As not everyone who backed the game has Discord, we’re posting the collected dev-updates here on the website for all to see.
Dev update #1
Hello everyone! Just a small dev update to let you know what's going on. The melee re-work is finally done, but still needs another quick pass in order to polish it up. In the end Joe had to completely re-make the ‘node' system we devised for making the combat less cluttered, so the process took far longer than we’d anticipated. Here are the changes recently put into the game:
- AI will seek out and move to invisible grid-points around their melee target. This still needs a little tweaking but it’s workable for the time being.
- Player movement speed now ramps up as you move to escape a melee lock (see previous combat update). - UI: New visuals which indicate your progress in breaking free from a ‘melee lock', as well as who has an attack of opportunity.
- Melee locks now add a subtle flash to locked characters, making it easier to see who has been recently locked in combat.
- Auto-melee function added.
- New enemy type: Hermit Crab.
- Added some new weather/environmental effects for coastal areas.
- Beach Cave dungeon tiles are now animated.
- Beach Cave scrolling backdrop improved. - New exclamation mark system. Characters can be called to play a ! animation above their heads. Useful for cutscenes as well as combat.
- Interactive objects now light up slightly when mouse-overed.
- Story: Chapter 4 story structure is well underway*, with the introductory cutscenes now fully implemented.
- Story: Improved the dev controls for story content as well as jumping to certain ‘bookmarks' for rapid testing.
* Note: There are five main chapters to the game planned, with a smaller sixth chapter being largely ‘endgame' content with minimal story. I'm still hoping to get the entire narrative structure implemented by the end of 2022. Who ever thought one person writing and implementing an entire RPG storyline was a good idea?**
** Note: We did, apparently.
Dev Update #2
Hey everyone! Here’s what we’ve been working on since the last dev-update.
- Resting near beach bonfires will re-ignite them.
- New ‘what the heck is that?’ cutscene added for the first time the player encounters an enemy (in this case, murderous crabs the size of labradors.)
- More animations for the crab and hermit crab enemy types.
- Improved the death animation for giant crabs.
- Added some random variation to the giant crabs to keep them interesting.
- We heard you like crustacean-related content, so we added a small easter-egg to coastal maps.*
- Improved the character animation code.**
- Monster death animations now generate particles/effects.
- Story: Another major cutscene written and put in place. I’d been putting this one off as it’s a biggie and frankly I was rather intimidated, but it’s just about done!
* Note: Is it a crab? All signs point to yes.
** This turned out to be quite a large job, but consolidating all of the character animations to a simplified script in a central location should save time in the long run. It also makes it easier for Joe to add alternate animations to the investigators and monsters.
Dev Update #3
Hello everyone, and happy new year! In January we’ll be returning our focus to the game’s combat. While it’s much improved as of late (see previous dev updates!), the end-of-combat sequence is missing some polish. We’ll be improving the systems for reporting XP, skill-ups, and most exciting of all, injuries! This will ensure fights have consequences, and letting your investigators get knocked-out (reduced to 0 HP) too often will result in nasty injuries, ranging from a bump on the noggin (reduced craft and spellcasting), to severe maladies like broken bones.
Overall, things are still going a little slower than expected, but since most of the recent system work has cantered around combat; it needs to be right. Once the combat and core systems have been tied together, we'll continue adding content for [spooky voice, lightning flash for dramatic emphasis] Witchmarsh: Tea Party of the Damned, the first Witchmarsh mini-adventure and a huge stepping stone on the road to full release.
As for myself, I’ve been adding more details to the story, with the goal of making your adventures in Witchmarsh feel like they’re taking place in a living world. For example, in one scene, the supporting NPCs and players are sleep-deprived after taking part in some daring all-night escapades. After the cutscene, the NPCs are gathered in a room where the player can talk to them; and I’ve recently made it so that if you talk to them too often, they’ll make their excuses and leave to catch up on their sleep. I hope tiny details like this one will make all the difference, and I’m still hoping to get the main skeleton of the story fully implemented in the next few months. In addition to all this, we’ve also been tuning up the game’s other systems and content. Here’s what we've recently added:
- New dynamic rain (and for caves: water-droplets) system.
- Continued to future-proof the animation system to ensure it's compatible with future platforms and systems.
- Added new background tiles for coastal locations.
- Improved the cutscene system and gave it some new functionality.
- Added an improved ‘forced move' mechanic which can be used for dashes, rolls and charges.
- New ability: Reckless charge. A short-ranged charge which stuns both the target (2 seconds) and the caster (0.5 seconds) on impact.
- Improved the Hermit Crab enemy and gave it some extra abilities, in addition to the one mentioned above.
- Story: A series of major cutscenes has been written and implemented, with all of the branching dialogue and associated NPCs put in place.