Spire of Sorcery News

In the previous issue of this blog, we’ve already discussed how Mage Suite, Living Quarters and Classroom work in the game. Today, we take a look at Workshop, Alchemic Studio and Kitchen. But first, let’s talk a little bit about the development process.

Hideo Kojima (小島秀夫) recently compared the work of game designer to that of a chef at a restaurant, and we tend to agree. You pick the ingredients, you learn the techniques, and then – importantly! – you taste and adjust, before serving the dinner.



In a similar fashion, we started on Spire of Sorcery with certain strengths (our experience of releasing and operating Gremlins, Inc.) and a number of big ideas that we intended to mix together (defined in the game’s motto: “Teach. Explore. Survive.”).

As we moved forward with the production, certain mechanics were added to the mix, and certain were thrown out. Tactical battles? Out, because they would derail the experience. Books as a commodity, a source of knowledge and a possible loot? In, because they add a new layer on top of everything, from trading to learning and to exploration.

From a certain perspective, the whole process of development of Spire of Sorcery can be viewed as something like two thousand design decisions made in balance with each other, and then properly executed.



What does it mean for a character to be tired – in terms of game mechanics? What is the difference between a character who is simply “hungry” and a character who is “starving”? How does a poisoning reveal itself through external symptoms, and what does it take to discover the poison used – and then to find the cure?

Every day, we do our best to answer such questions, and then to execute the decisions at the highest level accessible to our team. Our artists scratch their heads looking for the best fitting icon to show “this character ate too much food and suffers negative consequences for it”. Our interface design team runs dozens of emulations of how players will access and use the Library in the game – to remove clutter and shorten the way for the most common actions.



Even I, the lowly writer of this development blog, go through 5 cups of osmanthus oolong tea (桂花乌龙茶) before I settle down on a specific topic, deleting the topics that are too boring or too complicated to expand upon (when you will eventually come across a boring blog post, please know that it is not because of my lack of trying, but because of my supply of this oolong running out!).

In the end, nothing that we do is “final”, because our ambition is not to cook a specific “soup” – but to cook a “soup” that would put a smile on your face. So, if today we say that every skill of a disciple remains hidden until an exam is undertaken, but during the beta test we discover that it causes a lot of unnecessary activity in the game – we will amend this mechanics in a blink of an eye. We want you to discover the world of Run, to teach and to explore, and to try to survive in the heart of the Wild Lands. And whatever adjustments it takes to make it a fun, engaging game, please rest assured that we are committed to make them – today and tomorrow, or during the closed beta test, or during the Early Access period… or even after the full release!





This is the room where your disciples (and your mage) use their skill of Artificing and the corresponding secondary skills.

Upgrades available:

Efficiency. Capacity.

Resources:

Here you access two groups of items: items from the Warehouse that are tagged as “raw materials” (for example, iron; wood; emeralds) and items from the Warehouse that are tagged as “damaged” (clothing, equipment, weapons).

Actions:

This is where you can make new things (for example, use tailoring – a secondary skill – to sew a new clothing set) and repair damaged things (for example, use blacksmithing – also a secondary skill – to repair a helmet).





This is the room where you disciples (and your mage) use their skill of Alchemy.

Upgrades available:

Efficiency. Capacity.

Resources:
Here you access two groups of items: items that are used as ingredients in alchemic recipes, grouped by their alchemic properties (there are 26 alchemic properties in the game, as discussed here); and alchemic items from the Warehouse that have been already previously produced (potions, powders, elixirs).

Actions:

This is where you can make use of the discovered (or purchased or found) alchemic recipes in order to combine several ingredients to produce a new item. Learning the recipes, discovering the properties of different items and mastering the skill of alchemy that allows to combine items and their properties in order to create new things, is a must in order to win the main campaign of the game.





This is the room where disciples use the secondary skill of Cooking (it belongs to the primary skill of Alchemy).

Upgrades available:

Efficiency. Capacity.

Resources:

Here we see two groups of items: items tagged with “raw food” and “delicacy/exotic raw food”, which can be eaten raw right away or used in preparation of cooked food (we also see food tagged with “spices”, which is used in preparation of food but cannot be eaten raw on its own); and ready-to-eat food that has been bought/prepared before, and is currently stored in the Warehouse.



Information:

This room presents the data that is essential to proper management of the Spire: the amount of food currently in the storage; the amount of food produced in the last few days; and the amount of food actually consumed in the Spire in the last few days – as well as a prognosis as to how many days the Spire can survive using the existing supplies. The stats cover the days that have already passed because production and consumption depend on the individual disciples. For example, you may think that 10 disciples consume 30 rations per day, but with a few gluttons you may see that number climb up to 50, while if the cook is currently depressed, the production of rations will fall even below the nominal value.

Actions:

This is where your disciples cook food that is later stored in the Warehouse and consumed in the Mess Hall.

Policies:

Here you set what we call “the eating policy of the Spire”: in the Early Access version, you are able to mark certain types of food as “off limits” for disciples (for example, prohibiting the eating of Travel Rations as you save them for parties of explorers). Later on, once Mess Hall is added to the game, we expect to detail the eating policy into creating groups of disciples with different access rights (for example, you may allow the Inner Circle of your disciples to eat Ideal Rations and Diet Rations, while the Outer Circle will munch on Magic Porridge and Regular Rations).



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That’s it for today! In the next issue of the blog we’ll talk about the remaining rooms from the Early Access version: Laboratory, Library, Warehouse and Magic Energy’s Storage. As always, for updates on work in progress, please check the game’s official Discord server.

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ːsummer_magicː Spire of Sorcery – Character Generator (Steam)
ːsummer_magicː Official Discord server
ːsummer_magicː Twitter (game updates)
ːsummer_magicː Facebook (game updates)



ːmaliceː Official Discord server
ːmaliceː Twitter (game updates)
ːmaliceː Facebook (game updates)
ːmusicː Original Soundtrack on Spotify



ːnotebookː Twitter (studio news)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːnotebookː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːnotebookː YouTube

It’s been a while since we last spoke about the Spire itself – the different rooms, and their purposes. Over the last two weeks, this part of the game has been in our focus as we continue to implement different layers of game mechanics. Today, we’d like to bring you up to date to where we are, in terms of our current plans for this part of the game.

But before we dive in, we’d like to explain the approach of “scoping” that we apply in our development efforts.

There’s the old truth that “one can never really finish a book; one can only stop working on it”. True to this saying, we still regularly add new content and new features to our previous game Gremlins, Inc. that we released over three years ago: as long as we have time, we will continue to develop it further.

With a game like Spire of Sorcery, it’s the same story – the list of possible features and content is nearly endless. This presents a certain risk: as our plans become more ambitious, our release date may be pushed further and further; and this is where “scoping” saves us.

Whenever we talk about a particular part of the game, we never plan for “the final version”; rather, we plan only for the next stage – the Early Access version that we expect to launch in a few months. And when we plan, we ask ourselves three questions:

• Is this feature within the scope of the current part of the trilogy that we develop?
  
• Is this feature really necessary for the next stage of the game?
  
• Is there a way to make it in a simpler way at first?
  

Thus, for example, when we considered the opportunity to send and to receive gifts – including some that would be threatening or cursed – we all agreed that it’s a great fit for the next part in the series, where politics and interaction with other Spires is at the core.

And when we recently reviewed trading as a feature, we decided to move it to the “after Early Access” stage, because you can already finish the current main campaign without it.

Finally, when we went through the mechanics of healing, we saw that we can release in Early Access even without a dedicated Hospital room in the Spire, starting at first with a simplified healing mechanics.

We hope that this explanation helps you to better understand our approach to development. We like to move in small steps, and we plan our work around the goal of releasing in Early Access as soon as we can. Who knows, what extra features Spire of Sorcery will have one year after launch? We prefer avoid distractions by staying focused on features and content that are absolutely critical to reach the next stage as early as we can, and then we’ll see!



And now, let’s talk about the rooms:



Throughout the game, you make a lot of decisions in different areas. Setting aside quests (that unfold beyond the walls of the Spire), there’s research, magic, alchemy and other areas that require your attention in order to advance the main campaign.

All the actions that belong to the same area, are organized as one “room” section – a separate part of the game’s interface that offers information, upgrade options and tasks to manage. Each such room offers you a particular perspective into the current state of your Spire, exposing problems and presenting opportunities.




Earlier in this blog, we shared our vision about building rooms and then arranging items inside of them: rather than add “5 efficiency” to a Library, we eventually want you to produce or acquire an actual candle-holder, and then to place it into the actual room, seeing it lit up as its efficiency increases.

Recently, we decided to push this feature back to the period after the Early Access launch: while this part of the game promises to be fun, the underlying mechanics can be done in a more basic form, helping us to release the game in Early Access earlier.

At the time of the Early Access launch, you are able to spend resources and magic energy on improving efficiency of rooms as well as their capacity – in a rather straightforward manner.

Then, at some point after the Early Access launch, we plan to add the opportunity to build the actual rooms. Thus, you will be able to have several rooms of the same type and manage these rooms separately. For example, you may want to have a small Library with very high efficiency – reserved for selected few among your disciples; and a larger Library for everyone else. As for now, we mark this advanced feature as being “out of scope” for the Early Access launch.





Overall, our game designer’s vision calls for 24 different rooms in the Spire. We plan to have 10 of the rooms available at the time of the Early Access launch, with the further 14 added along the way with major updates between the Early Access and the full release versions (plus the option to upgrade the Spire’s defense).

Rooms that we plan to finish before we launch in Early Access:

• Mage Suite
  
• Living Quarters
  
  
• Classroom
  
• Library
  
  
• Laboratory
  
  
• Workshop
  
• Alchemic Studio
  
• Kitchen
  
  
• Warehouse
  
• Magic Energy Storage
  

Rooms that we plan to add after we launch in Early Access:

• Mess Hall
  
• Hospital
  
• Prison
  
• Meditation Room
  
• Game Room
  
  
• Practice Hall
  
  
• Observatory
  
• Glasshouse
  
• Cavern
  
• Kennels
  
  
• Treasury
  
• Portal
  
  
• Distorted Room
  
• Slumber Chamber
  

In the same period we plan to add the option to manage the defense of the Spire (by building a moat, erecting a watchtower, adding animals and creatures outside the walls, etc.).



Let’s look at the first 3 rooms that we currently work on:



This is the room where your mage works from.

Upgrades available:

Efficiency.

Because there can be only one mage in the Spire, there is no opportunity to increase the capacity of this room (even though I, personally, still hope that at some point we will be able to add the space for mage’s familiar creature).

Information:

(1) biographies of every disciple as revealed in interviews upon their arrival;

(2) personal notes that players can make about every disciple (for example, writing down suspicions of possible traits or skills);

(3) personal event logs of every disciple i.e. the short history of everything that happened to this character since their arrival to the Spire.

Actions:

This is where your mage can perform magic rituals.

Policies:

(1) this is where you establish the Traditions of the Spire (a set of rules that apply to all disciples, such as whether they wear uniforms or not, whether they must give up all of their personal inventory items to the Spire upon arrival, and so on);

(2) this is where you set the mage’s personal and the Spire’s overall daily schedules.




This is the room where disciples spend their time off.

Upgrades available:

Efficiency. Capacity.

Capacity of Living Quarters defines the number of disciples who can sleep comfortably in their beds. Any disciples whom you accept above that capacity will have to sleep on the floors until you expand the room further, which will affect their rest negatively.

As to efficiency, this determines how well do they rest while they sleep.

Resources:

Each disciple has their own “personal chest” with their private inventory. These chests are separate from the Spire’s main Warehouse. This screen also includes your own, mage’s, personal chest.

Actions:

This is where you can transfer inventory between the Spire’s Warehouse and personal chests of different characters, giving gifts or taking things away from specific disciples.

This is also where can expel disciples from the Spire.

Policies:

This is where you define the rules of what happens to personal items of characters that die or disappear. It may sound like a small matter, but it actually matters a lot to some your disciples, whether their chests will be “buried with them” or “looted by their peers”.




This is the room where disciples study. This is also where you examine disciples when you want to invest time and effort into uncovering their skill values.

Upgrades available:

Efficiency. Capacity.

Actions:

This is where you can assign the roles of teachers and students to various disciples.

To be effective as teachers, characters need a fully developed secondary skill of Teaching (it belongs to the primary skill of Social Magic) as well as a high level of the specific skill in which they plan to teach.

As to students, their progress is determined by their interest in the skill being taught (as you may recall, we have 5 levels of interest: from “very much interested” down to “very much not interested”) as well as their learning disposition for the particular skill (which is a value based on two primary stats responsible for this skill).



That’s it for today! In the next issue of the blog we’ll talk about Workshop, Alchemic Studio and Kitchen. As always, for updates on work in progress, please check the game’s official Discord server.

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ːsummer_magicː Spire of Sorcery – Character Generator (Steam)
ːsummer_magicː Official Discord server
ːsummer_magicː Twitter (game updates)
ːsummer_magicː Facebook (game updates)



ːmaliceː Official Discord server
ːmaliceː Twitter (game updates)
ːmaliceː Facebook (game updates)
ːmusicː Original Soundtrack on Spotify



ːnotebookː Twitter (studio news)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːnotebookː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːnotebookː YouTube

ːsummer_magicː OTHER ISSUES OF THIS BLOG
ːQuestionsː CONSOLIDATED Q&A THREAD

Earlier, we showed you how we design characters as well as how we create visuals for the game’s biomes. And today we’ll show you how we bring these images to life through creating custom sound effects.





Since 2015, all of our sound effects are created by Anna, who goes by the stage name of “A.Fruit”. She has created over 300 custom sound effects for our previous game Gremlins, Inc. as well as wrote all the songs for the game’s soundtrack (here on Spotify and here on Steam), and since 2017 she’s in charge of both sound effects and music for Spire of Sorcery.

Even though Anna is an independent musician and DJ, playing sets around the world, she fits our studio really well because, like us, she gives a lot of attention to details, and she shares the ambition of bringing our game designer’s vision to life.



When creating a new creature or a biome, we start with the brief written by our game designer. Such brief serves as the basis for our concept artists, who then create the first black and white sketches. Once we settle on the black and white sketch that we like, they proceed to preparing the first color sketch. And once we have the color sketch approved by everyone in the team, two things happen:

• our artist, Rita, starts working on the final art, which may take a few more versions due to tweaks and improvements in colors and composition;
  
• our sound designer, Anna, already starts working on the custom sound effect.
  

Normally, we don’t wait for the final art to be finished before starting with the sound effect – because “the feeling” of new creature or new biome is already present in the color sketch.



Let’s take a look at one of the biomes from the game: The Distorted Lands.

This is what the brief says:

“These lands are the result of the Cataclysm, which in places tore the fabric of the world. The landscape is distorted, the vegetation is extremely unusual. The ground is crisscrossed with multiple ravines, some of which emit light.

There are plots of land that float above the ground, ranging from small (stones) to huge (whole islands). Some of these floating objects are connected to the ground with stalagmites. Occasionally, there are electrical discharges in the air, between two or more floating pieces.

Most trees and bushes are covered with thorns, with little or no leaves. Some of the vegetation produces its own light, which may have a pulsing rhythm. The flora and fauna of this biome has little or no connection to the regular world of Rund.”

And this is what the first black and white sketch looked like:



Following that, we settled on the color sketch that everyone liked, which then went to Anna as the basis for her work designing the sound effects:






Here’s the very first version of how this biome sounded like:

https://youtu.be/nKirMgnFtd4

We made the following comments:

• we hear a lot of sounds from Fluters, but they are not the only creatures who inhabit this biome; we need more animal/event sounds in the background;
  
• we need sounds of electrical discharges;
  
• we need more wind;
  
• perhaps some rustling sounds from dry branches rubbing against each other?
  

A few days later, a revised version arrived:

https://youtu.be/-aMz4YTcLtE

It seemed like we went a bit away in the wrong direction:

• the location is now too peaceful, while this is the most dangerous biome in Rund!
  
• birds now appear in the background, however ordinary birds don’t survive in the Distorted Lands;
  
• we still need the sounds of electrical discharges and currents;
  
• we miss the sounds of larger creatures that inhabit this biome.
  

Then the third version arrived:

https://youtu.be/iTdoK-qzZlc

This version made everyone happy: the electrical currents were included, the vibrations of the ravines were included, and there was finally enough activity of insects and small animals in the background. The only thing that was missing: the sounds of larger animals.

The next revision became the final sound of the Distorted Lands:

https://youtu.be/QnuhFIGbQFY

It took us less than a month to get here!




Once we’ve dealt with the Distorted Lands, we wanted to check on how some of the animals and creatures of this biome will integrate there – sound-wise.

Meet Fluter:

“Fluters are a new type of animals that evolved in the eco-system of the Distorted Lands. Most likely, they used to be small animals or birds, that found a way of surviving in the new environment.

The main food source of fluters is all kinds of large flowers that are quite common in their habitat. They are also able to directly consume magic energy whenever they come across a thick flow: some travellers mention seeing whole swarms of fluters in the range of thousands, whenever a burst of magic energy is released in the Distorted Lands.

Fluters emit sounds similar to high flute notes, hence their name. Their wings are a valuable ingredient used for a number of magic potions and remedies. It is rather expensive since to obtain those, one needs to enter the dangerous and unpredictable region of the Distorted Lands.”

Here’s the first version of Fluter that Anna sent over:

https://youtu.be/fi19SwhSyeA

We liked the emotion, but we felt that the flapping wings sound too much like it’s a bird, whereas Fluters are closer to hummingbirds. We also wanted to play with the sound of the “flute” a little.

https://youtu.be/hlrTlzDbfiw

The next delivery has exactly the “flute” that we wanted. As to the flapping wings, it was now too much like it’s an insect. So we asked Anna to make a small step back.

https://youtu.be/XQ6uNhVAh3M

The third version ticked all the boxes! Everyone was happy.

And here’s how the Fluter sounds against its biome, the Distorted Lands:

https://youtu.be/mFq6tKyzKPw

With this, we end this week's dev blog, and as always, thank you for your interest in the game! Please join us on Discord if you would like to participate in the weekly Q&A sessions with our game designer, as well as to see work-in-progress materials that we regularly share there!

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ːsummer_magicː Steam page
ːsummer_magicː Official Discord server
ːsummer_magicː Twitter (game updates)
ːsummer_magicː Facebook (game updates)



ːmaliceː Steam page
ːmaliceː Official Discord server
ːmaliceː Twitter (game updates)
ːmaliceː Facebook (game updates)
ːmusicː Original Soundtrack on Spotify



ːnotebookː Twitter (studio news)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːhypnoheartː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːfireappleː YouTube

ːsummer_magicː OTHER ISSUES OF THIS BLOG
ːQuestionsː CONSOLIDATED Q&A THREAD

Last week, we showed you how we create characters for the game. Many thanks for all your comments here and on Discord! It feels great to know that you also appreciate smaller details that are so important for us. And this week, we’d like to share our process behind creating the art for biomes.




When you play Spire of Sorcery, the whole world of Rund is yours to explore. You can send your parties to any point on the map, though some points will prove hard to reach (for example, Catacombs surrounded by Swamps) and some will prove too dangerous to explore (for example, Castles controlled by the Empire).

Once you explore a certain area, you can always hover over any of its parts to access basic information about the biome. Knowing biome types is useful when planning expeditions: cutting through Ancient Forests or Battlefields may take a lot of time, and also presents risks specific to these areas – so maybe traveling by road over Plains or crossing Hills on foot is a better solution, as even if such route will be longer, it still will be faster and safer.

We currently have 20 biome types, ranging from Forests to Waterfronts, and from Caves of Eternal Darkness to Black Pools. Each type must have its own artwork that communicates the atmosphere as well as delivers additional details of the lore.



Since Rund is an original world, for us it is extremely important to make sure that the biome art transports you to the right universe: for example, something as simple as a village can look rich or poor, idyllic or beaten up, relaxed or on the defensive, depending on how the villagers in Rund generally feel about their life and the threats of the world outside. And it falls to our concept artist Rita to express our game designer’s vision with each such piece. Let’s take a look at how we created artwork for one of these biomes – The Rusted Forest.
 



The work begins with a brief that our game designer writes. Some biomes prove more difficult to describe than others, especially those that are common to many worlds (forests, hills, caves), because with Rund, we’re looking for a very specific interpretation of these concepts. Other biomes are much easier – because they are unique to Rund (such as Distorted Lands) and have a wealth of specific details that we can fall back on.

With the Rusted Forest, the brief went like this:

Rusted Forest is an area inside the Distorted Lands. It’s a zone that used to surround the citadel of an ancient mage who developed sophisticated magic machines and mechanisms. This zone used to be full of traps, including huge metal spears that shot up from below the ground.

Currently, almost all of the traps lost their power, and the area is covered in rusted spears, often covered in remains of gigantic monsters who attacked the citadel before the Cataclysm. With time, these spears got covered in moss, while the ground became tinted orange with rust. Wherever cracks appear on the surface, one can glimpse parts of old mechanisms – gears, levers and other parts of once powerful machinery that powered the traps.

 



Based on the designer’s brief, Rita came up with this set of references:



A reference board is a quick way to align an artist’s vision to that of game designer: we keep looking at different pictures until everyone agrees that some of these are “relevant” to the new work that’s about to be created, at which point we lock down the reference board and proceed to preparing the first sketch.
 



The first sketch is equally useful for showing what we want to create, and for showing what we do not want to create: we try to eliminate unwanted elements from early on, as well as to identify that “something is missing here”. Here’s how the first sketch of the Rusted Forest looked like –



We liked the menacing feeling, but we found it lacking a few things:

• Not enough overgrowth
  
• Missing the remains of the gigantic monsters
  

The next sketch addressed these issues:



The team agreed that Rita was on the right track, and she moved to creating the first sketch in color.
 



Color is important to any art, and for Spire of Sorcery’s art style colors do carry an additional meaning: all of our locations have their “key colors” that help to differentiate one biome from another. Why? Because the global map shows all of these biome types to help you plan your expeditions, thus it’s important that you are able to immediately distinguish, say, Ancient Forest from a regular Forest, and Plains from Hills.

The first color sketch of the Rusted Forest looked like this:



We felt that it works well for the overall atmosphere: clearly, the place is abandoned, and bears signs of past attacks where monsters were confronted by mechanical traps. At the same time, we also felt that it would be hard to distinguish the Rusted Forest on a global map from other biome types that relied on blue as their key color: namely, the Ancient Forest and the Distorted Lands. And so, Rita went on to create another color sketch –



We liked it much more.
 



Following the color sketch that we all liked, Rita started to develop the final artwork. This involves adding many more details as well as balancing the overall colors. Here’s one of the versions, which we thought to be a bit too much on the red side:



One thing that you might notice, is that at this stage Rita also increased the exposure of the parts of trap mechanisms, which were less visible in the color sketch. After several revisions, we’ve got even more details:



With this version, everyone in the team was pretty happy – except for one thing: the horizon. In the game, the Rusted Forest covers a pretty big area, but here it looked like it ends pretty soon in the distance, and the empty horizon suggests a desert stretching behind. Thus, we made a minor (yet important to us!) change, making sure that the image represents the actual in-game area –






After creating the final version of the Rusted Forest, we had one more task left: making the artwork game-ready, which in this case means preparing this art to be used in combination with other assets.

In Spire of Sorcery, a major part of gameplay is about reading the reports of disciples who return from their expeditions. And whenever something happens – a meeting with another party, a discovery, or a battle – quest log shows the biome where it happened, the object that is present there, and the characters or creatures who interact with your party.

Rita had to prepare the Rusted Forest for a possible combination with other objects that could appear in the foreground. Here’s the first test that showed how objects may possibly fit on this background:



Picture 1 shows the Rusted Forest split into 3 areas: background, and two foreground parts. Pictures 2 and 3 show how the Ruins and the Death Altar may possibly fit (we used these to run the test, even though in the world of Rund, neither can be found in the Rusted Forest since it’s so deep in the Distorted Lands).

To make the art ready for being used in combination with other assets, artists often have to prepare versions that look like this (in our case) –



And here’s a combination of background and object that you may actually meet in the game: The Anomaly (something similar to our world’s black holes) tested against the Rusted Forest.






Lastly, what happens next is that we have one more issues to tackle: creating sound effects for each piece of art. All of the sound effects for Spire of Sorcery are created by our long-time professional partner Anna Fruit. Perhaps in one of the upcoming blogs, we can talk about the specifics of her work (she’s set to produce several hundred original sound effects for the game, after all!) – in the meantime, here’s how the Rusted Forest came to life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA1H3rXDflA

With this, we end this week's dev blog, and as always, thank you for your interest in the game! Please join us on Discord if you would like to participate in the weekly Q&A sessions with our game designer, as well as to see work-in-progress materials that we regularly share there!



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ːsummer_magicː Official Discord server
ːsummer_magicː Twitter (game updates)
ːsummer_magicː Facebook (game updates)



ːmaliceː Official Discord server
ːmaliceː Twitter (game updates)
ːmaliceː Facebook (game updates)
ːmusicː Original Soundtrack on Spotify



ːnotebookː Twitter (studio news)
ːnotebookː Facebook (studio news)
ːhypnoheartː "Behind the scenes" Instagram
ːfireappleː YouTube

ːsummer_magicː OTHER ISSUES OF THIS BLOG
ːQuestionsː CONSOLIDATED Q&A THREAD

Welcome to this week’s Dev Blog! This time, we’d like to tell you a little bit about the process behind the game, and specifically – about how we create our concept art for humans and non-humans of Rund.



We’re a small development team (currently 7 people), which has a lot of advantages. Amongst these advantages is the opportunity to use everyone’s experience to make our games better. Anything that we include in our released games, is the result of our teamwork. Everyone at Charlie Oscar makes suggestions and offers feedback, and what you see in our games is there because at some moment literally everyone agreed that this is the best that we can deliver.

At the same time, there are 2 areas where we change the approach: game design and server technology. We believe that these areas are so specific and require such special knowledge and experience, that the feedback that we provide to our game designer and server programmer is no more than just suggestions, and they have no obligation to respond or defend their choices. This is especially true for game design.

A big requirement for any of our games is the consistency of its creative vision. Sometimes it comes down to quite unusual rules, for example in our previous game (Gremlins, Inc.) characters can smoke cigars – but cannot eat food or drink liquids, based on its lore. And so when recently someone in the team suggested a card that involved characters drinking wine, it was shut down by our game designer.

With Spire of Sorcery, the impact of consistency in game design is tremendous: the world of Rund is a complex system, with everything connected to everything else, thus any change and design decision taken has multiple indirect consequences. Take mutants, for example: most of us on the development team know a bit about them because of the discussions that already happened; but if you ask us, whether or not you may meet a mutant while paying a visit to a nearby village fair, we’ll refer you to our game designer, who has the whole world of Rund in his head, and who will know for certain.

In this way, we combine the Occidental and Oriental approaches to team work: for most production issues, we’re running a leader-less team process, where every person’s opinion counts; and for everything related to game design, we’re running a “king and his servants” kind of system where we never question the vision of our game designer, but rather see our ambition in helping him to bring that vision to life.





Our designer’s vision for Spire of Sorcery is to build from scratch a new, original world – the world of Rund. This doesn’t mean that we want to have, say, flying dolphins or two-headed horses – those would be “exotic” rather than “original”. What we’re after is a world that is free from pre-existing conventions and concepts, while being both captivating and believable, in order to take our players all the way to Rund.

Because the world of Rund is original, every piece of concept art that we create carries a lot of weight: this is the window through which you, the players, will see that world, and we must try to make it as close to the original vision of our game designer as possible. And today we’d like to walk you through the creative process behind one such piece of concept art: the Alchemist.



The Alchemist is a human character, a trader in rare items, whom you are most likely to meet in towns and in villages, though sometimes you may encounter alchemists in the wild – where they forage for their ingredients.

Once we discussed this character, our concept artist Rita came up with these three ideas:



Option 1 resonated the most with Alexey, our game designer. At the same time, he did not like “the wizard hats”, as he called them: they were out of place in this context. While members of the Guild of Mages are required to wear easy-to-notice hats, alchemists are just regular traders. He also highlighted the fact that the life of alchemist is not an easy one, from handling all the weird stuff that he’s selling to traveling around, and so his dress should be more worn-out. Finally, our alchemist is supposed to be an old man, but in option 1 he displays a posture of a young man. So, we should deal with this in the next revision, too.

The next revision addressed these comments, and offered 4 options to consider:



The hat is gone, the look is more tired (both in posture and in the dress). Now is the time to discuss what exactly the alchemist should be holding up in his hands. The book (no.3) wasn’t a good fit because there’s a separate character, Bookseller, who’s trading in these. The orb and potions (no.1, no.4) were not a good fit to the lore, either. And thus, we settled on the jar of eyes and a small precious bottle from no. 4 and no.2.




This version of the Alchemist everyone loved, and so Rita moved from creating an “idea” of the character to creating the actual line art for the concept.




Next comes the question of color. For coloring, we work with a dedicated colorist, Sasha, who takes it very seriously. She started with a few options.




Everyone on the team liked no.3 the most, and so we went on to work from that image further. We asked for the following changes:

• That the label on the small bottle (with precious liquid) be more like an old paper label, rather than a modern-looking full-color label;
  
• That the basket be more like in no.1, while the small leather bag be more like in no.2;
  
• That the eyeballs be less colorful, because while they may come from a wide variety of animals, they are still eyeballs in brine, and not snooker balls =)
  
• That the legs of an octopus-like creature from the lower bag be more like a freshly-caught animal and less like a dried/cured one.
  

Meet the next version –



Here, wanted to correct a few more things:

• The eyeballs became faded (good!) but we wanted a deeper color, as well as a more natural color to them;
  
• We really wanted the amulet of the alchemist to stand out, and here it was lost against his dress;
  
• The robe looked too simple in terms of color: yes, his dress is worn-out, and old, but at the same time it was really something when it was new – his profession is quite special, and he wouldn’t order just any regular dress;
  
• Finally, we wanted a more “sea-like” look for the tentacles from the lower bag.
  

And so, another revision happened:



We loved the golden amulet, and we loved the new tentacles, as well as a “richer” robe. The only remaining issue? The eyes in the jar were still not really authentic.

After this has been addressed, we arrived at the final version of this character – hurray!





Some of our friends are making fun of us for going through all these multiple revisions, and for including into discussions every member of our development team: does it really matter for our players, or we’re doing this simply because we are having fun in the process? =)

Our answer is this: we believe that the visuals are super important for Spire of Sorcery, as they communicate not only a particular gameplay value, but also open for you a window into the world of Rund. We have chosen to create the game in the current hand-drawn style because we love details, and this style allows us to add a ton of them to every single piece of art.

From such a small thing as the color of the eyes in the jar that the alchemist holds, and to such a big thing as the banner of the Second Legion, we strive to deliver to you the amazing vision of our game designer to the best of our ability. Like many of our players, we love to dive into new worlds, and we feel that our work on small details is going to make a lot of you really happy on the day when you launch the game for the first time!

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With this, we end this week's dev blog, and as always, thank you for your interest in the game! Please join us on Discord if you would like to participate in the weekly Q&A sessions with our game designer, as well as to see work-in-progress materials that we regularly share there!

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