Drakantos News

Hi there!

Welcome to our March Devlog with the latest news about the game's development! First off, we invite you to join our Discord! There, you can chat with the devs, interact with other fellow members, and check out exclusive teasers.


[hr][/hr]This month we want to present you: Iris, the mage illusionist. Her gameplay is very different as she is a ranged, squishy hero but acts like a tank, using her abilities to mitigate damage and trick enemies.🔮

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Let us know in the comments if you like her style of gameplay and which of the heroes presented so far was your favorite.

- The Ozul boss fight has been completed, and we're taking a break from boss battles for now. Next, we plan to work on the Ophis boss, but she requires a complex environment and cool elements for her fight, so we need to finish the sprites first.

- We've created 10 new traps to deepen the immersion: giant boulders rolling towards players like in 'Indiana Jones' movies, avalanches, bee hives falling from trees, occasional trees deciding to lie down, and more. It’s a jungle out there!😂


- We also worked on Nil'varix, he is a demon clown that likes to see chaos. He can appear in any mission offering players a contract. If the players accept, a challenge will occur during the mission, and if they complete it, the rewards will be greatly increased in the end. We finished 15 challenges for now, but plan on doing a lot more until the next devlog.

Originally posted by notes

🧙‍♂️Dev Note: These challenges are amazing because they completely change the gameplay of something you normally do. For example, if you've already faced the Ice Wyvern boss, you're familiar with its mechanics, but, imagine facing the same boss with an additional mechanic from a challenge! It will add a new layer of possibilities to the gameplay.

👉 Feel free to suggest more cool mechanics that can randomly appear in the demon contract! Here are some examples of the challenges we created:

• Chain the players together, requiring them to move within the chain's limited range.
  
• The players swap places every X seconds.
  
• Every enemy you kill drops a bomb that explodes after a while.
  
• Randomize a card for each player, and some enemies will have this card displayed on their heads. The corresponding player must remove this mark. If the wrong player hits it, he will receive damage as punishment.
  
• A giant hand follows your team for the entire mission, trying to smash you.
  

- We are now finishing the PvE main lobby HUD for regular missions, which includes difficulty settings, group finder, and other features.

- For the environment, we've completed the sprites of the Adventurer's Guild tavern (sneak peek bellow) and a lot of miscellaneous items that will be used in missions. These include herbs, supplies, NPC belongings, etc.. We are now working on Ophis boss stage like we mentioned before.



- We are constantly creating new mounts and armors. Considering the color variations, we have about 275 different combinations of saddles/mounts!



- Our level design team is still working on revisions and revamps of old maps (even the starting village was redone). They have also finished more missions for mobs that previously didn't have any, such as the Banshee and the new Dire Wolf.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Your support is deeply appreciated. If you could leave a comment, like, or share with friends, it would truly help us. Thank you again!❤️


See you in the next devlog! 👋

Hi there!

Welcome to our February Devlog! First, an invitation: If you're keen to voice your thoughts and interact directly with our development team, make sure to join us on Discord. There, you can also participate in community events, vote for the next hero teasers, and much more!



[h3]🎮 Development 🎮[/h3]

- We asked you to choose between Urijor and Ojore. Your choice was clear, and we will be unveiling Ojore, he is a Brawler with Geomancer powers! 👊

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
- We completed the Irhaal boss battle! His fight ended up being very challenging and fun with basically only new attacks and mechanics. This brings our total to 16 endgame bosses that are 100% ready. For the next month our goal is to finish at least Ozul (img bellow) and Ophis boss battles.



- The main focus of the programming team is in optimizations so the server can handle as many players as possible, so we reworked a lot of old core systems.

- We also worked on a new preset system. This system allows you to arrange up to 4 builds of orbs and artifacts in each hero. It will be very useful, as you may want different builds for PvE, PvP, or specific maps or bosses.

- We keep working on the UI. This month we planned the PvP and PvE interfaces, and we are implementing it in the game. Moreover, due to the addition of various new systems and features, we updated old interfaces, such as the cosmetics interface that we showed in a previous devlog and now it looks like this:


- After we showed the cosmetic HUD above, many people were curious about that green platform. Those are displays that will appear in lobbies, party screens, victory screens, etc. You can unlock them in your account and equip whichever one you prefer for each hero! Some of them are bosses or mission drops and some of them are exclusives for PvP. For example you can show your PvP rank while playing regular missions, or you can show your rare drop display in a PvP match.

🏆 Here are some examples of displays that we did as rewards for the PvP ranks: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Emerald, Diamond, Mithril, Adamantite and Ethereal (for the top X players of a specific hero), respectively. 😁







- We finished all abilities, art, icons, voice, balancing, emotes, and orbs for Hero 21! Its identity remains a surprise, so leave your guesses in the comments! 💬

- Our collection of mounts and pets keeps growing! We added many new mounts to the roster, like Magic Drums, Donkeys, Bears, Dire Wolves, their saddles, armors and colors variations. We also worked on the sprint animation for several mounts and tested and added some monsters that can become mounts like the Yeti.



- For the environment, we focused on reworking some important places that had placeholder sprites, like the Adventurer's Guild tavern (sketch bellow). Plus, we did a lot of misc stuff as well, like the Dark Woods trees and tons of new decorations. 🔥



- One last thing, we added 5 more active artifacts, bringing our total to 165 now! 😉

[h3]🎨 Concept Art Contest - Results! 🎨[/h3]

This month we had our first concept art contest on our discord. We had a hard time choosing pets because you guys had a lot of great ideas. Our team chose 12 pets that we liked the most and that had a positive impression on the community. Sadly, we couldn't choose some because we didn't want to deviate too much from the theme and style of the game.


Congratulations to the winners: -Rikas-, Who are you, VermilionGirl, Jonathan Oliveira, Drakanslyy AKA Fan Nº1, SnapeAK, Isaac em Hiato, Slow, CaroU, ŞΔΜΔŁΔŇĐŘΔ, Kuchi and Pimenart.

We already brought 3 of them to life in the game! 🐾



Thank you very much for your support and attention! If you enjoyed this devlog, remember to leave your comment, like, and share it with friends, it helps us a lot! ❤️

See you next! 👋

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to our January Devlog! Before we delve into the updates, we'd like to invite you to join our Discord! We have a vibrant community and we are always sharing new teasers there! ❤️



[h3]🎮 Development 🎮[/h3]

In this month's hero teaser, we'll be showcasing the dwarf Orbryn, an Engineer from Garmorli! 🪨

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
- As mentioned on our previous devlog, we did a total of 160 active artifacts. This month, our focus has been on refining these artifacts by writing their descriptions, recording in-game GIFs, and conducting extensive balancing and internal testing. We have also modified them to use charges instead of cooldowns, with a limited number of charges per mission, boss fight and PvP (explanation below).

Originally posted by notes

🧙‍♂️Dev Note: We think cooldowns are less effective because, if you want to optimize, you would need to use everything once the cooldown is up. This approach is not ideal for situational artifacts like shields or things that require strategic timing. So, with charges, you can control the best time to use them, and we can achieve more balance overall in all content. The artifacts still have a bit of a cooldown, but it's only 5-10 seconds.

- The Level Design team has finished the maps of the two biggest cities, Kasteron and Ereluna, for the open world. They have also remained dedicated to the ongoing revamp and review of older missions.

New version of the Ereluna Throne Room 🍃
- For the environment, we focused on the 'Demonic Cult Tower' sprites. You saw it in our last devlog, but this time we are working on its interior, including all rooms and decorations.

- About mounts, the concept we showed in a previous devlog, is now a reality! The system is 100% ready with the sprint, collection and other necessary things. 🔥

- Using some animals and creatures we already had in the game, along with a bunch of cool new saddles we made, we've got plenty of mounts ready to hit the road! If we consider different colors and saddles, we have around 65 variations for now, but we're far from finished. We plan to create many more mounts and also develop armors and more awesome content related to them!🐎



- We've also made a change on how the ultimate works. For those unfamiliar, they function similarly to Brawl Stars/Overwatch, where you charge your ultimate by landing hits with your regular abilities. Once it reaches 100% you have your ultimate ready to go. We've kept that system, but now we'll also allow players to accumulate 'energy' beyond 100%, up to 125%. So when you use your ultimate, you will spend 100% of your energy, but still have some remaining if you've gathered more than that amount.⚡

Originally posted by notes

🧙‍♂️ Dev Note: We did this because some heroes' ultimates are easier to pull off, requiring less positioning and timing, so they had an advantage. They could use their ultimates as soon as they got them and start gathering energy very fast. On the other hand, heroes that needed more positioning were having a worse performance. With this change, you've got the option to wait a bit before using your ultimate since you can now stack up to 25% more energy before you decide to use it.

- As this is a Devlog showcasing Orbryn, we also wanted to give you a sneak peek of the Dwarven Kingdom. ⛏️


- We've returned to working on the bosses, finishing the balance and skills of the Undead Wyvern, and the Irhaal boss fight. Now, we're planning to do more! We have 15 ready but are aiming for at least 25!

- 17 adorable pets (including some color variations), were completed. This brings our total to 62!🐾


We are kicking off our "Create a Pet" contest! This is your chance to let your imagination run wild and dream up an amazing pet. Whether you’re sketching out your ideas with a pen or bringing them to life digitally, we’re eager to see your unique creations!

✍️ To participate, join our Discord and submit your creation in the event channel.

We would love to hear which part of this devlog captured your interest the most. Thank you once again for your time and continued support! ❤️

See you in the next devlog! 👋

[hr][/hr] Team Note: We've been watching your video responses to our devlogs and love seeing your feedback and reactions.😄

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to our December Devlog! First we want to wish a Happy New Year to you all! A massive thanks for all your support and let's go 2024!! 🔥

Join our discord to receive teasers and interact with our community and devs!



[h3]🎮Development🎮[/h3]

In this month's hero teaser, we'll be showcasing the elf Faendar, an Archdruid from Ereluna! 🍃

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Learn more about his backstory/lore on our discord.

- As we mentioned in the previous devlog, the game design team shifted their focus to theActive Artifacts, which are another system that helps you customize your build, adding new skills that are unlocked in your account and can be used by almost any hero. We have finished all that we wanted for now, totaling 160! (77 new this month). Now, part of the game design team will start working on the passive ones!🔥

- Our art team is doing the last hero, whose identity is still a surprise (what type of hero do you think it is? share in the comments💬). We are also creating more pets and developing new environmental assets for the demon worshipers' domain. This area is set to be vast and scary! Below, you can see the initial sketch and how it turned out.👹

Sketch

Final Version

- The Level Design team has started planning the open world, carefully connecting locations to enhance the overall player experience. Simultaneously, the other part is dedicated to the ongoing revamp of older missions, ensuring they meet the highest standards of gameplay.

- Our programming team has finished the new updater, and a lot of optimizations.🤖

- In our latest devlog, we had completed the mount animations for 8 heroes, and now we've finished animations for all 20 heroes! We've also created additional animations for artifact usage and other miscellaneous stuff (for all heroes). 🐎



- We've finished 34 new pets bringing our total to 50 so far. Once we complete everything we have planned, we'll start working on creating awesome mounts! 🦜



- We also started and finished our 20th hero, Ojore! He is a tank with a mix of Brawler/Geomancer abilities. We finished all his art and animations, including his victory pose, mount, death, battle stance, all attacks, emotes, icons, and even orbs.💥




That's it for this month's devlog. The team took a two-week break for Christmas and New Year, so we had only 15 days, but even so, we made a lot of progress!

What did you like most about this devlog? Let us know in the comments.

See you in the next devlog! 👋

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to our November Devlog! Before diving into the updates, we'd like to invite you to our Discord. This month, we've introduced a new gallery with the splash art and walking animations of all the heroes.


We're also conducting polls for the upcoming hero teasers and sharing some teasers for you to get a sneak peek at the development! Your presence there would be awesome! ❤️



[h3]🎮Development🎮[/h3]

- Last week's community poll decided our next hero teaser between Liam and Zeugladius. Your choice was clear, and we're eager to unveil the Paladin Errant: Zeugladius!🔥

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Learn more about his backstory/lore on our discord.

- The game design team shifted its focus from bosses to artifacts and has completed 93 of them so far (we had 20 in the previous devlog)! For those who are not familiar, artifacts are another system that helps you customize your build, basically adding new active/passive skills that are unlocked in your account and can be used in almost any hero.

- In our latest devlog, we showed the prototype of our mounting system which garnered a lot of positive feedback. Since then, we have developed the mounting animation for 8 of our heroes. 🐎


- Since we started designing the missions, a lot of new assets, systems, and monsters have been created. Because of that, our Level Design team has now begun a long but necessary journey to revisit and revamp our earlier missions to ensure they all offer the best gameplay experience.

- We've finished creating the splash art for all the heroes. Each one has been carefully designed, capturing the unique essence of every hero (we posted them all on our Discord).

- We created an Undead Wyvern!🔥



-We worked on environmental assets for the Ereluna Palace interior, banners for all factions, debris, small objects, and a lot of miscellaneous objects for decoration.

- We made more progress in the HUD, updating the cosmetics tab to add the mounts and other cosmetic itens.

- We have developed 6 new pets. Would you like to have this cute little bear pet? 🐻



Or, do you prefer this adorable skelly one? 💀
x
- Our programming team finished a lot of internal systems that will help the team as a whole. They also worked on the equipment system and on a cool "chain" system that was used to create some of the artifacts, monsters and boss mechanics.💻

This month we reached 100k wishlists!! As a indie team, we're really grateful to see our project connect with so many people. Big thanks to everyone for your support. ❤️

What did you like most about this devlog? Leave it in the comments for us.

See you in the next devlog!👋