Rabbit & Steel will be at PAX West!
Booth #3024!
If you're in attendance, come by and play the demo of the game!
Hope to see you there!
Rabbit and Steel News
If you're in attendance, come by and play the demo of the game!
Hope to see you there!
Know your enemies!
Hello Rabbits!
It's been a little bit, and I've been pretty busy! You'll see why at the end of the post.
I'm getting a lot closer to finishing the demo, and my last few weeks of work has been solidly focused on the super-hard "Lunar" difficulty boss attack patterns.
So, I thought it might be nice to introduce a few of these patterns, along with the enemies that use them.
(Disclaimer: Some of these patterns haven't been properly tested for difficulty yet, so they may change before the demo or full release!)
Maxi is one of the first enemies you'll run into in the Moonlit Kingdom. She has a bright and uplifting personality, and specializes in large, slow moving AoEs.
In one of her possible patterns, you're beset by moving AoEs that run sideways over the top and bottom, forcing you to move in-between. There's moving arrows on the AoE warnings to let you know what direction they're heading in.
In harder modes, a tether mechanic is added: you become unable to move too far from a point in the center.
Here's a screenshot of Lunar difficulty:
The players are all tethered in the center, with different tether lengths. "Group 1" has shorter tethers than "Group 2". To avoid taking damage, "Group 1" must stay close to the boss, while "Group 2" takes a wider radius, all while moving so that they don't get hit by the moving AoEs or each others' spread AoEs. It's a little bit complicated, but very satisfying to do correctly!
A cocky, dark haired wolf, Rem tries to mix things up by dashing back and forth across the screen. In normal mode, her dashes will leave line AoEs and stack circles in her wake.
In harder difficulties, she might mix in the "Turbulent Winds" status effect! This will cause your character to briefly "slide" in any direction they try to move.
In Lunar difficulty, this gets combined with line stacks and spreads to make quite the challenging pattern!
A solemn and independant red dragon, Sohko can knock players back with her attacks. In this normal mode pattern, she tries to knock players back into corners where they'll get hit by AoEs.
In higher difficulties, she adds in a spinning laser as well. Think carefully about which direction you need to move!
These are some of the first enemies you'll fight each run! Hopefully by demonstrating some of their attacks in more detail, you have a bit of a better idea of what to expect from your foes.
So I said I've been busy...
Busy preparing for events! I'm happy to announce that Rabbit & Steel will be showing at both PAX West and Tokyo Game Show!!
If you're attending either, please come by the booth and try out the demo a little early!
...But only a little early! Because the demo is also coming to Steam very very soon!
Well, maybe not "very" soon, but it will be in time for the October Steam NextFest. Hopefully a little earlier than the NextFest actually starts, just in case adjustments need to be made. I don't want to announce a specific date just yet, but it isn't far off.
See you again soon!
It's been a little bit, and I've been pretty busy! You'll see why at the end of the post.
I'm getting a lot closer to finishing the demo, and my last few weeks of work has been solidly focused on the super-hard "Lunar" difficulty boss attack patterns.
So, I thought it might be nice to introduce a few of these patterns, along with the enemies that use them.
(Disclaimer: Some of these patterns haven't been properly tested for difficulty yet, so they may change before the demo or full release!)
Maxi is one of the first enemies you'll run into in the Moonlit Kingdom. She has a bright and uplifting personality, and specializes in large, slow moving AoEs.
In one of her possible patterns, you're beset by moving AoEs that run sideways over the top and bottom, forcing you to move in-between. There's moving arrows on the AoE warnings to let you know what direction they're heading in.
In harder modes, a tether mechanic is added: you become unable to move too far from a point in the center.
Here's a screenshot of Lunar difficulty:
The players are all tethered in the center, with different tether lengths. "Group 1" has shorter tethers than "Group 2". To avoid taking damage, "Group 1" must stay close to the boss, while "Group 2" takes a wider radius, all while moving so that they don't get hit by the moving AoEs or each others' spread AoEs. It's a little bit complicated, but very satisfying to do correctly!
A cocky, dark haired wolf, Rem tries to mix things up by dashing back and forth across the screen. In normal mode, her dashes will leave line AoEs and stack circles in her wake.
In harder difficulties, she might mix in the "Turbulent Winds" status effect! This will cause your character to briefly "slide" in any direction they try to move.
In Lunar difficulty, this gets combined with line stacks and spreads to make quite the challenging pattern!
A solemn and independant red dragon, Sohko can knock players back with her attacks. In this normal mode pattern, she tries to knock players back into corners where they'll get hit by AoEs.
In higher difficulties, she adds in a spinning laser as well. Think carefully about which direction you need to move!
These are some of the first enemies you'll fight each run! Hopefully by demonstrating some of their attacks in more detail, you have a bit of a better idea of what to expect from your foes.
So I said I've been busy...
Busy preparing for events! I'm happy to announce that Rabbit & Steel will be showing at both PAX West and Tokyo Game Show!!
If you're attending either, please come by the booth and try out the demo a little early!
...But only a little early! Because the demo is also coming to Steam very very soon!
Well, maybe not "very" soon, but it will be in time for the October Steam NextFest. Hopefully a little earlier than the NextFest actually starts, just in case adjustments need to be made. I don't want to announce a specific date just yet, but it isn't far off.
See you again soon!
Rabbits Online!
Hello Rabbits.
I come bearing great news. The netcode... is finally finished.
I hope you won't mind a (maybe boring) blog post covering it. It's basically all I've been working on for the past month and a half. I'm quite proud of how it turned out as well; the result is much cleaner and straightforward than my previous game.
Where shall we start?
Rabbit & Steel's online play is lobby-based. From the menu to begin a run, you can flip through the options to either open up to online play, or simply stay offline.
And of course, you can browse through the public lobbies as well. Each lobby has a name, a description of the party's goal, and how many players they're looking to fill. Additionally, you can lock your public lobby behind a password, if you're looking to keep the lobby between a group of people who might be in a Discord together without necessarily being Steam friends.
Joining a lobby brings you here, to the preparation screen where you can select characters and try out your moves on a training dummy.
However, you don't actually need to pick a character after joining! By simply letting the party move on without you, you become a spectator.
You don't need to limit yourself to one character per computer either.
If you've got a friend sitting next to you IRL who also wants to play in your online lobby, they can join simply by picking up a controller and tapping in. Couch co-op and online play can be done at the same time!
In the above screenshot, we have 4 different computers connected to this lobby.
Player 3 and Player 4 are playing from the computer this screenshot was taken from. If Player 3 wants to quit, they can do so by clicking on their name in this menu.
Player 1 and Player 2 are playing from a different computer called "Client 1" that's connected to this lobby.
The lobby's host "mino", as well as another "Client 3" are just spectating.
...Uh, hopefully that's not confusing. The point is, you can spectate, play your own character, play with people sitting next to you, and play with people on the other side of the world, all in the same lobby, and it'll work just fine. You can even spectate someone doing the single player campaign, if you want.
...Phew! Glad to be done with all of that.
I suppose this is as good a place as any to share other random news about the game's status.
First off, I'm moving the release date to Early 2024. Sorry!
I think if I tried really hard I still *could* get the game out by late 2023... but honestly, I think that the result of doing that would be a pretty bare-minimum kind of game. What's advertised on the tin, and nothing more.
As much as I wanted to get the game out during the Year of the Rabbit, with just a few more months on the schedule I think I could make the game something much more special. I'd have space to add in the features and content that would truely make the game shine. So I'll be taking that time.
Second, the game is now being classified as a Roguelike! Rather than a Roguelite.
There are still going to be a few things you unlock over the runs, but the game's design has come to emphasize a consistent difficulty, rather than something you could progress your way out of.
Even when I was calling it a Roguelite the progression elements were pretty minimal, and they've only become more minimal over time, to now being just a collection of unlockable items and cosmetic baubles. So, not wanting to give people expectations of Hades-esque strength progression (or something of that sort) I'll be updating the terminology in various places as I go.
Third, and maybe least important; I'll be updating some art assets and screenshots in the coming weeks. A lot of the stuff on the store page is a little bit old.
Maybe the art updates will give me an excuse to introduce some characters... that sounds like a fun topic for next time!
See you then!
I come bearing great news. The netcode... is finally finished.
I hope you won't mind a (maybe boring) blog post covering it. It's basically all I've been working on for the past month and a half. I'm quite proud of how it turned out as well; the result is much cleaner and straightforward than my previous game.
Where shall we start?
Rabbit & Steel's online play is lobby-based. From the menu to begin a run, you can flip through the options to either open up to online play, or simply stay offline.
And of course, you can browse through the public lobbies as well. Each lobby has a name, a description of the party's goal, and how many players they're looking to fill. Additionally, you can lock your public lobby behind a password, if you're looking to keep the lobby between a group of people who might be in a Discord together without necessarily being Steam friends.
Joining a lobby brings you here, to the preparation screen where you can select characters and try out your moves on a training dummy.
However, you don't actually need to pick a character after joining! By simply letting the party move on without you, you become a spectator.
You don't need to limit yourself to one character per computer either.
If you've got a friend sitting next to you IRL who also wants to play in your online lobby, they can join simply by picking up a controller and tapping in. Couch co-op and online play can be done at the same time!
In the above screenshot, we have 4 different computers connected to this lobby.
Player 3 and Player 4 are playing from the computer this screenshot was taken from. If Player 3 wants to quit, they can do so by clicking on their name in this menu.
Player 1 and Player 2 are playing from a different computer called "Client 1" that's connected to this lobby.
The lobby's host "mino", as well as another "Client 3" are just spectating.
...Uh, hopefully that's not confusing. The point is, you can spectate, play your own character, play with people sitting next to you, and play with people on the other side of the world, all in the same lobby, and it'll work just fine. You can even spectate someone doing the single player campaign, if you want.
...Phew! Glad to be done with all of that.
I suppose this is as good a place as any to share other random news about the game's status.
First off, I'm moving the release date to Early 2024. Sorry!
I think if I tried really hard I still *could* get the game out by late 2023... but honestly, I think that the result of doing that would be a pretty bare-minimum kind of game. What's advertised on the tin, and nothing more.
As much as I wanted to get the game out during the Year of the Rabbit, with just a few more months on the schedule I think I could make the game something much more special. I'd have space to add in the features and content that would truely make the game shine. So I'll be taking that time.
Second, the game is now being classified as a Roguelike! Rather than a Roguelite.
There are still going to be a few things you unlock over the runs, but the game's design has come to emphasize a consistent difficulty, rather than something you could progress your way out of.
Even when I was calling it a Roguelite the progression elements were pretty minimal, and they've only become more minimal over time, to now being just a collection of unlockable items and cosmetic baubles. So, not wanting to give people expectations of Hades-esque strength progression (or something of that sort) I'll be updating the terminology in various places as I go.
Third, and maybe least important; I'll be updating some art assets and screenshots in the coming weeks. A lot of the stuff on the store page is a little bit old.
Maybe the art updates will give me an excuse to introduce some characters... that sounds like a fun topic for next time!
See you then!
Rabbit & Steel will be at Momocon!
Hello Rabbits!
Hope you haven't minded a bit of radio silence; I've been busy with netcode.
Joining lobbies, character movement and player attacks are now working!
So it's like... 1/3rd of the way there. Current goal is to have netcode done by early June, after which I can focus on making content, putting out a demo, and doing some proper marketing for the game.
Speaking of marketing...
Rabbit & Steel will have a booth at Momocon 2023!
The demo featured will be very similar to the one I had at Magfest.
If you're attending, be sure to swing by and try the game out!
Hope to see you there!
Hope you haven't minded a bit of radio silence; I've been busy with netcode.
Joining lobbies, character movement and player attacks are now working!
So it's like... 1/3rd of the way there. Current goal is to have netcode done by early June, after which I can focus on making content, putting out a demo, and doing some proper marketing for the game.
Speaking of marketing...
Rabbit & Steel will have a booth at Momocon 2023!
The demo featured will be very similar to the one I had at Magfest.
If you're attending, be sure to swing by and try the game out!
Hope to see you there!
All that glitters
Hello again Rabbits!
It's been a hot minute since the last blog post! I've been working hard at various parts of the game. Last March was animation month for me; almost every planned enemy in the game now has animations!
I think in the last Dev Blog I vaguely hinted at showing a little bit about the game's Story Mode, but uh, I got a bit distracted making other things instead. Like a few important shop items! Let's talk potions, upgrades, and this smug looking cat.
Starting from the left, the cat. Her name is Asha, and she's a shopkeeper. She shows up at the beginning of each stage except the first one. I don't really know what her deal is. She isn't for sale.
Next, we have the two items in the top left that feature in every store: a Full Heal and a Level Up.
In Rabbit & Steel, health is a very precious resource. Generally, the game is balanced so that all damage is avoidable, and health is very difficult to recover. Loot items that restore health are few and far between.
So, the Full Heal here is your primary health recovery option for the game. If you've lost a lot of health and don't think you'll last until the next store, be sure to pick one up!
But if you don't think you'll need it, that's 10 gold that can be spent elsewhere.
The Level Up is exactly what it says. As mentioned in a previous post, each level equates to a 1% damage increase to everything you do. Generally, the other items in the store will be a better use of your gold, but if absolutely nothing else strikes your fancy, then buying a level or two is always a good fallback.
Next up, the potions!
Potions have powerful effects that give you a sizable upper hand. For example, the Evasion Potion reduces the size of your hitbox to a negative number, meaning that you can graze slightly into projectiles and AoEs without taking damage. The Swifthand Potion speeds up your GCD by 10%... which basically means you're doing 10% more damage.
They have a drawback though: their effects only last until the end of the current stage. Meaning they are a temporary boon to get you through a potentially tough spot.
Finally, ability upgrades.
These will upgrade an ability until the end of the run. But, you might ask, what kind of upgrade? That depends on the upgrade gem, as well as the character you're playing.
There are 5 different kinds of gems: Opals, Sapphires, Rubies, Garnets and Emeralds. Then, there are 4 abilities unique to each character: a Primary, a Secondary, a Special and a Defensive. Each store contains a gem to upgrade each ability, but the type of gem is randomized.
Purchasing one of these gems will upgrade the corresponding ability with the gem, giving it powerful new effects. Sometimes it's greater damage at the cost of speed, sometimes it's a random chance for something wacky to happen, and sometimes it completely changes the ability to a new one!
Even the same upgrade gem in the same store will have differing effects depending on the class you're playing as. There are quite a few interesting combos to try, so I look forward to seeing everyone's builds!
Oh yeah; the game *is* multiplayer. And the store page says players need to roll on loot from treasure chests. Is the same true for stores?
Uh, no! Asha's brought enough full heals, upgrade gems, and potions to share. So spend your gold how you'd like; you won't be inconveniencing your allies.
That's all for today! In the next Development Blog, I'll show off...
...Uh, actually, I don't know yet. After I finish working on the ability upgrades, the next thing I'll probably work on is the netcode, which might be a dry subject for a blog post. Unlike my previous game, I'd like to have netplay in the demo before I release it; so that's the main obstacle in the way of a free demo.
There's some other stuff I'm also waiting on like music and SFX, and I'd like to give the game a bit of a polish-pass before a demo as well. So, I can't promise that all of that will be done by the next Steam NextFest. But, hopefully I'll have it ready by the NextFest after that. Hopefully. No promises!
It's been a hot minute since the last blog post! I've been working hard at various parts of the game. Last March was animation month for me; almost every planned enemy in the game now has animations!
I think in the last Dev Blog I vaguely hinted at showing a little bit about the game's Story Mode, but uh, I got a bit distracted making other things instead. Like a few important shop items! Let's talk potions, upgrades, and this smug looking cat.
Starting from the left, the cat. Her name is Asha, and she's a shopkeeper. She shows up at the beginning of each stage except the first one. I don't really know what her deal is. She isn't for sale.
Next, we have the two items in the top left that feature in every store: a Full Heal and a Level Up.
In Rabbit & Steel, health is a very precious resource. Generally, the game is balanced so that all damage is avoidable, and health is very difficult to recover. Loot items that restore health are few and far between.
So, the Full Heal here is your primary health recovery option for the game. If you've lost a lot of health and don't think you'll last until the next store, be sure to pick one up!
But if you don't think you'll need it, that's 10 gold that can be spent elsewhere.
The Level Up is exactly what it says. As mentioned in a previous post, each level equates to a 1% damage increase to everything you do. Generally, the other items in the store will be a better use of your gold, but if absolutely nothing else strikes your fancy, then buying a level or two is always a good fallback.
Next up, the potions!
Potions have powerful effects that give you a sizable upper hand. For example, the Evasion Potion reduces the size of your hitbox to a negative number, meaning that you can graze slightly into projectiles and AoEs without taking damage. The Swifthand Potion speeds up your GCD by 10%... which basically means you're doing 10% more damage.
They have a drawback though: their effects only last until the end of the current stage. Meaning they are a temporary boon to get you through a potentially tough spot.
Finally, ability upgrades.
These will upgrade an ability until the end of the run. But, you might ask, what kind of upgrade? That depends on the upgrade gem, as well as the character you're playing.
There are 5 different kinds of gems: Opals, Sapphires, Rubies, Garnets and Emeralds. Then, there are 4 abilities unique to each character: a Primary, a Secondary, a Special and a Defensive. Each store contains a gem to upgrade each ability, but the type of gem is randomized.
Purchasing one of these gems will upgrade the corresponding ability with the gem, giving it powerful new effects. Sometimes it's greater damage at the cost of speed, sometimes it's a random chance for something wacky to happen, and sometimes it completely changes the ability to a new one!
Even the same upgrade gem in the same store will have differing effects depending on the class you're playing as. There are quite a few interesting combos to try, so I look forward to seeing everyone's builds!
Oh yeah; the game *is* multiplayer. And the store page says players need to roll on loot from treasure chests. Is the same true for stores?
Uh, no! Asha's brought enough full heals, upgrade gems, and potions to share. So spend your gold how you'd like; you won't be inconveniencing your allies.
That's all for today! In the next Development Blog, I'll show off...
...Uh, actually, I don't know yet. After I finish working on the ability upgrades, the next thing I'll probably work on is the netcode, which might be a dry subject for a blog post. Unlike my previous game, I'd like to have netplay in the demo before I release it; so that's the main obstacle in the way of a free demo.
There's some other stuff I'm also waiting on like music and SFX, and I'd like to give the game a bit of a polish-pass before a demo as well. So, I can't promise that all of that will be done by the next Steam NextFest. But, hopefully I'll have it ready by the NextFest after that. Hopefully. No promises!