REMORE: INFESTED KINGDOM News

Hello again, Survivors!

In addition to the Memory Bonding system we introduced last week, there are a number of other changes in the new build we're currently testing.

Over the coming days, we'll be talking about what these changes are and why we made the decisions we made, but before we get into the more detailed systems, I wanted to give you a quick overview of the New Characters we've added.

In fact, if you've been following closely, you may have already realized from the "Memory Bonding" screen we showed you last week that there’s currently a total of Six Characters joining the adventure.



We're also making some big changes to the skillsets of the Royal Guard (Willam), Barbarian (Duirmuid), and Militia (Edwin) that you've seen in Early Access, but we'll talk about those changes after we're done introducing the other systems.

Today we'll focus more on introducing the “New Faces!”


[h3]Before we get into it...[/h3]
As some of you may recall from our old [Archive]posts, back in the early days of development, when we were focusing on a more "medieval" and "human" narrative rather than "strategy/tactics", we implemented religious figures such as "Monks" and "Nuns" as playable characters.

Unfortunately (?), very few people wanted to bring back the bald Monk, but there were quite a few people who played the early demos or watched the reveal videos who wanted the Nun to return.



So, shortly after the development direction of adding new characters was set, the first thing we started looking at was whether we could reintroduce the Nun to fit the current direction of the game.

The main reason why the Nun/Monk were not adopted as playable characters in Early Access was that it was "difficult to give them combat abilities that fit the concept of the class," and while we were thinking about this, we had a great idea. Give the Nun the role of an “Assassin.”


[h3]New Character #1: Shadow Sister[/h3]
When we adopted “Surprise” as an official mechanic, we knew from the very beginning that we wanted to make the Assassin a primary class, as we felt this type of character could best lean into this gameplay style.

However, the actual name of the class itself, Assassin, was a bit of a challenge, as we wanted to keep it somewhat historical, and the concept of a Middle Eastern "Hassassin'' naturally came to mind. However the actual setting of Remore was more of a fictionalized western to central European world, so it felt inconsistent.

While discussing the fact that we were not trying to recreate a completely specific historical real-world space, we decided to think of a concept for an assassin, but with a different physical appearance, and so we thought "what if we didn't have nuns, but instead had a religious group in our world that ran a convent as a kind of assassination organization?" and it was unanimously decided on the spot!



The result of this process is the Shadow Sister character, who has Stealth as an active skill, allowing her to move freely and ambush enemies without being seen.

Other characters without the Stealth skill are less likely to be able to sneak up on enemies in close quarters and surprise unhindered, so it's common to surprise one character and then have the rest of them raise the alarm. These new Shadow Sister, on the other hand, are designed to allow the player to make the mechanic of surprise much more proactive.

The tradeoff is that they have a "weakness" called "Stage Fright" that greatly reduces the amount of damage they can deal when they are within an enemy's line of sight.


[h3]New Character #2: Jester[/h3]
Whereas the Shadow Sister is designed to be a surprise assassination character that most intuitively uses the mechanic of Stealth, the Jester is a character that utilizes surprise play by occupying a specific space using Active Skills and Free Movement.

For example, your basic skill, "Backflip," costs 4 TP to instantly move to a specific location, where you can leap over enemy/friendly units or obstacles freely. Without the Movement skill, you'd be stuck in enemy sight, but with it, you can sneak up behind them and create creative ambush opportunities.



You can also level up to gain a talent called Blindside, which automatically engages Stealth immediately when you enter an enemy's line of sight. This further enhances your ability to create surprise routes with your backflip skill and makes it easier to "scout" for enemies, such as opening doors to check your line of sight without being spotted.



This allowed us to create a character that is similar to the Nun in terms of being an agile, ambush-based character, but very different in how she is utilized. In our testing, we found that while the Jester is a bit trickier to use than the Shadow Sister, it definitely has a "different feel", as if you're playing a different character in the same role in a MOBA genre game...


[h3]New Character #3: Inquisitor[/h3]
The final new character we'll be introducing is the Inquisitor, who shares the narrative of a religious vocation, but has a "Power/Strength" concept that is the opposite of the Shadow Sister, who is more "Ambush/Assassination" centered.



If you've played the Early Access version of the game, you know that tile manipulation elements like pushing and pulling are very important in the game, and that there is a debuff called "Pain" that increases "Collision Damage".

We still see pushing and pulling enemies as an important part of the core fun of the game, and the “Pain” debuff was introduced as a way to make this tile manipulation a unique archetype of the game that can be utilized as a “Damage Dealer” rather than a “Support” role.

However, these “Push/Pull” and pain debuffs were mainly just the effects of “Blunt Weapons,” and there wasn't much synergy with the existing three characters.

In response, we've redesigned the Inquisitor to specialize in Blunt Weapons, giving him a talent that causes colliding enemies to split their pain between them. He also has a skill called Merciful Strike, which allows him to instantly execute characters who have accumulated a certain amount of pain.




We're still working on the animations, so for now we're just using the NPC Knight character sprite for testing, but we'll show you a more polished version once they're done.

So, there you have it, the important characteristics and development intentions of the new characters.

It ended up being longer than I thought, and I have a moment of regret (?) that I should have dug deeper into each character's features and introduced them one at a time.

In any case, in addition to the Inquisitor's sprite, the Jester's movement skill animation and the Shadow Sister's design still need to go through the art team's hands once more, so I think it would be better to introduce them in detail as a kind of showcase when they're finished.

Starting next week, we'll be talking about the system changes we're making to these characters.

Thanks as always, and we'll see you soon!
REMORE

Hello once again, Survivors!

We're just finished testing the first full, unified (as opposed to piecemeal) build for the first time since the reorganization and are in the midst of identifying improvements for the next build.

We've been talking about our mapping standards, UI, and narrative direction versus procedural generation in isolation, and it's probably been hard for you to get a sense of "so what does this all look like together?"

It can be confusing, even for us! No matter how much thought and intention we put into creating a subset of things, the end user experience is almost always different from what we intended. I think that's what makes game development so challenging, but also so fascinating.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be walking you through the elements that make up this consolidated build, what worked and didn't work intended, and where we're headed next.

Today, I'd like to start by talking about the most important elements of our new direction: the “Ember” and “Memory Binding” systems.



[h3]What is an "Ember"?[/h3]
When we were reimagining the game's main themes of "Medieval" and "Apocalypse", the idea of "carrying on the knowledge and experience of the dead" was one of the things we talked about. We wrote about this back in March in this post, and the narrative framework for doing so and the concept of "Ember" in this post.

As always, there were a lot of trials and tribulations and stories that went into organizing this idea into a workable system... but I'll share those stories in a future post in the form of an "Archive" when I get a chance.

For now, here's the broad outline of the narrative.

• The religious people of Remore venerate the "Fallen Flame (a great stone that fell to Earth) as a holy relic, and it serves as a vehicle of faith for many, much like the "crucifix" of Christian religions.
  
  
• When the First Creature appeared (for reasons that will be revealed over the course of the game), this Fallen Flame holy object was destroyed, scattering countless "Fragments" throughout the world of Remore, known as "Embers".
  
  
• The player characters that will come to discover these scattered Embers are the first to realize that they contain the living memories of those who have died, and that as they collect smaller Ember Fragments, the Ember’s power grows as it absorbs them.

The new narrative is built around the above, with the ultimate goal of the game being to gather the scattered Embers and use their power to defeat the “First Creature” and end the outbreak.

The idea is that players will actually find these "Ember Fragments" scattered throughout the maps during gameplay, and that they contain the memories and experiences of those who “died” during the outbreak throughout the world of Remore.



[h3]“Binding” the Memories of the Living and the Dead[/h3]
When you return to your Hideout with an Ember Fragment from a stage, the memories of the dead contained in the Fragment are absorbed into the Ember that you and your party have in camp.

Each memory can be identified by the name and occupation of the dead person in life, such as "Memory of John the Swordsman" or "Memory of Brune the Thief," and these memories can be bonded to the current "living," or player-controlled characters.

When a memory is bound, it grants the player character the following "Abilities" based on the dead person's "Class" and existing abilities.

• Stat Gains: Increase or decrease in Stamina/Strength/Dexterity/Fortitude/Agility stats.
  
  • The dead carry over the "Abilities" they had in life, though certain stats may decrease!
    
    • You'll see a lot of unfamiliar stats, but we'll talk about the stat system overhaul in a separate post.
• Skill Additions: Specific "Weapon Skills" or Tactical Skills like "Grappling Hook" and "Side Step" from the Early Access version.
  
  • The idea is that "the skills that the dead have gained in life" are now available to the living through Memory Bonding.
• Adding Strengths/Weaknesses: Adding effects that are not directly used “Skills,” but rather a kind of temperament trait.
  
  • For example, the memory of the Assassin class can give you an ability that adds power to your skills when you surprise an enemy.
    
  • On the flip side, it can also give you a Weakness. For example, if you bind the memories of the Assassin class, you'll gain "Penalty to attacks within the enemy's line of sight". which is a trait of that class.

Each “Living” character also has their own unique “Stats, Skills, Strengths/Weaknesses” separate from these “Memories of the Dead.”

So, for example, a Guard who specializes in shield skills will have a strong synergy with memories that emphasize Counterattack, while the new Inquisitor character has a specialization in Pain/Collision, which pairs well with memories that emphasize blunt force or pushing...



However, each memory has a cost, called "Influence," and the maximum number of memories that can be bonded is constrained by an "Influence Limit" value based on each character's current level.

As such, how well you can create synergistic combinations of memories under the constraints of Influence will be at the heart of the new meta-gameplay, and our goal with the redesigned memory binding system is to encourage diversity, so that the same character can bind completely different memories to create completely different builds and forms of combat.

[h3]Related Changes and Self-Assessment[/h3]
Bringing the "Bonding" system centered around the memories of the dead contained in this Ember to the forefront of the metagame has led to a number of changes, both large and small, in many areas.

• Once the character "Perk" system was in direct conflict with the memory bonding system, it became much more streamlined.
  
  • Each character's unique skills, strengths, and weaknesses are no longer a "choose between two trees" and automatically gain a set of abilities as you level up.
    
  • Instead, the focus has shifted to "choose and bind memories that go along with those unique abilities", allowing for even more variety and possibilities for actual character building!
• We've also changed the weapon modification and forging structure to be more streamlined.
  
  • Technically, the effectiveness of existing Tier 1 weapons hasn't changed much, but instead of gaining a new active skill from a Tier 2 weapon, you'll now be able to bond with classes that specialize in a particular weapon, such as Swordsman or Spearman, to increase the power of that weapon and gain additional active skills.
    
  • If you want to go with "diversifying your tactical skills" instead of "diversifying your weapon active skills," you can do so by selecting only the memories that match!

In other words, the goal was to concentrate on the "building/customization" elements that were scattered throughout each character/weapon in the original Early Access version into a new core system called "Memory Bonding" which would both reinforce the thematic feel of the game and make it more fun to play through the variety of combinations.

We're still working out the kinks in the UI, and we've barely started to play around with the narrative setup, but the bottom line is that the internal feedback on the Memory Bonding system so far has been very positive!

Even with only about 20 memories in the test build (plus the three new characters) due to time constraints, I really enjoyed the challenge of figuring out which memories to assign to which of the six characters, and the difference in experience when using them in combat felt really meaningful.


[h3]And the future plans...[/h3]
At this point, we've only seen the most basic skeleton of a system with "Pre-prepared" NPC memories in the game. The original idea that inspired this system, and the ultimate goal of its implementation, is to create a "play experience that carries over the memories of a player character and ties them to another character even when the player character dies".

This is because we think it's essential to deliver the thematic experience of "the dead continuing their will to live on and accomplish impossible goals" that we talked about in our initial narrative pitch.

It's also a major way to address what we consider to be the downside of permanent death in party-based games, as we don't think it's a good experience to have "similar/identical characters regenerate to fill the void left by dead characters," no matter how thematically appropriate permanent death is.

Our goal for the next build is to minimize the sense of loss of punishment by having the experience of the dead carry over, while also making it so that "killing a character on purpose is not a better option for normal gameplay," and we're thinking a lot about how best to do this.

There's a lot more we want to talk about related to the Ember and the Memory Binding System, but I think that's as much as we can share for now.

We know that many of you are eagerly awaiting the next update, and we'd like to take this opportunity to thank you again.

As much as I can't wait for you to get hands-on with the new gameplay and get feedback, we realize that the changes we're making are more of a process of redesigning and building the game from the ground up, which will take some time, but rest assured we believe it will be worth the wait!

So, we'll continue to share as much as we can in writing so that you can get as close to the team's understanding of why and what we're building, as well as our internal assessments and plans for it.

Next week, we'll be taking you through some of the other changes in the builds we're currently testing, including the changes to the stat system we've been sneak peeking at.

As always, thanks again and see you soon!
Thank you,
REMORE

Hello again, Survivors!

UI guy back again! I've been secretly smuggling out the latest screenshots of the build we're working on (as always, it's still under construction! It's unfinished!). I thought I'd share with you what it took to get to these screenshots. Remore is undergoing a significant overhaul, effectively a rebirth. But you know that famous line.

[h2“Who would be born must first destroy a world.” – Demian by Hermann Hesse[/h2]

So, we decided to start by destroying the existing interface.

We didn't do it out of boredom, of course. The purpose of a User Interface is to communicate Information. If the UI has difficulty conveying information, or if the information that needs to be conveyed changes, then the User Interface needs to change. And coincidentally, both of those things happened. The things that we introduced in the last Dev Notes (links 1, 2, and 3 of the mapping baseline), just siege and ambush, were completely new concepts, right?

There were a few things here and there that needed to be tweaked, but we wanted to get the foundations in place first. There were roughly three pain points, which we decided to call the “Three-burden Problem,” which was about solving minor inconveniences before building something big.

[h3]Problems with Skill Shortcuts[/h3]
Shortcuts are meant to make actions faster and easier once the player has a good grasp of the game. At any given time (unless the player changes their key settings), “R” should be reloading a magazine, and “Space Bar” should be fulfilling their desire to fly for a second or so. If the reload button is different every time, and you have to check and press it to see which one it is, that's not really a shortcut, is it? ...Yet that's actually how shortcuts worked in Remore.



Weapon skills were followed by character skills, so the shortcuts for the character skills would fluctuate depending on how many weapon skills you had. The “Shove” skill was a free spirit that could be a “4” or a “5” depending on its mood, so players would have to visually check how many shortcuts they had active before using the skill.

We also wanted to separate weapon skills from character skills, so we placed passive skills between the two, which worked well. But it also pushed the active skills away from the shortcut numbers. Imagine if, later in the game, your character learned more passive skills, and... well... where's “Shove?” 8...? 9...? Not good at all. The main numbers are taken up by passive skills that you'll never use!

[h3]Problems with the Resource Gauges[/h3]
Remore has HP, AP, WP and TP as Resources. Importantly, all four are in one place.



New players were often confused by the fact that there were four resources that looked similar. It's information overload, and you'd think that since they're the same resource, they'd all be in the same place, but in fact, they all have slightly different uses.

For example, when you're eating in a hideout, you only need to look at your HP. Your WP aren’t important, so they shouldn't be visible. What about when you're engaging an enemy? It all seems important, but it's actually "WP, TP > AP, HP". If I can kill the Knawer in front of me with my current WP and TP, it doesn't matter how much HP or AP I have, right? It's only when I can't kill them that I decide who gets hit, so I needed to differentiate between them even though they look similar.

[h3]Problems using Skills[/h3]
This section may be a bit dull to some, as it's all about minor behavioral patterns of players, so if you're not interested, feel free to skip it and look at the pictures below. But if you're interested in this kind of analysis, please read on!

What is the process you go through to kill a Knawer? I wish I could give you an answer, but since I’m writing this as a Wallfacer, I'll have to do my best to explain. Normally, the process would go something like this: (I hope I got it right!)



The nature of the game requires you to use your abilities efficiently within a limited number of actions, so unlike games where you can just slap a skill on cooldown, there's a long process of thinking about whether or not to use it.

To use an analogy, when you put something on the counter at the grocery store, you're pretty sure you want to buy it, but in Remore, you often scan the barcode, look at the price, and put it back down if you don't like it. Let's call it "scoping the goods" but what’s this got to do with skills?



Well, isn’t it a bit hasty to hide skill information when I'm still trying to decide if I want to use it or not, when I’m “scoping the goods” so to speak. Also, there are situations where I have to move the tooltip that covers the center of the screen to pick the right skill for the enemy's placement, which isn't convenient.



[h3]Solving the Three-burden Problem[/h3]
So, let's go back to the beginning and take a look at the screenshot I smuggled out. As you go through the Three-burden Problem with me, I'm sure you'll notice some new stuff!



[h3]Problem #1, Skill Shortcuts[/h3]
"What, nothing's changed?" you might ask. That's because it's hard to tell from the screenshots, so here's what's changed. All equipment skills are now in the “Q” and “E” spaces, while other skills are organized into numeric keys for easier keyboard shortcuts, and we've rearranged passive skills so that they're in the back.

[h3]Problem #2, The Resource Gauges[/h3]
I kept only WP and TP gauges at the top and put HP-related resources below the skills, so that they were somewhat close together and distinct. When using skills, you only need to look at the top line.

[h3]Problem #3, Using Skills[/h3]
The Skill Tooltip no longer hovers over the mouse position, but instead sweeps off to the right. This ties in with the gamepad-friendly UI, which is a welcome change and also means that the center UI doesn't disappear when you press a skill. You'll be more comfortable with “scoping the goods” now.

So, we've solved all the “Three-burden Problems,” the universe of Remore is saved, and we're still working on finding other inconveniences and turning them into an optimal gaming experience. Of course, we're about ramping up for a big update, and we can't wait to show you what the interface will look like when we do. Big things are coming...!

Thank you for making it through another Dev Note. Much love, everyone!
(PS, here are some of the UI layout sketches I made (that didn't make the cut) because I just couldn't let go).


Thank you,
REMORE

Hello, Survivors.

Spring is well upon us!

We can't see anything but pitch black from our development dungeon... but let's call it spring anyway!

As testing continues, your feedback and reactions have been our biggest source of inspiration in setting goals for REMORE.

In our previous Dev Notes, we've been deep diving into specific topics and providing detailed introductions, so it's been difficult to showcase some of the smaller changes we've made in response to player feedback...

For example, the changes to the Main Dock UI that we introduced last week were driven by player feedback that the pixelated font was hard to read, and there are quite a few elements that we're changing to address that.

That's why this week's theme is "Your Voice Echoes in the Dark," and we're taking a quick look at some of the upcoming changes that are a direct result of your feedback.

Here are just a few examples but stay tuned for more updates in the near future!

• Added Weapon Swapping - We'll be adding a more intuitive and convenient way to swap weapons (based Early Access feedback).
  
  • In the EA version, you could "always swap all weapons in your inventory", which many people found unintuitive.
    
  • We're changing the system so that all characters can pre-equip up to 2 Gear sets (Loadouts) in camp, and swap between these two sets via the “Swap Weapons” feature.
    
  • There are many additional changes to weapons on top of this, but more on that later!
  
  
  
• Gamepad Support - We're working on a UI tailored for gamepads (accepting feedback on our first demo)
  
  • For the Early Access version, the focus was to establish a keyboard/mouse-centric UI, but as we revamped the UI, we realized that if we didn't take this opportunity to consider pads, it would be impossible to put them in the future.
    
  • For now, this is only supported within the battle stages, but we're rethinking the overall UI design to make the game entirely playable with a pad.
    
  • We'll have more to say about this in a future UI Dev Note!
• 4 New Characters Coming Soon: Battle Nun, Jester, Mercenary, and Inquisitor (based on feedback from the first demo)
  
  • While the notes so far have focused on "diversifying the map," we're also working on game-build modifications that will allow for a larger number of characters beyond the initial three classes.
    
  • We'll have more on the new characters themselves soon, but here's a sneak peek at the concept art for the new "Mercenary" character!
  
  
  
• HP recovery rules will change: HP will be restored fully after each stage (based on Early Access feedback)
  
  • In the Early Access version, HP damage taken by players was "cumulative," meaning that it was not automatically recovered except in special ways, such as by consuming food.
    
  • While we felt this was in keeping with the overall theme of the game, we had an issue with first-time players starting the next stage with too little HP, making the stage "practically impossible to clear".
    
  • Also, the penalty for taking damage is so high that it makes the game more passive overall, so after some deliberation, we decided to recover HP to full after every stage.
  • We've made some big changes to the stat system, the overall context of combat, and the "armor" associated with it, but more on that later!

This week's changes are just the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned for more brutal and intimidating changes to REMORE, that all came from your feedback!

Survivors, once again, thank you for your support and enthusiasm for our game!

We're working hard to keep up with your expectations and create new experiences that are worthy of the time you've invested in our development.

The transformation of REMORE continues. Let’s venture on!

See you next week!
REMORE

Hello Survivors,

The REMORE: INFESTED KINGDOM Fiercest Combatant Event has ended! ​

The Community submitted lots of entries to the event, and we have spent the past week combing through every single one of them in awe of your collective talent. We’ve been blown away by your passion, creativity, and deep appreciation for all things. We're excited to present the Fiercest Combatant Event winner! ​

[Winner]​
[h3]Dragon Castle[/h3]

• Map: Barracks
  
• Difficulty:Vengeance
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[Note]​

1. The content involved in the winning works are derivative works of the players, and does not represent the actual plot and settings in the game.​
   
   
2. The reward will be implemented sometime after the Event Ends and before the Official Launch. We ask for your patience and understanding on this matter.​
   

Congratulations to Winner of the Competition! ​
Aside from the winner carefully selected. The entire Black Anchor Studio meticulously examined every submission. We were incredibly touched by the participants’ love and passion for REMORE: INFESTED KINGDOM.

Once again, a huge thank you to everyone who participated! ​

Thank you,
REMORE