Rite of Life Update – Dev Team Update, ROL Details & 2020 Release
Intro
In this update we’re going to cover apologies for the lack of communication, an update on the development team's current situation, information on what stage Rite of Life is currently at, what still needs to be done, new information on Rite of Life itself (complete with screenshots) and our target release date. Without any further ado, let’s get started.
Apologies
Firstly, we would like to start by apologising for the lack of communication. We’ve noticed that we haven’t posted an update for over a year on Steam and that simply isn’t acceptable. Moving forward we plan on posting an update on how the development of Rite of Life is progressing on the 28th of every month until the game is released. ːsteamhappyː
Development Team Situation
Now we’re going to move onto the development situation that we have found ourselves in over the past 2+ years. When we started development of Rite of Life in early-2015, we were a team of eight developers working full-time using our own money/savings. Since the start of 2017, five of the full-time developers have left the project and since then the remaining three of us have been continuing to work on the project as best as we can. We will be transparent here and admit that even when there were eight full-time developers, we definitely underestimated the scope of the project. That issue has since been multiplied now that there is only three of us. What the three of us have had to do in order to continue the project (and keep a roof over our heads) is take on work-for-hire projects on the side to fund the remaining development. For example, the past year we’ve worked on Rite of Life for roughly 8 months full-time and the rest has been spent working on client projects that help us pay the bills and continue to invest in the project. We have also been in talks with publishers and other external funding opportunities (grants, etc) to help us finish Rite of Life without the need to jump into a side job along the way. We'll keep you updated on any of these developments if/when they occur.
Current State of Rite of Life
Rite of Life is currently playable start to finish (the game doesn’t really have a traditional ‘finish’, but you can get to the ‘end game’ part at least). The three environments that surround your home are implemented, we have all the monsters designed, balanced and that includes their exp, drops, hunting logs and everything else attached to them. We also have your home designed from the earliest stage all the way up to completion. This has all been balanced in relation to the experience that you get from the materials that you gather. We’ve also meticulously designed what additions you get with each level up of your home. These additions include characters, shops, buildings (which include interiors), environment assets, minigames, festivals, events, quests and many other things. If you played the demo that we released two years ago, your home is capable of being triple the size/level that you achieved in that, which reflects the additional environments that exist in the final game.
“What else still needs to be done and why haven’t you released the game in its current state?”
The biggest task that needs doing right now is animating all the characters. We have just started this process this month (we'll touch upon this in more detail below), but with the hand drawn art style that we've decided to do, this is definitely the biggest task we have left.
Also, despite all the things mentioned earlier that are in the game, we’re still busy padding the game with content as you progress through it. We’re also creating a lot of content for the ‘end game’ phase once your home has reached max level. Essentially, animations and padding the world with content is on the current agenda. We’ve also planned out a proper introduction to the game, but we’re yet to implement this. Another area that still needs a fair bit of work is the UI, we’ll show off some screenshots a little further down, but that’s an area we’ve been working a lot on and we’re still not happy with where it’s at.
Until we’ve ticked off all these areas mentioned, we won’t feel comfortable releasing the game.
Rite of Life Updates
Now let’s move onto the more interesting stuff. We have some screenshots to showcase some of the improvements we’ve made in certain areas. I will give a quick warning, there will be some spoilers involved in what’s coming up. We’re going to reveal the boss monster for the swamp and some additional monsters in the journal that you haven’t seen before. If you want to be surprised when you encounter these, I have to suggest not reading any further. Anyway, let’s dig in.
Character Redesigns
Due to the way we're animating the characters, our artist wanted to go over the designs one last time. We really want to have a diverse cast of characters that join your home as it grows. We'll do a deep dive on who these characters are in a future specialised update.
Character Creation
Originally we were going to just allow you to pick between two characters, but we felt in a game where there are social-sim RPG mechanics that allow you to develop your personality through dialogue choices it would be a shame if you couldn’t customise your character a little bit. So, what we’re allowing you to do is choose between two base characters and then you can choose the hairstyle, hair colour and the colour of your character's eyes. We do want to develop the character creation further, but we’re using this as a base right now and if we have the time and resources later, we might add additional options for you to choose from.
Mountain Pass
Based on feedback that we received on previous mountain pass screenshots, we’ve decided to play around with the colour palette in the area. We felt it was too like the forest that you explore beforehand and one of our goals is to make each new environment feel like a fresh experience. We’ve really explored how the time of day and weather impact the fantasy elements that are found in the area. The crystals, the water and the stone carvings that you’ll observe alter based on those variables. It’s not too dissimilar to how the weather impacts the forest, but it’s just more fantastical and I hope you look forward to exploring this area. It’s considerably larger and more challenging than the forest as well.
Here's a quick look at the battle backgrounds for the mountain pass. Much like the forest, the ground terrain changes based on where you encounter a monster.
Swamp of Wergaia
We’ve also spent a lot of time working on the swamp environment. One of the challenges has been to create the kind of atmosphere and mood for the player when they’re exploring it that we desired. A lot of our time has been spent getting the shading right and the lighting capturing the sort of mystical nature of this swamp. We want it to feel as though it’s got a sort of wildness about it, almost like the environment itself is alive, but also capture the archaeological history that exists within it.
Swamp Boss
Each environment will have a boss that must be defeated to unlock the next section. In the demo you may have fought the Mightytaur which acts as the Forest boss, once defeated you will unlock access to the mountain pass. That’s the general structure of how to unlock further environments.
Monster Showcase
Oopsie Daisy
Magpie
Ampear
Combat Changes
After balancing the game up until you unlock everything, we decided to make some changes to the combat. This coincided with finishing the level up system, which we’ll share a couple of screenshots of a little later.
Due to dozens upon dozens of skills being obtainable through the Spectrum System(the level up system in ROL), we felt it best that in the interest of balancing and allowing the player to put together their own build, that we would have it so you can equip up to 6 skills. There were a few reasons for this, firstly we got to the point where if you clicked ‘skills’ during combat you were scrolling through for a while and we felt it could become a bit tedious. The other reason is it allows us to build end game bosses and monsters that challenge the player tactically when it comes to the skills that they have equipped. You have to plan and think what skills you’re going to equip for the journey. We felt this was more in the spirit of what we wanted out of Rite of Life. We'll do a deep dive into the combat system in a future update.
Spectrum System Update
The Spectrum System has now been fully designed. It’s gargantuan in size, but we’ve been playtesting and we think it should work really well. Based on our playtests, we expect a player to be able to finish one specific route by the time they’ve beaten the Swamp boss. Which should give you a bit of an idea of how much more content there is to do after you’ve beaten that boss. Every large node in-between each of the smaller nodes is a new skill to be learned. The skill nodes will unique icons inside them to make it clearer, we just haven't gotten around to that yet. Here is a look at the Spectrum System zoomed out to demonstrate the scope of it.
Journal Update
Something else that has had a massive overhaul is the journal. We received a lot of positive feedback about it. The structure of it has remained the same, but we wanted to improve upon the visual aesthetic of it, making it feel more like a scrap book that your character is keeping through their journey.
With this, we’re just going to drop a bunch of screenshots, but we'll leave out any lore/story/quest information to avoid spoilers. There is still a fair bit of work to be done on them, but hopefully you can see the artistic direction that we’re going for. We’ll include some comparison pics to demonstrate the improvements as well.
Old Character Page
New Character Page
Old Hunting Logs
New Hunting Logs
UI WIP Updates
We’ve also made some adjustments to the UI that shows the time of day, weather and season. We’re trying our best to design it in a way that you can infer all the information necessary without needing to hover your mouse over them for a tooltip. This is still a WIP, but we feel we’ve made good progress and it’s a step in the right direction.
Character Animations
We’ve recently started the big slog that is animating all the characters in the game. There are over 25 unique villagers that all needed to be animated in some way. Walking is the current focus which will take the longest time, but we also need various animations for the characters interacting with the world and them in their idle state. For the sideways walking animations, we’ve been breaking up different parts of the character’s anatomy in order to animate them fluidly. We then create a wireframe using our selected animation software to make animating it easier.
Carnival Minigames
Once your home reaches a certain level, a carnival will roll into town and will provide you with access to a host of minigames. Playing these games wins you tickets which you can exchange for prizes at the prize booth. It's very similar to how the Gold Saucer works in Final Fantasy VII where you can exchange GP for rare items and equipment. All of the minigames are based on real life fun fair, carnival games that exist.
We’ve had the carnival games implemented from a design point of view for a while now, but we haven’t had the art assets created for them because other parts of the game have taken priority. We’ve just started work on those and we have the first carnival minigame to show you.
Here’s a look at our coconut shy-inspired minigame.
In this game your goal is to knock off as many of the 'coconuts' with the limited number of shots that you have. It may look easy, but the wind changes with every throw, so you have to look at the direction and strength of the wind and guesstimate where you need to aim in order to hit your target. The more you knock off, the more tickets you'll win which can be exchanged for at the prize booth.
One thing we’re doing with all these minigames is we’re using the Rite of Life lore and adding that unique splash of paint to it. So, there’s an enemy in the game that you can encounter called Egg & Soldiers which is inspired from a British dish called Egg with Soldiers. It’s basically a soft-boiled egg with toast where the toast has been cut into strips. Anyway… the coconuts in a traditional game of Coconut Shy are replaced with this monster’s body in this world. Honestly, typing this out actually makes it seem rather morbid… moving swiftly on! ːsteammockingː
Target Release Window
This is probably the thing that you care about most. We're targeting Q3/Q4 2020 for release. I know it has been a long time coming, but we're into the final stretch and we're very confident that we'll be releasing this game this year. We really appreciate all the posts and comments that have been made about the game, questions being asked and such like. It really means a lot to us. We're a small three-person team and we assure you we're working as hard as we can on this game to make it as good as possible. We hope you're still looking forward to it despite the long wait.
We'll be posting another update next month on the 28th. We'll cover what we've been working on and we look forward to seeing you then.
Rebourne Studios
May 2018 Update - New Characters, Bios & Dialogue!
Intro
Welcome to our latest Rite of Life game development update. This time we’ll be diving into some of the characters that will populate your home as it continues to develop.
Just a quick heads up, if you want to know absolutely nothing about the characters in the game prior to playing, you might want to avoid this update. We’re only going to introduce a handful of new characters this time, not the whole cast. However, we are going to reveal more characters with further updates. We will always let you know ahead of you reading though!
Characters
All the characters in the game will appear in your journal with more information on them updated as you get to know them better. Additional information can be unlocked by chatting with them on a regularly basis, completing quests or just spending time with them. The biographies of the characters that appear in your journal will always be written from the perspective of your character.
Victor Frank – Alchemist
Bio
Victor Frank is a scientist who specialises in alchemy. Victor is quite a bizarre fellow who is always seen tinkering with another one of his latest inventions. Victor often gets new ideas from old texts that he has found on his travels and spends much of his time attempting to locate rare materials that he can use in his work.
Alchemist House
Example Dialogue
Morning: “When I was growing up, my father told me stories about a man who could teach the creatures of the forest to talk.”
“I would very much like to inspect such a creature…”
Daytime: “I have heard whispers from my coffee.”
“They say that there is a dark secret within the forest.”
“A secret that may unlock the power to control the weather.”
Evening: “Too many experiments…”
“…too little time.”
“I found an old text by a scientist called H.G.Wells.”
“He discovered how to create a ‘Time Machine’.”
Additional Dialogue:
“Yesterday I tested a coating that was meant to stop water from sticking to my clothes.”
“I must have made a mistake because it made my clothes sweat.”
“I uncovered an ancient film the other day.”
“It featured a scientist who had created an advanced screwdriver device.”
“If I had one of those, I could unlock anything.”
Magna Virum – Carnival Host
Bio
Magna Virum has been the host of the travelling carnival for as long as anybody can remember. Magna Virum is a rather large and energetic individual with a true penchant for showmanship. Beryl Taylor claims that Magna Virum was not always such a powerful orator and believes that he discovered some sort of magical device, whilst lost in the forest, that grants him a heightened sense of vocal projection.
Example Dialogue
Intro: “Ladies and Gentlemen!”
“Boys and Girls!”
“It is I!”
“The Great Magna Virum!”
“*clapping*”
“Haha!”
“Too kind…too kind.”
“Behold the coolest...”
“…choicest...”
“…most capital carnival in existence!”
“Haha!”
“Try your hands at our plethora of exciting…”
“…exhilarating…”
“…electrifying events!”
“Test your talents and trade your inner traits for tantalizingly tempting tickets!”
“Haha!”
“Trade these hard-earned tickets in for some of our perfectly prestigious prizes.”
“BUT!”
“We are only here for a limited time!”
“So ready yourselves!”
“Prepare!”
“For the carnival…”
“…is now…”
“OPEN!”
Bow – Hunter
Bio
Bow was brought up in a remote shack in the centre of the forest. As a child she learnt how to respect the environment around her and to only use what was necessary to survive. Bow now acts as the last resort for the town when stocks and supplies run low; it’s her job to gather the necessary materials, in order for the town to be sustainable, whilst ensuring that there is a minimal effect to the ecosystem.
Example Dialogue
“I was reading about wildlife the other day.”
“The book spoke about frogs being introduced into the wildlife from a faraway land.”
“They were used to control a large beetle population that were destroying crops.”
“We might need to do that someday.”
Petunia Traynor – Pet Shop Owner
Bio
Petunia Traynor is responsible for the care and training of pets in our town. Petunia devotes most of her time to caring for all of the homeless animals that she finds out in the forest. In order to help reduce Petunia’s workload, a number of the people from the village decided to adopt some of the pets; which has resulted in a number of racing tournaments being set up.
Example Dialogue
“Hi!”
“Some people like to say that my job isn’t hard…”
“IT IS!”
“I have to make sure that the animals don’t eat anybody’s wares.”
“When the town grows, that job just gets harder and harder.”
Quasi – Carnival Token Shop
Bio
Quasi is a simple but lovable member of the traveling carnival who acts as the ticket vendor. Quasi loves telling people facts about the items that they buy from him. Rumour has it that carnival owner, Magna Virum, found Quasi stranded in the middle of a lake whilst traveling from town to town. Magna rescued Quasi from his predicament and then adopted him into the carnival.
Graham Marr – Teacher
Bio
Graham Marr is a teacher for the children in the village. Graham’s primary goal is to ready the children for life outside of the school so that they can contribute to the growth of the village. Grahams favourite subject is English, and he takes it very seriously; he is often seen getting red faced with anger due to someone not conforming to the rules of grammar.
Example Dialogue
“Today Benji told me that he “could care less” about the weather.”
“He clearly meant that he couldn’t care less…”
“Forget the kids. I should be teaching everyone in this village.”
Richard – Child/Student
Bio
Richard joined our settlement along with Harry, Julia and Rose. Richard is an intelligent child who greatly adores the environment and often isolates himself in the outskirts of the village in order to be closer to the creatures of the forest. Despite being good friends with the other children, he is always the one who has the blame shifted onto him when the other kids play pranks. Richard is always the person the other kids look to when they have a problem that’s too big for them to solve. When Richard grows up, he wants to be a lepidopterist.
Example Dialogue
“There’s a species of butterfly that lays its eggs under the skin of some animals.”
“When they hatch, the caterpillars eat their way out.”
“Gruesome!”
Harry – Child/Student
Bio
Harry joined our settlement along with Richard, Julia and Rose. Harry is both the youngest and the shortest of the children in the village; he is often seen crawling around in the forest and as such is constantly filthy. When he grows up, he wants to be a treasure hunter.
Example Dialogue
“I like days when we don’t have to go to school.”
“We go on special adventures in the forest.”
“No adults allowed!”
Julia- Child/Student
Bio
Julia joined our town along with Richard, Rose and Harry. Julia is the oldest of the children and is seen as their leader. She considers one of her prime duties to be organising pranks for Harry and Rose to participate in. When Julia grows up she wants to be a detective.
Example Dialogue
“Harry and Rose look to me for leadership.”
“It gets tough sometimes, but I make it fun by playing around with Mr Marr.”
“Richard always gets the blame for our pranks, but I know that he doesn’t mind.”
“It’s just a bit of fun to keep Harry and Rose occupied.”
Rose – Child/Student
Bio
Rose joined our town along with Richard, Julia and Harry. Rose spends most of her time following Julia around - pranking Mr Marrs. Rose is the second youngest child and often uses her age to lord over Harry. When Rose grows up, she wants to be Julia.
Example Dialogue
“Mr Marrs is always sooo mean.”
“He keeps talking about people not speaking properly.”
“They sound fine to me.”
Next Update
That’s it for this update. We are currently focussing on characters from a writing and design point of view. Our next update will be next month and reveal a whole host of new characters. We look forward to showing them to you. Thanks for your support, please keep an eye on our social media channels and don’t forget to join our Discord if you haven’t already! Come chat with us, give us feedback on the game. We look forward to hearing from you.
Until next time,
Rebourne Team
New Year Update! - Visual Updates, Combat, New Characters, Minigames & More!
Happy New Year everyone! We're finally here with our first Steam Rite of Life update. We have a lot to get through! So, let's begin!
Forest Update
We’ve taken the time to redesign the forest. Originally in the alpha demo, the forest changed its layout each day. This concept came from when we were procedurally generating the surrounding environments. However, since the game has progressed, we’ve implemented seasons, weather and many other variables. We feel strongly that having a consistent design will allow us to improve the experience of exploring, gathering and finding materials in the forest. What we’ve been able to do now is explore ways the seasons and weather change the environment. Some quick examples include lakes being frozen over during the Winter, which could lead to access to previously cut off areas, or when it has been raining for long periods of time you will see areas flooded, thus additional resources being made available. There are lots of avenues for us to explore moving forward. We think this will make exploring the forest feel more dynamic and rewarding whilst retaining that familiarity of knowing the area and planning your day.
Home Updates
Alchemist
Eventually an alchemist will arrive at your home, their house will be rather eccentric to say the least. For the design of the home, we drew inspiration from Howl’s Moving Castle, we want the house to be very animated. It’s not entirely set in stone what the alchemist character will sell yet, but we’re thinking potions that affect encounter rates, the weather, drop rates, immunities amongst other things.
New Characters
We’ve also been designing some new characters for the home. We’re targeting around 35 unique characters in total once you have maxed out your home. Here’s a look at some of the latest designs.
From Top Left: Doctor, Log Scaler, Alchemist. From Bottom Left: Postman, Tavern Owner
Journal
The journal has seen an update. We’ve implemented animations and additional sound effects. Additional tabs have also been added which include artefacts, fish and cards.
Artefacts
Artefacts can be found around the world of Rite of Life. There are now little treasure spots that can be visually seen, you can interact with these and you’ll find all sorts of things. If you stumble upon an artefact. The artefacts will be used to fill out the Town Gallery in the City Hall-like building that is built when your home reaches a certain level. You’ll also be able to decorate your house with the artefacts that you find.
Fishing
Fishing has seen a massive overhaul. It’s now its own minigame complete with its own festival/competition.
When you hook a fish, it initiates the minigame to catch it. You’ll potentially have three icons to click on as your lure spins around the circle. The primary one will be the fish that you have hooked, to catch the fish you must time your click so that your lure is in line with the fish icon. An accurate click will raise the bar on the right-hand side and move you closer to pulling the fish out of the water. If you mistime a click, the bar on the right will decrease, if the bar gauge reaches zero, then the fish breaks your line and escapes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn-oOqlP880
The second icon that you might see if you’re fishing outside of your home is to initiate a battle. Just time your click when your lure hovers over the icon, then you’ll enter combat with whatever you’ve hooked.
Lastly, you’ll occasionally see a treasure icon. By accurately timing your click, you can obtain all sorts of goodies from gold, items, equipment or accessories. Some can only be obtained through fishing. The location, weather, season and environment can affect what treasures can be found. So be sure to do a spot of fishing on your travels.
Fishing Festival
So that’s how the minigame works, but we also have a fishing competition that takes place every so often with the villagers of your home. With this you’ll be taken to a sectioned off area of the forest (no encounters with monsters) and you’re given a certain amount of time to catch the best fish you can. There are two factors that decide which fish is best, these are based on the rarity and size. You will automatically keep the highest rated fish, so just keep fishing as quickly and as best as you can! There are prizes for those that come 1st, 2nd or 3rd. There’s also an additional prize for whoever collects the most trash whilst fishing, we’re dubbing it ‘The Environmentally Friendly Award’. Lots to sink your teeth into with that competition.
Card Game
The card game has seen further visual improvements and we have also implemented all of Mount Cherufe's monsters. We’ve updated the functionality of selecting your hand before the game, and we have also added a tonne of sound effects.
We’ve designed and implemented the character that teaches you how to play cards. He works for the company that produces the cards and we drew inspiration from the kind of shady salesmen that wear those long trench coats and open them up displaying their ‘wares’. He’ll arrive quite early in your home’s development and will be the first character to introduce a new minigame to your home.
This character not only teaches you how to play cards, but he also opens his own little card shop. From him you can buy ‘Trap Cards’ which we spoke about briefly during an earlier update. Trap Cards are used on enemies you encounter to turn them into cards. So, you can obtain cards through playing against other characters, but also through turning real monsters into cards themselves. This is the only way you can obtain shiny versions of the regular monsters. Shiny cards are the same as the original cards only they have a +1 on every attribute.
There are various types of cards that you can collect. Monster cards are cards of all the monsters that you can encounter randomly via walking around in the environments. Then there are Boss cards, these are obtained by beating a boss in a surrounding area. For example, when you defeat the Mightytaur who is present in the alpha demo, you’ll obtain him as a card. There are also Quest Monster cards, these are obtained by defeating a certain monster for a quest and then taking the card from whoever set the original quest. An example for this would be the Moo Moo quest that is available in the alpha demo. You defeat the monster Moo Moo, then report back to the baker, Benjamin Bunns, then when you play him at cards, there’s a chance he’ll now use the Moo Moo card. Finally, there are Character Cards, these can be obtained by defeating character’s that are linked to the specific character. An example would be your father having your Character Card and after a certain point in the game (keeping this spoiler free!) he’ll begin to use your Character Card when you play him at cards. There’s a lot of complexity to how to collect all of the different types of cards, hopefully you’ll have a lot of fun trying to collect them all.
Crafting
The crafting visuals have had a revamp, it also includes sound effects and feedback on how much of each material you have. Anything you craft, you can then place down in your house.
Cooking
Cooking too has had a visual update. Using the ingredients that you grow on your farm, you can prepare certain dishes that will aid you in your adventures.
Virtual Pet
Training
The screen where you train your pet is now coming together. The pet training and racing is one of the last minigames you’ll unlocking as you level up your home. Your pet will be in your garden attached to your home. You’ll be able to train it multiple times a day until it’s too fatigued.
Races
There will be a race attendant who you can speak to during a set time in the day. There it’ll open the menu shown below and you can enter your pet in one of these races once a day.
Pet Shop Owner
We now have the pet shop owner implemented. The character’s design isn’t finalised, but we’ll have more on that in the next update. The type of items that you can buy from the pet shop are currently items that aid your pet in its training. The energy bars allow the pet to train additional times in one day without getting fatigued as quickly. The pills/tablets improve the pet’s focus during training, increasing the chance of them gaining more attributes after a session.
Combat
The combat has seen a lot of fine tuning since our last update. We’ve taken on board loads of feedback that we received on the alpha demo and whilst exhibiting the game. There’s now clearer visual feedback on when an attack is super or not very effective against a monster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj9MwRVhlwI
Another issue that was recurring, is players weren’t noticing the armour bar that was present and when it had been depleted. So, we’ve now implemented an animation that plays when the player’s or monster’s armour is broken, and it is accompanied with a sound effect. Hopefully this addresses that issue.
There’s also a tonne of new animations added, screen shakes when certain attacks hit, a red tint as you take damage, colour coordinated digits for damage (separating the health and armour damage) as well as more fluid HP, AP and armour depletion animations.
Loot Screen
The loot screen has also seen a massive overhaul. One of the main issues with the original loot screen was it was very flashy but wasn’t providing the information quickly enough. On top of the fact that there are now additional materials that can be obtained after combat that can be used for crafting, we felt it best to make a more concise loot screen. This is still very much a work in progress, but do let us know what you think.
Looking Forward
Hopefully there's plenty there to sink your teeth into. Our next step is to finally plan out the home and how it expands. We'll be introducing more characters, more information on how the home progresses, the stages of development and also be showing off more of the Swamp and Mountain Pass. We're coming up to the final stretch now. We're doing everything we can to get this game ready for a 2018 release.
Also, we now have a Rite of Life Discord that you should totally join. We post more frequent updates in there. It's also great to get your feedback on smaller things and if you have any questions, we're really active on it.
I think that just about wraps it up. Any questions, feel free to send us them via our social media channels, Discord or comment on here.
