Embark on a touching tale of friendship, time-travel, & loot! From the creators of Chroma Squad, Dungeonland and Relic Hunters Zero.
Fast. Fluid. Fun. Gather up to 4 friends online and go on a galactic adventure! Embark on a touching tale of friendship and time-travel, find awesome loot, customize your Hunters with deep RPG systems, and experience the next-generation of top-down shooter combat with gorgeous 2.5D visuals! The Relic Hunters universe is also expanding into comics and animated series!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Open Development Week #45: Showing off cool new things!
over 7 years ago
– Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 01:22:43 AM
Hey Hunters,
Hope you've been excellent! This week's update will be short and hopefully sweet, do brush your teeth afterwards!
Boring programming things first
We have been laying the foundation for our Gear system (and frankly the whole game) by developing our Skill tool further. The gist of it is that basically everything in the game will be considered a "Skill" - Hunters and enemies will use them, guns will shoot out Skills, and items will give you Skills. Passives, Buffs and Conditions are all Skills. EVERYTHING IS SKILLS!
And our Skill tool is becoming very, very powerful. The whole idea is to allow a small team like ours to deliver a metric ton of content in the form of interesting skills, intricate item affixes, and fun enemy behaviors. We will achieve that by using a Data-driven approach that builds Skills out as if they were LEGO bricks, developing new kinds of bricks as they are needed - which in turn increases the possibilities of how many new things we can build exponentially by recombining these bricks!
It is an absurdly powerful approach that we are very excited about. It is taking a while to get ready, but we are almost there. And oh will it be worth it! Just wait and see.
Enough big words, time to show pretty colors!
Betu has been trying out different skins and customization to test our Character tools. The idea is to see how much further we need to expand the tools to do all of the cool things we want to do in the future. We got some pretty neat concepts, have a look:
Teenage jimmy complete with zits
Future Rebel Jimmy came back in time to warn us
Wait, there's more!
In the meantime, Mari has been working on environments. Take a look at this neat concept work for Semilla City, the Ducan capital on planet Cradle:
Semilla City concept art
We are also excited about Unity's new support for vector-based images. It will allow us to have gigantic detailed backgrounds and interface elements with very little impact in video memory - perfect pro potato PCs and mobile phones!
This is Mari's background work in vector art, for Galyno Canyons:
SVG Background for Galyno Canyons (work-in-progress)
And the in-game Map is working!
Take a look at our working mini-map / stage map. It is still incomplete, but already working pretty well:
Mini-Map Prototype in-game
We are still working on several features for the map, including final visuals, making the generated map smoother and less "blocky", and having a dynamic "fog" that you unveil as you explore the levels.
It is already night-and-day the amount of awareness that you have now when playing the game. You can "see" enemies coming with more detail and overall the game feels more spacious and open.
We will deploy this on Steam for Alpha founders to play this week, and we look forward to hearing your feedback when you do!
Current Roadmap
We have got Loot Drops in our sights for the next weeks. Most of the programming work lately has been dedicated to getting a strong foundation to develop Loot.
This is subject to change (always!) but our current plans are:
September 28th: Steam update with new Mini-Map and new Revive mechanic
October 12th: Steam update with the Inventory screen, and general fixes and polishes to the game
October 26th: Steam update with Loot!
Fingers crossed that we will make it! (y)
Livestream today with Lucy
As always, don't miss our weekly livestreams on Twitch! This is a special one, with birthday celebrations and overall shenanigans!
Open Development Week #44: Loot drops, mini-map and improvements!
over 7 years ago
– Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 07:17:03 AM
Hey Hunters, how have you been?
New build is live!
We have just deployed a new build on Steam with some exciting updates! After a rough week last time we decided to take it a little bit easier and do more fun stuff that is also exciting for you folks!
If you have Alpha access on Steam, the latest build has Raff as a playable character, as well as brand new lighting and weather effects, day and night cycles, and actual map progression through our 18 current stages.
Map screen with progression through the stages
Next big update: loot drops!
We now have our goal set to deploy loot drops as our next big update to the game. There are things that we have to take care first, however.
Our passive skill system, as well as our system for Buffs and Conditions has to be revised and strengthened before we can move on to do Loot, since our goal is not just to make numbers go up, but to have actually interesting Loot with complex effects there are equivalent to passive skills. Our new system is key to allowing us to create more items there are more interesting in a fast and less buggy way, and will hopefully be ready before the end of next week.
Mini-map
We are also working on a brand new feature that we are quite excited about: an in-game map, including a mini-map on the top right of the screen.
We think this will make combat in large open spaces a bit more comfortable, with player awareness being extended with the mini-map. It will also help you with finding that last group of enemies on Skirmish and pave the way to our future explorable areas.
Look at how our lighting effects are working now: afternoon...
... and night time!
Improved Revive Mechanic
One thing that has been our weak spot for quite a long time is how bad the revive mechanic currently is. It was hastily put together for PAX East and haven’t been touched ever since.
This is how our revive system is working now… ugh!
We are completely overhauling it to make it more fun and dynamic. Expect more details on next week’s update!
Livestream with Lucy today!
Our new CM LucyG is streaming today! She'll be playing the live build on our Twitch Channel at Noon Pacific Time / 3PM Eastern Time / 4 PM Brasilia Time.
Open Development Week #43: Lots of new things!
over 7 years ago
– Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 09:34:15 AM
Hey Hunters,
How have you been? Hope you've had an excellent weekend!
Over here in Brazil it was our Independence Day on Friday, so we had an extended weekend to relax, celebrate and play some games. I got me some time for Destiny 2: Forsaken (it's pretty decent!) and the Battlefield V Beta (not so decent!).
But we also have a lot of new things to show you! Strap yourself tight, there will be GIFs.
Environment Stuff!
We are working on making the environment in Legend pretty-er. Mari has been doing a great job on our infamous background art (which has been placeholder for about a year now!). Feats your eyes on the new style of background that we are going to get from now on:
New background art for Galyno Excavation Site
We also developed a new system that allows us to setup lightning, day/night cycles and weather effects for each Mission individually. Check out Roni testing out a bit of snow on the desert (!?):
Today's weather forecast is: pretty weird
Raff is on her way!
We mentioned last week that we are working on Raff, right? She is almost completely done, we are just ironing out a few kinks, as you can see on the GIF below:
Raff is still a little rough around the edges
A few issues with the hair and some animations. Looking good already, though, right? :)
New Map Screen in development
We have been teasing this for a while and you have responded pretty well! So well, in fact, that we have decided to prioritize it and put it in the game ahead of schedule!
This is our vision for how it should look:
Expectation...
And this is how it looks right now:
... reality?
Uh, it needs some work. Still, it is progressing fast. Hopefully we can get something usable already in this week's build on Steam.
Today Lucy is at a Marketing/Social Media event in São Paulo learning some new tips and tricks, so it is up to me to run our weekly Livestream!
I recruited some help, though - Pedro will join me today as we play the game together and talk about developing the story for Relic Hunters Legend.
Pedro Falcão is our Story Designer and handles all of the lore and writing in the game, and also in the broader Relic Hunters Universe - comics, animation, other games, etc.
Want to ask us non-spoilery questions? Always wanted to know what Duke Ducan eats for breakfast? It is your time to shine! Our weekly livestreams run every Tuesday at Noon Pacific Time / 3 PM Eastern Time / 4 PM Brasília Time.
Open Development Week #42: About Overcoming Hardship
over 7 years ago
– Tue, Sep 04, 2018 at 10:46:01 AM
Hey Hunters,
Tough update to write, this one. But we promised to always be forthcoming and transparent in our updates, regardless of if we succeed or fail.
This week we failed :/
This week's build is on PTR
Some good news before the bad: there actually IS a new update to the game this week, it's just not on the regular Steam branch. To access it, right-click the game on your Steam library, select "Properties", then go to the "BETAS" tab and on the drop-down menu select "public-test-realm".
Ducan Commandos shooting at Pinkyy on the new build
The reason why we did not upload the build on the regular channel is that it is still a bit unfinished and might be unstable. But you can see the RPG stats and scaling, as well as the Elites (even though they are currently just the regular enemies with different visuals and extra health/damage).
Team morals and dealing with failure
On Update #39 - just two weeks ago - we were celebrating everything being on schedule and the new features looking good. The Elites + progression update was something that we originally scheduled for June. Fricking JUNE! Just goes to show how hard it is to predict game development.
It was double-frustrating to see it delayed again, however. We pretty much failed on almost all of our tasks on the last couple of weeks. Everything turned out to be more complicated than we originally expected. And we are not newbies - the core team has an average of 8+ years of experience each.
At the end of the day - everyone is going to fail, right? It's about how you deal with that failure. We chose to sit down, talk it out, and see what we could do to improve. We can't be in denial that things haven't gone well - or worse, start pointing fingers and blaming each other personally.
As the project increases in size and the Beta grows near, we are starting to feel some of the limitations of our team. We need to grow as well, and we need to hire. We are currently looking for a new management-inclined programmer that can help us keep a higher standard of code quality and help us plan and predict things better.
On the short term, we are also taking a break from harder/boring tasks to give the entire team a bit of respite. So here's what to expect from the next build:
Update Schedule
We are currently focusing on fun and pretty things, rather than major system implementations. So no Gear Drops for now, sorry. BUT - we are going to make a lot of pretty stuff!
First off - time of day. We are adding a dynamic lightning system to the Missions that allow us to have them at day, night, with rain, etc. It will help make each Mission feel more unique and visually interesting, even if it is still on the same area.
Second - art polish! We are putting extra love and care on the textures and set dressing of the levels, and making them pretty-er.
(Also, backgrounds!)
A Background concept with a collection of possible vistas in the Galyno Desert region
Third - dynamic vegetation! We are going to add movement to grass and other objects, and try to breathe a little more life into our environments!
Last but not least: Map screen with actual art in it! This is by far the toughest thing for this week, but we are very excited to do it and hope we can complete it in time. Here's the latest progress snapshot:
Work-in-progress Map screen
There is still a lot of work to do on the art and design aspects, and then a lot of implementing, but hopefully we can make it! At least it's a lot more fun than refactoring multiplayer code :-P
Livestream today with Lucy and Mark!
This week we are welcoming a new member of our team, LucyG! She is our new Community Manager, and will be taking care of you on the Relic Hunters community!
Lucy came in with a lot of excitement, energy and fresh ideas on how to do more cool and fun stuff with our community! Join us on our livestream today at Noon Pacific Time and come meet her and talk about what's coming in the future :)
That's it for this week. We are sorry that we haven't been our best selves during the last couple of weeks. But we love this game, we love this community, and we love working together - that's what matters. We will find a way to overcome all challenges if we keep working as a team and being positive :)
See you on the stream!
Cheers,
~Mark
Open Development Week #41: Bringing on the RPG!
over 7 years ago
– Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 09:47:47 AM
Hey Hunters,
How have you been?
We've been hard at work on Legend's new RPG systems, including new skills, the Elite enemies, all the RPG stats and more! Let's take this opportunity to talk a bit about each new addition, shall we?
Stats and Stat Growth
Starting from this week's update, all of Legend's RPG stats will be active and included in the game for every character.
Most notably, Character Levels now matter, with higher-level characters growing their Stats and becoming beefier.
You will be able to customize a lot of the stats on your Hunters when our Gear update drops, as most of the options to boost specific stats will come from your selection of Gear.
Combat Rating
The Combat Rating system is now on full effect, which means that all damage will be scaled by it.
Here's the gist of it: in Relic Hunters Legend, damage and life will not be increasing to ludicrous numbers as you progress. To provide better readability and consistency, all damage will have a "standard" value and will be scaled up or down depending on the difference between the Attack Rate of the attacker and the Defense Rate of the target.
For example, a Light Pistol will always deal 12 damage per shot as a standard. If your Attack Rate is higher than your target's Defense Rate, it might deal more damage: 14, 16, even 20. If your Attack Rate is lower, however, it might deal less than the standard damage: 8, 6 or even no damage at all!
This provides a clear reference point so that players can easily understand what is going on. If you are doing more than 12 damage, then it is good! If you are doing less, perhaps you should consider switching the element type or avoiding a fight with that particular enemy altogether until you can find better gear.
With Combat Rating working, it is also time to introduce another staple feature of Relic Hunters Legend: Normalized Power.
When playing activities that are matchmaking-enabled (by which I mean "activities that you can play online with random people") such as Missions, you might find yourself under Normalized Power rules.
Essentially how this works is that we "cap" how high you can scale your damage from Combat Rating. When Normalized Power is active, you can deal only up to 150% of your regular damage, and take at least 20% of regular damage from enemies.
This means that high-level players can still play in low-level activities and not be like gods that one-shot every Champion enemy on their way. This does not work the other way around - weaker players will be instantly destroyed by super high-level enemies.
The goal of this system is to provide players with the ability to play together and have fun regardless of level. Veteran players will still be significantly more effective than newer ones even when Normalized Power is in effect, but not to a degree where it makes the challenges in the game feel meaningless.
Together with keeping rewards valuable throughout the entire game, we hope this system will keep our community playing together at all parts of the game, not just at "endgame".
Other activities that are either solo or that have no public matchmaking will have no Normalized Power rules, so that you may be free to play however you see fit.
We are working on the Map screen!
Betu has been working on art for the Map screen for a while now. We finally feel like we are getting somewhere in terms of the artstyle, and have started working on actually implementing it. Here is a concept art shot of how it could look:
Concept art for the Map screen
Boss Bug Detected!
And here's some news from the programming front: we found a truly MASSIVE bug on our latest build, and we have been working to fix it for the last couple of days.
Basically what happens is that dying when playing solo makes the new AI send thousands of requests to our servers... per second. It is like each player death sending a small DDoS attack, and more often than not you will drop from your game when you die.
We are glad we found this early, though, and are prioritizing this fix above everything else. Hopefully it won't delay our update, fingers crossed!
Mark's Special RHZero Stream Today
I meant to do this last week when it was closer to Relic Hunters Zero's anniversary but... oh, well, it will still be fun!
