Serpent in the Staglands
Last part of the interview on Matt Chat!
We have a fun time again talking about beta testing, feedback, release, and some other fun insight. Check it out!
Matt Chat Interview part 2!
We talked to Matt more about Serpent in the Staglands and working on previous small projects and children's books leading up to this game. We'll be sure to post the final video when he posts it!
Cheers!
Matt Chat Interview, Beta maps update
Matt had us on his show not too long ago and we got the opportunity to talk about the game, design ideas, rats, and some [INT] requirements demanded by the game. After so many years of games having mass-market accessibility, Serpent may require some brain-rewiring.
This is part 1 of the interview, and we'll be sure to have another update when he posts the rest!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oabOmGXRKM
Also, for those in the beta, we are combing over the next district you'll be getting access to and will have that up soon! We'll be updating you all as we usually do. Emerald Metalis houses some special locations and some brutal puzzles, so we'll be interested to hear your feedback especially on those.
You'll know when you're there.
PC Gamer & Rock Paper Shotgun preview articles
Over the weekend PC GAMER and Rock Paper Shotgun hosted some small preview articles following the release of the trailer. We’re always happy to see Serpent in the Staglands getting shown to a broader audience.
Rock Paper Shotgun article:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/03/07/core-so-hard-it-cuts-diamond-serpent-in-the-staglands
PC GAMER article:
http://www.pcgamer.com/serpent-in-the-staglands-not-innuendo-its-an-old-fashioned-party-based-rpg/
Stay tuned for new screenshots from the latest beta, new areas, and more preview videos in the near future!
New Progress Update Available!
Update link here
We’ve put together a preview trailer showcasing some new systems and content. Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/85SEpTOu1Eo
One location we didn’t feature in the preview trailer was Tratis Saltis, a favorite due to the very different environment it brings. The area’s subsurface is an expanse of hot springs like veins breathing heat from depths below, and it gives some variety to the usually snow blasted peninsula. The persistently wet ground has made the few surviving settlers here build above surface level upon giant trees and mushrooms, and you wade through a dangerous bog below to traverse the district. Vol is an "eye ball" planet, and in the perpetually cold regions like the Staglands heated places like these are hard to come by and usually cherished for what vegetation and life they provide. Regrettably for these settlers, some of that is quite dangerous.
We'll be showing this location off in a future update more in-depth!
Physical Copy
As you may catch from that intro, we recently received our Whalenought stamp for sealing the twine sealed physical journals when we finish printing them.
We had an excellent time testing it out, with varied results (mostly on my (Joe) inability to measure good amounts of wax). We'll have a nice sized vat of heated wax prepared for the day of medieval manual labor.
More pictures available on kickstarter update page!
We’re continuing to write the copy for Erlein’s handbook and putting together the art book when we get some off time (building and exporting). We’ll be finishing up with those next month and will aim for sending them out early thereafter so those applicable can get them before the game.
An additional art mention are some new and improved portraits for Necholai’s avatar! Here’s a preview of some of the newer portraits and updated ones available for the moon lord to use as a face, along with some early game NPCs you can find:
These don’t include all the NPCs that you can add to your party, so if you chose the companion option as a portrait-level backer, yours has yet to come. Prior to release we'll show off all the portraits in the game so you can bask in your eternal Vol world glory. Each race/sex will have 5 portraits to choose from. So if you create your whole party from scratch you’ll be able to choose between 50 unique portraits in total!
Cheers!
Whalenought
Polished HUD, Scaling, and usability upgrades
For Beta 2.0 we've finally gotten around to adjusted the HUD with full pillar boxing to contain everything. The buttons and interface have some improved usability and obviously the concise game window allows for a much more focused field of view.
In containing the HUD elements we've also added a buff/ailment symbols location to the right of the portraits, which will populate with any and all combat and spell augmentations currently on the character. "Every-X" proc skills display their symbols over the character portrait itself. These buffs/ailments can also now be seen on enemies when you hover over them for tooltips . We've also done away with the passive skill effects of the rune symbol circling under character's feet — this made combat visually more cluttered, especially in groups. Rave party cluttered.
(hovering over portrait still reveals actual HP numbers)
Spell, War, and Aptitude skills now populate out of the top right corner neat the books, which optimize the amount of mouse movement needed to select them, and if needed a target.
We're also implementing a scaleable window mode, so you can make the screen any size you want. It will auto-scale the game 100%, 200%, or 300% depending on the current size. That way we get art not muddied or stretched while changing sizes. If folks don't see any technical issues with that during 2.0 well include that for the final release.
From DOS sizes to full screen, like magic!
BETA 2.0 coming at you soon!
Grade 2 Skills & Spells available for perusal!
- Pre-buff to infinity
- Activate items like horns to summon aid or lay down traps
- Make your 3 active skills compliment one another or your team
- Casters hold their spells - play the right spell when combat starts as the beginning can be perilous
- Control the battlefield with utility combat skills and spells
- Micromanage as needed
Our classless-based character system outfits players with over 100 skills, spells and aptitude to build their own 5 characters out of. Create powerful casters, whip users that are made for wizard hunting, arrow and bolt machinegunners, elixir throwers that corrode groups with unblockable damage, or morph into a wolf and maul your enemies.
Or any combination you can think of, though tactical usefulness may vary. We think highly enough of you to figure out good tactics!
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Grade 1 Skills and Spells have been available in the beta, and we finally got around to updating the Gameplay section of the site with the grade 2 Spell and Skill tables. These will be available in Beta 2.0, and easily available for testing in the Corem fighting arena clone we’re putting a game mode to in the main menu.
Spells Grade 2
http://serpentinthestaglands.com/gameplay/grade2-spells.php
Skills Grade 2
http://serpentinthestaglands.com/gameplay/grade2-skills.php
Grade 2 spells mostly speak for themselves, more debilitating ones to cast on targets, lots to cause chaos and break up groups, and of course Polymorph into Wolf. We’re very excited to have folks testing these in a variety of arena situations to mimic early/mid/late game confrontations.
If Grade 1 Skills are a foundation to build your character on, Grade 2 Skills start the tactical heavy artillery. We open up every-X procing, more on-starts for controlling those first few very precious hits, and more battlefield control skills.
As always, travel comfortably knowing your enemies can have any of these spells and skills too, at any Skill Level.
Interview with Adam Dayton of Fragments of Silicon
Adam Dayton had us as a guests on his podcast, and had fun talking about some previous work, designing Serpent in the Staglands, the lost art of crpgs in modern games and finding power armor in Fallout.
Really nice guys, check it out!
Available on iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fragments-of-silicon/id747215884?mt=2
And web player here (we start ~8:30 mark):
http://t.co/DuQp3QoiLh
KS Update 17: Mechanics, updates, pit fights and news sightings
Full Update on KS: http://t.co/KpmphgZiYn
Hail Spicers!
Progress at Whalenought continues smoothly as we’re rounding out the end content for the game. In the meantime we wanted to share an update with what we've been working these past few weeks.
Account Downloads and Purchasing
We’ve updated the website a bit and our store page now has more information on what the digital boxes purchased through us will contain (what you all backed). The website will also house where, for those of you who want the game DRM-free, can download it at will upon release if you sign into your account. We'll be creating accounts with backer email addresses in this new system in the next month, with your reward listed, so expect an email notifying you about it at some point soon. We'll also be sending Steam Keys via email upon release.
Fragments of Silicon Live Podcast
On January 21st we’ll be on the Fragment of Silicon podcast, you can listen to the live broadcast on Talkshoe at 9pm EST/6 PM PST. You can login and ask us any questions during the interview about Serpent in the Staglands, Kickstarter, and any development questions you might have. We'll host it up on our announcements section on the website afterwards if you'd like to catch it later. Hope to have some fun conversations about tabletop inspired RPGs!
Beta Patch 2.0
We’ve been focusing some of our time into increasing marketing efforts, mainly split between finishing up some remaining items for the beta 2.0 patch and continuing to complete the last of the maps. Beta 2.0 will include and be the culmination of a lot of updated mechanics, UI, items, and locations that are all coming together to really start to show the final product, and we’re thrilled to be getting it out to you beta testers soon. We were planning on getting it out earlier but wanted to polish up all the grade 2 skills and spells and finish some lingering bugs, so it will be a big update.
Neat fixes to note
Outside the massive amount of small fixes for locations and bugs in and outside the beta areas, you’ll be seeing some of these neat new mechanics and areas, including: (sort of spoilers?)
Orf’s Bridge Consil
Small compared Corem and Emerald Metalis (though you’ll be getting those before the end too), Orf’s Bridge Consil is central point of wealth in the district, having a few high-end merchants including a bespoke armorer for the region. You can chat with a few high-profile figures here including the Constable and Counselor. Killing the Counselor, while not necessarily encouraged, will make the Consil evacuate upon your leaving, which is fun.
Lebez fighting pit
The fighting pit at one of the Inns in Lebez is open for violence! Though quaint compared to the Corem fighting pits, it gives you the option of fighting a range of enemy difficulties to test as you will for the beta. This will be different in the game proper to fit the level of the area, but for now is a nice testing convenience for close quarters combat without easy prep or buffing.
Rheamus farms
The Lord and Lady Rheamus aren’t terribly friendly. Neither are the spiders.
The Bridge
Orf’s Bridge namesake: the bridge connecting the eastern side of the peninsula’s districts of Orf’s Bridge and Emerald Metalis. You’ll get stopped for questioning and pulled in here (along with some other areas in later areas of the game) when trying to pass through it on the overworld map for inspection. With the borders between districts closed, Arbiters will be making your purse a little lighter unless you have your Spicer documents in your inventory. Lots of interesting people at the Inn that could be looking for a merchant willing to smuggle things across the borders.
Lake camp
In the northern region of Orf's Bridge is a higher difficulty area, with the first Vykin you can confront. A Vykin is similar to our world's historical knight, but solely for the political reasons. They culturally derive from the Varuchovs who's Vykins reported directly to the King, and swayed the opinion of the masses or their military through charisma and magical means. They also have neat helmets with their honored symbol embellished on them.
Overworld Map travel - The new overworld map is much smoother than the first couple passes we put on it, and now includes chalk-drawn markers and a moon lord miniature to represent your party.
Stackables now functioning - Not particularly interesting, but something that will make the beta folks easier going forward. Picking up an item you already have one of will automatically stack it, as well as now being able to split these items.
MiniMaps - Maps in inventory now implemented. You aren't grinding for quests in the game and there aren't many people hoping for a savior of the day to pass by to fetch something for them, but the tasks you can hire on to do as a Spicer usually come with a map and a shady individual.
Resting with camp rations - There are various puzzles and events in the game that trigger due to daytime or nightime. Though there are a couple choice ways you can affect that beyond overwrold map travel, we now have one more included by use of camp-rations, a stackable item. When outside of town, as a Spicer camping outside in a town would be quite frowned upon, you can use the item and select someone to watch over the camp. That person doesn’t regain any health, and if they have Woodwise, can hopefully get a good roll preventing being waylaid.
Inventory pack addition - While playing, especially with the newest couple patches and the inventory database updated, we noticed that inventory space gets cramped fairly quickly. We determined how to alter this without overhauling any big system already in place, and have come up with a really easy addition to the inventory system that doesn’t wildly change the item pickup balance. There is now an equipped pack and miscellaneous pack that your party can distribute amongst each other.
Potion procing
Skill/Spell/Stat Point verification-
Soulbound portraits -
Runes - Various ancient machines in the game require a runic symbols to be drawn in blood to activate. You won’t get a lot of application of this in the beta areas, but we turned on the feature for three of such scrolls that you may have come across in the beta, and you can doodle as you will.
Spells & Skills grade 2-
Beta 2.0 patch out soon!
Also, SHADOWRUN HOGN KONG KICKSTARTER UP, check it out! http://kck.st/1IHBcAq
Cheers,
Hannah & Joe
No Hand Holding Quests
Pixel Dynamo’s James Pursaill wrote a wonderful article reacting to one of our cherished design decisions that is the real crux of adventuring in the game.
No bullet-list quest log! This is critical thinking at the most elementary level, but it's a much more immersive roleplaying style that is taken right from tabletop adventures. Not that you play a hero in the game, but his concisely worded "True heroes don’t use GPS" sums up our thoughts quite nicely.
Check out the article here!