Patch notes

Prototype

0.1.5849.001

Today, we’ve uploaded our new PRE-ALPHA PROTOTYPE for you to test out!

In it, you’re tasked with discovering what led an Underworld settlement to become overrun by undead. Four story tablets detailing the events are hidden in randomized locations throughout the level, such as inside chests, in sarcophagi, on raised platforms, or behind objects. Runestones (a required component in formulas for spells) and bonus gold bar collectables can also be found, sometimes in spots that require careful thought and skill to reach.

This area is infested with a band of fierce skeleton warriors, who you can battle with a longsword, stealthily evade, or devise other clever ways to deal with them. (Hint: Many objects in the world react to fire, air, earth, and plant spells, allowing for fun experimentation.)

While previous maps features blank, featureless walls and floors, the PRE-ALPHA PROTOTYPE shows progress on the game’s “Authored Look,” which attempts to recreate the look and feel of hand-sculpted fantasy miniatures and tabletop boards.

At the same time, it is an early work-in-progress. The visuals and audio will continue to improve steadily over the balance of this year. Current placeholder elements -- such as the player model, the user interface for spell casting, and spell effects -- will be greatly refined.

Its look and quality are in no way representative of the final game, so expect to see a few rough edges, but we hope you’ll like the direction it’s headed.

Play Notes

SWINGING A SWORD & CASTING SPELLS

To swing a sword:

• Draw back to prepare a blow (hold down the Left Mouse button or Right Trigger for at least a beat), then release when you want to make the attack. If you hold down too briefly your attack will be aborted.
• Holding longer produces a more powerful chop.
• Swinging while backing up produces a stab.

To cast a spell:

• Hit Tab or Back to bring up the Rune Menu
• Enter in a spell formula
• Hit Tab or Back to exit the Rune Menu
• Cast the spell by hitting the Left Mouse Button or Right Trigger

A few useful spell formulas:

• MOVE AIR (Ehwaz Hagalaz): Creates a blast of air
• MOVE EARTH (Ehwaz Eiwaz): Levitates stone objects
• MOVE PLANT (Ehwaz Jera): Levitates wooden objects
• CREATE PLANT (Berkanon Jera) (while aimed at a ceiling): Produces a climbable vine
• CREATE FIRE (Berkanon Kenaz): Lights wooden objects on fire

To switch back and forth between Spells and Swords, press 1 and 2 or Y.

Object Interaction

• To interact with an object, tap E or X.
• To grab an object, hold E or X. Then, to drop, hold E or X again.
• Many doors are locked, but since they’re made out of wood can be chopped down, burnt down by spreading fire (by holding a barrel up to a torch, then holding it against the door), or burnt down using a CREATE FIRE (Berkanon Kenaz) spell.
• Stone coffin lids are very heavy, but the player can open them by either:

• Grabbing and pulling up, over, and down. (Note: This is intentionally tough.)
• Casting a MOVE EARTH (Ehwaz Eiwaz) spell on them to make a lid levitate.

• Objects suspended by rope can be dropped by setting the rope on fire.

Controls

GAME CONTROLLER

• Look – Right stick
• Move – Left stick
• A – Jump
• B – Crouch/Uncrouch
• Left shoulder – Hold to sprint

• X – Interact (Tap to frob. Hold to grab or drop.)
• Start – Pause menu
• Y - Switch between Spells & Sword

• SWORD

• Right trigger – Attack
• Hold to prepare an attack. Release to attack.
• Hold longer to ready a chop.
• Hold while retreating to stab.

• SPELLS

• Back - Access menu to enter rune formula
• Right trigger - Cast selected spell

KEYBOARD

• WASD – Move
• Mouse - Look
• Space bar - Jump
• Ctrl - Crouch/Uncrouch
• Shift – Hold to sprint

• E – Interact (Tap to frob. Hold to grab.)
• Escape – Pause menu
• 1 - Select Spells
• 2 - Select Sword

• SWORD

• L-Mouse – Attack
• Hold to prepare an attack. Release to attack.
• Hold longer to ready a chop.
• Hold while retreating to stab.

• SPELLS

• Tab - Access menu to enter rune formula
• L-Mouse - Cast selected spell

In this work-in-progress prototype, you may encounter a number of known issues, including, but not limited to:

• Fire cannot be transferred to crates and lava currently does not set objects on fire.
• Missing audio for opening chests, rune pick-up, and player footsteps.
• Placeholder character model.
• Early pass at vfx for spells and fire.
• Missing or placeholder destruction state for objects like crates and barrels.
• Occasional pathing issues for skeletons.

0.1.5835.001

Patch for prototype on February 12, 2016:

• A skill panel! Skills are placeholder and by no means final, or even close to the order they will be in. Really, it's just a panel to select skills at the moment.

• Double Jump. Like the name says, air control with it is pretty awesome too. I'm able to jump around corners using it.
• Lift object. Limit right now is around 80kg. You can pick up and throw a body easily. Now you can clean up after killing enemies in the combat pit and put them in the dumpster where they belong.
• Better Jump Skill - you jump with more power.
• Climb rope Skill - you climb faster.

Note: basic climb of a rope is now slower.

• Sprint Skill- Beep Beep. You sprint faster than a normal human. Also added a speedometer. -- it comes out to around 15/16 mph top tier athlete, but not Usain Bolt.
• Invincibility - not final name. A chance of returning to life with half your health.
• DASH! A dash ability that acts like the teleport from Dishonored.

• Bug fixes!

• Fix to the IK climbing ropes
• Fix to prefabs and their meshes not being shared causing performance issues.
• Fix to wallrunning -easier to execute
• Fix to wall sliding is also easier now.

0.1.5822.001

Patch for prototype on February 2, 2016:

• Our lead designer Tim and engineer Will have fashioned the bones we can build upon for a robust movement system. They’ve decided – at least, for the moment – to have full body awareness. That means that the body of the player is visible and reacts like any other physical object in the world. Momentum matters. Run faster? You jump further. Chain jumps together and you keep your momentum going. Stop for a second and your momentum is lost. If you pause while jumping wall-to-wall, you start sliding down the side of the wall. Sliding down a slope is fast and running up a slope is slower than on a flat plane.
• Secondly, we’ve stood up the beginnings of combat. There are three attacks so far: a light swing, an overhead swing, and a stab. There’s a bad guy wandering around the space who’s just itching to be hit.
• That’s the feeling we’re going after – but with more robust tactics, movement, and better use of the 3D space than was technically possible in the original games. Enemies with have ‘tells’ so the player can learn to react to them properly. We’re still looking at other complexities like locational damage, status effects, dodging, and blocking. How complex we push the AI in combat is being experimented with, but we expect them to have far more options than “ARRGH kill the player!” and “Oh, no! I’m hurt! Run away!” If they have spells, they’ll use them. If they’re carrying a magic weapon, you can be sure it’ll be equipped.

0.1.5817.001

Patch for prototype on December 21, 2015:

• The last few weeks we've mostly been working on other features, but it has received some love in the form of bugfixing and a new movement ability: wall-running.
• To Wall-run simply sprint forward (Shift + W) at about a 30 degree angle from a wall and jump into it.
• Also, you can jump off the wall if you hit space while wall-running.
• You can also enter a wall-run by swinging off a rope and jumping into a wall at a good angle.

0.1.5816.266

Patch for prototype on December 4, 2015:

• jumping and ropes improvements
• Improvements to the mantle-er
• lights performance
• ground slide has a proper animation tied to it now
• you can ground slide by landing and holding crouch on an angled surface!
• getting out of the jumping state no longer sets your velocity to zero (this was killing your momentum when jumping onto ropes, and when landing on staircases, boxes, etc)
• detecting ropes is a little bigger/easier as well as more refined (if part of the rope is bent and part isn't you will grab the one that isn't. Before it would fail early if any part was bent past 45 degrees)
• bug fix: landing would sometimes make your guys arms hold up forever.
• pressing crouch to fall off a rope will no longer have you in 'crouch toggled on' mode when you land
• faster jump/land animation speeds
• ground slide physics is now an editable asset (instead of instancing one)
• basketball now has bouncy physics that make sense (yes, the NBA has regulations on it)
• bowling pin now has proper physics as well
• Removing the 'glint' intractable on objects.It was an interesting experiment, but feedback proved it wasn't good
• Grab objects is now faster.
• picking up objects now shows a different (heavy) icon for objects that you can't "lift" (anything over 20kg)
• move+bind plant now attach the marionette to the object's center of mass instead of its transform position (the explosive barrel and some other things would have a strange looking offset)

0.1.5805.3091

Initial playable prototype provided to Lore Seeker backers and above on November 24, 2015