Art Report #4 - Mechanowizard Archetype

Hey everyone,

Presenting Mechanowizard and her Hog Automaton today:



This cunning technician focuses on Mechanowizardry Discipline, opening the following options to her:
 - Construct a trusty Automaton from selected material - mundane stuff like Wood and Stone on lower levels and experimental things like Living Fire, Frost Crystals and Wild Mana on higher levels (who knows what abilities he will have from those materials ;)
 - Quickly assemble a Lighting Turret which fires piercing bolts which can help a lot with hordes of enemies, but can also accidentally hit the player if he's not careful with his positioning. On higher levels of this ability the player can swap positions with existing Turret.
- Tactically Reset Cooldowns on some of her abilities when needed.


As usual, some sketches from the design process:
1) Initial ideas:





2) Hog automaton design:




3) More or less final option...


4) Which i decided to spice up with more interesting gadgets:


Of course, all of those cool items and weapons will be obtainable ingame :3


See you next time for a Thermosorcerer archetype sneak peak.

Art Report #3 - Steam Knight Archetype

Hello,

Steam Knight archetype is here:



This mighty warrior focused mostly on the Steam Power Discipline which allows him to:
- Overpower and push enemies around into disadvantageous positions and even pick them up and throw them in the nearby chasm/spiked wall/fire.
- Quickly Charge in the midst of battle, crushing everyone around him or Charge away from the battle when things get nasty (it's not a retreat, it's a tactical regrouping!)
- Parry enemy swings, counterattacking them in the moment of weakness and even reflecting enemy bullets and projectiles back at them!

Also don't forget that players are free to mix and match Abilities from all Disciplines, so for example you can make a Steam Power/Necrochemistry monster who overdoses on mutagens and rips everyone apart in melee.

For those who are interested in the design process:
1) First of all i had these designs after my course with Anthony Jones:




2) Like with Necrochemist before, i decided to repeat the process to test what i've learned, starting with the rough pen silhouettes:








3) And once i've decided with the general design, i experimented with the color schemes, selecting the "rusty" one (A) and rendering out til the end, changing it in the process to the more orange-looking armor rather than brownish rust:



Next on the line is Mechanowizard archetype and her trusty automaton companion.

Art Report #2 - Necrochemist Archetype

Hey everyone!

We've been busy working over at our Trello board and neglected this blog for quite a while - time to change this.

We'll explain our revamped rpg system a bit later (since it's currently under heavy debates), but what's certain is that it will be mostly classless and players will be free to pick Abilities from any Discipline as they build their character. Disciplines are merely a groups of similarly themed abilities ranked by their power and EXP cost. Today i want to show you how the character who pursued the Necrochemistry Discipline might end up looking like:


Some of Necrochemistry abilities include:
- Spraying Toxins and creating deadly pools of acid to limit enemies movement
- Spawning Corpsesauruses from dead enemies. Type of summon depends on the type of the corpse, so you might get Fanged Corpsesauruses from dead wolves, Poisoned Corpsesauruses from toxic bodies, etc
- Unleashing Confusing Gas to disorient enemies and even force them to attack each other

Here's my design process for her:
First of all, i had these sketches from a mentorship course with Anthony Jones (highly recommended btw):


That's where i learned a LOT about the nuances of the design process - before that i was doing it in a semi-random way, without giving to much thought about the PURPOSE of elements and design PRINCIPLES like Balance (having a busy parts full of details contrasted by very light detail free parts so the eyes of the viewer can rest) and Unity (having a number of repeating elements/patterns throughout the design). As a challenge i decided to repeat the design process completely by myself. I started with lots of super rough silhouettes, focusing on an insect/creepy/toxic themes:


Afterwards i picked up the ones that looked interesting and developed them into simple sketches:


Initially i went for the Ratlike option:


But eventually switched to the Spiderlike variant because:
1) There will be ratlike race inhabiting the world so i wanted to avoid overlapping themes
2) For illustration purposes we needed more ranged heroes because we already had enough melee guys (you'll see them in the following days)
3) I instantly fell in love with the idea that Necrochemists use partly hollow shell of an insect as their backpack/exoskeleton. They are manipulating it by sending electroshock impulses to the insect's nerve system and forcing it to move its limbs to help reload a rifle or slash nearby enemies


Even though i really liked the Syringe Spear from the first sketches, i needed a cool and appropriate looking gun for the Spiderlike design:


With colors i focused on the idea that Necrochemists are both creepy/dealing with toxic things (green), and are usually found in the upper echelons of society (golden) - i'll eventually address how this works out in a later City post.



Hope this looks interesting enough and tomorrow i'll share a Steam Knight archetype.
Have a great day!

simple, the simplest

It is interesting. I came to nice and accurate algorithm, that will enhance life simulation code, but achieved my goal by changing only one variable.
That's true, one variable "pumped up" already existing algorithms and made new one obsolete, before it was finished.
I really love simple things, but sometimes the are simpler then you thought.

I back to skills and abilities interface. I wanted to make all in one skill screen, but found out, that it isn't look good at all.
Even popup help windows can't help.
So, you would be browsing skills, each of them would have its own window. It would take some time, because player should be able to read descriptions, level up skills and buy new abilities and perks, but it worth all troubles.

22.01.2014

Cleared bulk of small troubles.
I collect them in dozen and fix in one time. For example, skills window was stealing mouse input from local map. It is really annoying.
Highlighted mouse position on local map. You would be 146% sure where you are going to click. It is simple idea, can't understand, why didn't do it beforehand.

But! The more important part of development, finished first part of usable abilities.
NPC buffing themselves and it really spices up the gameplay.
Clicking group of wolfs to death is rather boring. Fighting wolfs that use pack tactic, baffing themselves with rage ability and using powerful bite is completely different type of game.
Especially, if you have selection of abilities yourself.
You can see it on screenshot. (there are some cool sprites, I found via google. They are really cool, but used for graphic test. We would replace them.)

Right now, I am working on mentioned close combat ability, like powerful bite and skirmishers.
That guys that running from you, shooting or just running away. I have a plan, how to make it interesting, but not annoying.

I think that full list of features scheduled for 0.1 version would be really helpful.
I mean, what we have left, because list of all changes... well it is huge. I think I wouldn't make list of changes for 0.1, but announce as basic release of new FFHtR.
What I was speaking about? Oh? yes. List of features that stay between us and FFHtR 0.1 "Age of Rebirth"!

• Heavy armor skills and abilities.
• Rest of abilities for weapons + basic balance.
• New melee weapon damage mechanics. it would be based on quality and material, limited by creature strength.
• Passive abilities routines.
• Skill screen merged with abilities.
• Purchasing abilities on level ups.
• Fraction generation screen.
• Additional interface options for items.
• Bitmaps for bodyparts.
• Warm tileset.
• Bunch of interface icons.
• Food refactoring.
• Adjusting global map interface.
• Ability hotkeys. Customiseable.
• At least two additional types of global objects.
• Repair guilds and followers.
• Finish item generator refactoring and repair magic item generator.
• Fix existing craft and link it to new interface.
• Fix dozen of nasty bugs.
• Talk/bump/change location routines.
• Tutorial. At least basic one.
• Allow player to chose options for global map genertor.
• Spawning zones on global map, encounters.

Maybe I forget something, but this is nearly full list.

 

First ability

For the first time NPC used aggressive ability against PC. Great!
Abilities mechanisms looks so flexible! I'll use them for spells, ranged combat or even items!
NPC drinking potions and zapping wands! Feared or exited?