Open Development Week #17: MEGABOOTH, Pinkyy, Dropship, Skills, Pins
about 8 years ago – Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 09:32:16 PM

Hey Hunters,

You might have noticed I kind of vanished from Discord for the last few days. I've been away indeed - I am currently at beautiful Barcelona, Spain, trying to get some more funding for Relic Hunters at a games industry event.

Speaking of beautiful, look at these shiny Pin sets! If you didn't get them as a reward during our Kickstarter, don't worry - you can still get it from us at PAX and GDC!

Dropship Almost Done!

Our new artists Tamy and Mariana are hard at work on the Dropship feature, and it shows! It is almost done, and a prototype version is already working in-game.

Skirmish Gamemode

We also made a lot of progress on Skirmish mode, which is 100% functional. We are putting on the finishing touches and designing the final levels we'll use for the GDC/PAX build.

Take a look at this gloriously bugged first gameplay screenshot:

Oh wait, was that a playable Pinkyy?

Yes it was! She is almost done! We are putting the finishing touches and should have her in a build early next week.

Take a look at her fancy new animations:

Hopefully Pinkyy will be smashing her way into your matches soon next week!

New Skills

We are also working on a full set of skills for Jimmy and Ace. Unfortunately Raff had to be delayed, but she will be the very next on the line after we're done.

Indie MEGABOOTH

We are proud to announce that we'll be in this years Indie MEGABOOTH selection! Check out their neat trailer with all the cool games that will be at PAX:

We are in a super hurry down here, trying to get everything done in time for GDC and PAX! We are a bit behind schedule because of the Spine animation system (it took us a good couple of months), but it was worth it. We got new team members, and hopefully soon we'll get additional funding which will allow us to hire more people and speed up development even further!

This has been an amazing ride and we couldn't be more grateful. Thanks for giving us a chance at our dream game, we won't disappoint you!

Cheers,

~Mark

Open Development Week #16: Skirmish Gamemode, New Art Stuff!
about 8 years ago – Sat, Mar 03, 2018 at 10:40:35 AM

Hey Hunters,

Hope you've had a special week! We've been hard at work on our new GDC/PAX build. The goal for this week was to have Pinkyy fully playable - she is almost there. We are going to try and hit the Tuesday release date for Pinkyy, but we might be late.

New Art

Our new artists Mariana and Tamy are doing a lot of great stuff while Betu animates all of the characters on the new system!

Here is how work is progressing on the Dropship feature that we explained last week:

The Dropship is fully working in-game, although just with a big greybox. But all the features are working - its doors open and close, players are able to jump into the action, and it flies away after everyone disembarks!

It will not be playable on Tuesday's build, but next week we'll wrap up the visual work on it and release for our Alpha Hunters!

We are also working on the snowy environment which will be the location for our new game mode (see below).

Really excited for this one! Next week we'll also work on improving the floor textures of our previous level and getting it polished up for GDC/PAX!

New Gamemode: Skirmish

With the new GDC/PAX build we'll have our first new Gamemode available on the Pre-Alpha: SKIRMISH.

Inspired by Relic Hunters Zero, in Skirmish you will be traversing 3 small levels filled with enemies. By taking out most (90%) of the enemies, you unlock a Teleporter that will take you to the next one.

On the third and final level, you will have to face a Champion enemy - a significantly more powerful version of a regular enemy, with special skills and enhanced stats. After defeating the Champion, the Mission is complete.

On Hard and Epic difficulties there will be a time limit for extra challenge. The time is extended whenever a Teleporter is unlocked, and will also freeze while players get together to activate the Teleporter - no need to hurry, you can go grab that treasure chest!

The previous gamemode (King of the Hill) will still be available on the Pre-Alpha, so you will get a choice of two different activities.

Pinkyy Coming Very Soon

Pinkyy will be playable very, very soon! We're working hard on our fearsome leader. Here are her 3D gloves:

She will be the first character in the game with a full skillset! Raff will follow, then Ace, then Jimmy.

That's it for this week! See you next time <3

Cheers,

~Mark

Open Development Week #15: Comics, New Build, Dropship, Stagger System
about 8 years ago – Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 02:00:44 PM

Hey Hunters,

Hope you've had a great week!

Comics are ready to ship!

Our comics are looking amazing and are ready to ship! Dave should be sending you your Relic Hunters goodies pretty soon!

Regret not having backed us for the Comics reward? Do not worry, you can still buy them straight from us by meeting us at our booth @ GDC Play (San Fracisco, March 19th-23rd) and PAX East (Boston, April 5th-8th).

This week's build

We have a new build live on the Beta branch of Steam. If you are one of the generous backers who have access to it right now, you can check out our new Spine animation system and the foundation of the Stagger system that we'll talk about on this Update.

From now on, we are working on 2-week cycles. You should expect a new build every other Tuesday, with the next one scheduled for March 6th.

Our goal is to have Pinkyy playable with most of her Skills!

Coming up: Dropship

We have started work on the Relic Hunters' shiny new Dropship. It's a smaller vessel that connects to the Spaceheart (the spaceship of the Hunters) and acts a landing craft for the dangerous missions that the Hunters will take on.

Our new artist Mariana just made a super cute concept art to guide us:

Our main inspiration for the Dropship in-game is Overwatch's pre-match experience. While the matchmaking system is finding more people to play with you, and as the players load in, everyone will be hanging out on the Dropship. You can emote, make friends, joke around, and play with the objects inside of the ship while you wait for the mission to start.

We are designing this space as a playground, with lots of little fun interactions, objects with physics, and bouncy sofas to get you warmed up for the mission to come!

We believe this will be a really fun addition to the game, and we'll learn from it when we finish the Secret Market - the upcoming social hub of the game, where all players will hang out between missions.

New System: Stagger

Chances are that you will spend most of your in-game time in Relic Hunters Legend, well, hitting enemies. No point beating around the bush with this one. So hitting enemies should be really fun, right? Also, we want to introduce more depth and complexity when timing your attacks.

The Stagger system allows you to interrupt enemies with a "mini-stun" when you damage then. The duration and severity of this stun is based on several different factors, but mostly on how much damage you inflict in a short window of time.

Enemies can suffer from a Short Stagger (very quick stun animation) or Long Stagger (slower, more intense stun animation) depending on how much damage they receive in a short time window, compared to their total Life value. The highest Life an enemy has, the harder it will be to Stagger them.

Some weapons and skills will have bonuses to Stagger, while some enemies will be resitant or even immune to its effects.

As enemies suffer from Stagger, they will also build some extra Stagger Resistance for a few seconds. This bonus resistance can stack, so it will not be possible to easily "stun-lock" enemies by just shooting at them.

Players will not be affected by the Stagger system at all.

Livestream

This week we did our first Livestream with the new time and format. We had a lot of fun, hope you did to! If you missed it, don't worry, it's all available at our Twitch channel.

http://www.twitch.tv/PlayRelicHunters

We are streaming every Tuesday, at 11 AM PDT! Come join us for fun, behind-the-scenes looks, Q&As and giveaways!

See you next week!

Cheers,

~Mark

Open Development Week #14: So Many New Things!
about 8 years ago – Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 04:04:39 PM

Hey Hunters,

It's been a while since our last development update, which means a LOT of ground to cover. I will try to be brief, come along for the ride!

New Animation System

We've been working on this for a couple of months, but it's finally ready. We have transitioned all of the game's animations to the "Spine" system. This means more fluid animation, less video memory being used, and more potential for customization - we'll be able to change individual parts of how each character looks without having to re-draw everything!

New Update Schedule

We have changed the way our team works - instead of 1-week releases that may or may not make it to Steam, we are going to focus on 2-week releases that always must result in a playable update.

This means that, from now on, you should expect an update every other Tuesday on Steam, starting from February 20th.

New Team Members

We have grown our team, thanks to your support! We want to speed up development of the game, and I think the new additions to the team will bring a lot more quality and new ideas alongside that improved speed.

Gabriel "Cele" & Rob - Community Managers

"Cele" and Rob will be handling Community for the near future. If you are on our Discord server (you should! it's great!), you already know them. Cele and Rob are bringing tons of new ideas and cool activities for us as a Community, and will also not let me miss the updates and streams! Haha!

Gabriel - Programmer

Gabriel (another one!) has come to strengthen our coding crew! He's been mostly busy with our internal Level Editor tool to allow us to build more levels, that look better and that run faster.

Tamy - Artist

Tamy is a long-time friend of ours, and it will be super cool to work with her on the game! In the past she has done our cute plushies for the Kickstarter, but now she will be handling 3D art for our environments.

Mariana - Artist (intern)

Say hello to Mariana, our new Art intern! She is only 19 years old, but already displays such a talent and quality of work that has blown us away! I'm sure we'll be seeing some beautiful textures and environments from her in the near future.

Verified Discord Server

Our Discord Server has been Verified by Discord and is now officially official! We've made some changes and tweaks, have new Moderators, and it is all better and busier than ever.

If you are a backer and haven't joined our Discord community, you can now do so through our shiny new Verified link:

https://discord.gg/RelicHunters

New Streaming Schedule

Our Twitch streams have been moved to Every Tuesday at 11 AM PST!

One week will be focused on playing with our Community and goofing around, maybe with some giveaways involved, and Cele will be the one streaming.

The other week will be focused on the game's new bi-weekly update, talking about changes and upcoming features, and answering questions about the game, and I will be the one streaming.

The first stream will happen on February 20th at 11 AM PST, so be sure to tune in at http://twitch.tv/PlayRelicHunters ! 

GDC and PAX East

We will be at San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference on March 19th-23rd, and at Boston for PAX East on April 5th-8th.

Come check out our booth and talk to me and Betu and Müller!

If you are in town and want to grab some burgers with us after the event, message us on Discord <3 We love to meet our Community!

What's Next?

We are working hard towards our goal of having a new Demo for GDC/PAX. Our next target is to have Pinkyy fully playable with all of her Skills.

The biggest challenge will be to create an actual Melee Weapon system to allow her to use her Gloves. This will be a much more in-depth system than the previous Relic Hunters game ever had, and we'll also have it combine seamlessly with the Guns - stuff like a flaming Sword that also shoots fire projectiles when it swings will be easy to implement after the system is done!

On the mid-term we will work on Raff, then Ace and Jimmy. We will also create a few new enemies, a new game mode and a new environment - all for the GDC/PAX build!

As always, you can stay up-to-date with what we are doing by checking out or Open Trello Board!

Whew! That was all, I guess!

See you all in the new Update on Tuesday!

Cheers,

~Mark

Exclusive to all Backers: Help Support Once Upon a Coma, get a Free Steam Key!
about 8 years ago – Fri, Feb 09, 2018 at 12:25:59 PM

Happy Friday, Hunters!

Our friend Thomas Brush from Atmos Games wants to give all Relic Hunters Legend backers a free Steam key! Check out this special video below that outlines the simple steps you will need to take to take advantage of this offer:

Steps to receive a copy of Pinstripe or a bonus copy of Once Upon A Coma and Sountrack:

• Click “Notify Me” on the preview page link.
• Support campaign within 24 hours of launch 2/15. 
• Get your free stuff!

Be sure to check out and help support Once Upon A Coma when it launches next Thursday on Kickstarter (February 15, 2018).  For more information, please visit: http://kck.st/2E7Y3hT

Hope you guys have a great weekend, and be sure to join our Discord for the latest updates and information!

Cheers,

~Mark