It’s a brand new year, so it’s time for some fresh dev update about Project Warlock II. The game's development is in full swing and you can see some of the things that we were working on throughout the Holiday season and beyond.
We’d like to start off by thanking everyone who joined our streams during the Winter Sale and on Twitch where Kuba presented the latest updates to the game. We also have the videos below, for those who’ve missed them.
Now let’s talk about some new monsters. This time we’ve got two new types of demons straight from hell to show you.
The Assassin and the Necrogirl are still work-in-progress, so let us know what you think!
We’re also taking the destruction to the next level by adding the ability to destroy environments using guns at your disposal. We hope it will make the gameplay more interesting and fun.
The UI changes are another thing on display. We’re working on a brand new interface for the map and Bestiary. These should provide much more clarity and also look much, much better.
These should provide much more clarity than their predecessors and also look much, much better.
Apart from the new things, we’ve also made a round of balance changes and tinkered quite a bit in level design.
We’re constantly trying to squeeze out as much from our ideas as we can and appreciate all your comments and feedback both here and on Discord.
See you next time!
Project Warlock II - Retro Shooter Live Development
Join Kuba on Tuesday, 18 January, at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST / 6 PM GMT / 7 PM CET to see him work on Project Warlock II and share his design approach when it comes to retro shooters.
The live stream will be available on Twitch, YouTube, and our Steam card.
Of monsters and pickups
Hey everyone!
While visually overhauling the monsters based on your feedback, our lead artist David decided to give those minions of hell that little bit more protection.
Arm pads. Pieces of mail. Metal plates. All bolted or sewn to their inhuman, otherworldly flesh. As if their gnashing teeth, boney spikes protruding from their thick hides and huge, saber-like talons weren’t enough. But it's not like the odds are fully stacked against you. The newest build update sees Palmer on the chase for newly added, differently colored armor sets strewn around the levels, or armor shards laying out and about.
What's blue and gold and makes chingy sound
LET ME INTRODUCE MYSELF Each of the monsters in Project Warlock II is breathing, jumping, shooting, swiping, and or rushing fiend that has a thing for Palmer. That "thing" can mean they can enter a frenzy and rush Palmer head-on. Or fire rockets anticipating where you will be in the next second or two. They can also – as is the case with the new, revamped Imp – anticipate your own shots with a slower projectile weapon. And unless you get close enough to slash them with a sword or blast them both barrels point-blank - that can be the difference between getting them and getting owned.
In short: you'll have to understand those enemies to emerge successfully from each encounter. But we still felt something was missing. Namely - a proper introduction to our nameless, unfriendly minions that you will learn to take care of. To remedy that – each new monster that you face will have his or her intro vignette that will help you flesh out their character. Here’s a WIP clip for Imp.
The first pass on the Imp's intro
CODEX ENTRIES While on the topic of introductions. Since the Warlock’s levels are way bigger than ever before, it felt fitting to make sure there’s enough to do there when it came to both the enemies, secrets, and collectibles. One of the new items you will get to pick up when traversing the dark world that fell under the spell of the Necromancer is the Codex entry scroll.
These dark parchments hide the information that will help you understand and take advantage of the traits of a given monster and will be readily available to view in the menu. Sometimes the scrolls are laying there in plain sight, but sometimes you will have to take an extra route and do a little searching to find them and seize the monstrous secrets they hold.
Biro's sketches that served as the basis of Codex entries visuals
BONEY WILL MISS YOU (NOW) Since we’re in what can be tentatively called the “Monster part of the update” let’s briefly touch upon behavior patterns of one particular enemy. One that seemed to evoke a lot of emotions from everyone that had the opportunity to meet Boney in the demo. In the Boney-specific manner, that is: getting it scanned by his shotgun blast from as of yet unseen position.
There’s this less-known movie from the ’90s starring Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. called “Enemy Mine". It’s a story of a human space fighter pilot and his alien counterpart. Both participate in space dogfights and both end up stranded on the planet below. They begin as mortal enemies only to find humanity (alienity?) in each other and become friends for life.
This story is here to anchor the fact that there is no human possibility for anyone to go from hate to love in the Palmer-Boney relationship. And since it could get annoying especially on the supposedly more forgiving lower difficulty levels – the sniping skills of our emaciated sniper have been nerfed.
The Boney you will learn to like
THE DROP BONANZA Currently, the number of drops from the enemies is being tweaked to make sure that each level provides the promised challenge. Vials of blood refilling health bar, cooldown tokens dropping as a result of successful combos helping recharge those spells faster, or shards of different colored armors restoring them to their pristine condition. All of these – in specific circumstances – have a tendency to fill out the screen if unchecked. Below is a sample of what that means. Spoiler: this one stays.
No, this is a perfectly appropriate amount of drops
DOUBLE STAFFING The first spell/cooldown skill you pick up in Project Warlock II is Akimbo. You can check it in the demo for that immensely satisfying effect of doubling down on the ammo consumption and non-neglectable damage output. Or – to put it more bluntly – this allows you to absolutely obliterate enemy stupid enough to get in your way when you brandish that Harvester and decide to magically CTRL+V that weapon to another hand.
Up until the demo, the staffs and swords were not yet using the skill to their desired effect. But recently the staff got their own looping attack animation so that the poor monsters are literally standing no chance to the onslaught of the magic spewing from the two powerful staves.
Staff Akimbo applied to staff's Fire upgrade
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