As we near closer and closer to the end of the 2024, everyone at Titan Roc is going to be taking some time off, to get some much needed rest.
We've had another incredible year with the development of Vahrin's Call, and you'll all be pleased to know that the end is now on the Horizon.
As always, we want to thank each and every one of you for your constant support and patience, as we work tirelessly to push Vahrin's Call over the finish line.
To have such an enthusiastic and passionate community backing us, even before our game has released, is nothing short of amazing. We are immensely grateful and feel incredibly lucky to have so many of you that have stuck with us for all these years.
With that being said, everyone on the Titan Roc team would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Make sure to relax over the holidays, spend lots of time with your loved ones and prepare to come back strong in January.
We've got a very busy year ahead of us and we can't wait to show you all what we've got in store.
Is 2025 the year of Vahrin's Call?
Happy Holidays, we'll catch you all next year!
- The Titan Roc Team
Wishlist Vahrin's Call in Germany!
Howdy everyone, hope you're doing fantastic as always! Just a quick update today, for all of you who are based in Germany.
Due to some recent changes, games listed on Steam are now required to have an age rating in order to comply with German law. As a result, Steam has de-listed all unrated games on the German market. Up until very recently, this included Vahrin's Call.
That being said, we've managed to sort things on our end and so the Steam page for Vahrin's Call can now be accessed again in the German region.
Thank you to everyone who made us aware of this issue.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and look forward to sharing more info on the game's development with you all soon!
- The Titan Roc Team
An Update on the Development of Vahrin’s Call
Howdy everyone! Hope you're all doing well as always.
The last 6 months have been some of the busiest to date, for everyone here at Titan Roc. Much like all of you, we're itching to get Vahrin's Call over the finish line and into your hands, and we've been hard at work this year, pushing towards that goal.
While we don't have a release date that we're ready to share just yet (soon, we promise!), we do want to update you all on the current state of Vahrin's Call, as well as what still lies ahead for the remainder of the game's development.
Without further ado, let's dive in!
A Story-driven RPG
As I'm sure all of you know, Vahrin's Call is a story-driven, action RPG.
A big part of the game revolves around interacting with the various quirky characters you'll encounter on your journey, as you delve deeper and deeper into Vahrin's depths. With this in mind, we're putting a lot of effort into ensuring your interactions with these individuals are as meaningful and memorable as they can possibly be.
The introduction of voice acting in Vahrin's Call is one way we're looking to achieve this. Implementing fully voiced characters over the last year, has been a monumental task, to say the least. With such a tiny team, we're all wearing multiple hats to ensure the game reaches its maximum potential and delivers on the best experience possible.
That being said, we couldn't be happier with how the voice acting has come together!
Each person that you'll stumble across in the world now has their own unique voice, adding to their character and creating a greater sense of immersion as you traverse the land.
NPCs in the game have also seen additional updates and improvements since the end of 2023, that are helping to bring them to life. This includes, but is not limited to countless new animations and expressions to sell their most emotional moments.
Above all else, we want you to have fun and look forward to what compelling characters you'll meet around the next corner; whether you're braving the depths, seeking to liberate the citizens of Vahrin, or helping out the locals with their personal problems.
We can't wait for you all to discover exactly who still inhabits this largely abandoned city!
Creature Feature
While you're out exploring open fields, deep caves, abandoned city streets and more, you'll stumble across all manner of beasts and creatures, threatening to end your adventure prematurely.
They are a big part of the game, helping the world to feel alive, while also providing fresh and exciting combat and a new challenge around every corner.
AI, art, visual effects, sound effects and animations have all been updated on a variety of these enemies over the last year. As a result, they are now finally feeling like the ferocious, spine tingling, or in some cases, adorable entities that we had always envisioned them to be.
Tying into this are the world's bosses, the more challenging foes you'll typically discover at the end of a new area/story chapter.
We've been a little hesitant about showing off these enemies, as we don't want to spoil the game for you all, but we're hoping to give you more of a sneak peek soon.
We're really happy with the improvements that have been made to all of these fearsome foes so far, and they'll only continue to develop more and more over the coming months.
Tying Together Combat Mechanics
We just talked about how there are countless threats in the world, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on the next lone mercenary that stumbles across their path. So, how will you deal with them?
Well that's entirely up to you!
As many of you likely know, Vahrin's Call has a classless system. At no point will you be locked into playing a certain way, based on a decision you made at the start of the game. After customising your character's appearance, you'll be free to develop and upgrade them as you wish, based on the skills, spells and items you find throughout the world and the activities you perform.
With this in mind, we've been working to tie together and polish many of the systems that make up the combat in Vahrin's Call.
Weapon abilities are unique skills that you can discover, unlock and purchase on your journey. While coming with a higher stamina cost, they have certain advantages over standard weapon attacks. The shield slam, for example, deals damage and also knocks down enemies.
There are a range of abilities for each type of weapon in the game, whether you have a preference for big, bulky warhammers or a more defensive playstyle that makes use of a shield.
Magic is another big part of the combat in Vahrin's Call. While traversing the world, you'll come across a range of different spells, each providing a unique passive or aggressive effect, that can be utilized to ensure you make it out of the city in one piece.
The Spell Mastery system in our game will allow you to upgrade your spells through continued use. This adds an extra layer to customisation and allows you to further personalise your chosen playstyle.
As an example, you might discover a new, area of effect fire spell. If you prefer a more fast-paced playstyle, then you may initially prioritise upgrading the spell's casting speed and cost, ensuring you can use it quickly and more often.
On the other hand, if you're a fan of pulverising your enemies with big, heavy damage, then upgrading the area of affect and damage first, may be better suited to you.
We've been hard at work on this system throughout 2024 and we'll be sure to show it off in more detail, closer to the game's release. We can't wait to see all of you mages experiment with it!
A New User Interface
We'll keep this section short, but sweet.
UI is likely not the first thing that springs to mind when you think of a game. However, it's an integral piece of the puzzle that, when done right, will ensure you're able to navigate the game's menus with ease, and have all the necessary information presented to you in an easy to understand and intuitive way. It's something we've spent a lot of time on this year, and so I think it's worth mentioning.
We are now going for a more simplified style for the user interface in Vahrin's Call, that prioritises ease of access and is instinctively easy to navigate.
The art and functionality for many new menus, has now made its way into the game. It's super exciting being able to fully interact with all the vendors in the world.
As always, these screenshots are very much a work in progress, as we continue to refine and improve everything to the best of our ability; but we wanted to provide you all with an update on it nonetheless.
Preparing for the Final Push
There are many other areas of Vahrin's Call that have been polished over the course of 2024, that we haven't covered in this post, but we wanted to take today to just cover most of the key changes that have been made.
We've spent much time this year ensuring that all of the game's elements have a solid foundation, allowing us to now enter our final polish phase and start bringing everything up to a gold standard, ready for release.
It's an incredibly exciting period in development for us, as we start to bring in playtesters to help us finalise the game.
We're looking forward to sharing more info with you all over the coming months, as Vahrin's Call nears closer and closer to the finish line.
And that will conclude today's update!
As always, we want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support and patience. We know how frustrating it can be to have to wait so long for a game to release, especially for our long-term supporters who have been waiting years to finally dive into this hand crafted, high fantasy world.
Just know, not a day goes by where we aren't working our butts off to get Vahrin's Call into your hands. The wait is almost over!
Thank you all once more and we'll catch you again soon.
- The Titan Roc Team
Vahrin's Call is still in development!
Hi everyone! Hope you're doing well, it's been some time since we last spoke.
First of all, we would like to thank all of you for your ongoing interest in our upcoming story-driven RPG, Vahrin's Call. We appreciate your patience more than you realise, as we work tirelessly to get this game over the finish line and into your hands.
As some of you have pointed out, we have been absent from Steam for a while. Our last update on the game's progress was posted here in December of 2023, and so, we wanted to take some time now to reassure all of you that Vahrin's Call is still in development and is progressing smoothly!
We have been hard at work this year and the game is now closer than ever to completion.
So, why the lack of Steam updates?
Well, to be fully transparent with you all, we've been incredibly busy, and an unfortunate consequence of this is that we've let our communication slip.
Much like with our dev logs, we thoroughly enjoyed sharing the game's development with you all last year. Posting updates to our Steam page allowed us to give you a deeper insight into how the game was progressing, while also giving you something a little extra to look forward to every week.
However, at the end of 2023, we came to realise posting with that level of frequency was not going to be feasible moving forward. As we near closer and closer to the game's release, we find ourselves increasingly busy, polishing up everything we can to deliver on the best experience possible. While it's most certainly a positive that the majority of our attention is focused on getting Vahrin's Call finished, it unfortunately means we're unable to dedicate as much time to sharing updates on the game's progress.
With that being said, we don't want it to sound like we're making excuses!
Clear and consistent communication with our community has been a priority for us, ever since we first started sharing the game with you all, back in October of 2020. We had intended to provide an update to Steam on how things were going, but it just kept getting pushed down the line, and for that, all we can do is apologise. We are sorry!
As I'm sure many of you know, there are only a small handful of us working on Vahrin's Call, and this our very first game, so we're still learning a lot on-the-go. We're going to make mistakes from time to time, but we will strive to learn and improve.
So, what happens next?
As always, we will continue posting regularly to all of our social media pages, nothing changes there. If you are interested in seeing some of the changes we've made to the game since the end of 2023, that's the place to be! > Vahrin's Call Linktree
As for things here on Steam, all we can say is that we will ensure to provide you with more consistent updates moving forward. How frequently I cannot say, but we'll make sure to keep you all in the loop as best as we can.
Though you can expect another post soon that covers a range of the changes and improvements we've made since the end of 2023~
Thank you for your ongoing support as always, and we look forward to sharing more info with you soon!
- Titan Roc Team
2023 Draws to a Close
Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone, wherever you might be out there in the big wide world!
As 2023 slowly draws to a close, everyone here at Titan Roc is preparing for a much needed 2 weeks of rest, before coming back strong next year.
We wanted to take this time to thank all of you for your continued support. Vahrin's Call has come such an incredibly long way since its inception, and it really is a pleasure to have such a supportive community that's interested in our game.
We especially want to thank all of you for your patience, as we work tirelessly to get Vahrin's Call into your hands. We absolutely love sharing the game's development with you all, but we fully realise that many of you just want to be able to play it now.
All I can ask is to trust us when we say we're trying our very best to get the game released as soon as we can, while ensuring it delivers the best experience we can possibly offer.
Unfortunately, game dev can take a hell of a long time, especially with such a tiny team, but everything will be worth it once you're finally able to dive into our world.
So, once again, thank you all for your patience and sticking with us!
We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and we will catch you again in 2024 :) Take care, everyone!
- The Titan Roc team
What Makes a Good Game Tutorial?
Hey there :)
I hope you're all doing swell and are ready to dive into today's post with me! Buckle up, it's a long one.
"What makes a good game tutorial?" is a question we've had to answer while working on Vahrin's Call.
Our tutorial has changed many times over the game's development cycle and through much re-working and refinement, we now finally have a tutorial we are happy with.
Before we get to the current tutorial though, I want to talk about some of our older iterations. I think it would be interesting to discuss how the tutorial for Vahrin's Call has evolved over time and more importantly, why we believe the final version works much better than our previous ones.
So without any further ado, let's dive in!
The earliest tutorial we have footage of is one that you may recognise, as we talked about it almost 3 years ago now in one of our earliest dev logs: Vahrin's Call Dev Log #02
In this version, you found yourself in a small, isolated and overgrown area, alongside one of the main protagonists. This character served as your guide, teaching you the basic controls of the game.
As this tutorial was focused on 'learning-by-doing', this character would tell you how to do something and then you would be required to do that thing in order to progress to the next part of the tutorial.
We liked this approach, as it ensured you were being taught everything you needed to know, early on. We were focused on teaching you everything at the very beginning of the game, as we didn't want you to be confused about the controls mid-way through your adventure.
Additionally, we believed that forcing you to perform an action in order to move on was a good way of ensuring you knew what each button did moving foward.
"forcing" is an important word to remember as we continue..
While this tutorial functioned as intended and was successful at teaching you the basics of the game, it was incredibly hand-holdy. Slowly progressing through the tutorial and not being able to go at your own pace felt like you were being babied, resulting in quite the frustrating experience.
Moreover, we found that by having the tutorial take place in its own seperate area, we were taking too long to get you into the action. It reinforced the feeling of "Ugh okay, let's get this tutorial over and done with so I can move on and get started with the actual game."
Integrating the tutorial into the first area of the game (the Barathrum Forest), and having it flow smoothly with the gameplay was our next objective.
Introducing tutorial number 2!
This is the tutorial that stuck around for the longest time, as we found it to be a significant improvement from the previous iteration.
As I mentioned, we aimed to integrate this tutorial into the the Barathrum Forest. We used the same pop ups from the previous tutorial (after a visual upgrade) and set them to appear on screen as you progressed through the area.
This approach felt much smoother. You were no longer required to press a certain button or perform a specific action in order to move on, you could now progress at your own pace.
Having a much larger area to work with also meant we had more freedom to teach you everything you needed to know about the game, and adjust the pacing of the tutorial for a more natural experience.
So! A much better method than the first...but not without its flaws.
While we were happy with the pacing of the tutorial and how it was now a part of the first area in the game, the problems arose around the pop ups themselves.
Each tutorial pop up in the world would appear on screen when you entered an invisible trigger box. It would then remain on screen until you left this box.
One of the trigger boxes, visible in editor- As the trigger boxes are invisible in gameplay, we found that players would unintentionally exit and re-enter the box, causing the pop ups to constantly disappear and reappear on screen. This was distracting and annoying, especially during sections that involved combat.
Furthermore, we found that the pop ups didn't need to be on screen at all times while in the box; as after you had read the pop up and got all the information you needed, it was now just unnecessarily taking up space on your screen.
We considered some solutions to these problems, but in turn they would create other problems.
Setting the pop ups to only appear on screen for a set amount of time after entering the box, would not allow us to account for the variable speeds at which players read.
Setting the pop ups to permanently disappear after you leave the invisible box would solve the issue of them constantly disappearing and reappearing when you exit and enter the box again, but it doesn't prevent them from staying on screen unnecessarily long. It also stops you from being able to go back and re-read info from a part of the tutorial, if you forget something and need a refresher.
*breathes*
Now, if that all sounds overly complicated to you, then don't worry! We were thinking the same thing, and it's this that lead us to the current and final version of our tutorial, a much more simplified approach which we think works much better than those that came before it.
As you traverse the Barathrum Forest, you'll notice mysterious signs placed around the environment, and reading these signs will give you info on how to play the game.......and that's it!
This approach is incredibly simple compared to the other ones we talked about, but aims to cater to all types of players, by giving you full control over when you view the tutorial information.
Text will no longer appear on screen when it doesn't need to, you can read all of the information at your own pace, and you can revisit any of the signs at any point, if you need a refresher on something.
Whether you're the kind of person to meticulously follow a tutorial to make sure you fully understand everything, or you prefer to figure things out entirely on your own, with this the choice is left up to you.
And I think we will leave it there! This was a bit of a long one and I fear I'll drive you insane if you have to read the words "pop up" or "tutorial" again. Congratulations if you made it all the way to the end!
I want to know what you guys think though. Do you tend to follow tutorials or do you like to dive in and figure out everything by yourself? And what do you think of the approach we went with in the end?
Either way, thank you all very much for stopping by as always and we will catch you all again next Friday for our final post of the year!
Cheers all~
Time for a Weather Report!
Happy Friday all!
I can't believe we're in December already. Are you guys getting into the festive spirit? Hope you've managed to get all your Christmas shopping done!
From time to time we receive questions about the weather system in Vahrin's Call, and while many of you probably have a good understanding of what kind of weather the game features, I bet not many of you know what the world of Leyda looked like before this system was introduced.
In the grand scheme of things, the introduction of dynamic weather to world is very new. However, it may suprise you to know that originally not even a day/night cycle was planned to be a part of the game, as the entire story used to take place in a single night.
This was long ago, before we started sharing the game's development with you all, back when the game was still called, "Exodus: Rising". I wonder how many of you remember that name?
Anyway, back to the weather system!
Dynamic weather in Vahrin's Call offers up a breath of fresh air when exploring the world. From bright and sunny, to torrential downpour and everything in between, it's nice exploring these fantastical areas at different times of the day and in different weather conditions.
While the weather in Vahrin's Call doesn't impact gameplay - it's purely cosmetic - one of the benefits of being a semi-open world is that we can more easily cater each area in the game to have specific weather conditions, to better match the atmosphere we're trying to deliver in that location.
We're excited to see you dive into the areas we've been keeping behind closed doors, and unravel the mystery of what has befallen the once great city of Vahrin!
Before I go, as this was more of a laid-back post taking a little look at the weather system in our game, I'm curious as to what your favourite weather conditions are! Do you like it when it's sunny, snowy, rainy, stormy, foggy? Do you prefer certain weather in games, compared to real life? Let me know!
I think next week we'll take a look at our new in-game tutorial, so be sure to stop by and check it out~
Have a good weekend all!
Weapon Abilities in Vahrin's Call
Howdy all! Hope you're all doing great as usual :)
This week, I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about weapon abilities in Vahrin's Call.
By now, you've likely seen some of the weapon abilities you'll be able to get your hands on in the game, but what exactly are they, how do they work and how can you unlock them? That's what I wanted to discuss in today's post!
Let's start off with what exactly weapon abilities are.
To put it simply, they are special attacks that you can use with any melee weapon you have equipped. While they can often offer more utility in combat than normal melee attacks, they do come at a high stamina cost, so you'll find yourself being able to use them more frequently without getting tired, as your character develops.
There are 4 unique sets of weapon abilities in the game, and which ones you use will differ depending on the weapons you have equipped:
Greatsword abilities - Available with any greatsword
Great axe/great hammmer abilities - Available with any Great axe or great hammmer
Shield abilities - Available when using any one-handed weapon with a shield
Dual wield abilities - Available when using two of any one-handed weapons, simultaneously
Additionally, every weapon ability in the game is different and comes with its own benefits in combat.
One greatsword ability, for example, may focus solely on dealing big damage at a close range, whereas another may deal little damage, but cover a larger distance and briefly stun your enemy.
So! Now that we have an understanding of what weapon abilities are. how do we use them?
Well, upon starting the game you'll have two weapon abilities automatically unlocked for every weapon. You can get your hands on more weapon abilities in the same way you get your hands on new weapons, armour, magic spells and consumables...by exploring the world!
Special attacks may come as part of a reward for finishing a side quest or for killing a certain enemy. You may discover some purely by adventuring off the beaten path, or by purchasing them in the shop.
As you progress through the game and delve further into Vahrin's depths, you'll have the opportunity to unlock stronger abilities, which will aid you in conquering the various foes you'll encounter.
Finally, how you actually activate a weapon ability while in combat is something that ties into our combo system, but I think we'll leave that for a future update, as we near closer to the game's release.
And that will conclude this post!
I know many of you have already seen these weapon abilities in gameplay before, but I felt it was important to cover them in more detail. Hopefully you now have a better understanding of what to expect from them when you dive into the world.
I hope you enjoyed today's read and we will catch you all once again next Friday!
Cheers all~
A Hand-Crafted High Fantasy World Awaits!
Howdy all! Hope you're all doing splendidly as always.
We've been getting a lot of new eyes on the game lately, which is absolutely fantastic to see. If you're reading this and you're new to our story-driven, high-fantasy world, Hello! Happy you found us :)
With that in mind, I wanted to take some time to clarify how story progression works in Vahrin's Call, as questions about how this works in our game are pretty common.
Most of you have probably heard us refer to the game as "semi-open" by now, but what does that actually mean?
Well! In Vahrin's Call you'll have a wide range of interesting areas to traverse on your adventure.
Some areas in the game are open, offering you the chance to discover hidden treasure, unlock new skills and spells, take on side quests and more. The sprawling farmlands of South Vale is a good example.
Other locations in the game provide more linear, dungeon-like experiences. These serve to progress the main story and push you further into the city's depths.
The crumbling caverns of the Aeternyte Mine, for example, are one of the key areas that will advance the main narrative and grant you access to other parts of the world.
With this in mind, how you choose to explore all of these areas is entirely up to you.
If you want to run through the open areas and load straight into the locations that focus on the main quest, then you're absolutely free to do so.
Alternatively, if you're like me and can't move on until you've searched every square inch of an area first, then feel free to spend as much time exploring as you like. There are many things to discover off the beaten path, after all!
Finally, you won't need to be concerned about side quests only being available for a limited time.
I know some of you were worried that after progressing a certain amount through the main story, certain side quests would no longer be available to accept. That's not the case though. All side quests in the game can be started and finished at any point. so if you would like to focus on the main story initially and check out side quests later down the line, you can do just that!
And that will conclude today's post!
I know some of you likely already had a good understanding of how the story progression and quest system works in Vahrin's Call, as it's something we've covered in the past, but I hope you learned a thing or two from this read nonetheless.
Wishing you all a lovely rest of your week, and we will catch you again next Friday!
Cheers all.
Dual Wielding
Hello Hello Everybody!
As the title suggests, today we're going to be taking a look at dual wielding in Vahrin's Call. I know many of you have been asking for this, so without any further ado, let's jump right in!
We've always wanted you to be able to dual wield weapons in Vahrin's Call. Our initial plan was to ship the game without this feature, and then introduce dual wielding as part of a free DLC, sometime after the initial release.
However, I'm sure you'll be happy to hear we've been working extremely hard to get it into the base game
In Vahrin's Call, you'll now be able to equip two of your favourite one-handed weapons to use simultaneously in combat.
As with every other weapon class, dual wielding also comes with its own set of unique weapon abilities, allowing you to further customise your approach to combat.
Dual wielding offers up a brand new playstyle, unlike anything else in the game. If you like your fast-paced, light-weight gameplay, but aren't interested in the defensive perks that you get with a shield, dual wielding might just be the perfect fit for you!
And don't forget! There are no classes in Vahrin's Call that restrict you to using certain weapons, items, spells or abilities. So why not experiment a bit?
We've been working on dual wielding for quite some time now and everyone on the team is really happy with how it's coming together. It's still a little unfinished, but it's already a ton of fun diving around and slicing through enemies before they even get a chance to speak.
Do you think you'll give dual wielding a go in Vahrin's Call? We'd love to know!
