Anima Flux News

Hi all!

The Lost in Sky team remembers the past year by the incredible show cases where players gave us a lot of useful feedback. We carefully evaluated and considered all the feedback we received and decided to go a completely different way with the game.

As you may have noticed on our social networks (by the way, sign up if you haven’t!), we’re constantly drawing, coloring, animating, and implementing many new monsters in the game. Why? It turns out, we don’t have enough different easy and intermediate enemies! We were overly fixated on bosses (but they’re good, aren’t they? Nothing was in vain) and forgot about the population of minor enemies.

The task isn’t as simple as it seems. It requires a comprehensive solution. For starters, we came up with a system for creating new monsters. All names, terms, and paragraphs you’ll see below are drafts and placeholders.

Firstly, we introduce a Family, which consists of up to ~4 species, for instance:

• Larva
  
• Tadpole
  
• Youngling
  
• Mature
  

Each Family will have a specific game mechanics (shooting, poisonous, flying, ground families, etc). The players can see how the Family members progress along the game: each next monster will be more dangerous than the previous. The older a family member, the more developed their unique family feature, the more difficult it is to defeat.

And now it's time to proceed to the color concept arts. Remember: appearance, name, and features are subject to change.

Spider Family


Die-Hard Family


Gas-Blower Family


Chameleons



Here’s an animation of the Mature representative of the Spike-Shooting Family for dessert.



The year 2020 is going to be highly productive. Stay tuned and good luck to all of you!

Hi everybody!

Today we shall give you a brief review of the things we’ve done over the past couple of weeks.

Boss Tree

So far, you’ve seen the Boss Tree attack the characters in every possible way. It’s time we restored justice. Here are the fresh and crispy death effects of one of his eyes, followed by… let’s call them “consequences”.



Locations

Sometimes, the screen overflows with monsters, visual effects, and all kind of events. We completely overhauled the wall geometry on all levels, as well as the camera angle and perspective.
Because of the new contrasting volume and view depth, the visual effects and characters are now clearly visible.





Active space

Consequently, we tried our best at concealing all minor and unnecessary elements. They won’t be a distraction anymore.
Let’s take enemies, for example. Now the players can see only highlighted monsters and focus only on a current situation, without getting distracted by something outside the scene (building, room, etc).





New monsters

The ARK fauna has become even more diverse with the new tentacled creatures and spiders.
So far, they’re on the concept art stage, but it won’t be long till they appear in the game!





That’s all for today. We’ll see you soon!

Hi! Here's what we've done over the past few weeks.

The visuals.
We announced a big recoloring and changes in lighting of all game locations. Today we proudly show you the new Menagerie and the City. New color scheme, new lighting, and renovated 3D walls add visual depth to the picture.





We also updated the doors, both horizontal and vertical:





A lot of game characters were overhauled, too. We refined the artwork in dialogues: added a number of small details and cleaned up the picture:





Our good old Tree, which is at the same time a dreadful Boss, has learned some spectacular (and powerful) attacks. You could easily dodge the laser beams, but it's a whole different story with the projectiles.





While working on the main characters, monsters, bosses, and even guards, we almost forgot about the loyal companion, the self-propelled turret! We want to make it right.

The turret has got an energy shield that can extend her lifetime till all the enemies are dealt with:



In case if not all enemies are dealt with, the turret dies with dignity. We've already added a new cool animation of turret's death:



Last but not least, we give you concepts of completely new monsters - the kamikaze group:



We'll see you on the battlefield!

Hi everyone!

The past two months since our last update were fruitful. We visited Game Daily Connect 2019 in the USA. Distant flights, packed event days, and heaps of feedback! However, this doesn’t mean that we put the work on Lost in Sky on halt. Quite the opposite! We never stopped to work, and now we’d like to share the latest news with you.

Color and lighting


This was the biggest change in the recent weeks. We completely change the level color scheme and lighting. We’re also implementing new interior objects with parallax effect. The picture has become less “colorful” but acquired depth and distinctive atmosphere. And we’re being serious! Full stop.







Rage mode


If follow us on social media, you should’ve seen the presentation of this new feature. In fact, it’s very simple yet effective. You will find a new bar in the character interface. This is the rage bar, and the rate of rage accumulation will depend on several factors: damage done, damage received, and special rage flasks consumed.

When the bar is full, the rage mode activates. This is where the hardships are relieved: you gain endless endurance and increased damage, while the effect lasts. You only need to find more enemies—but no worries, we’ll take care of it 😉



Bot improvement


We’re well aware that it one can’t always find a loyal friend to play co-op Lost in Sky with. We’re trying to teach our AI character if not to replace but at least resemble a living human being and imitate normal human behavior. We made a step toward the ultimate goal.



Random cues


We focus on bubbles with cues that should replace big dialog windows covering your screen. Now players will receive incoming information non-stop along the course of action.
Characters can react with a cue to an enemy or a situation.



Minor fixes


With the latest reviews and suggestions from Game Daily Connect 2019, we’ve already started working on some new things:

- When a partner character dies in a co-op, your half of the screen expands full-screen. It’s simply too cruel to make you stare at your dead partner. And not very comfy, either.

- The enemies! Some thought they were sloppy. Others thought they were tough. We decided to give them some balance and ended up making them tough for everyone! Just joking. In fact, we’re following up on it, looking to find the right balance that every player would be okay with.

And that’s where the summer ends for the Lost in Sky team. We expect autumn to be no less eventful and rewarding.

Here’s a little something for you right from the development workshop. This is the redesigned Worm Boss location, creepy and depressing



We’ll see you soon!

Hi all!

Since our last article we added a few cool features to Lost in Sky we'd like to share with you. We're really excited about them!

Parallax effect


We added a frontal layer that moves past slower than the foreground layers, which adds depths to the scene. However weird this might sound, in fact, it's a very cool feature. Well, a picture's worth a thousand words!



Upgraded levers


Levers got a new look, now they're easier to be seen. It takes just one glance to tell an enabled lever from a warden, an elevator, or a health kit. And from a disabled lever as well. Just in case: green means ON, red means OFF.



Langoliers' new attack


We decided that a repulsive look of a langolier isn't enough to show how much it is, in fact, hostile toward players. Now langoliers swell and become bright red just before they attack. There must be no doubt as to what is happening.



Ally resurrection


Lost in Sky's main feature is a two-character action. If one of them died, we had to restart the whole level. We thought that the survivor deserves a chance to go on on its own. Now, if one of the characters mistakes a langolier for a lever and dies, the other can find a resurrection point and bring their buddy back to life.



Stamina visuals


We mentioned changes in Stamina system in one of our recent posts, so here are some quick facts. When you're about to run out of Stamina, here's what you see:

- the stamina bar blinks;
- Stamina level moves beyond the tick that indicates a low stamina warning;
- a white screen border appears.

Just a few minor things that might allow you to quickly notice that something's wrong. It's supposed to work like an insurance against situations, where you're surrounded by crowds of enemies—and you suddenly run out of Stamina. We hope it helps.



Critical damage visualization


It's easy. Old-school shooter style. When you character is almost dying, a red screen border appears, and your health bar starts blinking like crazy. Just like the Stamina thing, only red ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



That's all for today! We'll come back to you with more cool stuff! Stay tuned!