Open Development Week #22: Alpha Plans
almost 8 years ago – Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 06:40:23 AM

Hey Hunters,

We are back from PAX and had an all-day, all-hands meeting to go through all of the feedback from our latest update and figure out where to go next.

Long-term goal: the Alpha

Our focus has now shifted to deploy the Alpha as fast as possible. When the year started, we had laid out a plan for the Alpha version, remember? Here is a quick refresher:

• You will be able to play on the game's first Region, called Galyno Desert;
• You will be able to play as Seven, Jimmy, Ace, Raff and Pinkyy and level each of them up to level 20;
• You will acquire gear of up to Rare tier and collect Materials to enhance the gear up to +15;
• Only Missions will be available: 11 Missions with 2 difficulty settings each, and 5 Game Modes;
• An Endless version of one of the Missions that will serve as a "mini-endgame" for the Alpha;
• Two enemy factions will be available: Ducans and Kami;
• There will be no story content, no Dungeons, no Explorable Areas, no Relics and no items of Epic and Legendary rarity tiers.

Even though this will be but a sliver of what the final game will offer, it is very exciting for us to reach this milestone because the game will be finally at a point where it can be played beyond one-off matches and we'll be able to test the structure of play.

Ok, so how do we get there?

We have broken down the release of the Alpha in two big chunks during the following months - the first will hit around August, and the second in October. For now, let's discuss the August release.

We are aiming to be ready with it for ChinaJoy, one of the biggest gaming events in China. We are still not sure if we'll be there or not, but it seems like a good date and a good incentive to get a release done.

Here are the main things we want to get done:

• Maintenance and bug-fixing (we got a lot of technical debt from the PAX build);
• Getting Raff in the game;
• Improving and polishing features such as Stagger, Falling, Reviving and HUD/Menus;
• Inventory system;
• Map screen (Galyno Desert Region);
• Enemies dropping Ammo and Bounty;
• Elite enemies;
• Kami faction;
• Ultimate Skills;
• Combo System;

That sounds exciting,but a bit too little for about 4 months of effort as we see it. There is one more thing that we want to accomplish, but we can't figure out which of two things to do - that's where you Backers and Founders come in.

Help us figure out what you want

There are two very different paths to take in the following months, and we want to make sure that we make this decision together with you.

The first path is to keep developing the core gameplay. We want to build all of the Missions in the Alpha, including all 5 Game modes - Skirmish, Scavenge (currently known as King of the Hill), Defense, Payload and Distraction. This will allow us to keep focusing on core combat and fun, but the game will still be about one-off Missions with no persistence.

The second path is to develop the progression systems, including leveling up, acquiring Gear and Materials and Enhancing the gear. This will allow us to test the progression and how it feels, but the Missions will be always the same two that we currently have (Skirmish and King of the Hill), and we will of course have to wipe progression when the next big update hits.

To be clear: both things will be developed for the Alpha. The question is simply which to develop first: Missions/Gamemodes or Progression?

For now we want to hear your opinions and invite you to a healthy discussion on Discord about which path to take. 

Next Tuesday during the livestream, we will talk more and finally open it for voting. The voting will be held for the whole week and the results will be announced on next weekend's update here on Kickstarter.

We have also updated our Open Trello Board to reflect our current planning.

See you on the Livestream!

I (Mark) will finally be back to streaming this week, in my attempt to carry Celestino in Epic, talking about PAX and GDC, the future, and of course about voting for Missions or Progression.

See you all at our usual time, every Tuesday at 11 AM PDT on Twitch (http://twitch.tv/playrelichunters)!

Cheers,

~Mark

Open Development Week #20: Here Comes the PAX Build
about 8 years ago – Mon, Apr 02, 2018 at 01:22:18 AM

Hey Hunters,

We are firing in all cylinders down here as we get ready for PAX East in Boston this week!

You know what this means, right? New features! Yay!

New Ducan Enemy (Champion)

We will have three categories of enemies in Relic Hunters Legend: regular enemies (white names), Elite enemies (yellow names) and Champion enemies (purple names).

Elite enemies will be tougher versions of the enemies you already know and love (hate?), such as the Ducan Trooper, the Ducan Grenadier or the Turlek Boomer. They usually have at least one extra skill on top of their enhanced stats, and if two or more players are present they also have a Crowd Control (CC) ability.

Champion enemies are even tougher versions of regular enemies, and have unique names and visuals. They have at least 2 extra skills and are very hard to take down. Think of them as mini-bosses.

We decided to skip Elite enemies for now and go straight for our first Champion: the Ducan Demolisher!

The Ducan Demolisher is a Champion version of the Ducan Grenadier and will greet you (explode you) at the end of Skirmish now, to offer an exciting finale to the game mode.

We won't add the Demolisher to the King of the Hill map for now, but expect other Champions showing up on that last wave in the near future (did anyone say "Turlek Champion"?).

I will not spoil the Demolisher's abilities for now, but suffice it to say, you will find Skirmish to be more of a challenge now :-)  #evilLaugh

New Menus

We are finally starting to put in the final-quality menus in the game! They are about 70% of the way, but already look close enough to our final vision that we are putting them in the game.

They also feature full controller support, which is handy for all you couch-players out there!

The pre-game screen, when we reach Alpha, will be almost like a lobby of sorts. You are currently able to select your server, difficulty and game mode in here, but in the near future this functionality will be transferred to the World Map.

Moving on to what we call the "progressive Total Biscuit-zation" of our game, we have expanded the Settings even further to include Audio options, Language options and more. They also take up the full screen now and are looking closer to final quality (although I'd say about 60% so).

Scoreboard

Another neat new feature in the PAX build is the Scoreboard! You can now check a bunch of stats and compete with your friends and against other groups for the best times, scores, or to see who manages to die more in the least amount of time! Exciting!

See you in Boston!

That's what's coming for our shiny new build! If you are an Alpha tier backer or founder, you can play it as soon as it's up on Steam (hopefully today, fingers crossed!). We need all the help we can get to squash bugs before PAX start this Thursday (April 5th).

Thank you for all the support and encouragement, this has been a fun ride and 2018 will be the year of the Hunters for sure!

Cheers,

~Mark

Physical Rewards Have Shipped!
about 8 years ago – Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 05:37:51 PM

Hey Hunters,

If you backed for any Physical reward, rejoice - the goodies have shipped a couple of days ago!

You should be getting T-shirts, Pins and the Comic Book soon (if you haven't already!).

Wait, what about the Physical Box and Plushies?

We have decided to delay the Physical Box until the game is actually done - this will allow us to create a much better physical version, with a more representative manual and maybe even a cool map of the game's world!

As for the plushies, we sold far too few of them, and mostly here in Brazil. This means that we will make them by hand and ship them ourselves from here (instead of relying on David and our friends over at Los Angeles). 

The upside is that the plushies will be even more exclusive! Our current plan is to ship them together with the boxes.

The expected ship date for both is currently Q2/2019.

Thank you again for supporting Relic Hunters Legend!

Cheers,

~Mark

Open Development Week #19: GDC was awesome! Here's what's next
about 8 years ago – Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 10:18:20 AM

Hey Hunters,

So GDC is finally over and we are wrapping things up here in San Francisco.

It was an amazing week! We have made new friends, won awards, met some of you Backers in person, played a lot of Relic Hunters and made important business for the future of the game.

Relic Hunters Legend got Best in Play and GDC Pitch awards and we could not be more grateful!

So What's Next?

We now have less than 2 weeks to get ready for PAX East in Boston!

Relic Hunters Legend will be at Indie MEGABOOTH side-by-side with a lot of amazing indie games. Come check us out, it will be a lot of fun <3

For the PAX build we have a few goals:

• Fixing bugs and adding suggestions from the GDC build;
• Implementing the Stagger animations on enemies;
• Scoreboard at the end of the matches;
• A Champion enemy at the end of Skirmish (Ducan Bomber);
• New menu screens;
• Controller support on menu screens;
• Help overlay with full skill descriptions;

As we come back to Brazil for proper game development, expect more in-depth info and screenshots for all of these new things on next week's update!

We have never been so pumped about Relic Hunters! The future is looking bright indeed! See you in Boston!

Cheers,

~Mark

Open Development Week #18: We are at GDC!
about 8 years ago – Sun, Mar 18, 2018 at 11:43:15 PM

Hey Hunters,

How have you been? We're finally here in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference!

It will be awesome-cakes and Betu and I will be posting pics on Twitter and Discord throughout the week!

New Pre-Alpha Build Up on Steam 

To celebrate GDC, if you are an Alpha tier or higher Founder, you can play the GDC build as of right now!

There's a lot of new stuff, including Pinkyy, the Dropship, a lot of new skills and the Skirmish game mode!

Meet Us in San Fran

Coming to GDC? Live in SF? Drop us a word at Discord or come by our booth and we can hang out :)

 This is going to be a busy but fun week! See you on the other side :)

Cheers,

~Mark