Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch News

Tacticians,

The team has been working hard to get ready for a closed beta in the near future. Then, we thought, why don’t we bring an exclusive demo to passionate gamers to provide a glimpse of what it would be like?

So here we are! Come to Boston and hop aboard the vessel to Anareios. Lost EIdolons: Veil of the Witch will have an exclusive demo at PAX East 2024, so make sure you stop by booth 18090 to embark on your journey to the mist-covered island, where you will face the living and the undead alike.



Since we know it’s dangerous to go alone, we’ll get you a full party of 5 characters on your ventures, as well as equip you with this nice foam sword at the end of your expedition.


Experience the revamped combat the team has been working hard on, and ask any questions you may have to Jinsang Kim, the creative director!



- ODS Team

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530490/Lost_Eidolons_Veil_of_the_Witch/

Hello, Tacticians! This is Minyoung Lee AKA Mocha, one of the developers on the Lost Eidolons team. As I mentioned in my last post, today I’d like talk about overall game flow in Veil of the Witch, and what you’ll be doing between battles.

When we first started developing Lost Eidolons, we gave a lot of thought to what kind of space the player might return to between battles. Initially, we envisioned a world akin to Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales or Battle Chasers: Nightwar, where players could explore a vast map, encountering various allies, foes, and events.

However, once our structure solidified into a story-driven game with a linear plot, we realized that integrating that kind of free exploration into the narrative was a lot more challenging than we’d imagined. Even if it were feasible, it would demand an exorbitant amount of time and resources, blowing up our budget and release schedule.

Subsequently, our attention turned to approaches like Monster Hunter: World's Astera or Fire Emblem: Three Houses' Garreg Mach Monastery, where players engage in conversations with companions, progress quests, and embark on battles from a fixed location. This naturally evolved into the camp system that shipped in the final version of Lost Eidolons.

Lost Eidolons, quite a bit into Eden's career as a general.>

Initially modest, the camp gradually expanded, becoming home to more and more characters, and evolving into a fully-fledged battlefield camp with multiple districts, giant banners, and so on. We aimed to evoke the feeling of being part of a grand military force, and indeed, we discovered through community posts that a lot of players really enjoyed that feeling.

However, the camp in Lost Eidolons wasn't without its flaws, and didn’t always offer the best experience. Switching between turn-based RPG combat and real-time maneuvering always felt just a little bit strange, and coupled with the need to repeatedly traverse a large map, wound up taking up a lot of players’ time, even after the inclusion of fast travel.

Additionally, we soon encountered limitations in the variety of stories we could tell, when constrained by the setting of a single camp, and a structure without much breathing room for side-content. (Had the camp been, say, the picturesque Vyugar Mountains, or a bustling city like Leroyaure, we probably could have presented a wider range of stories.)



When we began developing Veil of the Witch, we faced similar dilemmas. As a game oriented towards replayability, we needed to incorporate elements between battles that repeated without feeling monotonous, while also addressing the negative experiences observed in Lost Eidolons.

The first solution that came to mind for our team was a pop-up event system, often seen in deck-building games like Slay the Spire or Monster Train. This method allows for the creation of numerous unique events at minimal cost. However, we felt that this approach didn’t really capture the feeling of exploring a vast and mysterious island in an immersive, engaging way.

Veil of the Witch. Imagine if it's always like this?>

Thus, we opted for a different method. We positioned characters on the field, allowing players to interact with things via a point-and-click interface, like an adventure game. We also drastically reduced the field size to eliminate the need for navigating sprawling maps like the camp in the first game.

The advantages of this method are that it provides players with the sensation of exploration in a way that still feels tactile and frictional, without having to run around manually. Plus, it works easily for a variety of input methods (mouse, keyboard, or controller). As a result, we were able to really cut down on the amount of time players spent dallying on the road between battles.

<Veil of the Witch's version of the shop. We espy a familiar face.>

Once we settled on a point-and-click method, the next critical consideration was determining what players could interact with and how.

When we first started, road encounters consisted of a lot of simple run-ins with bags and treasure chests. Gradually, we progressed to placing wandering soldiers, villagers, and shopkeepers, and built simple narratives where the player can offer help or receive assistance. Players will also encounter grand altars and statues that enhance their abilities, and camps that let them rest overnight to train or recover health.



Aside from just gameplay enhancements like restoring HP or granting gold, we wanted these encounters to showcase characters’ personalities and relationships. When a thief attempts to rob your party, the kind-hearted Elena may opt for a peaceful resolution, whereas the cunning Emile or hardnosed Rosalina may have very different perspectives.

By choosing which characters to include in the party when they undertake an expedition, the player would also need to consider how they might impact the random events they’ll encounter along the journey.



With this toolkit, we’re working hard to build a variety of interesting story events and experiences that punctuate battles and make each expedition feel unique. Beyond just patching up weak points in Lost Eidolons’ design, our hope is to create an experience that invites new players in, while letting existing fans build a deeper relationship with characters they’ve met before and a world they already know.

But we’ve also got some other metagame content and systems that we haven’t really touched on yet, including Cooperation levels between characters, and the various map regions of Anareios. I look forward to delving into these topics some more soon!

Minyoung/Mocha



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Hello, Tacticians. My name is Minyoung Lee, AKA Mocha. I'm a developer from Korea who’s been a part of the Lost Eidolons development team from the very beginning. I'm happy to introduce myself to all of you today before I write the next Dev Log, coming later this week!

What do I do?

I conceptualize and create content for the world outside of battles, known as the "metagame," in Lost Eidolons and Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch. This includes quests, training, shops, “rapport”, UI, and more. Additionally, I’ve handled a variety of important tasks such as putting spears in soldiers’ hands, putting horses into the stables, and pasting wanted posters all over the camp. It’s fair to say I’ve have had my hands on pretty much everything players experience outside of battle at least once.



When did I start making games?

I joined the development team in 2018, but before that, I had already created indie games on my own. Starting in 2016, I released several games such as "Charlotte's Corridor" and "Mistry Fantasia" on the Google Play Store, and some of them garnered a considerable number of downloads. Though they might not have the greatest art, UX, or writing, those projects taught me that with enough creativity and perseverance, someone will appreciate your work – a valuable lesson for any young creative person.

As I grew more experienced, I wanted to create more ambitious, high-quality games. So I used the work I’d done as a portfolio and joined a larger studio, where I was tasked with conceptualizing how to present our game world.



What games do I enjoy as a player?

Glancing through my Steam data, it seems I spend most of my time on strategy and simulation games. I was particularly devoted to RimWorld, spending close to 1,000 hours constructing settlements and experiencing both joy and frustration. I've also cleared all achievements in Slay the Spire, achieving Ascension 20, and I'm a huge fan of titles like Sid Meier's Civilization and the Danganronpa series.

Outside of PC, I'm also a fan of anime-style games. At the moment, I’m playing a lot of Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail (and spending a little too much money to unlock characters), to add some spice to my life.



Thoughts on Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch

The Lost Eidolons series is very important to my story as a game developer. They’re the first games I've been involved with from inception to release as part of a larger team, and to say I’ve learned a lot would be an understatement. My goal moving forward is to improve my skills in everything I work on, including metagame content, UI/UX, character art, and more. With Veil of the Witch, I believe we can streamline what made the first game fun, eliminate things players found tedious, and in so doing, create a game that connects with players more deeply .

What games do I dream of making?

To me, an enjoyable game is one with an immersive world. I appreciate games where the characters aren’t simply there, but are integral parts of the setting. Players' imaginations are often richer than developers', and I love settings that leave room to imagine what might live in the margins.

To create worlds like that, you don’t necessarily need massive amounts of text or complex systems like Baldur's Gate 3 or Disco Elysium. Games like VA-11 HALL-A and Papers, Please are great examples, and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim plays in a similar space, while taking it further with amazing presentation and art. I’d like to create a world that captures the imagination that way. Beyond that, questions like genre or IP don’t concern me as much; it could be a sequel to Lost Eidolons or something entirely new.



Parting thoughts

Now that we’ve gotten to know one another a little better, I hope you'll come back and read by dev blog, where I’ll share more about the metagame and overall flow in Veil of the Witch. Specifically, I’ll be talking about how the camp system in Lost Eidolons came to be, and how we’re changing things up this time around.

Stay tuned!
Minyoung/Mocha

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530490/Lost_Eidolons_Veil_of_the_Witch/

Hello Tacticians,

This is Jin Sang Kim, Creative Director of Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch. Today I’d like to answer some common questions about the game, specifically relating to character customization, game structure, and language support.

[h3]Character Customization[/h3]
One unfortunate drawback of how the first Lost Eidolons approached its story was the inability to customize the protagonist, Eden.

While Veil of the Witch won’t offer full character customization, I can confirm players will be able to choose between male and female character models, as well as lighter or darker skin-tones.



Looking ahead to the franchise’s future, I can say that full character customization is a major wish-list item for us, on future projects in the series.

[h3]Game Structure[/h3]
In Lost Eidolons, chapters followed a simple pattern: pre-battle cutscenes, battle, post-battle cutscenes, camp section, repeat. Veil of the Witch makes significant changes to that basic play-loop, bringing in elements of the roguelite genre.

In Veil of the Witch, the player embarks on expeditions from their Base Camp, and undertakes heavily randomized battles and events, punctuated by repeatable story-driven bossfights.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

When they’re defeated in battle, the player is returned to their Base Camp, where they can undertake a variety of activities, including promoting characters’ classes, engaging in dialogue between party members, exploring unlockable story content, and unlocking new upgrades at the Altar of Fire.

In terms of character growth, players can expect a mix of temporary and persistent elements. During expeditions, players will come across various items, skills, etc that improve their party’s abilities and stats. When they die, these single-run upgrades are lost. However, they’ll also be gathering various currencies they can spend in camp to unlock persistent upgrades, steadily improving their party’s strength over time.

We look forward to players getting to try out these systems for themselves during Early Access.

[h3]Language Support[/h3]
In terms of language support, we’ve seen various questions and requests for specific languages, so I’d like to clarify where our plans stand at the moment.

During Early Access, we plan to focus on English and Korean. Other languages will be added once the game is a little closer to release, as we believe that’s more efficient and leads to higher-quality localization.

With regards to which specific languages we plan to support, that question is unfortunately still up in the air. Players can expect more information on that at some point down the road, during Early Access.

Jin Sang Kim, Creative Director

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530490/Lost_Eidolons_Veil_of_the_Witch/

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Tacticians,

Since announcing Lost Eidolon: Veil of the Witch at PAX West this year, our dev team has been working very hard to present a playable game to you. But truth be told, we’ve been on this breakneck speed for much of 2023 as we hope to put the game in your hands in 2024.

As we sit here now, planning the rollout of betas, demos, and Early Access, we can't wait to have you play and give us feedback. For those of you who played the original Lost Eidolons and gave us feedback--when you finally get to play VotW, we hope you'll see that we learned from what you said about the original game and applied them to Veil of the Witch.

We hope to introduce you to a playable build soon. But until then, please WISHLIST and FOLLOW us right here on Steam to keep up to date with our dev logs.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays!
Onward to 2024!

-ODS Team

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