Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie
Coridden
A look at the re-worked rafting and new "pick up a friend" feature!
Greetings Shifters ✊🐲
Hope you had a great start of the new year! We have been busy preparing our Kickstarter and excited to share it with you very soon... But as always we continue to work on the game as well, and wanted to share some progress:
Re-worked "rafting": We've been struggling for a long time making the "rafting" feature work properly, but some of the nasty bugs and issues made us give up on including the rafting at all. But then we realized we kinda had a working feature all along, just in a slightly different format - so we applied our riding mechanic on a log and it worked great! And thanks to this, it's also possible to attack while rafting, which wasn't possible before without changing your position. It might not look as fancy, but it feels much better to control, and we don't have to worry about all those bugs.
When your friend is slow, pick them up and go! : We added a new feature where you, as a monster, can pick up your friend on your back when they are in a menu and ride off together.
Rebalancing x10: After considering it for some time, we decided to re-balance the damage numbers to give ourselves more room for item variety. So the damage numbers will seem 10 times higher than before, however things such as ability damage and enemy health also gets a boost, so it's not like the game suddenly becomes much easier..
The year is coming to an end, and looking back we feel like 2023 was one of the most fun years we had working on Coridden! We’ve been adding a lot of new content, improving the game thanks to great player feedback and the extra help from several talented devs. Also, a little final gift just in time for Christmas, we teamed up with Anshar Publishing to help us during this last challenging stretch of game development.
This last period we’ve been working further on the different levels, quests and story of the game. One particular area we’ve been putting more work into is making more “boss” enemies and other extra challenging encounters. So design, animations, enemy behaviors and VFX have been created and improved upon to achieve these more challenging fights! We don’t want to spoil too much here, we’re eager to hear what you think when you face them yourself.😉
But we’d love to share some abilities we’ve been working on for the creature “Dragolem” at least! This one is a very tough and heavy-hitting monster. 🐉
We’d also like to share a quick showcase of our first implementation of the new robotic enemies you can encounter in game (so, still early WIP). We’re implementing 3 different types of these stationary “turret” enemies, and while most of them might be a bit slow to turn and start shooting, getting in their line of fire could mean big trouble...
We know next year is going to be the most exciting one yet, as we have a Kickstarter campaign coming in Q1 and the full release on the horizon!
Until next time, Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ✨ /Aftnareld Team
Coridden joins Anshar Publishing! 🎉
Hello Shifters!
We are thrilled to announce that our game is now joining the esteemed roster of Anshar Publishing's RPG titles! 🎉
Anshar Publishing is an indie publisher which you may know from Gamedec, Liberte or Zoria: Age of Shattering. Joining Anshar Publishing franchise gives us a huge chance to focus on the development aspects of the game and leave the marketing side to people who are doing it on a daily basis. We really hope Coridden will reach a bigger audience, and the demo (currently in the preparation!) will show the new players the pure fun of co-op mode. For the true fans, that are already with us - we're sure you'll see the improvement in the overall quality of the game! 💪
Feel free to check the Anshar Publishing games here.
Do you remember our plans for the Kickstarter? We're still on it!
Please join the waiting list to be notified when the campaign begins! 🚀 The Kickstarter will launch in Q1 2024, so stay tuned for more upcoming information regarding the campaign and the bonuses we're planning! 👇
Until next time, Aftnareld
Translation support, new armors and areas!
Greetings Shifters ✊🐲
Hope you had a fun spooky season! 🎃 We didn’t have the most entertaining month, as we finally decided to implement translation/localization support into the game, which is not as fun to work with as creating new content… 😉 But accessibility is something we value a lot, we hope that we can get funds in the future to translate to several languages, so more people can enjoy the game! (Is there a language you'd like to see a translation for? Comment below!)
Although a lot of time has been spent on this, we did manage to get some other work done as well such as:
New Armors: We’ve created and implemented some new human armors for you to wear!
Here is one of the new armors, the base being made of traditional parts but enhanced with hi-tech.
See-through shader, “X-ray”: On the request of several of our playtesters, we decided to try to add another way to see your character better behind objects. Now you will see your character figure behind all objects, so you don’t lose track of where you are as easily!
See-through, or "X-ray", effect
Level design, inside Barrier Towers: These large structures have not been visited by anyone in many, many years. The rooms are in varying condition, but a lot of the mechanics and machinery is still working thanks to the worker drones that have kept maintaining the facilities as best they can. But there are also a lot of drones, and turrets, that aggressively keep any unauthorized visitors away…
A little sneak peak of inside one of the Barrier Towers (still ALPHA environment!)
This month we’ll have to keep our focus on preparing for the next alpha playtest session, which we’re very excited for!
During last month (september) we were fully dedicated to fixing all different sorts of issues, bugs and requests we received from all the incredible people who helped us playtest our alpha (act 1)! Here are some of the many changes we’ve implemented this month:
Main Menu UI/UX Improvements: We hope that our latest changes will make it easier to handle save files and setting up your game. (There are still areas in the Main menu we are planning to improve/change)
Dropdown option list for items in inventory: With these new options you can do standard actions such as drop, equip etc, but also mark items as “trash” or “favorite” to easier manage your inventory and sell the items you are not interested in keeping.
Added a simple “Respec store”: If you’re not happy with your character upgrade choices, you can reset your character and place your points into new skill specializations for a cost. The cost, how much you can reset etc are still up for debate as this is in an early stage and not tested enough yet!
Added possibility to choose dialogue answers with keyboard numbers (1,2,3,4)
Updated Item compare function: So now all relevant stats are shown on both items always (Example: If you equip a armor with money picking +10% it will now tell you will lose 10% money picking when switching to a armor that doesn't have that effect)
Added new VFX for charging weapons: To more clearly indicate when your weapon is fully charged to perform a stronger attack.
Charge ranged attack VFX
Charge melee attack VFX
Inventory dropdown options
Now we are going to focus on adding and fixing more content such as new areas, quests and items in preparation for the next playtest session!
Our original plan was to participate in the October Steam Next Fest, but as we got so much important feedback, we decided to wait until the next edition to be able to deliver an even better demo experience! With this, we can also inform you that the game will not be released in 2023 but sometime in 2024. Hope you don’t mind waiting for a bit longer… If you’re itching to try it out earlier, join our playtest group to get access to alpha & beta testing! More info on our discord: https://discord.gg/invite/fFdRsDW6Af
Become a tester for Coridden!
We need your help - Become an alpha and/or beta tester! 🌟
Starting next week, we will have an Alpha Act 1 available to playtest for you who want to become game testers! From there on we will keep making updates and share new test builds with you, all the way to the release of Coridden.
As you know we are a small indie team, and your help can really make a huge impact on the game! So if you like playing Coridden, finding bugs, coming up with ideas & suggestions on improvements - please fill out this form and join the game tester crew! (Note: To be a game tester you also need to be a member in our Discord server)
Update regarding demo
The current demo will only be available to play until this Thursday, the 31st of August. This is due to the planned testing and feature on the G.Round platform in September. A demo with lots of new content will be uploaded to Steam in the beginning of October, when Coridden will be a part of Steam Next Fest! 🎉
Exciting new things coming up…
Greetings Shifters! ✊🐲
It’s Gamescom times, but we unfortunately aren’t attending this year. Instead we're staying at home working hard on the game in preparation for the exciting things ahead! We’ll share some news on that with you down below, but first a little update on some of the things we’ve been working on this month:
Conjures are back!
We’ve been working on making the conjures (summons) work properly, and added a conjure skill to every class! Conjured beasts are not only helpful in fights to draw aggro and do damage, they can also be ridden. Any passive skill that requires riding will work both when using a conjure and when riding another player.
Scaptor conjure. We’re still working on a proper look for them, so that’s going to change soon as well!
Health drop changes
Also, we’ve experimented with a small change to the health orbs - now they lie on the ground and need to be picked up, instead of automatically being picked up. We wanted to try this change to give you more control over when you want to use that heal, and also add in the co-op trouble of choosing who should get the health boost. 😉
New enemy type (kind of)
Some of you may recognize this enemy as the old “demo boss”, now that the “new boss” has more of the right thematic feel (electric) the “old” one has gotten a behavior remake and is now a tougher variant that can shield itself from your attacks.
The "Head-plated" Roker enemy. Name still work in progress, we'll see if we can come up with something better soon!
Finally, we’ve been working on polishing up a couple of new areas, writing, adding quests, and preparing a new build we call “Alpha Act 1”. This version will soon be available to download and playtest early for our discord members and on the playtesting platform G.Round! We’ll provide you with more info on our discord soon, hope you are excited and eager to help us test this new version!
Thank you for your continuous support!
All the best, / Narin, Aftnareld Dev
Forge items with Alterants and a sneak peak at new town
Greetings Shifters! ✊🐲
This month we’ve added the fun new feature for you who like to tinker with your items, called “Forge”. With the help of the forge, you can insert different kinds of Alterants (modifiers) that you find while looting out in the world. Alterants have different kinds of bonuses that improve your item. They also have 3 different kinds of shapes, which is important when forging your item, as your items need to have matching Alterant Spaces available.
The different Alterant shapes:
The Forge can be found inside the Dayal's house, your home:
The game world is growing and getting more and more ready to be explored by you soon! The latest area that we have worked on is the place called “Wreck Town”, which is a scavenger settlement located inside a cave. Here scavengers live a bit more safely and trade goods with each other, some of them might be hard to come by in the capital…
A first look at "Wreck Town", an underground scavenger town:
The Forge is now in the updated demo uploaded today for you to try out if you want! As usual, we’d love to hear your thoughts, let us know here or in our Discord!
✨Other demo updates include:
New Guard Mission type: Defend Beacon (similar to old Horde mode)
Made it easier to compare items by giving more space to item stats
Add Buyback option in store
Make Use Skill Buttons more clear on Controller
Add Instructions on how to navigate map
Added option to add Sprint toggle button in Remap settings
Current character level is now shown on player HUD
The NPC Ira stays and helps in the Roker boss fight and can be resurrected by player(s) if taken down
Sell Prices can now be seen on items outside the store
Added dialogue option to travel directly to Riveredge Mine level after Arena
🔧Some Demo Fixes:
Fixed issue where items sometimes fly up in the air and get stuck
Fixed so HP is restored again when changing scenes/levels
Fixed issue where some enemies had too repeating struck sounds
Fixed issue with light flickering near NPCs in Arena
Fixed issue where there was not enough nests in Guard Mission to complete the mission
Fixed issue with interactable objects where the prompt didn’t disappears when player interacts
Fixed error where Guard Mission tutorial shows wrong button prompt to close tutorial
Fixed issue where players got stuck after VO intro
Beast ranged attacks, robotic enemies & new system in the works
Greetings Shifters ✊🐲
It’s summer time for us, meaning that we are taking a bit more time to actually go outside and get some sunshine to recharge our batteries, but the game is nevertheless progressing!
In this update we wanted to start by sharing some new VFX and types of Creature Ranged Items. There are now a total of 5 different types of ranged items: Breath, Shot, Spit, Blast and Beam. Each type can be one of the three elements: heat, chemical or electric. Here are some GIFs showing a selection (we're still working on implementing the Beam variant correctly, but it will be ready very soon):
Fire Spit
Electric Shot
Poison Breath
Poison Blast
Electric Breath
Our work on the main story and areas is steadily progressing. We’ve also been working on improving enemy behaviours as well as starting to add a new type - robotic enemies.
Lastly we want to mention that we’ve started implementing our “Alterants” system - you will be able to find Alterants with different kinds of bonuses that can be inserted into your equipments to improve them (similar to “socketing” in other action RPGs). This will give another fun layer to the itemization and more freedom to customize your character gear!
As usual, we’d love to hear your thoughts, let us know here or in our Discord!
Our latest demo changes:
Improved sound system and some sound effects
Restructured beginning of story demo a bit to lead players to next area quicker
Changed so you don’t have to replay part before boss appears every time you retry
Attributes are no longer placed automatically, players have full control to place them however they want
Modified some cooldowns on active skills (shorter)
Modified some skills to provide better healing possibilities for all classes
Improved some enemy animations and behaviors
Implemented new “see-through” shader
Updated demo - April edition!
Hey Shifters! 🐲
Since the last news update we’ve managed to get quite a lot of new improvements and changes to the demo. Today we’ve also uploaded a newer version, fixing some issues that have popped up and added more new skills to try out.
Parallel with working on the main game we’re continuously working with updating our demo and so we’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions here on the forums or on our Discord!
✨Changes in today's demo update:
Support for rebinding to move to cursor on mouse and keyboard
Added a manual save button in game tab
New active & passive skills (Rapid Aim, Flame Strike, Hurl Healing Ball, Weapon Masteries, Gouge, Combustible Hit, Lethal Weapon, Durable traps, Shade Away, The Elementalist and more)
Removed energy cost from melee weapons
Updated/added new active skills, passive skills and skill levels
Lowered the cooldowns of most skills
Store now looks like inventory and you can sort the items by category
Updated multiple active & passive skills (Flame Jet, Shock Bolt, Leap Attack, Homing Bolt, Explosive Trap and more)
Hunter class can now place up to 3 traps simultaneously
Improved aiming with bow/crossbow feels more precise with controller
Tweaked object interaction responsiveness
🔧Fixes - Remap setting are now be saved when using a Player Profile - Fixed a bug where the player didn’t start at the right location when loading a game in online multiplayer - Fixed a bug that made the quest progression go out of sync in online multiplayer - Fixed a bug where the skills was not saved/loaded correctly - Fixed so chests aren’t empty when looted - Fixed bug where it sometimes was possible to talk to Ira in the middle of the first wave, triggering the boss too early
👊Earlier demo improvements this month:
MKB Aim & Controls: Player character now turns towards mouse position when in combat. Standard control scheme for Keyboard & Mouse is changed to make it easier to dodge + cast skills, (dodge bu taping the right mouse button)
MKB Ability casting: Using an active ability that shoots a projectile is changed so that pressing the ability button (number 1, 2, 3, or 4) starts to aim the ability and is then fired by pressing the left mouse button
Controller ability casting: Using an abilities that shoots a projectile is now fired by releasing the aim ability button (LB)
Class UX: UI/UX for Human Class skills now have a skill-tree style structure with multiple Skill Tabs (2 for now per Human Class).
Playable Creatures: Scaptor and Ramox creatures can now be played in the demo, if found and defeated in “Guard Missions”.
Skills: New and improved (VFX, balancing) skills for humans and beasts to try out!
Inventory Overview: Player can now view items in inventory by category, and items are automatically sorted by level (highest to lowest)
Inventory Tabs: The inventory is now expanded with two tabs/boxes that can be switched between (more tabs/boxes can be added later on if needed).
Saving: It’s now possible to save the game and character progress.
Map look: New VFX shader for the map
Video Tutorials: Tutorial pop-ups now also have a video that shows how the player should do certain things. The tutorials are now closed with the button it wants you to press instead of E on keyboard and Y on controller.
Difficulty: Now higher difficulty also gives higher chance for rare drops (description in-game updated as well)
🔧Fixes - Worked on making it more responsive to perform active abilities for Human Class skills and Beast Mastery skills - Moved tutorials to the side, not to obstruct the player too much - Fixed issue where character choice in main menu can be ignored - Moved Chief Arjun (Guard mission quest giver) so the guard missions primarily are found if exploring the city - When host ends a multiplayer session, the joined in players no longer get stuck in a loading screen - Players can no longer move while equipping gauntlets cutscene plays - Fixed a bug where the aiming behaved weird. This was very annoying
🖊️In progress/Known Issues - Issue where players can get stuck in loading screen when defeated in a Guard Mission (hard to replicate) - Issue where the game gets very slow when too many enemies are engaged in Guard Mission, that can disconnect an online game session - Map VFX can sometimes not work on certain computers, only UI is visible - Class Skill Tabs still being worked on, some of them now have very few skills - Working on changing so Passive Skills have circular frames while Active Skills have rectangular frames to make them more distinct from each other
