I’ve had a pleasure to work with some really great game designers in my past as well. One of the things that I’ve noticed them to have in common, is attention to the small details. In a way, I’ve started to think myself that the separation between good and great games actually comes from these small details that add something extra to the game.
We are also trying to get our does of small details into the game. These may not have impact on gameplay but really add to depth of the experience.
Some of the small details that we’ve added lately are custom idle animations for NPCs as well as arrows that stuck to the target.
NPC IDLE ACTIONS
When not in combat, our NPC characters mostly wander around in defined patrol paths or stay on place guarding some things. There might be bit differing pace on which they do things, but it has been very much basic and all about functionality. However, we wanted to add immersion to this. We wanted situation where enemy might sit down by campfire to have a lunch or stop by machinery to fix it. Now the game has support for it, and we really like the depth it adds to the NPCs.
You can see the example of this on the following picture, where one of the Northlander engineers is fixing machinery, while others are watching over and hurrying him up.
ARROWS STICKING ON TARGET
Other small detail that we added lately was that if characters get hit by arrow, the arrow don’t just disappear but instead stays on the position it hit.
So if you go fishing some roosterfish, you can now see your favored tool!
Friday Rewind #15: Greetings from E3
Hi all,
We've been having our weekly posts on our devblog for a while already. Now, due to good suggestion from some of our community members, we've decided also share those updates here as well.
Friday Rewinds are all about taking look bit back (usually week or two) and going through some things that have happened then. Most often these are about new features or improvements we have been working on. Feel free to also check the earlier Friday Rewinds at our devblog. We might also post some of those here in future as well.
E3
Last week was E3-week and we were there with a mighty 3-man strike force. Only one of us was able to visit the showfloor for a few minutes, as we were tucked away in a cold office spacey cubicle presenting the game non-stop for the press!
The feedback was very positive and people were really excited about our little game. It was also a big thing for us as a team to be able to showcase our baby at THE gaming event!
Some initial impressions from the press:
Cereal Killerz (german) "Iron Danger would be a good game with no time manipulation, with an interesting and appealing setting, but the timeline is the deciding factor that makes the title a mesmerizing game that breaks the whole genre of the dungeon crawler and repackages it with strategic puzzle mechanics"
RPGamer (english) "It’s only been one day on the E3 show floor, but I have a strong feeling Finnish developer Action Squad Studios’ tactical RPG Iron Danger has done enough to mark itself out as one of standout titles as the show."
Gamers Global (german) "the gameplay is not only new, not innovative and unique, it is above all - clever"
Also we received yet another Best of E3 nomination which warmed our hearts! (This in addition to the nomination from RPGFan.com that we mentioned on last week's post).
We implemented an in-game save system (more on that later), we also made water put out fire from burning characters and disable active fire magic effects as well as added some additional VFX for characters walking in / on it.
We do love working on water. There is always something to add to it...
Iron Danger devblog up and running
We have lately started Iron Danger development team blog at https://irondanger.com/devblog/
We aim to have at least one weekly post each Friday, going through what has been added and changed in the game lately. In addition there will be more detailed features about some of the things.
So if you are eager to read more details on how the game is getting into shape to be released, you should check that out.
Taking in applications for closed alpha testing + new trailer
We are happy to announce that we are aiming to start closed alpha testing by the end of October. For that, we have started to take in applications to participate.
The detailed instructions of testing and how to apply, can be found from Iron Danger’s Discord server at https://discord.gg/8tDbuU
So, if you are eager to already give a try to Iron Danger in it's alpha state, that is where you should head to.
To celebrate the alpha, we have also released a new trailer for the game. Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/7Ed-dusPFnk
Iron Danger at Gamescom (+new video material)
We will be showcasing Iron Danger at Gamescom 2018.
We will have a booth with playable pre-alpha version that you can come to try out.
So, come to play the game and say hi to us in the case you are coming to Gamescom.
We have also released a gameplay video from the version we will use in Gamescom. It'll be showing the combat mechanics more in-depth, and should give you more insight to time manipulation. So have a look at it!
