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[cepnox]

Nice job with the bullet time. It always gives you a feeling of being a badass
I was once playing with a slow time in one game prototype. I remember doing it by changing the time increment in the fixed update. But that significantly impacted acceleration and deceleration due to float imprecision.
E.g., it was causing variations in jump height.
If you don't mind asking, what is your approach?

[Alain]

As for bullet-time, I don't know why it always makes me think of Max Payne, and it seems to perfectly fit with your gameplay target, TBH I don't think I ever saw this mechanic been used in an RPG so it might be a rare overall element for the gameplay, gj Alain!

Thanks Ramos! In deed, Max Payne did bullet time really well. Another good thing regarding bullet time is that it kind of is a USP of singleplayer games, so maybe it is good to lean into it.

Nice job with the bullet time. It always gives you a feeling of being a badass
I was once playing with a slow time in one game prototype. I remember doing it by changing the time increment in the fixed update. But that significantly impacted acceleration and deceleration due to float imprecision.
E.g., it was causing variations in jump height.
If you don't mind asking, what is your approach?

Thanks cepnox! I did not have to do too much thinking myself. Unreal Engine lets you set custom global time dilation, it works out of the box. Pretty much all I had to do is to adjust some stats on the player such as keeping resource regeneration the same, so they can feel like a badass

[leeharris]

I'm just an occasional lurker around here these days it seems (oops), and clearly late to this announcement, but congratulations on the mega-grant Alain! Does this mean you got to re-assemble your team?

[Alain]

I'm just an occasional lurker around here these days it seems (oops), and clearly late to this announcement, but congratulations on the mega-grant Alain! Does this mean you got to re-assemble your team?

Thank you for checking in leeharris! The MegaGrant allows me to keep the guys involved on a freelance basis. They are also helping me beyond that when they find the time, which is incredible. Our original plans were different and we still plan to get back to them. But in any case we will make things work

[Alain]

Hey everyone!

Just a quick update: version 0.18604 of the BattleJuice Alchemist alpha playtest is now live on Steam. You can read all about it in the Steam announcement.



I already talked about many of the changes here in devlogs. My new favorite thing, pulling and pushing enemies, will be covered in the future




If you want to join the playtest, you can do so via the Steam page and clicking "Request Access".

Have a good rest of the week!

Alain

[oahda]

It would be great if you could give me some feedback once I post screenshots here.

Just saw the before/after in the patch notes, and the most recent pics/vids. Looks good! Quite different, especially side by side, but nice in its own way. A little less distinct, but perhaps for the best? I do wonder about the fancy font being a bit tough to read, have people said anything about that?

[Alain]

It would be great if you could give me some feedback once I post screenshots here.

Just saw the before/after in the patch notes, and the most recent pics/vids. Looks good! Quite different, especially side by side, but nice in its own way. A little less distinct, but perhaps for the best? I do wonder about the fancy font being a bit tough to read, have people said anything about that?

Thank you for checking out the patch notes! There are quite a few things we changed visually and, as you say, I am afraid the new look makes the game a little less distinct. But we simply could not keep the deep black areas and and jittery lines. When working on the art bible for the game we established the new rule that black lines must be "3d supportive" so players can read where shapes or objects have their boundaries.

Regarding the fancy font, I do not use it everywhere, mainly for headlines and in bigger sizes. So far there was no criticism of the font, but I appreciate you are bringing it up and will keep it in the back of my head to stay critical about it

In case some of you are wondering what visual changes Prinsessa and I are talking about, here is a comparison of the old and current versions:

OLD (click image for hi-res version):

NEW(click image for hi-res version):

This is a work in progress, but I'd love to hear what the people here think of the changes so far.

[cepnox]

I like what you did with the new visual. Now it feels more polished.
Looking at the comparison, I realize that the black lines were causing significant contrast changes in too many places, distracting your eye.
So, good job with the change!

[akoluthic]

Removing all that extra black really cleans things up. This was a positive change for sure. Also I love that one of the stats is "Juiciness" 

[Ramos]

Good progress Alain, please do share your results with us

 

[Alain]

I like what you did with the new visual. Now it feels more polished.
Looking at the comparison, I realize that the black lines were causing significant contrast changes in too many places, distracting your eye.
So, good job with the change!

Thank you, I'm glad you think it is an improvement!

Removing all that extra black really cleans things up. This was a positive change for sure. Also I love that one of the stats is "Juiciness"  

Thanks! The "Juiciness" stat went to quite some iterations, but I also like the name now. As the third resource beside health and mana (or "Liquid" as it is called), "Juice" is one thing that sets the game apart from other RPGs. And it is a key element that works different than mana. You can only use it when it is at 100% and can be compared to a cooldown for ultimates that you can manipulate. You need it to conjure the really cool effects. Btw. one of the premises when I started making the game was to build a game like Diablo 2 around the most questionable feature in it: the stamina bar. Stamina became "Juice" over the years

Good progress Alain, please do share your results with us

 

Will do, Commander

[vivaladav]

This is a work in progress, but I'd love to hear what the people here think of the changes so far.

Pretty impressive change Alain, well done!

I believe the new graphics are way more readable than the old ones and that you are definitely improving things.

It would be ideal if you could tweak them a little to make everything just a bit less square and clean, but I know these kind of things take a long time and if I had to pick one I'd definitely focus on the new style as it is, at least for now.

Keep up the good work.

[Alain]

Pretty impressive change Alain, well done!

I believe the new graphics are way more readable than the old ones and that you are definitely improving things.

It would be ideal if you could tweak them a little to make everything just a bit less square and clean, but I know these kind of things take a long time and if I had to pick one I'd definitely focus on the new style as it is, at least for now.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you! I agree that there is room for improvement on the side of 3d models as well. I will keep iterating

[Alain]

BATTLEJUICE ALCHEMIST DEVLOG:

Hand-Crafting a Tutorial Level

Hey everyone!

While I have been posting written devlogs over the last weeks, this Friday I have a new video for a change. I talk a bit about development news, but mainly how I am making a new tutorial level. I found a quite nice solution to generate hand-crafted levels for our otherwise procedural game by saving all data into the RGBA channels of a single image file. I might even be able to utilize it create dungeons in the future!

You can watch the video here:

click GIF to watch on YouTube ↑ (4:24 min)

Thank you for watching and all the great feedback. Have a nice weekend!

Alain

[oldblood]

...I am afraid the new look makes the game a little less distinct. But we simply could not keep the deep black areas and and jittery lines. When working on the art bible for the game we established the new rule that black lines must be "3d supportive" so players can read where shapes or objects have their boundaries.

I missed this update but just chiming in to say that I think the updates to the art are an improvement. It feels more polished and is also quite a bit cleaner to follow from a visual perspective. This is a very UI-intensive game so I think trying to clean up the visuals will help the user experience.

p.s. as always your videos are excellent.

[Alain]

I missed this update but just chiming in to say that I think the updates to the art are an improvement. It feels more polished and is also quite a bit cleaner to follow from a visual perspective. This is a very UI-intensive game so I think trying to clean up the visuals will help the user experience.

Thanks mate, it is good to hear we seem to be moving forwards not backwards. I never thought about BattleJuice Alchemist as a UI-intensive game, but you are right, it definitely is.

[RealScaniX]

And here it is: The last congratulations on the mega-grant! No one can possibly be later than me. XD
 
I did download the demo from steam. Will try it out soon-ish.

[Alain]

And here it is: The last congratulations on the mega-grant! No one can possibly be later than me. XD
 
I did download the demo from steam. Will try it out soon-ish.

Thank you so much and I'm glad your planning to play the alpha a bit! I'd love to hear what you think, so make sure to drop a line if you find the time

[Alain]

BATTLEJUICE ALCHEMIST DEVLOG:

Moar Eye Candy

Hey everyone,

there is a lot of hustling and bustling going on in the BattleJuice Alchemist factory. The new tutorial level is taking shape and business opportunities are on the horizon. Patrick is cracking away on the texture overhaul and I also set aside some time to work on some eye candy.

In the gif above you see that Juice now carries a candle on the top of his barrel backpack. This gave us the chance to add a light source low above the ground that results in neat shadows from the flora he passes.

A second visual improvement was adding some physics to breakable objects. Destroying stuff feels a lot more satisfying now:

I will talk a bit more about the mechanics of the new tutorial level soon, here is a little sneak peek of the shrines that will guide your way through it:

Three moving images could only be spoiled by adding more text, so all that's left for me is to thank you for reading and wish you a good start into the weekend!

Alain

[vivaladav]

Nice progress again Alain!

Adding some physics to the objects is a great improvement as it adds a lot of visual variety and some actual feedback of your fire power.

The candle is a nice addition too. If I could I would make the overall scene a tiny bit brighter just to show more of the great levels you are creating.

Keep up the good work!