We're back, with another Developer blog! This time we'll be talking a bit more about the World of Worldless!
Worldless was created with the intention to make a very atmospheric, mysterious and interpretive journey.
Even though we have our own ideas on what’s going on and why during the game, we left plenty to the imagination of the players. We wanted to create a very seamless and fluid gameplay product, where it is the player’s choice to decide how much they want to dive into the narrative aspects.
With this, the different areas and combat actions have a gameplay first approach, designed with variety and fun in mind.
Even though we have some challenging aspects in platforming sections as well as plenty of optional Bosses, we made sure things do not get annoying - No game over, no level hazards. Instead fun and fast movement, different routes in an interconnected world, plenty of optional content with unique scenarios, and all without reusing assets.
Following this seamless approach, the menus are integrated into the game with proper context.
The schematic map of an area for example can be pulled at any time without losing control of the character. Showing your location, goals, sections completed or unexplored and so on, allowing the player to decide where to go next without needing to even stop moving.
In Worldless we wanted to keep the game UI always in context, so menus are contextual.
This is true for the Skill Tree as well.
With specific currencies gained while exploring or in combat, you’ll be able to unlock new active and passive combat skills in it, while it expands in surprising ways.
Learn additional but important details on specific abilities, see their values on different types of damages and understand their usability to obliterate your opponents.
We did put a lot of effort in creating new skills that allow the player to keep pushing for more efficient play styles, being more optimal, saving more time in your turn to do more actions, gaining more time for your next turn while defending from enemy attacks and so on.
Everything pushes to feel more powerful and allowing for being as optimal as possible. And once all skills are unlocked, the things you can do will seem endless.
There’s plenty of player expression, and always room to improve to be better with timing mechanics and strategy planning.
As we all know, 2023 has been an incredible year for gaming and to ensure the best launch possible for all announced platforms, the game will now be releasing on November 21st as so many big releases make it hard to delay by just a few days.
In the meantime, be sure to enjoy all the amazing games coming out like Assassin's Creed Mirage, Forza Motorsport, Spider-Man 2 and more throughout October and we'll see you all in November.
Creating a unique and deep combat system was the main goal from the very beginning. We wanted to merge the strategy that turn-based games are known for, with the skill and dexterity that action games can offer.
This meant having a Turn-Based Action system, where during the player's offensive turn, actions are done in real time within a time limit, then once the time is over, the character switches to a defensive state and has to protect against enemy actions in real time as well.
Looking at a lot of games, we took inspiration from a variety of interesting combat aspects, such as the Devil May Cry series, the Final Fantasy series, Octopath Traveler and so much more. The challenging part was deciding what core mechanics are needed without overwhelming the player too much and keeping only what is necessary to make a deep and expressive combat system. We didn’t want something too mashy, but instead something that would require a bit of thinking and strategizing. A combat system where if you play applying knowledge, the moves are not only more cool looking, they are actually more efficient.
We also spent a lot of time finding a way to make it so that turns do not feel repetitive in action use. With this, we followed the current trend of having a multi goal combat design. As an example, games like modern Final Fantasy use the Stagger system to rotate between different types of actions in order to make all of them useful, in specific moments of a fight and diverging the focus to not just do as much damage as possible mindlessly.
In Worldless, enemies can be defeated to allow progress, or Absorbed to achieve progress but also get skill points for new abilities. Skills have values for damage and Absorption damage, making them useful depending on the moment of the encounter.
Additionally, we created enemy “blocks” that can be broken using a specific type of damage and opens up the enemy to receive even more Absorption damage in a short window of time.
More sub-systems were added to reinforce all of this. For example, if the player Perfect Guards (or Parries) enemy moves, it will gain additional time for their next offensive turn, allowing them to do longer combos.
All of this can be explored further with a variety of skills designed to allow the player to destroy their opponents once all the combat mechanics are understood and mastered, making a learning curve that will surprise you. You may even notice how much different your play style is at the end compared to the early hours.
Of course enemy design was the most important thing for creating interesting variety and pushing the player to explore different actions, combo routes and strategies.
Enemies have different types of “Blocks”, these can change every turn so the player needs to adapt. We introduce new types of “Blocks” constantly, and enemy patterns and gimmicks are unique and varied to keep the player constantly at the edge of their seat.
It was the most fun designing the hardest Bosses, creating surprising multi-phase encounters and making the player improvise and adapt constantly in a fast paced action packed combat where thoughtful strategy is never lost.
Most importantly, we wanted to reward the effort of learning the game mechanics. You can style and demolish enemies in Worldless, and that is not only more fun to do, but the game systems will be rewarding this play style directly. Even if the game can feel a bit challenging sometimes, no need to worry. There’s not a game over situation ever. If you lose an encounter, you are just pushed away and can re-enter the fight instantly, so the pace and fluidity of the game is never slowed down.
Keep a look out for more of our developer blogs!
Worldless will be out on October 4th 2023 on PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch!
Hi there, it’s Joel, Game Director of Worldless, to talk to you about the Art of Worldless.
The visual identity of Worldless emerged as a necessity to find a practical approach of producing a satisfactory amount of action moves, enemies and assets rapidly and efficiently.
With the abstract nature of the game, doing a minimalistic approach matched better with the mysterious setting and resulted with a unique visual identity.
With this art style, I was able to focus myself entirely on character and enemy design, animations, effects and combat design.
For the environments we knew we wanted to represent each area by different colours and shapes, something that was a bit abstract but felt familiar and pleasantly atmospheric.
This was more difficult to achieve. So a proper artist was brought to the team to help in this front. Narciso, our Lead Artist, did amazing work helping to give form to an abstract existence.
Hi there, I’m Joel the Game Director on Worldless and I’m here to tell you a little bit more about how the game came to be.
Worldless was born from the desire to explore combat systems and artistic expression in unique ways.
This was a project that existed only in our imagination for years, with small tests of photoshop animations, artistic visual tests and a combat that was being constructed with the idea to merge turns with the high rushes of action games.
After working in the video game industry for some years, and with the help of co-workers, a prototype was built. Here we started to properly test the visual style, and the mechanic heavy design ideas for the fights.
With this effort, we luckily were able to secure the production and here we are now!
Without giving too much away, Worldless is set in a newborn existence based on polarities trapped in eternal conflict by the attraction and rejection of their natures.
These interactions can result in an exchange of polarities, but this process is very unstable, and who knows what new results can come from it…
And so, what is the purpose of this existence? You’ll have to play the game to find out.
We currently have a free demo on Steam here [link] and Worldless will be coming to PC, Xbox, Playstation & Nintendo Switch on 4 October 2023.
Worldless comes to PC and Consoles on 4th October 2023.
In Worldless, the beautiful and abstract platformer, you’ll venture forward, learn the nuances of an optimized combat system by mastering your timing and refining your strategies. Absorb enemies to learn new abilities in an ever-expanding skill tree to unlock new ways to explore and add depth to combat encounters. You’ll explore intricate areas filled with secrets, using finesse and fluid action to uncover them, and engage ferocious beings in fast-paced, turn-based action combat.
Worldless will be available on PC, Playstation and Nintendo Switch.
