Taking that into consideration we wanted the weight of the Rocky to be something that you could hear, not only that but in the more complex movements you should hear the rock slabs in his back rustling and hitting each other.

One other example of resemblance was the Turtle, in the way it moves and when it’s flipped over. You should expect to hear grunts of effort as it tries to get back on it’s feet.

We will not fully spoil how he sounds flipped over, but you can take a clue from the way he sounds walking, its a mixture of two stomps in gravel / sand, modified so that each step would have enough depth to make it sound just right, also you will be able to hear his voice, it might sound like a WOW! but Its more like a WHA!

And no it wasn’t me yelling wow into the microphone and then heavy modifying the sound… or was it? Check it out yourself!





We welcome any feedback

[Leetzor]

Don't be fooled by his cute appearance, these slimy monsters can be deadly!

Slimes are one of the most iconic monster in RPGs so it just felt right that we should have them in Heroes Ravage.



Design

Slimes tend to be one of the weakest and simple mobs in games, with their small “slimey” bodies some may even think they are harmless … but they would be wrong.

While it is true that Slimes may not be as strong as some other monsters they can be deadly if underestimated.

Slimes are like acid blobs and can damage you upon contact.

In heroes ravage there are two types of slimes. The normal ones that will damage you in go get too close and then there are the poison Slimes.

Poison slimes were once normal slimes that were exposed to various poisonous plants and absorbed them into their bodies. This allows them to have an outburst of the poisonous material stored inside of them when they feel threatened.

It’s never a good idea to get too close to a slime but specially so if that slime looks greener than the other ones.



Audio Design

In the last Dev Blogs we talked about the right feeling of a animation, and showcased the audio for the movement of the monsters. This time let’s try something more interesting! >;]

Picture yourself as a sound designer, and now you are given the attack animation of the Poison Slime above, it’s your job to give it awesome sound effects.

First let’s analyze the slime, the way it extends and compresses in succession it almost feels like those stress balls that you squeeze and when you let it go they return to their natural form, but in this case it should fell more like rubber or some kind of balloon rubbing other balloons…ok,ok, the craziness in me is taking over again… But that is what the first impression of this jumpy ball of mucus gives me.

So that takes care of the first phase of the attack, did you reach the same impression as me? If not don’t worry keep that impression that you have in mind.

The second phase of the attack is the release of the power stored in his previous compression and decompression phase, it should feel like a explosion of power from all that powering up, and also have hints of poison and magical essence, have you got an idea in mind? Yes? Good, good, my padawan.

What I call the third phase is the dissipation of all that magic power, its all that poison and mucus evaporating finishing the attack sequence, it should feel and sound satisfying as the power fades away and the next round can begin again.

Join all 3 phases and you get the sound effect of a Poison Slime AOE attack, have you got the sound in your head? Yes, No? Well Check it out yourself!

[Leetzor]

We hosted our first open alpha this weekend and now there is lots to be done and fixed based on the feedback we got.

But while this open test was an important milestone for us there was a long way that led to this moment.

On the GIF bellow you can see the progression over time on the aspect of the sprites.

There is however more than meets the eye. Other than the visual improvement over time there were several changes done for a character customization system that we will show in more detail in the future.

Right now we have over 60 000 sprites thanks to our Commander of Legions aka  artist and animator.

[Leetzor]

From the depths of the void we present you The Wizard.



Design

The wizard is a dark magician that took his magic experiments too far and had his body engulfed by darkness.

So he made the void his weapon and is capable of spawning small pieces of darkness and project them at his enemies.

Since his body is weak from being trapped in the void the Wizard tries to keep his enemies at bay by resorting to ranged attacks only.

Be aware of his darkness attacks though as once they are cast they wont stop despite how many obstacles there are in the way.

The wizard takes damage from all the weapons in the game.

 

Audio Design

Did you know that the Wizard is wearing flippers? Details like this make a difference when trying to imagine what a monster will sound like.

The first aspect of the wizard that comes into focus is the “darkness leaking” out of him, at first we toyed with smoke sound effects a la the smoke monster of the series Lost but it didn’t feel right.

In this iterative process, we looked closer and maybe the particles leaking out are embers of darkness, something close to the embers of a bonfire, so again we tried with that idea in mind… but yet again it didn’t feel right, either the sound didn’t fit and something was off, or it quickly became too annoying.

It had to be something more subtle, more slick, more cool… That’s when you need to embrace the voices in your head go for it.

The precise moment when you light a blun… I mean a Cigar, and you pull the air out of the paper tube, and it burns the wee… I mean the materials inside of it, it makes just the right sound without being too obnoxious or annoying to fit right with the animation.





We welcome any feedback 

[Leetzor]

Character and room customization

We believe that each player can be unique.

So you will be able to customize the character cloths, hair, eyes, hat , skin and much more. The villagers can also customize the furniture of their room.

Here is the before and after of the customization screen:

Before



After


And here is the Villager customization screen where you can simply click on the item you want to change.



Although the UI is not final, its pretty close as there is only some size adjustments to finalize it.

We look forward to see what your characters and rooms will look like!



Feel free to throw some feedback at me!  

[Leetzor]

Although Heroes Ravage is a multiplayer game where “Heroes” try to get the villagers treasures and the villagers have to defend them, there is a preparation phase.

During this phase on the begging of each match the heroes can and should hunt mobs to get materials (dropped by the mobs) and craft items to aid them on their ravage.

Here is an early stage concept art created for the mobs in the game, some that you have already seen and some that we hope to implement in the future.

The image bellow shows the mobs currently created and some of the materials they drop.


It was a lot of work to get to this stage but it was worth it!

We welcome any feedback 

[Leetzor]

Crafting System

As we mentioned on the previous update the game has a crafting system that will allow both heroes and villagers to craft and prepare for the ravage time!

The heroes will gather the craft materials from the mobs and the villagers from the house furniture. We will go more in depth on other updates on the topic of materials gathering.

As for this update here is the crafting system before and after:

Heroes can Craft : Bombs Flying Boots Empty Bottles Fire Pearls Poison Pearls Heart Potions Feather Potions Spider Milk Water Boots Crowbars Swords Hammers

Villagers can Craft : Wooden Chest Pickaxe Switch Floor Switch Trap Door Floor Spikes Coated Floor Spikes Plank Wooden Door Iron Reinforcement Bucket Barrel Crate Clay Pot Chair Small Table Spinning Blade

Crafting Materials

Both heroes and villagers will need crafting materials in order to craft tools to aid them.

As mentioned on the previous update the heroes and villagers gather those materials differently:

Heroes hunt mobs, originally we would spawn the material and they would pick up the drops and place them on the volcano as seen bellow:



However during the alpha test we could see that doing this was taking away from the main experience of ravaging against the villagers as it took too much time to pick up items and take them to the volcano and place them. Even writing it shows it was too much of a pain! We always loved the auto pick feature in games so we figured that was the way to go.

So now when you kill a mob the materials are automatically added to the list , we also added an animation and sound effect to make the player aware of what happened.

The volcano now works as a recycling center where heroes can throw items they have craft in exchange for materials.

We saw the same issue with the villagers, or in fact, even worse as they really need every second they have to place their traps and be ready for the greedy heroes.

Originally the villagers would pick up furniture and house items and place them in the furnace, spinning wheel, table(back) to saw it or if the material was already in a “raw” state they could place it directly on the table(front).

Now the villagers start with enough materials to create all the traps they possible can! We plan to make the table similar to the volcano in the hero side where the villager can place the item to retrieve it’s core materials.



The material list is implemented so that we can easily adjust what materials are dropped by what mobs/items. Also what materials are needed to craft the items and even add new materials.

All those details are on the server and can be change dynamically helping us balance the crafting system.

The current list of materials is as follows:

Heroes: Crystallized Goo Green Goo Red Mushroom Rope Linen Cloth Wings Carapace Gunpowder Flippers Iron Magic Essence Mold

Villagers: Plank Iron Cloth Clay Manure Feather

We welcome any feedback 

[Leetzor]

As you may have seen on the mobs updates the heroes get their materials by hunting down the monsters in the game and picking up their drops.

The villagers must take a different approach. Since the villagers are at their home they will start with a large amount of materials so that they can focus on creating traps



On the GIF above you can see the furnace on the left , the craft table in the middle and the spinning wheel on the right, those three are the main item processing spots. The table is also where you can craft all the villager items.

You will be able to extract wood from the following items:



And these are the items the villagers have at their disposal that can be turned into metal and clay.

We are grouping those two types of materials in a single post as they are processed through the same method.

Metal items:



The items on the top Row and the pans on the second can all be picked and placed in the furnace in order to be turned into Iron.

The rest of the items will drop metal scraps(first item on the first row) when broken.

Clay items:



The first two items can be picked up and placed on the furnace to be turned into clay. The last one however must be broken first.