[p]Hey all,[/p][p]Game development is slowly continuing. The news this time is that the release date will remain undetermined for another month. But the game is becoming more playable by the day![/p][p]The featured change in this post is "Aura gear": shortcuts to quickly access the game's features. [/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35157834/49099089cd55b323e26cfc8e754d28e1833a0b1f.png"][/p][p]Here are the new options available to the players:[/p]
[p]Press (key) to consume the highest healing value consumable from the inventory[/p]
[p]Press (key) + (key) to consume the highest aura replenishing consumable from the inventory[/p]
[p]Press (key) to swap the current weapon with another from the inventory[/p]
[p]Press (key) to cast a set primary spell from the spell ability list[/p]
[p]Press (key) + (key) to cast a set secondary spell from the spell ability list[/p]
[p]This completely revolutionises combat as it is now possible to heal, cast spells, and swap weapons effortlessly.[/p][p]These tools are highly versatile and can be applied in various ways.[/p][p]The next major change is combat speed-up! I have increased the speed of combat animations, movement, and weapons, so the game feels faster and more responsive than ever![/p][p]Other changes:[/p]
[p]Made bosses even more rewarding.[/p]
[p]Clearing overworld events now grants a significant amount of experience and some reputation.[/p]
[p]Improved HUD.[/p]
[p]Began working on a new way the UIs will be structured for easier access.[/p]
[p]Made health and aura regenerate faster.[/p]
[p]Turned another of the regular enemies into a boss.[/p]
[p]Added XP book merchant to Luma.[/p]
[p]Implemented glass mining and bottle crafting.[/p]
[p]Rebalanced Luma XP buying.[/p]
[p]Added item insurance! Pay a fraction of the item value to a new NPC and keep your items on death.[/p]
[p]Rebalanced certain items.[/p]
[p]And that's pretty much it. I am very proud of these changes, and I can't wait to implement more!
For over a month now, I have been very busy doing internal testing and fixing the game's most glaring issues! In this entry, I'll share favourite of the changes I made to the game.[/p]
Glaring issue #1: Game's too hard!
[p]The game's original difficulty mode is balanced around my, a developer's, personal tastes.[/p][p]That means for many people, it will be a tough experience, to put it lightly.[/p][p]And so I set out to remedy this by introducing 'Origins' or a fancy way to describe difficulty modes.
[img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35157834/aed228b433f075f0b35c099cc8f2ed9a7ea290ff.png"][TAG-10] There are three 'Origins':
Void's Chosen:[/p][p]Intended for people who want an undemanding experience, with interest mainly in the story[/p][p]Void's Chosen perks will ensure a smoother progress through tougher quest challenges[/p][p]+50% damage, accuracy, health, and aura![/p][p]+3600 guldens upon completion of the first quest.[/p][p]10 > 15 talent points[/p][p]Vastly reduced item insurance cost < work in progress feature >[/p][p]Start with three healing ointments.[/p][p]Start with higher power items[/p][p] Ordinary Drifter:[/p][p]No surprises here![/p][p]Start with 100 health and aura[/p][p]Unmodified stats[/p][p]The mode everyone who ever played LOTLW is familiar with!
Recession Kid:[/p][p]Ordinary Drifters got it too easy? Prove to them you're tough as nails to survive during a recession[/p][p]Start with reduced aura, meaning it's tougher to get around[/p][p]Get shoddy weapons and only a few coins at the start[/p][p]Gain only 50% > 25% of the item's value when selling an item[/p][p]Start with only 5 talent points[/p]
Glaring issue #2: No tougher combat challenges!
[p]Combat is good and fun, however, the game has lacked boss fights to encourage and reward players for being proficient in it.
And so I turned a bunch of enemies encountered into boss fights!
[img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35157834/fef1c09abf2d23365fa6f2951ea3c995a6f2f4a2.png"] Comes with good rewards and a fancy UI box as well![/p]
Glaring issue #3: Too much loot!
[p]Gameplay kept being interrupted by a need to either drop valuables or return to the talkstone chest/merchants to cash in the findings. The inventory simply isn't big enough for the amount of loot some of the areas contain.
The solution is a spell that remotely opens a talkstone chest![/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35157834/0fbb2ffb456939c83d3d86887b9e551ce7b44143.png"][/p][p]It is definitely on the mana-hungry side, but still, very useful to keep the adventures going![/p]
Glaring issue #4: Bows and staves suck!
[p]< SUCKS LESS AT LEAST >[/p]
Glaring issue #5: Combat audio is kind of weak!
[p]< FIXED >[/p]
Glaring issue #6: It's difficult to start multiplayer
[p]< WORK IN PROGRESS >[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35157834/f046d55dceeb00736e1cb253bee5c1520c6c2ad4.png"][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35157834/89a856ce49ed94b461a55a2460f03a05d95fe96c.png"][/p][p]Now, upon starting the game, the players are prompted to set up their controls and desired modes. Much better, though a lot remains to be done in this regard.[/p]
And more work-in-progress: Coming soon!
[p]Manual[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35157834/c29aae5521b51d85d4264622bb5c776ab8cccf47.png"][TAG-100][/p][p]Optimization [/p][p]< ANYONE struggle with FPS IN EASTERN TRILITH? YEAH, ME TOO >[/p][p]Hotkeys for quick heal/swap/spell/etc.[/p][p]< PRESS H FOR QUICK HEAL, PRESS L TO SWAP LOADOUT, that sort of thing >[/p][p]Economy update[/p][p]< New powerful items and services to deal with the overflow of guldens high-level players have >[/p][p]Inventory Rework[/p][p]< Drag 'N Drop items, sort, quick-stack, quick-deposit, quick-retrieve >[/p][p]Talkstone Chest 2.0[/p][p]< More and larger tabs! >[/p][p]Alchemy Recipe Book[/p][p]2x Zoom[/p][p]Side Quests[/p][p]Classes 2.0[/p][p]Unique Items[/p][p]More Capes ...
It's been a tough few months, but I'm happy to say I've managed to get through it! The final quest in Light of the Locked World's story campaign quest series is finished!
It's been a main hurdle preventing the game from being released.
I'd love to say that "LOTLW Launches Globally Month/Day 2025" - but first, I need to discuss the future of Light of the Locked World with the game's publisher.
Meanwhile, I'm running tests with my friends and we got a ton of ideas of how to continuously improve the game!
Hope to be back with more good news soon!
EDIT: Here's a few screenshots!
LOTLW Devblog #37: Towards the finale
Hey all,
I’m now a couple of months more in developing the game’s endgame area. It’s taking longer than average area because I’m throwing all my ‘creative budget’ at this one: This is *The Finale* after all.
That means the endgame area is receiving an entirely new tileset, with almost nothing being copied from other tilesets, fancy animations, dozens and dozens of assets, new mechanics, and new sources of XP...
I am happy to report however, that the progress done since the last update has been immense, and the exteriors of the endgame are nearly finished, I’m currently working on implementing new gameplay features. Spoiler warning: From here, the post will contain some details about the game's finale.
So, the endgame area may look like a city, but it’s more like a “dungeon” with 8 different ways to traverse through it and get to the endpoint of the story.
Reaching a very high or even max level in any of the 8 classes will unlock a method of traversal through a city. These can be mixed too, you may use one class to get through 2 of 4 class challenges and complete the other 2 using another class, for example.
How that works is that the city is divided into 4 “floors” / “layers” / “levels” and each of them has 5 class challenges + 1 for the three combat classes.
So you can choose a different class to progress through each of the “layers”.
However, I believe most players won’t have all classes maxed at this point game if what they did was simply progressing through the story.
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Class challenges vary in difficulty and complexity, so it should make for an interesting area.
Some of the challenges aren’t *just* one-time challenges, they are also new sources of the endgame amounts of XP, so it’s twice as cool!
To make all of this even more worthwhile, I have added a new equipment set as a reward.
Inspired by one of my favourite characters, Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, this armour set does not belong to any of the three combat classes.
Instead, it benefits purely from the curse chance, so it can be combined with a variety of equipment and weapons.
To obtain the full set, players need to complete the story, otherwise, the more class challenges a player completes, the more of the pieces can taken from a secret building called the Vault. What’s an endgame if it doesn’t have a secret or two?
It took a very long time to animate this armour, but I am happy to express my passion for alternative fashion and hyper-femininity.
After getting through this challenge, I went ahead to implement the rest of the items players will find in the city.
The more notable of these items are four new elixirs that can be crafted using a new alchemical ingredient. This expands the alchemist class and it makes it a lot more valuable to a player. The events are also very powerful, from negating an additional 20% damage to turning a player into a living weapon.
Besides the dozens of new items, features, and assets, I’ve also made a good number of audio, graphical, and QoL changes and fixes.
My audio guy, Bert Cole, has created new music tracks and sound effects which I implemented during this period.
I have improved how items behave when dropped, making loot drops more satisfying and practical. Also, made significant changes fixing several problems connected to how items were added to the inventories.
I have moved the game message log to the centre bottom of the screen putting the messages closer to everything else
I have made improvements to talkstone chest storage by changing where certain item times are stored, it makes more sense now. Also, once a specialized item storage is full the item will be deposited into ‘everything goes’ tabs, significantly increasing the practical size of the item storage.
I believe a couple of months more should be enough to have a beta version, 0.9.9, ready!
We will see if the game will be released soon after beta tests or it’ll be receiving an additional phase of polishing.
So, yeah, overall development has been going *great*!
Thanks for reading and until next time!
Demo update: Version 0.7.0 - And development update
Hey all,
I've just pushed a small demo update. It has a new small tutorial to help people start the game properly, new music, and main menu artwork. Maybe more, I honestly don't remember =P
Development update for the full version
SPOILER WARNING: Endgame and story spoilers.
It's been a couple of months since the last development update, so I want to briefly summarize what I'm working on.
Since LOTLW Devblog #36: The Stronghold, I have fully implemented the 9th story quest: Ordinary Ways.
This quest introduced a new area: Contingency Point No. 1, new consumable items, a "secret boss" with a very unique reward item, and a new ability.
After all of this, I began working on the endgame area of the game: The fallen city of Korrev.
It started on September 17th, when I designed the main area of the Korrev:
After that, I had to choose colors and themes for the city tileset.
I've settled on the "Dune City" tileset.
It may look a bit unimpressive in this mock-up, but once I've done it'll be much more detailed, colorful, and fitting for a melancholic city area.
This is how the building of the Korrev has been going:
After reaching this point with the Korrev progress, I have put it on hold to implement a small tutorial.
And now you've all caught up!
From now on, I'll be diving deep into the building, which I am quite excited to do!
Until next time!
New promotional artwork!
Hi all,
We're proud to unveil the new Light of the Locked World promotional artwork!
The artist for this piece is Mango Lizard, who has been making artwork for my games since 2016.
The development of the 9th main story quest has begun, I am currently working on a new area: Contingency Point No. 1!
Hope to have more news soon, until then!
Demo update! Version 0.6.7: Balance changes and new audio
Hey all,
I have released a small update to the demo today!
Change list:
Weapon rebalance: Changed weapon stats and doubled their damage to make combat more engaging.
New audio: Ambient SFX, crafting SFX, achievement SFX, door SFX, ...
Better faction rewards: Locul faction items now give more health.
Minor faction reputation changes: Bigger penalty for kills, Chaos faction reputation.
And there's probably more I've forgotten! It's been a long while since the last demo update...
Since the Steam changes, the players can now review demos, so please do that!
Also, a recently updated full version of the game is currently available on my Discord server. It has a whole new quest, a new overworld area, new weapons, new abilities, endgame rarity changes, and more!
Have fun and until next time!
LOTLW Devblog #36: The Stronghold
Hi all,
The development is progressing, and 8 of 10 main story quests have been implemented.
Since the last post, I've been working on a key location for the latest story quest: Order Stronghold.
It is sort of a 'bonus level' full of loot, lore, adventurer marks, and a new crafting station - a worthy reward after the challenge that is getting there and an entire seven-quest chain before it.
The main entrance
After battling the demons of Spellscarred Desert, the player will find themselves at the steel gate of Order Tempest. The key that opens it was given to them by a princess from the previous story quest.
The main building
Unfortunately, you need another key - to pass the second steel gate and enter the stronghold's main building.
Central sentry
Central sentry is the only enemy in Order Stronghold and is its most lethal guardian. The player can defeat it to gain a key to unlock the second steel gate. It's one of the game's toughest enemies and can be battled repeatedly, as it keeps respawning.
It also isn't hostile until the players attack it, so it's an optional fight.
The visuals of the sentry are not final, I'm planning to change it a bit to look more unique from other sentries.
The steel kiln
The Stronghold's unique steel kiln - found east of the central sentry - can create steel weapons from material obtained by fighting steel sentries.
The players can also craft steel gate keys here. That means the players can pass through the second steel gate without fighting the central sentry.
The warehouse
Located west of the central sentry, this building contains spare steel parts for steel sentries. Useful for crafting the new weapons!
It requires Adventurer level 20, an alchemical bomb, and an iron square key to get in. The iron square key can be found inside the main building.
So, let's head there!
The situation room
Right ahead of the entrance to the main building of the stronghold is a situation room, where the world-shaping decisions would be made by the members of the Order Tempest.
It is a lore room! Here you can see a table with the map of Rezelot, one side of Kayos, the Locked World. This map is 200 years old, so there are differences between this map and the one seen in the map UI.
There is one more noteworthy detail on the map, but that's up to the players to figure it out.
The key holder
Here the players will find a key holder, which holds four keys required to go through various locked doors in Order Stronghold.
The archives
The reason why the player character comes to the Stronghold is to access its archives.
This is where the 8th story quest concludes and where some of the most important details about the game's story are revealed.
* * *
So, that is all for this blog entry!
Now that the 8th quest is done, I'm taking a short break from quest development to update the Steam demo version with some balance changes and perhaps update the store page as well.
After that a very exciting part of the development is coming - the story's final quests!
I will be making the final boss, an endgame area - the fallen city of Korrev, and so much more.
Until next time!
LOTLW Devblog #35: Spellscarred Desert
Hey all!
Haven't posted an update in a while because I was struggling to keep productivity up and I'm going through a pretty turbulent period of my life.
I'm recovering from depression that made it quite difficult to do anything so making updates was a low-priority thing for a while.
Despite all that, I'm pretty proud of the progress I made in 2024, it may be some of my best work.
Let's get into it!
The initial idea
It all started with me deciding to work on the 8th story quest - Shadows That Remain.
This quest is supposed to take place in a stronghold somewhere in the lands ravaged by the King's Spell,
So I thought it would be cool to create a new overworld area and have the player explore it to find the stronghold.
The overworld area
LOTLW already had two large overworld areas - as I call them. They have been bothering me ever since I have implemented them.
Every overworld area has three mini areas where the overworld events take place. These mini areas are the source of my dissatisfaction: I made them quickly, so they are undetailed and very boring, not matching the quality of other areas I made.
Bad!
Mini areas do their job, but if I was going to make a new overworld area, I was not going to let the mini areas be as bland.
So at the beginning of this year, I quickly put together the overworld for Spellscarred Desert and began building the mini areas.
They have not turned out so 'mini' and have a lot of nice details.
Obsidian formations, craters, and dry grass for that post-apocalyptic look.
Not only do they look better and are larger for a more comfortable combat experience - they also are more rewarding than other overworld areas.
The players might find three tiers of loot chests and gold ore geodes for experienced gatherers to crack open.
Quick lore overview of the Spellscarred Desert: It's an area of the world that was ravaged by an apocalyptic spell that was allegedly unleashed by a king who was brought down by the rebellion, during the greatest war the world has seen.
The spider tank
With the 'mini' areas figured out, it was time to populate them with enemies for the player to challenge.
Instead of reusing existing enemy types like demons and rogues, I have decided to add an entirely new enemy type: Sentry, basically a spider tank.
They are denizens of sci-fi and cyberpunk genres, which I am currently drifting towards.
In the future, I plan to focus on sci-fi games, so I'm pretty glad that LOTLW was never *truly* fantasy: It has plenty of steampunk and industrial elements.
It would be pretty hard for me to work on a purely fantasy game at this point.
Anyway, sentries are autonomic military equipment brought to this world by the Order Tempest, a peace-keeping organization of this universe.
Order Tempest has not had a presence in this world for almost 200 years, but their machine soldiers still patrol the vicinity of their old headquarters - the central location for the new quest.
They are not aggressive to the player the first time the player encounters them, so it's up to them if they want to make sentries their enemies.
The abilities
Animating the sentries took weeks - it's my most ambitious enemy so far! It took quite a lot of iterations to get it right, but I'm very happy with the end result.
With animations in place, it was time to make my beloved spider tanks to show teeth - or to be more accurate, missiles!
What I mean is giving sentries the ability to attack the player.
It's the first archer-type non-human enemy, so making it attack and behave properly was a challenge.
As I said, it is an ambitious project: Sentries are equipped with three unique abilities: Shell, Missile Strike, and Spirit Breaker.
Spirit Breaker has been added to the player's arsenal as well, it has been attached to high-level weapons.
Steel sentries are not the only new enemy types in the Spellscarred Desert: There are also 3 variants of charred demons.
One of them - charred balloons - has also received a new ability: Dark Star Singularity. It's a mage variant of Spirit Breaker and it's probably my favorite of all the abilities I made.
Spirit Breaker fires an arrow that pierces enemies and dazes them, reducing their movement speed and making them easier to catch with consecutive attacks. The piercing property is especially useful when fighting more than one enemy at the same time because it deals damage to every enemy it will pierce.
Dark Star Singularity is similar to Spirit Breaker in the sense that it creates a piercing projectile. However, instead of a lethal arrow, it's a tiny exotic star! Summoning this unusual astronomic object to this reality creates a shockwave that deals damage to all enemies in range and prevents them from attacking for 3 seconds.
The demons
As I just mentioned, the player may encounter not only steel sentries but also demons in the Desert.
These are variants of demons encountered in other areas. They have been scaled up to match the intended difficulty of the Spellscarred Desert, which is an endgame area.
The loot
With the Desert populated with steel sentries, it was time to implement unique loot to make these tough new enemies worth fighting.
So here are the new items!
From left to right:
Steel parts Crafting material for crafting new steel weapons. Uncommon drop from steel sentries.
Reactor Neck accessory, crafting material for steel generator. Uncommon drop from steel sentries.
Steel generator New level 30 mage class weapon. For 'glass cannon' builds. Crafted from steel parts and a reactor. Comes with Dark Star Singularity ability.
Steel accelerator New level 30 archer class weapon. Behaves like a regular arc but is slightly faster, which makes it very powerful. Crafted from steel parts.
Steel cleaver New level 30 warrior class weapon. Has stats comparable to a two-handed melee weapon, but is one-handed. Crafted from steel parts.
Ability instructions: Dark Star Singularity Unlocks this ability. Tier 3 and Tier 4 reward: Found in high-level loot containers, dropped by high-level enemies.
Ability instructions: Spirit Breaker Unlocks this ability. Tier 3 and Tier 4 reward: Found in high-level loot containers, dropped by high-level enemies.
The stronghold and the quest
With loot implemented, now it is the time to work on the 'Shadows That Remain' quest, which will feature steel sentry as a boss encounter, unlock steel weapon crafting, and reveal the most important details of the story.
The quest will take place in the Order Stronghold area which is yet to be implemented, so I still have a lot of work to do for this set of content.
* * *
So that was my last three months!
Phew, it was a challenge to just write down all that, so I'm going to wrap up this update post right here.
Thanks for reading and until next time!
The development resumes!
Hi all,
As Magic of Spring - my other game - is going on hold, I am slowly returning to the rhythm of working on Light of the Locked World.
It's been two very long years and I'm excited to be back to this project!
For the next few months, I will be making three final quests in the game's story campaign - this will include new items, new enemy types, one new large area, a final boss, and so much more!
After the story campaign, the largest of the remaining tasks will be the Classes 2.0 update. I am planning to give every class a talent/perk/skill tree and fill them with interesting nodes.
The development blog should also resume shortly, so keep an eye on that for weekly development updates.
