We are proud to announce that in 2021 Njorun’s Will received an Epic MegaGrant from Epic Games! It helped us tremendously in our work and ultimately enabled us to finish and release the demo of Njorun’s Will!
Not only it gave us a motivational boost, but also directly allowed us to produce the hostile creatures for the demo, including their models and animations.
We are deeply grateful to the Epic MegaGrants and Unreal Engine teams at Epic Games for such support!
I’d like to let you know that in November-December 2022 we took part in Indie Cup Ukraine`22, a digital festival of the upcoming games being made by Ukrainian independent developers! Njorun’s Will was nominated for awards in 3 categories at the same, while the other great upcoming games won the awards!
We received a lot of valuable feedback from the jury of the contest and had a lot of fun watching some of the jury streamers play the game! We’d like to thank the contest jury and the organizers of the Indie Cup for their amazing work!
It’s been around a month since we released the demo of Njorun’s Will. We’d like to thank everyone who tried the demo, recorded or streamed their gameplay, and provided valuable feedback on their experience!
All this content and information allowed us to identify a number of problems that needed to be addressed and, as of now, we’ve already published 5 patches to the demo. Below is the summary of the changes that were introduced thanks to your input.
Additions and Improvements
Creatures now can be set on fire by flammable bollurs
The player’s melee hit now has better registration
Damage inflicted by thrown telekinetic objects is now better registered
The word “simultaneous” is visually added to the Tún gate instruction document to remind the players about this detail (in case the dialog line is missed and the task description is not read)
Texts “Saved” and “Added to Journal” are now displayed along the respective notification icons
Journal tutorial is now also available in the Training room and How to Play menu
The information about how the distance of the telekinetic push is changed depending on the object’s distance to the character is added to the Telekinetic Lift tutorial
An additional point in Main Menu called “How to Play Online” linking to an official Steam Remote Play Together page was added (it could be useful for the players who want to play the demo online but are unfamiliar with the feature)
Black screens presenting locations are now displayed for a shorter period of time
Level and Balance changes
Interval for periodic damage while stuck in goo is increased: 0.75 -> 1 second
Dungeon pillar activation time is increased: 6 -> 7 seconds
Activation of the dungeon pillars is now more noticeable
The quadrupedal creature now has less HP: 140 -> 100
The capsule size of the quadrupedal creature is decreased in size: height 112 -> 80, radius 80 -> 70 (it’s more nimble now in movements around the location)
The wormlike creature now has less HP: 100 -> 60
Tutorial information signs in the Training room now have better visibility (it’s more difficult to miss them now)
The recharge time for the “gas emitting platform” is increased: 5.5 -> 8 seconds
Automatic comments on receiving the first damage in water and in goo are removed
Damage from a thrown telekinetic object is increased: 10 -> 20
The velocity of the thrown telekinetic object is greatly increased (makes it easier to hit the target)
An additional box with flammable bollurs and a “gas emitting platform” are added to the second island in the docks area (it’s needed for the players to get familiarized with the flammable bollurs mechanic in a relatively “peaceful” environment)
The shield that was located in the starting docks is now removed (it’s not really needed at this stage, but it made players think it’s somehow required so they often carried it through the level)
Bug fixes
The demo can’t be accidentally finished now with a world map that doesn’t have a map point for traveling
The possibility for characters to mutually indefinitely lift each other with a single or two shields in its current form is removed (currently, this exploit totally breaks the game as it also allows hoverboarding horizontally over the location, essentially bypassing all the obstacles, puzzles and creatures)
Reviving a character a few frames before his death now doesn’t lead to “game over”
The shields now can’t fall under the ground in some rare situations
Players now can’t walk underwater in some rare scenarios
Falling telekinetic objects can’t deal damage anymore (only flying due to telekinetic push can)
The game doesn’t attempt to launch the Steam VR headset upon startup if it’s plugged in anymore
We will continue listening to your feedback and “sharpening the concept” of the game presented in the demo. We encourage you to record your play session and share it with us in some form so we could learn from you and improve the game.
Let us know what you think here or on our Discord Server!
At the moment, it can be played only with a controller
Local co-op is available. To play co-op online, please use Steam Remote Play together feature
English is the only language currently supported in the demo
Let us know about your gameplay experience on the Discord server!
Playing with Fire
Hi everybody, I’d like to show you several examples of the interaction with fire that are available in Njorun’s Will.
A flammable bollur serves as a temporary fire carrier: players can telekinetically manipulate it to bring the flame to the desired place.
A bottle with an explosive substance goes off when it gets close to the fire. An explosion deals damage to living beings and particular objects around it.
There is a certain type of gas that comes from beneath the ground - breathing it is extremely harmful. As you understand, gas can burn.
Also, water extinguishes fire.
These are some of the interactions inspired by the games having a systemic game design at their cores.
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Let us know what you think here or on our Discord Server!
Hi all, today I’d like to show you the concepts of the maps available to the players in Njorun’s Will - carefully updated and kept inside the journal by the Kaera scouts.
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The World map gives an overview of the geographical regions where the actions of the story take place: large islands belonging to the neighboring kingdoms - Ranrike and Vestmar.
As the players progress on their journey, new locations are added to the map and become available for traveling.
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Each major location has its own Local map, initially covered with the fog of war.
As the players explore the location, the map is gradually updated highlighting the area where the Kaera scouts are currently present. Some of the key elements of the location, such as important doors and Munen shrines, will be highlighted on the map as well.
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Let us know what you think here or on our Discord Server!
Hi all, today I’d like to tell you about a minor yet significant change to the way the saving/checkpoint system works in Njorun’s Will.
When the previous article “Saving isn’t Free” was written, I made a GIF post on Reddit (CoOp Gaming subreddit) focusing on the fact that the players need to use the limited resource to save the game. Interestingly, the saving mechanic presented in such a manner caused a serious backlash from the community stating that it will bring a lot of unnecessary stress and thwart lots of players from playing the game. There were a lot of concerns, great ideas, and suggestions expressed in the thread and ultimately they forced us to rethink the necessity of the “limited” saving mechanic.
The solution we came up with is pretty simple: the players still need a Munen stone to activate the Munen shrine and once it’s enabled, they can use it as many times as they want to save the game. In such a way, we keep the exploration part of the gameplay (locating the resource and getting it to the checkpoints to use them) while removing the stressful factor of not being fully aware of how many Munen stones (and saves) are still left available in the level.
Note: There is at least 1 Munen Stone per every Munen shrine in the level.
I am really glad the community reacted to the design idea and proposed the meaningful feedback and prompted us to do the necessary changes and, hopefully, improve the gaming experience.
Let us know what you think here or on our Discord Server!
Today, I’d like to tell you how the saving feature works in Njorun’s Will.
The key design principle behind it is that saving is actually a gameplay mechanic: the players need to make certain actions and decisions to save the progress in the game.
Munen Shrine
Numerous across the Vestmar Kingdom, the Munen Shrines represent pillars carved out of stone - the tips of the rocky formations.
Players can save the game by interacting with one of the Munen Shrines found around the location - to do it, players need to place a Munen Stone on the Shrine pillar and activate it.
Munen Stone
There is a limited amount of Munen Stones present around the location - they can be found in various places: stored in the barrels, hidden in houses, or lying out in the open. Once found and picked up by the player, it goes to the inventory.
Saving
Since Munen Stones are a limited resource, players need to think if it’s the right place and time for them to save the game. Once the decision is made, the Munen Stone is placed onto the Shrine from the inventory and players can proceed to activate it via a co-op interaction.
Through such a saving mechanic, we aim to add a bit of pressure and strategic thinking to this aspect of gameplay.
Let us know what you think here or on our Discord Server!
Today, I’d like to tell you how the saving feature works in Njorun’s Will.
The players first need to locate a Munen Shrine - a pillar, carved from the tip of the rocky formation. They are numerous across the Vestmar Kingdom, but only several of them can be found around the location.
For the Munen shrine to be activated, a Munen stone, the saving resource, has to be placed on the shrine pillar. There are as many stones around the location as there are shrines. Players can find such stones in various places: stored in barrels, hidden in houses, or lying out in the open. Once found and picked up by the player, the stone goes into the inventory.
Once the Munen shrine has a stone inserted into it, the players can save the game via a co-op interaction with it. From this moment, players can re-use the shrine as many times as they want so essentially it works as a checkpoint for them.
Let us know what you think here or on our Discord Server!
We would like to initiate a community collaboration to localize our Steam Page. At the moment, we would like to focus on the following languages:
Portuguese (Brazilian)
French
Italian
German
Spanish (Spain)
Japanese
Korean
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Turkish
Polish
If you are a native speaker of one of the aforementioned languages and you’d like to collaborate with us on localizing the texts of Njorun’s Will Steam Page, be free to join the initiative on the Localizor. Currently, there are 14 strings in total that need localization.
If you have any game or localization-related questions, join our Discord Community to discuss them in the corresponding channels.
Credits
All translators will be added to the game credits. Contact us on Discord and tell us your name (or nickname) you want to be displayed in the credits. You will also get a special "Localizer" role that’s going to be reflected in our Discord Community.
Later on, we will start the localization project for the Concept Demo itself.
