Hi Everybody
So we're finally here - Just a moment ago Soulblight when live on Steam. :)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/530930/Soulblight/
As you know Soulblight is a very personal project for us. For this special day I asked our story designer Jurek to tell you about it:
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Hi, Jurek here
Today I wanted to tell you about a week when I got really annoyed with Kuba - Soulblight's designer, programmer and generally the heart and soul of the project.
With our release date approaching Kuba wanted me to write something personal about our game and about what we wanted to say with it. I wasn't really happy with the idea, for two reasons. Firstly, everything I wanted to say with Soulblight I already said in the game using all the tools we had to convey it. I feel that retelling it here would spoil it for those who are actually going to play the game. And secondly, I don't think it's ever a good idea to interpret any piece of art form for someone else. That's something that has to come to every single person individually.
But Kuba insisted. We argued a little bit about it, I tried to explain that I don't know anything about marketing, and of course as a writer I had to throw in "I'm not a salesman" somewhere into the discussion. But it still didn't change his mind.
So I sat down and tried writing knowing that I will fail so that I could show him the results and say "See, I told you so!"
I tried approaching it from many different perspectives. I started by explaining why we wanted to make a difficult game. The obvious reason being that those are the games that we ourselves enjoy. We like the challenge whether it be a From Software production or something conjured by the likes of Bennett Foddy. I would also slip in something about how what we wanted to say would not work had the game been easy.
But I wasn't quite happy with the result so I tried another approach
I started writing about what kind of a gamer is a rogue-like player? Someone who is willing to lose all the in-game progress with every attempt and what does that say about them and their determination? Then I started to wonder what would happen if they were presented with another way? A short cut. Would they take it? What if we tempted them enough? Then I touched a little bit on morality systems in video games and how we wanted to incorporate them in Soulblight.
But again it seemed that with every word I wrote I got further away from what's my personal take on this game.
So I wrote about how the idea of Soulblight came to be. I explained how Kuba surprised me when he told me about wanting to make a story-driven rogue-lite. I didn't expect that since it's not typical of a game of that genre.
But I didn't feel that it was good enough either. I told Kuba that I don't know what else to do, but he annoyingly (to me at that time) said "keep trying and remember keep it personal". I felt hopeless and angry.
I needed some way of venting my frustrations. So instead of writing I, naturally, started to procrastinate. After a while I decided to pick up a controller and play our game, you know to "look for inspiration". It successfully managed to distract me from what I was really supposed to do. So I played and I died a couple of times, as I usually do. But I didn't quit, knowing what's waiting for me as soon as I'm done. With each play through I got a little bit further. After a couple of hours of playing something unthinkable happened. I managed to beat that one boss that I always lose to. I couldn't believe it. I had to adjust myself in my seat as I continued to play. I got a little further then I beat another level and then another boss. That's when my palms started to sweat as I knew I was getting closer and closer to the end. Then another boss fell. Despite the fact that I knew exactly what would happen next I got nervous and a thought came to my mind "Oh my God, I'm going to do it! I'm going to beat this game!". After an evening of avoiding responsibilities I did it, for the first time since the beginning of the production process I managed to beat our game from beginning to end.
As a game creator you hope to invoke partilucar feelings in people playing your game. But because you yourself designed it, wrote it and seen it numerous times you can't know for sure if you achieved that effect. So the only thing you can do is to hope that it's there and that the players will know what you meant. And when I finally beat the game, despite hundreads of hours of testing I have a feeling that maybe they will. That's when I thought "Maybe that's something worth telling people about?".
That's all I wanted to say. Sorry it took this long to say it, but if I was to shorten this whole thing to a single line, I don't think it would do us any good - "Soulblight - it's more fun than writing a paper".
Lastly, if you got through this whole text, I applaud you. That's a good indicator that you don't give up easily, so maybe, just maybe you're the person we're speaking to.
That's it from me. I really hope you'll enjoy our game.
Jurek
*Before writing this I didn't realize that I'm this childish.
Final Preparations
Soulblight hits Steam on Thursday meanwhile this weekend we were presenting and testing it at Create Together Conference in our home town Czestochowa :)
Soulblight on Steam - MAR 15th
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1323613974
Steam announce it a bit for us but time to make it official :)
Soulblight will be available on steam on MAR 15th
Soulblight Beta Test Summary
Hello everybody
As you know for last couple of weeks we've been running Beta tests for Soulblight. This week we finally warped them up. It's time to summarize it :)
We run two rounds of test in which participated almost 500 people! We’re still going through the feedback but we’re quite satisfied as a lot of people really enjoyed what we’ve prepared :) The thing with which we were pleasantly surprised was the replayability. Although the beta test build included only one short level, most of people spend on it way over 1.5h that we anticipated to be the average.
But not all our predictions were so much of the point. Testers found the game to be quite challenging (exactly how we wanted it to be:) )
Although the feedback we’ve received was very positive it also helped us pinpoint few elements worth improving. To give more exposure to our characters in the camp we’ve decided to redesign the way we present the dialogues:
And to allow players to customize the controls we’ve added the control schemes. You can now select the one you like from 2 gamepad schemes and 6 keyboard schemes (2 of which support the mouse)
“Ok, so what's next?” - you ask. Well... with beta tests behind us we start to sail toward the release... but more on that soon :)
Meanwhile, Cya around
Kuba
P.S And here's the dev vlog for this week :)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1320286069
New Dialogs
This week we've been experimenting with a new way of presenting dialogs. We’ve decided to go with this
And if you’d like to know in more details what we’ve been doing her’s my weekly vlog update :)
It's almost a tradition by now for me to peeper a gif for our weekly update ;) Today I have one showing a Pyrope Beast warping on top of me when I enter new level.
And if you'd like to know what we've been up to this week here's the vlog entry :)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1307255421
One week into the beta tests
Before we go into the the main subject of the udate here's the gif for this week
We call thous guys Lost Souls they are the adventurers like you who've lost they're mind in the search of Soulblight.
So yee this week was the first week of our beta tests :)
First of all we had a quick fix update focusing on frame rate issues. If you've been experiencing frame rate spikes and slow downs you might want to update your testing version via steam.
Another thing is the keyboard controls. Some of you who played the game on keyboard mentioned the need of improving controls. I've decided it would be a good idea to have a broader open discussion on that topic with you all. If you have any suggestions on how to improve keyboard controls and would like to take part in the discussion here's the subreddit thread for that:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MyNextGames/comments/7x15r9/soulblight_keyboard_controls_discussion/
That would be all for this week.
Cya Around,
Kuba
P.S This week vlog will be a little late - I have some camera problems :/
Beta Tests Launch
Hey Everybody!
For all of you who haven't noticed. We've launched our first round of beta tests yesterday. Don't worry if you've missed sign ups you can still apply for the next round here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFNtX3nbWAx5fnHEnrDNpqZWtdraJLKhQAriCAcjDlM9ybkw/viewform?usp=sf_link
For thous of you who got the access to the game earlier Beta Tests also means a content update. Now let's go through some of the main changes:
Now when your character get's wounded it emits a pulse that pushes away all the enemies.
You no longer toggle the grip on and off with Y button. You now need to hold LT to have it active.
Damage in grip dealt by the main character increased.
New weapon type - daggers
You can now use sword as w thrusting weapon by equipping it to the left hand
Intro Update. It isn't finished yet as it still lacks the music but it already has a profession voice over.
Menu overall including addition of option screen an credit screen
And of course here's this week's dev-vlog update. Am a bit tired in it as we've been crunching a bit to launch beta tests yesterday :)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1293600040
Cya around,
Kuba
The Pyropes
Besides the bosses Pyropes are the most powerful enemies you will have to face on your way to the Soul Tree
And here's vLog entry for this week. Slightly longer then usually as I went in on some design decision details :) Hope You like it
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1285995160
Don't forget we're still looking for beta testers for next week. If you're interested here's sign up form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFNtX3nbWAx5fnHEnrDNpqZWtdraJLKhQAriCAcjDlM9ybkw/viewform?usp=sf_link
Soulblight Beta Test Sign Ups
This week's update is a bit late as we're launching Beta Test sign ups today! :D
If you don't have a Demo key and would like to help us you can sign up here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFNtX3nbWAx5fnHEnrDNpqZWtdraJLKhQAriCAcjDlM9ybkw/viewform?usp=sf_link
And what we've been doing this week? As you can see we've been focusing on Menu. Yee yeee :) I know it is not the most exciting game element but someone smart once told me:
“Game’s title screen is like a first sentence of a book. It’s not a reason anyone reaches for it but it’s vital for drawing people in”
To be honest I’m not sure how true it is :) I personally am a slow reader and so books are not the medium I’m very comfortable with. But I’ve always been a fan of atmospheric game title screens :)
And of course here's vLog Update for this week :)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1278555958
