Stormrite
A Much Needed Announcement
Moving forward, our primary focus is a public demo. We want you all to be able to get your hands on Stormrite. It will feature Act I of the game, letting you get an introduction to the story, and a feel for the core gameplay features.
We’re back on track behind the scenes. The animation revamp is underway, and we should have some material to share with you soon on that. We'll be back to our schedule of regular progress updates in no time.
Again, we’re terribly sorry for the silence, as much as we have had our struggles recently, there’s no excuse for the lack of communication. We’ll do better, and we hope you as the community will continue to support us from here on out!
Thank you all for everything,
Kelechi
Development Update #11
There have been a lot of changes since the last dev update, including UI improvements, combat changes, abilities, and a whole new enemy!
Abilities
We've been fleshing out the abilities system in Stormrite, particularly with two different abilities to show the range of abilities in the game, and our design philosophy in regards to the abilities system.
Players will be able to level up & unlock abilities to use in combat, some more 'flashy' with high damage, high costs and long cooldowns, and some more 'functional' that are less effective, but much cheaper to use & have very short cooldowns. The flashier abilities tend to be special abilities - these typically have high costs, and can be seen as your character's 'signature move'.
An example of such a special ability is Frost Nova, a powerful, icy blast that blows away nearby enemies (or neutral characters, so be careful where you use it!) applies chill to affected enemies, and deals high damage. However, it has a very high mana cost and a long cooldown.
An example of a less flashy, 'functional ability' is Swift Strike, a quick attack that deals increased damage, and can be used to interrupt enemies mid-swing! Here is a video of it in action:
New Enemy!
You may remember the Strigoi from a previous dev update. We've fully implemented them into the game as an enemy now. Strigoi are night-dwelling creatures that will attack anyone or anything they see, on sight. They usually move in hordes, so our player was lucky to only encounter three here...
Dynamic Blood FX
Whilst in combat, your character's body, clothing, weapons and shield will react dynamically to the amount of damage you have taken & dealt, and will add dynamic blood effects to their surfaces. This was added to simulate blood splashback effects & increase immersion.
UI
The UI has been updated to include information about your abilities, showing whether they are usable with your current weapons, and their cooldown:
Horse Riding Improvement
We've changed the horse riding camera angle, it's now closer to the player to increase immersion. Also improved the footstep sounds as well!
Development Update #10
Environment Spell Interaction
We've been working on some cool stuff to make magic more interesting, and feel like it has more impact on the game world as you unleash your power on your enemies. The first of the implemented changes is the way spells interact with the environment. No longer will spells disappear into thin air upon impact! Now they leave ground & particle effects on the environment depending on which surface they hit. This started by experimenting with spawning particle effects along 'splines':
Combining this with collision detection + ground VFX, we are now able to spawn these effects when the player hits the ground with one of their spells!
Status Effects
Another level to make spells feel more impactful is ensuring enemies feel the effects of your attacks. This is why we have introduced status effects to our spells. Each spell has a set of statuses it applies to enemies, and each status will affect your enemies in different ways. For example, in the video below you can see the 'Icy Mist' spell applying chill to the enemy. Chill will slow enemies down, and reduce health/stamina regen speeds.
Tree hiding
Few things are more annoying than trees getting in the way of the camera when you're trying to run through the shrubbery. With our new tree-hiding system, the player is always able to see everything they need to, with smooth fades & transitions to preserve immersion.
Combat Improvements
We've spent a lot of time improving the melee combat system in different ways. The first major change is the way enemies behave in combat. Previously, they would all charge in a herd, regardless of their health, their target's position, or any other factors. Now, they are much smarter, picking the right time to attack their enemy, and being very wary of spacing when moving around. They will be defensive at times, aggressive at times, and react to how the player is approaching combat.
As you may have noticed in the above clip, we also improved the combat music, giving smoother transitions between the exploration music & combat music, with dynamic layering based on the level of danger the player is in!
Art
Here are a couple of WIP armour sets that have been blocked out (still to be textured):
(Steel Armour Set)
(Iron Armour Set)
Development Update #9
Abilities
We have started to work in some of the ideas we have had for abilities. Abilities are available for use at all times by players, and have unique, varied effects (some passive, some active). The first two abilities we have to present are Summon Spirit Hound and Spectral Arrow
Spectral Arrow
This ability will turn your next arrow into a powerful, gravity-defying projectile which lights up its surroundings and does an immense amount of damage, at the cost of some mana when activated. Players can use it to help find their way, or hit a target from far away without having to worry about accounting for arrow drop.
Summon Spirit Hound
This will channel the power of the void to summon a banished soul in the form of a spirit hound, who will follow the player and attack any enemies it comes across. However, it must return to the void after a certain amount of time to restore balance, either forcefully by death, or after a certain amount of time has elapsed.
Ladders
An overlooked feature in most games, the ability to climb ladders! This gives us a lot more options for level design, and provides an extra level (quite literally) to many different interactions.
Strigoi Animations
The strigoi enemy has been fully animated, thanks to David Reyes, we are still in the process of implementing them, so here's a clip of an animation for the meantime:
Agrippa
We are in the process of building out Agrippa in the game world. Agrippa is a cornerstone of Stormrite's lore, so we are taking time to make sure the city captures the essence of the lore in-game. Here are a couple of early-development screenshots of a blockout created out-of-engine
Tutorial Prompts
We also added tutorial prompts to help the player when they may not know what to do
NPC Health Bars
We have redesigned the enemy health bars, they now show the enemy's current status (Fighting, Investigating, Fleeing or Idle), whilst also indicating the NPC's affiliation with the player.
New Key Art & Steam Page Graphics
Stormrite has a new look, thanks to the Indie Pups. We have updated all of Stormrite's graphics with the new illustration!
Development Update #7
To see a full rundown of it all, click the button below to read the full post on our site!
READ THE FULL BLOG POST HERE
ONLY 48 HOURS LEFT OF THE STORMRITE KICKSTARTER!! [Official Dev Blog #1]
Currently, we have £28,493 pledged from over 400 backers, but we are only £1500 away from our next goal, animal companions! If we reach our goal, you'll be able to take animals, such as Gerald here, with you on your adventures!
If we don't reach our goal by Tuesday 31st August at 11:59pm BST, then Gerald will cease to exist! So if you haven't backed the campaign already, we'd really appreciate it if you would click the image below to take a look at our Kickstarter page, as once the campaign is over, these rewards won't be available to obtain anywhere else!
Thank you for reading this, and hopefully you'll consider helping us over the line in these final hours! Now, for the exciting part. Our first official dev blog!!!
We’re trialling a new way of showing our community what we’re working on. Up until this point, our different communities on their respective platforms have been seeing varying parts of the development process, without there being one place to go for all Stormrite development updates. So here is our official pilot dev blog!
We’d like to show you what we’ve been working on over the past couple of weeks while our Kickstarter has been running. Development has been slightly slower than usual recently due to the regular management of our campaign, but that hasn’t stopped us from getting stuff done!
ALL-NEW MELEE COMBAT SYSTEM
The main thing that has been worked on recently is an all-new melee combat system for Stormrite. We had paid a lot of attention to the magic and ranged combat of the game, but felt it was time to undergo a long-overdue re-haul of the melee combat in the game.
Our new combat system aims to make melee combat a more viable and enjoyable choice of fighting style in the game. We’ve taken inspiration from the Witcher 3 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla for this, as our main inspiration, Skyrim, has melee combat that we would like to stay away from.
Blocking is your best friend, as you can see from the clip above. Blocking will prevent all damage from basic attacks, but you only have a limited amount of “weapon stamina” (to be renamed). When you run out of this, your blocks will no longer have any effect, leaving you exposed. This stamina is regained when not blocking, encouraging players to go on the offensive when they can to take the pressure off themselves in a fight. A well-timed parry will regain stamina, however, also rewarding players who are willing to take risks.
Dodges are another component of our new combat system that open up opportunities to catch your enemies off guard. When timed correctly they will leave the enemy completely exposed, allowing for massive damage-dealing potential.
Here is a video of a full fight with the combat system in its current state:
[previewyoutube="ci8oxa1LAvU;full"]
CLOTHING & ARMOUR
Our character artist, Alex, has been hard at work delivering new clothing and armour for our new human models! Some of which were seen in the trailer, the clothing models Alex has created are all in the game at the moment, but we have not yet switched over all our character models so, unfortunately, we can’t show them in action just yet. However, here are the models Alex has produced recently:
“The Order” armour
This armour set is the signature set for members of “The Order”, a mysterious cult whose influence stretches across the entire kingdom of Redreach. We will be releasing some official lore soon, however for now, here’s a look at what the members of the Order will be looking like in-game.
(Although you’ve probably seen the armour in the trailer already!)
Basic Cloth Garms
These garments will be a few of many basic clothing items you’ll be seeing the inhabitants of Redreach wearing on an everyday basis. They are simple, cheap clothes that can be found in most places, but are the first pieces of non-armour clothing we have created for the new character models.
Steel Armour
Another armour set. One of the main, accessible sets in the game which will be available for low to mid-level players. On the left is the concept drawn by our Concept Artist, and on the right is an early block-out of the armour.
DOORS, DOORS, AND MORE DOORS
Our Lead Artist, Kim, has been working on doors for the buildings he made for the game. Here’s a look at one of them.
LORE
As always, we’ve been continuously writing lore to develop Redreach’s unique personality. We will be publishing “The Order” lore soon, and will also publish the lore for the Skjölmen, a race of sturdy warriors that inhabit the north-western regions of Redreach.
MINOR TWEAKS
- Along with the stuff you see above, we’ve also been working on some smaller things, such as:
- Archery FOV (Field of View) improvements
- A Facebook page
- Optimisation work
- Combat UI mock-ups + improvements
- And more!
And finally, last but not least, we should have an exciting, NFT related announcement coming in the next week, so stay tuned for that! Make sure to keep sharing & spreading the word, and let’s finish this campaign strong! 😀
Many Thanks,
– The Stormrite Development Team