Killsquad News

Today's dev diary is pretty much self-explanatory: a video. We bring you 10 minutes of raw gameplay of the new update, where you can see a lot of the systems in place. Here's the clip, and we've put notes right below explaining several interesting bits and bobs:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


0 : 18 here you can see the first new enemy, currently called SkullGun. He's tiny, but packs quite a punch: he can shoot massive fireballs that slowly cross the terrain, forcing heroes to avoid them

0 : 21 right of the screen you can see our 2nd guest today, CrocoHand. He throws bouncing projectiles that then explode in a lot of different sub-munitions

You can see the new power-up widget (bottom, left of the main widget). You can carry up to 6 power-ups to your contract, which you can buy in a specific store.

More stuff: right of your life bar, you see an element. That's your currently equipped weapon's elements. You need to adapt your weapons to each planet and creature to maximize your chances of success. Also, see bottom-right of the main widget your twin weapons that you can swap anytime. Use twin weapons to balance the elements, so for example a mob-clearing and a boss weapon.

1 : 10 : here's a BatPotato. BatPotatoes have mental powers, so their area attack jams our heroes' brains. in a nutshell, your controls are reversed while you are under the influence of a BatPotato. Sounds evil, but it's helluva lot of fun.

1 : 34 onwards: large battle involving many monsters. Here you can see different generations of enemies, which are coded by color and each has unique behaviours for you to learn. Each enemy on Recruit typically has 3-4 generations, plus 2 more for the Veteran enemies, so there's much more depth. In this battle, near the end, you can see a weapon swap, pay attention to the different sound FX, when Troy tries to kill the final Vasperiath with an ice weapon.

2 : 00 : freeze power-up

2 : 46 new level up widget, so you never miss that again

5 : 20 : video section using Kosmo, so you notice the different playstyle between a Melee and a Ranged hero.

5 : 40 to 6 : 30 : watch the top of the screen, the CrocoHand messing up with his projectiles and freezing the terrain

And all along the video, notice the beautiful night lighting, which is part of our new light system.

I hope you guys like it. We think we have 1 more week for features, then QA. See you next week!

This dev diary comes one day late, as yesterday was a holiday here.

As we move closer to our next update, work focuses mostly on the new enemies you'll encounter scattered through the game. Today, we're gonna present the progress we're making in two of them:

First, here's the lovely BatPotato. The name is placeholder, in case you're wondering. BatPotatoes will roam the surface of Kemmekh, and their sonic attack has the ability to jam the controls of the players, so you need to be very careful to avoid their area of damage. Here you can see two animations and a WIP version of this fella attacking our heroes:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

BatPotatoes will appear in different generations, with unique behaviours to each. Here's the two color schemes you'll be seeing from them:



Second today is the mighty CrocoHand, which also dwells on the icy plains of Kemmekh. This one is being animated as we speak, here's some cool cycles:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As with the BatPotato, we're working on 2 variations of the CrocoHand with unique behaviours, here's their coloration:



In both cases, the Crocohand will attack by inflating the energy orb on his back and using it as a ranged weapon.

So with these we have 3 enemies now in full production, the rest will join next week.

Last, but not least, this week we spent significant time doing a survey with many of you about our balancing. We got all the responses we hoped for and more, so thank you to all the people who took part in it. Our goal is to implement a lot of this feedback on this next update, by adjusting skills to make the game more fair and balanced, both among heroes and within the individual skills of each hero.

If you didn't complete the survey, but would still love to contribute, please do so now by clicking this link:

SURVEY HERE

Remember we are still aiming at Beta end of this month, so make sure you join by emailing us at [email protected] and we'll get you sorted. And, if you like our work, make sure you add Killsquad to your wishlist to be in the loop when we release the next update.

So that's it for today.

See you in the Outer Reach!

Oh boy. So many videos to show you in this dev diary update, as the team dives deep into enemy behaviours, old a new. So let's get cracking!

We're working on new behaviours for existing enemies: we want you to encounter generations which behave differently, and pose different challenge levels. Today, I bring a few of those, in no particular order. We're working on about 14-16 new behaviours, so expect the game to get much richer and varied soon!

Here's the 2nd Gen Jotun, that rises exploding pillars of ice:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Here's an invisibility-cloak variation of our lovely Kemmekh wormies:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Here's a shield-enabled variation of the Executioner from Helldörren's Palace, so he's not only deadly, but also hard to kill and generates smaller windows of opportunity:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And many more yet to come. But of course we're also hard at work on the new enemies. Two of them are rigged and being programmed as we speak, rest enter the process next week. So here's a sneak peek at the Spider-like cannon-like creature that will soon be joining Helldörren's army. We like the fact that he sends a huge but slow fireball, so you need to manoeuvre carefully to stay out of reach. Here is it, in action:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If you guys want a close up, here's the attack sequence:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We'll have many more next week as the coders begin delivering their behaviours for the different enemies. As we announced last week, we expect to be in Beta late Sept/very Early Oct, and then release the full update Oct. So that's literally less than a month away for you Beta supporters.

We know it's still weeks away. But we'll try to keep you guys entertained with these weekly upates. Rest assured, it's the largest update ever, for a good reason. And we want to give you guys the absolute best.

See you in the Outer Reach!

Hello all!

Enemies. These are the spice of life. And the more, the better: we want tons of enemies, with unique behaviours, in Killsquad. So today I'm happy to show you 4 new enemies in their final glory. These all come on our next update, so you'll be facing them soon.

Helldörren is continuously working on new guardians for his Palace of Pain. In this case, he's come up with a devious invention: a spider-legged skull with a Gatling gun? Why not! These guys will appear on Veteran, and will pack quite a punch, despite being rather small in size:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Next down Helldörren's Gallery of Horrors is this cute fella: this one is built for agility and maximum melee damage with omni-directional eyes and claws.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Kemmekh is also going to receive new hordes of destruction. First one to enter the arena is this nasty guy. Keep an eye on his back: that orb is going to inflate with energy and use it to attack unwelcome visitors from afar:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And last, but not least, we have another Kemmekh deformed beast, in this case, a flying, annoying, disgusting guy.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This completes our showcase for today. Behaviours for all these guys are now being worked on. Remember these are not bosses, but standard enemies, so you're going to be facing quite a few of them in the Veteran contracts:

There are 2 more enemies coming soon, which we're doing final touches to. So the next update includes new enemies for all 3 worlds for you guys to battle as you progress into Veteran. In the next few weeks we will update you guys with videos of these guys in motion, as they are added to our levels. We hope you like them, these are all part of the next update, our biggest one yet.

Wanna contribute? How about you give them some names?

And, as usual, see you in the Outer Reach!

Hello all!

Time for another dev diary. This week is a bit on the softer side, it's holiday season here in Spain so teams are slowed down a bit due to employees taking some well deserved rest.

This week a lot of work has gone into usability: tutorials, hovering information panels... tools so all the new systems are easy to understand. So for example here you can see some in-game tutorials:





In this case, these tells you about the importance of game elements. This second tutorial will make sure nobody ever asks again "what is the vector?"





Looking at everything we've done already for this update, the list is beginning to look quite good, here's all the new features:

- Dual weapons
- Weapons have elements
- Enemies have weakeness, elements and resistances
- Enemy generations with new behaviours
- Visible gears
- 6 consummable item slots to do per-contract builds for your heroes
- Checkpoints to save progress
- Shop to buy weapons and gears and consummables
- New contract browser
- Shorter contracts, more focused on new stuff
- New contract end screens with rewards
- Re-done the game Codex
- Re-done all the internal vector logic

So this is the "game logic" part of the build. The second part is the new enemies, which may or may not come on the next update. Here's the final mesh of one of them. If all goes well, these guys will be textured next week, so this is the last time you see their gray skin, we hope to show them fully textured in the next Dev Diary.





Last, but not least, here's some new art assets. These are ships you're going to see in Skua, our 4th planet, coming late this year. I hope to be able to do a major update about it soon, it's coming together nicely!



That is it for today. Next week it's enemy texture week, VFX, and more bug-fixing. And all our team will be back at work, so expect much more cool stuff then!

See y'all in the Outer Reach!!!