BattleJuice Alchemist News

Today is THE DAY, fellow Sentinels!

REMEDIUM: Sentinels has officially released, and we couldn't be more excited. Get ready to immerse yourself in an extraordinary experience filled with new features and improvements that have been implemented since the game's Early Access phase.

Prepare for an expanded world of possibilities as we introduce a range of exciting updates. We now boast an impressive roster of 8 playable Sentinels, each with their unique abilities and playstyles. Traverse meticulously crafted locations, soaking in the atmospheric environments that will captivate your senses. Arm yourself with a diverse arsenal of weapons and upgrades to take on the hordes of adversaries that await. These additions were not available during the initial release, making the game even more engaging and dynamic.

But that's not all! We have gone above and beyond to enhance the player experience. Significant improvements have been made to the HUD and interface, ensuring smooth navigation and seamless interaction. Prepare to showcase your skills and compete with players globally through the introduction of world leaderboards. We are committed to making the leaderboards even more engaging and exciting for you! Additionally, we have expanded the list of achievements, satisfying the insatiable quest for glory of achievement hunters. And rest assured, we have plans to continue adding new achievements in the future.



To further enhance gameplay, we have implemented quality of life improvements. Discover new interactive objects that grant additional scores when standing nearby, providing strategic advantages in the heat of battle. For example, in the "Mines" level, now you have to push the minecart to earn points. To make it happen, the Sentinel needs to be next to it while fending off hordes of enemies (they haven't gone anywhere)! Furthermore, we have introduced additional elemental versions of weapons, each with its unique effects, bringing more diversity and dynamism to combat encounters.

Today's release of REMEDIUM: Sentinels marks an exciting milestone in our journey. We are determined to deliver an exceptional gaming experience, and we can't wait for you to join us. Embark on an unforgettable adventure of survival and discovery, and let the world of REMEDIUM: Sentinels captivate you.

Get ready to push your limits, showcase your skills, and become a true Sentinel. Today is the day we've been waiting for!

Stay strong and PUSH THE PLAY BUTTON!

As the release date of fast-paced roguelite auto-shooter REMEDIUM: Sentinels approaches, the developers from Sobaka Studio shared some exciting updates that have been implemented since the game's Early Access phase. They have been hard at work, and thrilled to announce the incredible additions and improvements that await players in the full release on July 18th:

"First, let us highlight the significant content expansions that have taken place thus far. Brace yourself for the sheer variety available: we now boast a whopping 8 playable Sentinels, each with their unique abilities and playstyles. Traverse through 6 meticulously crafted locations, immersing yourself in the atmospheric environments we've created. And prepare for a vast arsenal of weapons and upgrades that will aid you in your battles against the hordes of adversaries. All of this was not present during the initial release. Delve deeper, and you'll discover a wealth of new content, including a plethora of enemies, bosses, and maps that have been introduced since the game's initial Early Access launch.



But that's not all! Our dedication to enhancing the player experience extended beyond the content itself. We've made substantial improvements to the HUD and interface, ensuring seamless navigation and interaction. Additionally, the introduction of world leaderboards will enable you to showcase your skills and compete with players globally. Achievement hunters will be thrilled to know that we've added more achievements to satisfy their insatiable quest for glory.

We didn't stop there. We've incorporated quality of life improvements that enhance your overall gameplay experience. Discover new objects that grant additional scores when standing nearby, providing strategic advantages in the heat of battle. Moreover, we've introduced additional elemental versions of weapons, each with its unique effects, allowing for more diverse and dynamic combat encounters.



Looking ahead to the release on July 18th, our team is determined to deliver even more! We have exciting plans to introduce additional achievements, ensuring that your journey remains challenging and rewarding. Furthermore, we're committed to making each game mode distinct and unique, offering exclusive gameplay mechanics for victory and progression. This dedication to variety and innovation will significantly increase the game's replayability, making every playthrough feel fresh and captivating.

Finally, let us remind you that the release is only a mere 5 days away, scheduled for July 18th! Don't miss out on the opportunity to experience REMEDIUM: Sentinels in its full glory. Mark it in your calendar, add it to your wishlist, and get ready to embark on an unforgettable journey of survival and discovery!"

Stay strong and PUSH THE WISHLIST BUTTON!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2244480/REMEDIUM_Sentinels/

Hey folks,

this week I'd like to take you on a deep dive of how Patrick and I created a new enemy for BattleJuice Alchemist. Although I enjoyed being a solo dev a lot, I love working collaboratively like this. But this brings the challenge to establish pipelines and workflows as a team, where ideally everybody does what they are best at. So let me tell you how this little raven fella came into existence!



Patrick is an illustrator and animator by trade and has been helping me out for years before joining on a permanent basis now. He helped ironing out our art bible, so I did not need to explain to him any details of our guidelines and what we go for thematically and visually. I thought it best to make the skeleton and animations for our new winged enemy type myself, because Patrick does not work with them inside Unreal like I do. I wanted to get this done quickly without a lot of tinkering, so I asked Patrick to make a concept for our general bird skeleton. He came up with this within a few hours:



You can't imagine how much time this saved me. I am not good at visualizing concepts so I usually go into 3D right away and this sometimes turns out to not be very time efficient. But with Patrick's concept, I was able to create our bird skeleton really quick.



I then made the animations while Patrick started making the 3D model for the raven. As you can see, the bones in the skeleton are not bones as you would usually shape them for a flying creature: You would usually only make the bones of the wings, not the wing itself (a bit like Patrick illustrated them in green in his concept). I shaped the bones like full wings to be able to see how they overlap due to our segmented style.



In BattleJuice Alchemist we do not skin our characters, we segment them into individual pieces. This is not just an economic decision, but also because we are nostalgic for this art style. I asked Patrick if he wanted to say something about this...

"I’m a big fan of highly stylized game looks. Also working with segmented low poly characters, hand-drawn textures and cel shading creates unique design challenges.

For instance, imagine you’re trying to draw a classic cartoon chracter but it has multiple demon forms and was just frozen and shattered. Now you’re searching for pieces - wait which head is this or is it an arm? Will this edge be cel shaded or do I draw this outline myself? And remember, squares are divine and green is for demons! Well, working on BJA designs almost feels like ritual magic and I’m loving it."

In case you are wondering, he is referring to our color palette here, which does not allow the color green in any type or form ;) So Patrick made our raven model and textures and also designed the mutated variations.



I really like how everything came together and had a blast working on this. The raven is a very simple creature and I am sure you will be blown away with the more complex characters Patrick is currently designing.

This devlog has become long enough so I have to end it now. Have a great weekend everyone!

Alain

Hey folks,

I am super proud to tell you that BattleJuice Alchemist won the award for Best Visual Art at DevGamm Vilnius 2023. For those of you who are not familiar with it, DevGAMM was born in the Ukraine in 2008 and has been uniting game industry professionals from Eastern Europe and beyond for over 15 years now. Each conference features multiple networking opportunities, great speakers, and new games from all over the world.

Having taken part in DevGamm last year, I would have loved to go there this year in person myself. But although I could not make it, our producer Alex from ESDigital went and represented us and our game very honorably. We had a booth there where players could play BattleJuice Alchemist:



I still have to debrief Alex whether any hardware was destroyed out of frustration or if everything went smoothly.

We already knew BattleJuice Alchemist was nominated for the Best Visual Art award, but we were not expecting to actually win.



The visual style of our game has always resonated quite well with people when I posted about it, but about two years ago, it was still quite rough around the edges (literally, the lines were way too rough). I think we could never have won a visual art award, if it wasn't for our art director Felix and our 2D/3D artist Patrick, who ironed out our art bible with me and made essential changes so the game could look how it does today.

So everyone here at Alchemical Works and ESDigital is very proud Alex can bring home this heavy beast of a trophy.



Thank you for reading! In our next bi-weekly devlog I'll return to normal and tell you more about what we are currently working on inside the game.

Alain

Hey folks,

as you may know our base-building system has been a big addition to the game and it is by far not just a cosmetic feature. I never talked about many of its intricacies, so let's take a look at the power system today!

There are devices that consume and others that generate power. There are different types of power and they are visualized by power cubes. For example, this physical generator here outputs one physical power cube:



The cube tells you that in this designated field you can place a device that consumes physical power and it will be powered. Aside from power and gold there is another resource that you need to manage when planing your base: space. Especially in higher tiers you may want to relocate power. That's where relays come into play.



This can be especially handy when building a multi-floor setup. You could place your power generators upstairs, so they take up less your precious ground floor space.



But in case you decide to have them on the ground floor anyway and are a neat freak like me, please make sure to tuck away those relays under the floor ;)



That's all for today, stay tuned for more BattleJuice Alchemist goodness and thank you for your support!

Alain