Devlog - Enemy Design, Combat & Steam Deck
about 4 years ago – Thu, Feb 03, 2022 at 01:00:42 PM

It’s time for another Dev Log! Welcome to the February update for Unsung Warriors!

For the last few months, we've made some significant improvements to the combat mechanics. We've worked on implementing new enemies, improved existing enemy behaviour, and updated some of the enemy designs. You can read all about it below.

New enemies

2 new enemies have been added to the skeleton army: 'The Warlock' and 'The Brute'.

Warlocks float around the levels and hurl energy balls at the player.  The player can attack the warlock directly or deflect their energy balls back at them.

The Brute can do some serious damage with their attacks. Unlike other enemies, their attacks cannot be interrupted.  Especially their mid-range attacks are something to look out for! 

Enemy Design Update

Skeleton Warrior

Based on the initial design of the Skeleton Warrior we've made some graphical improvements. The new sprites are more detailed, we've improved the readability, depth, and overall quality of the design while keeping true to the original concept and aesthetic.

Goblin Spear Warrior

Below you can see the design for the Goblin warrior.  We weren't satisfied with the old version so we completely redesigned this enemy. Hopefully, you like the new version.

The Goblin has rabbit-like qualities. They're fast and able to do jump attacks as well as attacks from close range. Although they're small in size, the reach of their weapons (the spear) more than makes up for this.

Bats

Remember these little buggers? They used to fly around the level in a ∞ shape. They will now chase the player and will try to attack you when you are close. Other than attacking them with your sword or ranged weapon, you can also hurt them with your shield.

Steam Deck

We've tested Unsung Warriors Prologue on the new and upcoming Steam Deck. It seemed to be running great which bodes well for the full version of our game.

In our next update, we'll tell you more about the arena, which is something that we are working on right now. It's coming along quite nicely although it's a bit too early to include that in the current update.

That's it for now! We'll be checking back in with you in two months. Meanwhile, stay safe and don't mess around with Goblins!

Cheers,

Mikel & Ramon

Devlog - Interface design, business announcement
over 4 years ago – Fri, Dec 03, 2021 at 08:53:55 AM

Hi all,

It's December, meaning it's time for our bi-monthly update! Now that Ramon is also working full-time on Unsung Warriors, we've kicked up the pace and got some interesting things done in the past two months!

Midgame fund investment

We're starting this udpate with a business announcement. Unsung Warriors was in the fortunate position to receive an investment from the Midgame Fund! This brings us two advantages. Firstly, the extra funds allow us to explore features that were previously out of reach, such as hiring a composer and/or adding possible console releases. We'll inform you when we've decided about this. 

On top of this, the fund is run by game devs. The expertise and network within the fund has already proven to be of immense value, and will continue to do so until long after launch!

The terms are incredibly developer-friendly (you can get an idea here), so this won't lead to us being pushed to rush the game or anything. We're convinced this is going to raise the quality of Unsung Warriors. We know our successful Kickstarter campaign has really boosted our odds with the fund, so this makes us even more thankful to you, the backers!

New enemy

A new enemy has been added to the roster. The Bandit Bombthrower. A mid-range enemy who gets a sadistic satisfaction out of blowing things up.

UI Updates & Improvements

For the past few months, we got a lot of work done on the interfaces of Unsung Warriors.  The UI has been given a graphical overhaul and we've added new functionality. The result is not yet final but should give you a hint as to what we're aiming for. 

We were pretty satisfied with the Inventory from the Prologue, so we use that to build on. But the full game requires more interface than just the Inventory, so that's why we've introduced a tab system so that you can switch between the Inventory and the new Quest Log and Skill/Abilities menu.

Player Inventory

The design quality of the Inventory has been improved and we've added 3 inventory slots and with the new design. it's also a bit easier to compare different items.

Quest Log

A quest log has been added to the player menu, where you can keep track of your progress.

Since we want to prevent people from having to open the quest log too often, we notify people when quests are added/updated. You can see the system in action below.

Skills / Abilities

A skills/abilities menu has been added to the player menu.  We haven't made any definitive choices yet, but the idea we're going to test first is that you have different types of skills:

•  Passive Skills - Skills that are always active
•  Active Skills - Skills that are only active when equipped

Active skills can be configured by the player. Equipping the right skills at the right time can give you an edge in battle.

That's it for now. We sometimes get questions about when we'll be posting a new update. Know that you can always find this at the bottom of our latest update. We'll be posting the next update in late January/early February.

If you have any questions or got something else you want to share, feel free to contact us. And know you can always find us on Social Media.

Cheers,

Mikel & Ramon

Addendum to last update - 2 announcements
over 4 years ago – Mon, Oct 11, 2021 at 03:20:36 PM

Hi all,

In this addendum to the previous update, we would like to share two things that arrived "just too late" to be included in the last update, but are relevant to share nonetheless. 

Prologue updated - v1.1.4

We've just released v1.1.4 of the Prologue. It's live on Steam and itch.io and should be available for download in the VCS store shortly. The game contains some small changes, such as the ability to better handle PS5 and XSX controllers. The biggest change would be a backport of something we created in the full game. We were somewhat unsatisfied with the animations fluency at high velocity, for example when falling. We were able to improve this by enhancing the rendering of physics. You can see the result below.

It may be somewhat hard to spot at first. The easiest way to see what has changed is to look at the character's eyes. 

In case you're trying v1.1.4, we'd love to hear your feedback on how it feels!

Game release by Osarion: Decks & Daggers

 Yesterday Mikel (Osarion) released his game 'Decks & Daggers' on Steam. It's a deck-building RPG card game where you venture down into the dungeons to slay monsters and collect treasure.

Decks & Daggers was mostly developed before the Kickstarter campaign of Unsung Warriors. And for the sake of completeness: no funds from this crowdfunding campaign were used to finance Decks & Daggers. Ramon has no stake in this game (it's created and owned by Mikel) and we don't have any other game development gigs going on besides Unsung Warriors.

That being said, if you're interested you can check out this game over on Steam. It's a whole different type of game than Unsung Warriors, so you can also try out a free demo on itch.io.

That's it for now. We'll be continuing our work on Unsung Warriors and we'll check back in with you in a little less than two months.

Cheers,

Mikel & Ramon

Devlog - First impressions Arena, ledge grab and more
over 4 years ago – Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 06:14:40 PM

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the October update! We've been working hard on Unsung Warriors for the past few months and we've made some good progress. There are lots of things to talk about so let's begin.

Arena Mode

One of the first stretch goals of our campaign is the Arena mode. We've been working on creating artwork for this environment. The Arena (other than being a nice new game mode) is also a good place for us to start testing the combat mechanics and to create enemies for the story mode.

One of the core pillars of the unsung warriors gameplay is to use the environment to your advantage. We would like to use the same philosophy in this arena. By adding new environmental challenges that pop up during the fight, we can create interesting new gameplay variations.

Ledge Grab

We've made changes to the freedom of movement for the players and added a new ledge grab. Which makes the game a bit less unforgiving when the player misses a jump. The main characters are now able to do wall grabs and ledge grabs.  Wall grabs are also a nice way to design more vertical-oriented levels.

Fulfilling Backer Rewards

Aside from working on the game we've also made progress on fulfilling some of the backer rewards. Below you can see two paintings that'll appear in the game.

Stickers have been sent out to backers

Backers that have ordered the stickers should have received them in the mail by now, we hope you like them. If you've ordered them but not received them yet, please let us know.

Interface Update

We are working on adding a Skills and Journal tab to the player menus while keeping the option for both players to browse separately. Below you can see a mockup of the early design.

Quest/story developments

We've been working together with Alex (our story consultant) on the story for one of the first quests for the game. Without giving away too much, we can say that one of the main characters in the first quest is a druid ghost girl named Ellie.

 That's it for now. As of October 1st, Ramon is scaling up his hours to work on Unsung Warriors. We'll be checking back in with you in about two months to show what we've done.

Cheers,

Mikel & Ramon

Our very first content update
over 4 years ago – Fri, Jul 30, 2021 at 01:07:53 AM

Hi all,

It's been two months since the end of the Kickstarter campaign, and we're steadily scaling up development. The past two months were partially spent on administration. The Backerkit website was set up and surveys were sent out. The office is now ready and we also got to do some game development, of which we'd like to show you a bit here!

Meet Aefa

One of our earliest stretch goals was to add a new playable female character. There was a character in the shrine that stole our hearts with her cool attitude. Her name is Aefa. She now has a custom animation set. About 85% of her animations have now been created.

We're incredibly proud to include her in the game, and we're looking forward to introduce another female character (for player 2) later on.

Fulfilling backer rewards

As you may remember, some of the Kickstarter rewards allowed you to have yourself (or someone else) be eternalized in the game. We've reached out to all backers who pledged for one of these tiers, and we're currently co-creating NPC's, statues, and paintings with them. Below you can see one of the first creations.

When we go live with beta/Early Access, the statues, paintings, and NPC's will be placed in a temporary level so that people can appreciate them before they are placed on their final destination.

Stickers

We'd also like to share the release candidate of the Stickers design (still subject to change). If you like them, you can still buy them in the Backerkit survey. You should be able to find the survey link in your email.

As mentioned in one of our previous updates, we've also designed Stickers for the Atari VCS. Unfortunately, the VCS stickers were not in sufficient demand to meet the initial cost, so we've decided not to produce them.

Closing the Backerkit store (but not the survey)

We're planning to close the Backerkit store in one week from now, on Wednesday August 4th. We do this because we want to start building momentum on our Steam page (amongst others) and lock in the amount we have to produce of certain rewards. What does this mean?

•  For backers: closure only concerns the store, not the survey. This means that after August 4th you cannot upgrade your pledge in Backerkit anymore, and certain add-ons will stop being available for purchase. The survey itself will remain open and you can still fill/modify answers in the questionnaire.
•  For non-backers reading this that want to late-back our game should do so before August 4th. You can do so here!

If you have any questions about this, please let us know!

Shout out to Go Heroes

Lastly, we'd like to give a shout-out to a fellow dev campaign: Go Heroes. If you like the historic-European setting of Unsung Warriors, Go Heroes might be right up your alley. The game narrates the legend of Titan Prometheus and how he defied Zeus, stole the Fire, and saved humanity. It contains a storyline based on the original myths and innovative Tactical Turn-Based Combat.

If you like what you see, we definitely recommend you to play their demo or check out their campaign.

So much for this update. Mikel has scaled up his time spent on Unsung Warriors since July 1st, Ramon will do so as of October 1st when his sabbatical from his day job kicks in. Around that time, we'll be sharing our next update to show off what we've done!

Cheers,

Mikel & Ramon