Dev blog 25 - Cataclysm monsters
Hi there!
This week I wanted to talk a bit about the monsters in the game. The idea behind some kind of cataclysm or corruption was there from almost the very beginning of development when we were still a 2D game. We iterated over many different designs and many different ideas for it and the monsters. We went from robot ninjas to plants and zombies, Giger and Lovecraft, acid stone lizards… Most of them were discarded because of one reason or another, something just felt off with them.
The very first monsters were all designed for the 2D game version of The Hand of Merlin (before it had a name). No animations, they were just a sprite on the screen that moved around and used skills. This was before we knew what monsters we wanted to have in the game and before we actually conceptualized anything related to them.
When Kaz came on board, she made a couple of concepts and versions of monsters we talked about in length, and at some point settled down on plant-like monsters. That’s when the first playable and half public iteration of the game was made - half public meaning we showcased it at the Reboot Develop conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. This is what we went with for the longest time, until we moved to the Serious Engine and recreated a couple of these monsters, but decided we wanted to redefine what the cataclysm is (with the help of our writers) and make the monsters fit that vision.
After we had a better idea of what the cataclysm is, we gave Mateja the task of making a bunch of weird monsters. In a few days, she came up with around 10 monsters that were pleasantly fitting to the idea of the cataclysm. We chose 4 of those, updated two monsters we previously had in the game, and picked one from some newer concepts Kaz made and settled on the roster of 7 monsters.
Our current idea is to introduce all of the monsters gradually as move through the zones. The demo featured 3 monsters - the Behemoth, the Wyvern, and the Mandrake. The names were chosen by our writing team to fit with the narrative idea: these monsters are unknown to the world, and the people of the world gave them names that are most similar to descriptions of other mythical creatures they might have heard of in stories.
In the demo, one of these monsters was somewhat harder than intended, but he was meant to be introduced later in the game anyway when the players have more tools at their disposal. Our design intent with each monster is to have them be unknown in terms of skills and what they do initially, but once you fight them a few times, you learn what they do, and are more capable of defeating them in the future. The ideal scenario is to essentially be defeated by the monsters when you first fight them because you don’t know what they do. In subsequent fights, you know how they operate, which makes them easier to defeat. We’ll have to see how well we pull this off. :)
Thanks for reading! Join our Discord, ask questions, comment on what you’ve seen so far!
You could also follow me on Twitter for some additional content.
MarkoP
This week I wanted to talk a bit about the monsters in the game. The idea behind some kind of cataclysm or corruption was there from almost the very beginning of development when we were still a 2D game. We iterated over many different designs and many different ideas for it and the monsters. We went from robot ninjas to plants and zombies, Giger and Lovecraft, acid stone lizards… Most of them were discarded because of one reason or another, something just felt off with them.
The very first monsters were all designed for the 2D game version of The Hand of Merlin (before it had a name). No animations, they were just a sprite on the screen that moved around and used skills. This was before we knew what monsters we wanted to have in the game and before we actually conceptualized anything related to them.
When Kaz came on board, she made a couple of concepts and versions of monsters we talked about in length, and at some point settled down on plant-like monsters. That’s when the first playable and half public iteration of the game was made - half public meaning we showcased it at the Reboot Develop conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. This is what we went with for the longest time, until we moved to the Serious Engine and recreated a couple of these monsters, but decided we wanted to redefine what the cataclysm is (with the help of our writers) and make the monsters fit that vision.
After we had a better idea of what the cataclysm is, we gave Mateja the task of making a bunch of weird monsters. In a few days, she came up with around 10 monsters that were pleasantly fitting to the idea of the cataclysm. We chose 4 of those, updated two monsters we previously had in the game, and picked one from some newer concepts Kaz made and settled on the roster of 7 monsters.
Our current idea is to introduce all of the monsters gradually as move through the zones. The demo featured 3 monsters - the Behemoth, the Wyvern, and the Mandrake. The names were chosen by our writing team to fit with the narrative idea: these monsters are unknown to the world, and the people of the world gave them names that are most similar to descriptions of other mythical creatures they might have heard of in stories.
In the demo, one of these monsters was somewhat harder than intended, but he was meant to be introduced later in the game anyway when the players have more tools at their disposal. Our design intent with each monster is to have them be unknown in terms of skills and what they do initially, but once you fight them a few times, you learn what they do, and are more capable of defeating them in the future. The ideal scenario is to essentially be defeated by the monsters when you first fight them because you don’t know what they do. In subsequent fights, you know how they operate, which makes them easier to defeat. We’ll have to see how well we pull this off. :)
Thanks for reading! Join our Discord, ask questions, comment on what you’ve seen so far!
You could also follow me on Twitter for some additional content.
MarkoP