Ruinarch Live Stream
Learn from the developers how to invade worlds and ruin lives in this special Demo Live Stream event!
Ruinarch News
May DevLog
The pressure is on this month as we prepare for the upcoming Steam Game Festival. We know quite a handful of you were disappointed at the delay so it was very fortunate that Steam is hosting another festival this June. This will allow us to at least show you a taste of the game via a short teaser demo. Read further for details about that as well as other new stuff we've done over the month.
The bulk of our month's work involved preparing a teaser demo for the festival. Players may not know this but giving players access to a game demo is more often detrimental to a game's sales. This is a good explanation of why. However, we think the upside of joining Steam's Festival where Steam could potentially show the game to a much wider audience for the first time trumps the downside. Also, it should hopefully tide people over who were disappointed at the delay.
Knowing the pitfalls of having a demo, it was a deliberate choice to significantly limit what would be available - in terms of both features and playtime. It will be quite short, but it should give you a very clear idea of how the game plays.
Another important thing we added at the end of the demo is a link to a google form where players can send feedback and suggestions. We haven't been able to test out the game yet to many first time users so we expect a lot of balance issues. This is a great opportunity to get player feedback so please use the form if you have any criticisms or suggestions!
Of course, one of the most important thing to include in the demo is the tutorial. We've decided to go for a non-intrusive "quest-type" tutorial, peppered with a few pop-ups for important notes. We think the tutorials should provide the players with enough idea of how to play the game and then they can spend the remaining few days of the demo to experiment and play around with the unlocked options.
For tutorial-haters, there is an option to skip these in the Main Menu!
We have a small secret feature included in the Demo and this is an example of the type of content we will continually add once we are on Early Access. I'll just give one hint: villagers with Evil or Treacherous Trait.
I hope a lot of players get to encounter it and that it plays out well during the limited in-game days available of the demo!
Villagers now actually tend to crops and dig into mountains to find Metals, Gold and Diamonds.
We intend to give most monster types some unique and interesting behaviors. For example, wolves will now sometimes get out of their lair to hunt small animals for food.
Giant Spiders may also ensnare and abduct villagers and bring them to their lair.
There may be instances when the player's Threat Meter reaches 100 but there are not enough combatant Villagers to mount a counterattack. In this case, we spawn a few Angels and they will mount a "Divine Intervention".
In a previous iteration, Kennels are used for future playthroughs so it doesn't feel that useful. We revised it so that players can now breed monsters that they seize and drop inside Kennels, and that will give them 1 Charge of that monster type that they can then summon for invasion or defense.
This is still mostly the same as before but with some revised UX. The structure now has 3 smaller rooms and the player must drop Villagers inside one room, then click on that room structure to trigger the Torture action. Once it finishes, a skeleton minion is spawned to carry the prisoner out of the Torture Chambers and leave him outside.
Before, Villagers don't really react much if you cast a Lightning or a Meteor right next to them. Now, they may act surprised or flee from various dangerous objects (including Poison Clouds, Brimstones, etc). We may have to enhance this even further in the future as I think we missed some stuff.
We've replaced Comfort Meter with Stamina and this will now be a Meter that is consumed whenever a character is running. Once it depletes enough, they are forced to move much slower and will only be able to run again once the Meter has been fully replenished. This will be improved upon over the coming weeks as it is now a key tool to differentiate how often some characters/monsters can successfully flee in combat.
We've started adding sound effects into the game but it's probably not yet of a high quality. We're hoping to improve on this in the future.
Demo
The bulk of our month's work involved preparing a teaser demo for the festival. Players may not know this but giving players access to a game demo is more often detrimental to a game's sales. This is a good explanation of why. However, we think the upside of joining Steam's Festival where Steam could potentially show the game to a much wider audience for the first time trumps the downside. Also, it should hopefully tide people over who were disappointed at the delay.
Knowing the pitfalls of having a demo, it was a deliberate choice to significantly limit what would be available - in terms of both features and playtime. It will be quite short, but it should give you a very clear idea of how the game plays.
Another important thing we added at the end of the demo is a link to a google form where players can send feedback and suggestions. We haven't been able to test out the game yet to many first time users so we expect a lot of balance issues. This is a great opportunity to get player feedback so please use the form if you have any criticisms or suggestions!
Tutorials
Of course, one of the most important thing to include in the demo is the tutorial. We've decided to go for a non-intrusive "quest-type" tutorial, peppered with a few pop-ups for important notes. We think the tutorials should provide the players with enough idea of how to play the game and then they can spend the remaining few days of the demo to experiment and play around with the unlocked options.
For tutorial-haters, there is an option to skip these in the Main Menu!
Demo Secret!
We have a small secret feature included in the Demo and this is an example of the type of content we will continually add once we are on Early Access. I'll just give one hint: villagers with Evil or Treacherous Trait.
I hope a lot of players get to encounter it and that it plays out well during the limited in-game days available of the demo!
Farming and Mining
Villagers now actually tend to crops and dig into mountains to find Metals, Gold and Diamonds.
Wolf Hunts
We intend to give most monster types some unique and interesting behaviors. For example, wolves will now sometimes get out of their lair to hunt small animals for food.
Spider Abductions
Giant Spiders may also ensnare and abduct villagers and bring them to their lair.
Angels
There may be instances when the player's Threat Meter reaches 100 but there are not enough combatant Villagers to mount a counterattack. In this case, we spawn a few Angels and they will mount a "Divine Intervention".
Revised Kennel
In a previous iteration, Kennels are used for future playthroughs so it doesn't feel that useful. We revised it so that players can now breed monsters that they seize and drop inside Kennels, and that will give them 1 Charge of that monster type that they can then summon for invasion or defense.
Revised Torture Chamber
This is still mostly the same as before but with some revised UX. The structure now has 3 smaller rooms and the player must drop Villagers inside one room, then click on that room structure to trigger the Torture action. Once it finishes, a skeleton minion is spawned to carry the prisoner out of the Torture Chambers and leave him outside.
Danger Reaction - Surprise/Flight
Before, Villagers don't really react much if you cast a Lightning or a Meteor right next to them. Now, they may act surprised or flee from various dangerous objects (including Poison Clouds, Brimstones, etc). We may have to enhance this even further in the future as I think we missed some stuff.
Stamina
We've replaced Comfort Meter with Stamina and this will now be a Meter that is consumed whenever a character is running. Once it depletes enough, they are forced to move much slower and will only be able to run again once the Meter has been fully replenished. This will be improved upon over the coming weeks as it is now a key tool to differentiate how often some characters/monsters can successfully flee in combat.
Sound Effects
We've started adding sound effects into the game but it's probably not yet of a high quality. We're hoping to improve on this in the future.
Ruinarch is coming to Steam's Summer Game Festival!
Greetings from the Portal, Overlords!
We know that a few of you were disappointed that we decided to move Ruinarch’s launch to August, but we teased that we had an exciting announcement coming soon. Well we’re devilishly delighted to share that we will be part of Steam’s Summer Game Festival!
That means you little demons will have a demo on your hands in less than a month, along with a chance to chat with the dev team that we have chained to their desks to complete this demo. Just kidding, they’re chained to their desks so they don’t break quarantine.
Overlords, we need your help to make this Steam Festival a success! We need you to help us harvest souls...to check this game out! If you have a friend or foe who you know would love this kind of game, share this announcement with them so that we may all rejoice and summon demons during the Steam Summer Game Festival!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
And just in case this is your first time to find out about the game, welcome, and check out this excellent trailer to find out what’s in store for you!
Ruinarch Moving Early Access to August
Hello Overlords,
While we initially promised a release date of May 2020, we’re sad to announce that we will be pushing back release by a few months, to August 2020. Even though we’re pretty evil, it felt a little bit tone deaf to be releasing a game about ruining people’s lives while the world seemingly falls apart on us because of the covid-19 pandemic.
You won’t have to wait too long though, because we’re only moving the launch to August, by which point hopefully the world will be on the road to recovery (so we can wreck virtual worlds guilt-free). We’ll take that extra time to add more polish and content to the game so that you’ll get a much better game upon release.
In the meantime to whet your appetite, check out this new and improved trailer we made! We hope it gets you as pumped up for Early Access release as we are!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
That’s all from us for now, stay safe, stay indoors, and wash your hands!
While we initially promised a release date of May 2020, we’re sad to announce that we will be pushing back release by a few months, to August 2020. Even though we’re pretty evil, it felt a little bit tone deaf to be releasing a game about ruining people’s lives while the world seemingly falls apart on us because of the covid-19 pandemic.
You won’t have to wait too long though, because we’re only moving the launch to August, by which point hopefully the world will be on the road to recovery (so we can wreck virtual worlds guilt-free). We’ll take that extra time to add more polish and content to the game so that you’ll get a much better game upon release.
In the meantime to whet your appetite, check out this new and improved trailer we made! We hope it gets you as pumped up for Early Access release as we are!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
That’s all from us for now, stay safe, stay indoors, and wash your hands!
March DevLog
March has been a struggle, not only for us as developers but for the entire world as well. It's definitely a challenge developing a game with this theme given all the suffering that's been happening all around us. We are from Manila, Philippines and we've been under lockdown since mid-March. We've seen a lot of heartwarming kindness coming out from the community, but there is also some mindbogglingly insidious/inept behavior displayed by some of our public officials, some of which might probably make even a Ruinarch demon blush. Unlike in games, it's never fun to see evil in real life, especially during a crisis like this.
Despite the stress and anxiety brought about by the pandemic, we continue to keep pushing through and we're using all our willpower to keep trudging on. Please see below what we have accomplished so far this month.
We added two new elemental damage to the game: Wind and Earth.
[h2]Wind[/h2]
Wind damage transforms water into vapor, and liquid poison into poison cloud.
[h2]Earth[/h2]
Earth damage is basically a neutralizer. It can remove the other elemental status effects like Burning, Poisoned, Zapped and Frozen.
We've expanded how Poison Clouds work now. It has a hidden stack value that determines how large it is. Multiple colliding Poison Clouds can merge into one bigger cloud. Certain elements interact with Poison Cloud in various ways. We'll let you guys experiment to discover these.
In addition to Poison Clouds, we now also have Vapor and Frosty Fog. As mentioned previously, Vapor is produced when water is hit by Wind damage. Frosty Fog can be produced when a Vapor receives Ice damage. Both also have interesting interactions with some elements so have fun experimenting with these!
We made some unique mental breaks for magical-based classes. We call it Loss of Control. Basically, when a magic user have a mental breakdown, they lose control of their powers, causing some sort of magical disaster in the area. Druids trigger Electric Storms, Shamans trigger Poison Blooms, and Mages trigger Brimstones.
[h2]Iceteroids[/h2]
Similar to Brimstones, but the asteroids coming down from the sky are frozen and applies Ice damage instead.
[h2]Wind Blast[/h2]
Deals a moderate amount of Wind damage on a small area.
[h2]Terrifying Howl[/h2]
Causes characters within range to flee in fear.
[h2]Fire Ball[/h2]
A slowly moving ball of fire that applies Fire damage on contact.
[h2]Ball Lightning[/h2]
A slowly moving electric ball that applies Electric damage on contact.
[h2]Heat Wave[/h2]
Increases the temperature of the area (outside structures), and randomly applies Overheating status effect on characters.
[h2]Rain[/h2]
Applies Wet to the entire area (outside structures).
[h2]Landmine[/h2]
The player can place this trap on an empty tile. It explodes and deals huge Fire damage when a character triggers it.
[h2]Snare Trap[/h2]
The player can place this trap on an empty tile. It ensnares the character that triggers it, preventing it from moving for a duration.
[h2]Freezing Trap[/h2]
The player can place this trap on an empty tile. It applies Frozen to the character that triggers it, preventing it from moving for a duration.
We've reworked how all of the village structures look like. They look much more detailed now:
This has actually been already in the game for a while but we forgot to take note of it on the previous DevLog. Previously, we just had familial relationship represented as Relative and the game doesn't really identify what type of relationship it is (mother/father/sibling/etc) and it has always been considered a Positive relationship which in reality, could sometimes not be the case. So we've updated it by generating family trees prior to world generation. When we spawn the characters, all their familial relationship based on their family tree will be visible and their Opinion towards their family members will also be generated, based on hidden compatibility values. Here's an example:
Instead of locking players into one Archetype, we've decided to turn the Archetypes into Skill Trees instead and allow players to unlock abilities from all three branches as they progress through the game. All players now start with the same set of abilities, and they can then spend Experience Points to unlock new abilities from the three skill trees. This will provide a more flexible progression for players, and allow them to develop their own playstyle as they see fit.
This is still a work in progress and will be finished this April.
Even though we're leaning more heavily towards the sandbox side of the game, we still need to implement some sort of goal that the player will aim for. There are three ways for a playthrough to end:
1. WIN - wipe out all defending villagers
2. LOSE - portal gets destroyed
3. NEUTRAL - abandon world
Depending on what happens, and how many villagers have been killed, the player will then gain Experience Points which he can then spend to unlock more abilities from the Skill Trees. This loop provides the game's long term progression.
With the recent changes to how spells work, the player still has more options to experiment or just fool around with a world. After all, there's no punishment regardless of what happens in a playthrough other than not gaining much Experience Points.
As mentioned above, a playthrough ends in a Loss if the player's Portal is destroyed in any way. One of the primary means that this will occur is from counterattacks of defending villagers. We trigger this through a Threat Meter system. Basically, most of your damaging spells will increase your Threat Meter, depending on how many villagers witnessed it.
Once your Threat Meter is full, it triggers a counterattack and resets to zero. A counterattack is basically a group of villagers that will target one of your demonic structures. This already exists in the current build but still pretty rudimentary. We think it needs some improvements over the coming weeks.
As we design and expand our skill trees, we envision the Puppetmaster skill tree as the one that would have "weak" and "subtle" powers, but the upside is that they normally do not increase the Threat Meter that much, if at all. Meanwhile, the Ravager skill tree will have some of the most powerful spells, but they should also generate high amounts of Threat.
Despite the stress and anxiety brought about by the pandemic, we continue to keep pushing through and we're using all our willpower to keep trudging on. Please see below what we have accomplished so far this month.
New Elements
We added two new elemental damage to the game: Wind and Earth.
[h2]Wind[/h2]
Wind damage transforms water into vapor, and liquid poison into poison cloud.
[h2]Earth[/h2]
Earth damage is basically a neutralizer. It can remove the other elemental status effects like Burning, Poisoned, Zapped and Frozen.
Poison Clouds, Vapors and Frosty Fog
We've expanded how Poison Clouds work now. It has a hidden stack value that determines how large it is. Multiple colliding Poison Clouds can merge into one bigger cloud. Certain elements interact with Poison Cloud in various ways. We'll let you guys experiment to discover these.
In addition to Poison Clouds, we now also have Vapor and Frosty Fog. As mentioned previously, Vapor is produced when water is hit by Wind damage. Frosty Fog can be produced when a Vapor receives Ice damage. Both also have interesting interactions with some elements so have fun experimenting with these!
Mental Break: Loss of Control
We made some unique mental breaks for magical-based classes. We call it Loss of Control. Basically, when a magic user have a mental breakdown, they lose control of their powers, causing some sort of magical disaster in the area. Druids trigger Electric Storms, Shamans trigger Poison Blooms, and Mages trigger Brimstones.
More Spells
[h2]Iceteroids[/h2]
Similar to Brimstones, but the asteroids coming down from the sky are frozen and applies Ice damage instead.
[h2]Wind Blast[/h2]
Deals a moderate amount of Wind damage on a small area.
[h2]Terrifying Howl[/h2]
Causes characters within range to flee in fear.
[h2]Fire Ball[/h2]
A slowly moving ball of fire that applies Fire damage on contact.
[h2]Ball Lightning[/h2]
A slowly moving electric ball that applies Electric damage on contact.
[h2]Heat Wave[/h2]
Increases the temperature of the area (outside structures), and randomly applies Overheating status effect on characters.
[h2]Rain[/h2]
Applies Wet to the entire area (outside structures).
[h2]Landmine[/h2]
The player can place this trap on an empty tile. It explodes and deals huge Fire damage when a character triggers it.
[h2]Snare Trap[/h2]
The player can place this trap on an empty tile. It ensnares the character that triggers it, preventing it from moving for a duration.
[h2]Freezing Trap[/h2]
The player can place this trap on an empty tile. It applies Frozen to the character that triggers it, preventing it from moving for a duration.
More Monsters
New and Revised Objects
- Elemental Crystals - When destroyed, they apply elemental damage to a small radius around them.
- Ankh of Anubis - The player can activate this artifact to spawn a Quicksand.
- Heart of the Wind - The player can activate this artifact to spawn a Tornado.
- Necronomicon - The player can activate this artifact to spawn hostile skeletons. They won't become minions of the player but they will still be hostile to the defending villagers.
- Berserk Orb - The player can activate this artifact to turn nearby characters Berserk.
- Gorgon Eyes - The player can activate this artifact to Paralyze nearby characters.
- Winter Rose/Desert Rose - We'll keep what these objects do a surprise for now, as well as how to trigger them.
- Herb Plant - Used to produce Healing Potions
- Ember - Obtained from burning objects. Can be used to quickly remove Freezing or Frozen statuses.
- Antidote - Used to remove Poisoned from characters.
- Ice - Obtained from Frozen objects. Used to quickly clean up Poison from objects.
Revised Village Structures
We've reworked how all of the village structures look like. They look much more detailed now:
Family Relationships
This has actually been already in the game for a while but we forgot to take note of it on the previous DevLog. Previously, we just had familial relationship represented as Relative and the game doesn't really identify what type of relationship it is (mother/father/sibling/etc) and it has always been considered a Positive relationship which in reality, could sometimes not be the case. So we've updated it by generating family trees prior to world generation. When we spawn the characters, all their familial relationship based on their family tree will be visible and their Opinion towards their family members will also be generated, based on hidden compatibility values. Here's an example:
Skill Trees
Instead of locking players into one Archetype, we've decided to turn the Archetypes into Skill Trees instead and allow players to unlock abilities from all three branches as they progress through the game. All players now start with the same set of abilities, and they can then spend Experience Points to unlock new abilities from the three skill trees. This will provide a more flexible progression for players, and allow them to develop their own playstyle as they see fit.
This is still a work in progress and will be finished this April.
Win/Lose Condition
Even though we're leaning more heavily towards the sandbox side of the game, we still need to implement some sort of goal that the player will aim for. There are three ways for a playthrough to end:
1. WIN - wipe out all defending villagers
2. LOSE - portal gets destroyed
3. NEUTRAL - abandon world
Depending on what happens, and how many villagers have been killed, the player will then gain Experience Points which he can then spend to unlock more abilities from the Skill Trees. This loop provides the game's long term progression.
With the recent changes to how spells work, the player still has more options to experiment or just fool around with a world. After all, there's no punishment regardless of what happens in a playthrough other than not gaining much Experience Points.
Threat Meter
As mentioned above, a playthrough ends in a Loss if the player's Portal is destroyed in any way. One of the primary means that this will occur is from counterattacks of defending villagers. We trigger this through a Threat Meter system. Basically, most of your damaging spells will increase your Threat Meter, depending on how many villagers witnessed it.
Once your Threat Meter is full, it triggers a counterattack and resets to zero. A counterattack is basically a group of villagers that will target one of your demonic structures. This already exists in the current build but still pretty rudimentary. We think it needs some improvements over the coming weeks.
As we design and expand our skill trees, we envision the Puppetmaster skill tree as the one that would have "weak" and "subtle" powers, but the upside is that they normally do not increase the Threat Meter that much, if at all. Meanwhile, the Ravager skill tree will have some of the most powerful spells, but they should also generate high amounts of Threat.