Hey there, Joel here! Today will be the last developer blog before the launch of Worldless on the 21st of November! With the style and direction we took Worldless in, we knew it would be incredibly important to have strong animation in the game. Conveniently this has been my main discipline!
The Animation in Worldless has been a combination of hand-drawn sprites and interpolation animation, which we did in Unity. We believe to have created a unique visual style that stands out and catches the eye of anyone who sees it, while still allowing us to iterate frequently and allow for a fast production process.
We put a lot of focus on ensuring that the animation of the character matches the movements and the right visual state. Ensuring that the animations are clear and smooth is very important as they relay information to the player and will make the game more readable and improve the responsive control the player has.
It’s been a tough challenge, but we think we’ve found the right balance after a lot of testing. We wanted the game cues to be readable, but also fit within the minimalistic style that Worldless breathes throughout.
A key to making this a success has been the use of well-timed particles & visual effects, as they allowed us to reinforce the important game cues while maintaining the overall minimalistic style that we wanted for Worldless.
There is a strong cohesion between the animation, visual effects, and game design in Worldless and they really help you read and understand the game and immerse yourself in the game’s world.
It’s all about the balance between making things look incredible, and also ensuring the game reads well and visual design rules are followed. E.g. we want to telegraph to you that an attack is coming, or to feel the excitement and impact when you land a big hit.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this deep dive into the animation of Worldless and we can’t wait for you to experience the full game when it releases on November 21th!
We're excited to announce that Worldless is now Steam Deck verified! Whether you're on a train, a plane, or simply lounging in your backyard, you can now continue your Worldless adventure wherever you are with your Steam Deck. There never has been a better time to embark on a journey into the 2D, active turn-based platforming world of Worldless filled with secrets and mysteries to uncover.
Wordless is set to be released on all platforms on November 21st. To be one of the first to embark on this journey through a newborn universe filled with eternal conflict, we encourage you to pre-order now and add Worldless to your wishlist.
An Advanced Worldless Combat Breakdown Video by Game Director Joel
Hey there!
Today we’d like to share the second combat video in which we show and discuss the combat of Worldless in even more detail. Previously we’ve talked about the basics of combat. In today's video we continue talking about the combat in Worldless and dive deeper into some of the advanced combat mechanics the game has to offer.
Worldless will be released November 21st on all platforms! Pre-order & wishlist now to be notified when the game releases. We can’t wait to see our game in your hands!
Today we're diving into the enchanting audio world of Wordless! Before we immerse ourself in its ambient, dark, and melancholic soundtrack, we'd like to remind you that we've just announced a Deluxe Edition that comes with the soundtrack. Make sure to wishlist the game on Steam and enjoy the journey into Worldless' Audio!
Wordless - The audio team
We like to describe the Worldless soundtrack as an ambient, sometimes dark, and melancholic flux of sound. The soundtrack aims to elevate the atmosphere of each level and convey a particular mood or feeling to the player.
The Audio in Wordless is very important and the foundations of Wordless’ Audio have been a tight collaboration between Joel Roset (Game Director), Berlinist and BeGun (Music Producer from Barcelona), and Jaime Bermudez. With Jaime being responsible for the in-game sound effects and the integration of Wiise, the audio layer.
Concept - Floating above time and space
With the audio of Wordless, we’ve focused particularly on conveying emotion. Each area of the game is different and we found it incredibly important to match these with different emotions and feelings. Combining this with a minimalist approach and making the player feel like a particle in the universe has been the goal. In the end, we decided to compose music that was simultaneously static and flexible, epic and calm, electronic and organic.
It has been a huge challenge and came with an incredible amount of work but seeing the music come together and going through concept, initial score and finishing touches have been incredibly rewarding in our eyes, every track fits the needs of the area in-game perfectly.
The direction from Joel and his vision for Instrument choice & various sounds have been an integral part of this and made it a smooth experience, we could lean on his insights and ideas. When combined with our taste & personality we were able to give the Soundtrack the distinct Worldless flavour that we intended.
Shapes - Two sound environments colliding
The Worldless soundtrack has to provide a chill exploration of each part of its universe and we want it to boost the adrenaline for the player at certain moments. To achieve this we have divided the OST into two categories of tracks:
Ambient tracks, related musically to the calmness of the cosmos, will appear stretched and have a slower tempo.
Boss Tracks, require a specific sound to appear both intimidating and disruptive. Intimidating to the player but also disruptive to the stretched continuous time of each level.
It’s worth noting that bosses are what we usually call the explosions in-game, moments in which the player is hit by a wall of sound. Along with the boss battles we tried to convey a different musical narrative with each enemy. The boss tracks should match the appearance, moveset, and story background of each boss. It is something we found very important and we want you to experience this for yourself in-game.
Because the sound environments are completely different from each other, we shaped the soundtrack to be heard separately. We want you to experience the ambiances related to the peaceful moments of gameplay first and then the pieces connected to the more difficult moments.
Soundscape: sci-fi without the sci-fi touch
One thing that was apparent to us from day one was that Worldless’ soundscape should avoid the frenetic style expected from the sci-fi soundtrack of a combat game. During its platforming and exploration phases, we have decided to keep the tempo and soundscape low: no fast arpeggios, no square-waves, no fast rhythm/percussion (even during the encounters).
Instead of looking after synth waves or sharpened synthesizers, which could be perceived as a razor to the ear, we’ve researched a wider sound, that could be perceived as a breath, with simple and regular movements. We used the synth pad massively. In some tracks we also used organic sounds such as strings and pizzicato/percussion strings.
There are few exceptions, in some music tracks such as Opaque Heights (one of the game’s levels) we have used some bass-synth with a little distortion to convey a sense of bewilderment and desolation. We also used piano and strings (even pizzicatos) in some moments as percussion during the boss fights, particularly in The First Iteration and Plea for an End.
Focus on the player: avoiding emotional rollercoasters
It’s been important for us to make the soundscape not only to fill the Worldless universe but also to guide the player. We tried to design a soundtrack that could help (and not stress) the player in each phase. Bosses are the only exception in which we went full power. But…
…In the middle between bosses, there’s a lot more to explore and many encounters to fight. Worldless is a complex game, especially due to its innovative turn-based fighting system. To help the player we needed the tracks to aid the players during the combat encounters, encouraging them to try again and, most importantly, allowing them to focus on the SFX. These are crucial in combat and will help with the timings to parry or execute special attacks.
The final soundtrack: minimalism and maximalism
Composing the soundtrack to Worldless has been a fun challenge for us. We have wanted to compose something sci-fi, with a minimalistic and melancholic touch since we started playing Another World in our Amiga 500. So when we were proposed to score Worldless we were thrilled and our excitement grew as the scoring process went on.
We were able to use a lot of creative freedom while designing each track. We were able to develop and work on different ideas and then define and polish each of them with guidance from Joel, who helped us create a sound that could be described as a constant subtraction aimed to reduce everything to minimalism, but also - when necessary - expand it brutally to a sort of minimalistic maximalism
The scoring process involved several people with different perspectives for each track, resulting in a mix of personalities that was enriching for both the soundtrack and the people involved. Often a track evolved naturally and spontaneously from the sketch to the final production through a great collaboration of everyone involved.
A key factor in making the Worldless score a success has been the involvement throughout the whole game development process. This has been incredibly valuable and something we want to highlight. Often a musician works under tight deadlines & time restraints. In Worldless we had plenty of time to play and interpret the game, understand Joel’s vision, and translate it to the music score worthy of Worldless.
Worldless Pre-Orders Available & Soundtrack Announcement
We're thrilled to share some exciting news ahead of Worldless' launch November 21st!
Worldless is now available for pre-order on Xbox, PlayStation & Switch and comes with a 10% discount.
Furthermore, a Deluxe Edition of Worldless is coming soon. The Deluxe Edition includes the game & Soundtrack featuring 12 songs crafted by Berlinist, BeGun & Jamie Bermudez!
Worldless is a stylised 2D platformer with a unique, active, turn-based combat system, and a mind-bending interpretative narrative. Players embark on a journey of self-growth and understanding, pushing the limits of their nature in a newly born and abstract universe.
For more information, checkout the Worldless Website.
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!
