We told you we wouldn't be updating Johnny anymore, before the full launch. But surprise - we did!
After fixing a very annoying bug - Johnny getting stuck on stuff - we decided to give you guys a bit more than just a bug fix. Starting today, Johnny is in Arcade Play Madness Mode until full launch - that is, from March 15th to April 6th 2017. This means you can use ALL the gun spells right from the start. After full launch, you'll have to earn most of them.
We've also added a bunch of new stuff:
-a tutorial
-another Chinatown level
-a new, better model for Johnny
-all the gun spells
-2 new enemies
On top of this, you'll get a glimpse of the polishing we're doing. We've improved the combat feel, graphics quality and object fading, among other things. There's still a lot of polishing to be done, but the work has started.
Go try the Arcade Play Madness Mode - blast them, freeze them, destroy them! And after you're done, please come back and let us know how it was. Did you enjoy it? What was the best part? What sucks? Is Johnny hot, or do you like the cultists better? Anything helps!
Happy gaming!
TESTING STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS, WOOHOO!
Hi, all ːsteamhappyː
We're testing Steam achievements. They'll probably become visible on Steam during this time, but they will not actually be available for players until the full launch. You get to check them out, though!
Thanks for your patience, you magnificent creatures!
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Johnny's Awakened in our January update!
Johnny is now Awakened and has more magic skills right from the start of the game. In the Subway tunnels, you can use blink, shoot several enemies with one ricochet shot, destroy a fast enemy with an arcane missile, or explode monsters with a ground shot. Later on, you'll unlock an endothermic shot - and there's more to come in the full launch!
After finding his way out of the subway tunnels, on his way to St. Mary's cathedral, Johnny has to walk through Chinatown and fight the imps. Those little jerks throw bombs at him and keep blinking away from under his aim. And you thought you hated the spiders...
We know, the game is hard. It's supposed to be. But sometimes it's been hard for the wrong reasons - some of you have experienced lagging, and sometimes trees or buildings prevented you from seeing Johnny. For this update, we've improved the performance, and added object fading technology to keep your line of sight clear.
On top of this, we've been improving the particle effects, rebalancing gameplay, and making new camera runs. Even though there are still levels and features to add, the polishing work has also begun.
Next big update will be full launch! If you haven't bought the game yet and would like to get it for the EA price, you'd better hurry.
WHY HAVEN'T YOU PLAYED OUR GAME?
Hey you! Yes, YOU! We're doing some research, and it would help us immensely if you'd answer this question for us:
If you have our game (Johnny Graves - The Unchosen One) but haven't played it or even installed it, why is that?
a) I'm waiting for full launch!
b) I got it in a bundle. Who knows, maybe I'll play it someday.
c) I totally forgot I had it! I'll definitely play it, first chance I get.
d) I bought it by accident.
e) Other (elaborate in the comments, if you like)
Thank you so much for your feedback! ːsteamhappyː
January Update
It's 2017 and the full release is getting closer. We plan on doing at least one regular Early Access launch, probably after January, and then focus all our effort on the final version of the game. The update will include an upcoming level, as well as more Gun Spells to blast enemies with.
We’ve also been reworking the game’s narrative. We want to tell the story of Armageddon, the families of Hell and their impact on the world. With the early Johnny Graves story line it was hard to communicate all the things happening in the background. We like Johnny but he is only one part in a large, moving universe. We’ve refocused on what really matters in the story, and we believe the new approach will make the game come alive like never before.
The Necromancer ebook was also recently released, and we strongly recommend it! It serves as a standalone novel as well as sets the scene for the events of Johnny Graves – The Unchosen One.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7K4P31
Since the story overhaul will affect the whole game from start to finish, it won’t be included in the regular Early Access update. It simply wouldn’t make sense to update parts of the dialogue into the existing one as they are being made. However, as a teaser to the new Johnny, you’ll have access to multiple Gun Spells right from the beginning. For those that haven’t defeated the bosses yet, there’ll be some more firepower to even the playing field!
Update from Game Lead
Johnny has been in early access for about six months now. During this time we've received some great feedback from you guys. We've reworked, tweaked and altered many things based on the things we've heard the Early Access players comment. This has helped us take some large steps forward, and closer to the final, finished version of the game.
Thanks to the Early Access model, we've been able to identify and fix many potential problems early on, as well as discover what players have particularly enjoyed in Johnny, so we can emphasize those elements in the future. The community feedback also makes it very clear which bugs are the highest priority to you, so we know to tackle those first (*cough* shooting at trees *cough*).
One of the first recurring comments during the first Early Access level was the brief length of the game relative to the price tag. Many felt that it should be longer for what we were asking, and we agreed. We've since lowered the price and focused on releasing more playable content, putting a priority on level development over gameplay development and most other things. Now that the fourth level, the Station, is out, we are content with the amount of time you can expect from Johnny at this stage of development. This means we can focus more of our efforts into improving the gameplay again - new spells coming soon!
We do want to keep our players happy, so we've been aiming to release an update every month or two. So far we've been able to stick to our schedules, even though something unexpected seems to be lurking around every time a release is getting closer. But we've learned we should rather cut some features from the release and postpone them to the polishing stage of development, than keep delaying the new content for players.
While having a tight update schedule definitely adds more pressure to the development team, and we can't always give all the levels the love we want to before release, it has allowed us to iterate things like the core combat mechanics over and over, slowly creating the gameplay experience we want it to be. That experience should be a real challenge, a learning curve that keeps you on the edge of your seat until you beat that one boss, and a rewarding feel of success when you do. We want you to finish the game, but we want you to work for it. How do you think we've succeeded so far?
-Eelis Aaltonen, Game Lead
Golem
The Golem was a monster we wanted to create as the main working horse of the Crimsons, who are the current lords of Hell. The idea was that it was constructed from flesh and magic around a steel-expanded skeleton and packed an immense punch, capable of stopping trains. It's power is put to use in a multitude of ways in Hell, but they're mostly used for heavy lifting.
After the initial concepts I moved the production to 3D-Coat and started sculpting. Lots of the creative work ended up being done in the sculpting phase and that took around a week. Next I got into retopology and dropped the vertex count of the model from around 16 million to 15 thousand. I started with using the automatic retopology tools in 3D-Coat and swapped over to the manual tools for a few days. I triangulated the model in Blender and made sure the silhouette was solid from all angles.
The texturing was mostly done in Substance Painter. This included a lot of creative work and evaluation about how we could make it read well in the environments we'd put it in. This stage took about a couple of days.
The last phase for me was rigging and skinning, and I used Blender's Rigify tools to give me a base skeleton, to which I added some extra bones, and let it generate a rig for me. I love how quick Rigify makes rigging, it really saves an immense amount of time and the rigs it generates are great for our purposes. Generating the rig took about an hour, and fixing the automatic vertex weights took the rest of the day.
Next we handed off the model to our animator and after he was finished, we set it up in Unity to replace our "Box Golem", which was literally made out of three boxes for prototyping purposes. It's great to see the team effort turn into a finished monster in the game! ːsteamhappyː
The picture was rendered in Blender using Cycles. Feel free to use it as a wallpaper and thanks for reading!
