Category: progress update

Progress Update #6 – Map Progress

06/07/2016

We’ve been working on adding a layer of polish to all of our in game assets. The first thing we wanted to go over was our balcony map.

We’re constantly developing our art style and trying to figure out exactly how we want Helheim to look. Below are some screenshots of the map as it has progressed over the last few months.

Garden Balcony Version 1

This is one of the first playable versions of this map. We were trying to test some different water colors and in this particular screenshot. The original plan for this map was to make it a ruins of the plateau jutting out of the side of a massive mountain. We had a difficult time getting the mountain to look nice in this perspective with our fairly limited resources.

Garden Balcony Version 2

Eventually, we decided to replace the concept of setting the map on the side of a mountain with making it a garden balcony on a massive skyscraper. This suited our lore quite well and made for a much easier time getting the backdrop to look right. We also tuned and increased the overall level of detail with this revision.

Garden Balcony Version 3

In our current version, we decided to increase the overall level of detail again. We’re still trying to find the balance between how much detail we want in the game compared to how clear we want the gamestate to be. We also went over the level design in this version, adding new obstacles and removing others in an attempt to adjust how players naturally use the different parts of the map. As you can see, this version of the map also contains a flags for our CTF game mode.


Posted by: Eluem on 06/07/2016

Progress Update #4 – Floating Status Bars and Dash Differentiation

02/29/2016

Status Bars

We’ve been working very hard to design and implement some nice status bars for a while now. We decided to scrap the HUD style status bars that were shown in the original alpha video. For Helheim, we think floating status bars that follow your player make more sense. You don’t want to glance to the edge of your screen somewhere to find out how much health or mana you currently have. It’s far easier to glance within a couple inches of your character.

So lets breakdown what you’re seeing here. The red and green are pretty straight forward health and stamina. You’ll also notice small and large notches in the healthbar. The small notches represent 10 health each and the large notches represent a health threshold. If you take no damage for a small amount of time, your health will regenerate up to the next threshold. The blue on the left is your mana. You generate mana by landing different attacks (the amount that they generate can vary). The mana is split into 4 “chunks”. All abilities that spend mana cost 1-4 “chunks” of your mana pool. This makes mana management a more straight forward choice and it makes it easier to recognize how many uses of what abilities you can use.

The last thing in this gif is a specialized bar for any ammo based ability. Here, the player with the dual daggers has the Shuriken equipped. They have 3 ammo before needing to reload, so you can see that under their health bar. This space will be used differently depending on how the ability functions. It can be used to represent cooldowns via a bar or abilities that charge up via a bar that fills up over time, for example. If you equip two abilities with such specialized bars, you’ll see a second bar show up under your health.

There’s still a decent bit to flesh out with them. For example, we’d like to prevent them from overlapping by having them push each other out of the way. We also implemented a feature so that when they overlap a player, they fade out a bit.. however we think that this feature needs some tuning as well. Lastly, it we’re considering coloring the borders or health values differently for each local player…

We think that, in the end, this interface will serve players nicely in allowing them to focus on the moment to moment tactical decisions.

Dash Differentiation

In Helheim, your equipped weapon is the core defining factor of your character’s play style. As such, different weapons can have entirely different dashes. Not just in terms of animation, but in terms of functionality as well. They can vary in how long they are, how many i-frames they have, and possibly work completely differently than most like our planned Sword and Shield (having a shield charge instead of a dodge).

On the left, the two dashes are equal in every way except their look. In the build on the right, we’ve significantly altered the physics of the Ultra Greatsword such that it will come to a stop much earlier.

 

(Side Note: I personally believe that the dashes in both of these gifs have too much distance, but we’re still playing around with this to get an idea of what feels good)

I believe that having the power to control how each weapon’s dash works individually is a great way to balance and further differentiate each weapon. However, in general, they should most likely fit within certain standards unless it really suits the weapon. Like for the Sword and Shield, for example.


Posted by: Eluem on 02/29/2016

Progress Update #3 – Dual Daggers and Concept Art

02/23/2016

Dual Dagger Combo 1Dual Daggers

This past week we got some more mechanics implemented for the Dual Daggers. There’s still more to do as far as polishing, and I’d like to add a few more attacks to finish the weapon up, but this is good for getting an idea of balancing large vs small weapons for now.

In the gif you can see three distinct actions from the Dual Dagger’s move set. First you see a left diagonal slash. The Dual Daggers can do left and right diagonal dashing slashes with the R2 and L2 triggers. This can be used to close in on enemies and reposition yourself while simultaneously attacking. Then you see a simple R1->R1 combo. This combo chain has a few more moves in it, but you only see the first two slashes here.

The last move you see is an evasive cross slash which can be used to deal significant damage in a large area and simultaneously create distance from your opponent. It’s a good move to throw in when you’re running low on stamina after rushing in and dealing a bunch of damage to your opponent.

I think that with these moves implemented, the Dual Daggers are shaping up quite nicely to achieve their goal of being an agile weapon with quick and ferocious engagements with swift disengagements.


Concept Art

So far we haven’t shown any concept art or even really given too much of an idea about the world that the game will take place in. So in this update, I’d like to take some time to address that a little bit.

Death:

Death Concept Art

When a person’s life comes to an end, they were once greeted by a Valkyrie which would usually either bring you to Asgard or Helheim. However, as the population of humanity grew, and since most humans aren’t worthy of being brought to Asgard, the Valkyries were beginning to become fatigued bringing the many average souls to Helheim.

In response to this Hephestus, hoping to impress Frejya, created a sentient servant to collect the souls of those would would be brought to Helheim so that the Valkyries could focus only on those deemed worthy of being brought to Asgard. This servant would become known to mortals as Death.

Hel:

Hel Concept Art

Helheim, named after it’s overseer, is inhabited mostly by the souls of those mortals whose passions were not strong enough to burn brightly through their transition into the eternity of afterlife.

Entirely complacent with wherever they find themselves, these souls barely bother to drag themselves about unless they are disturbed. The dreary sense of decay and loneliness that fills Hel’s domain has become engraved in her very being.


Posted by: Eluem on 02/23/2016

Progress Update #2

02/16/2016

Sorry I haven’t posted anything recently. I was really busy for the last couple of weeks working on learning about how to, and extending Unity3D a bit to help make some things a little easier. I also decided to try to polishing this extension up a bit and attempting to release it through the Unity Asset Store under the name “MultiPivot Tool”. So, hopefully that goes well and can help fund the development of Helheim 😀

Now onto some more fun and exciting updates!

Dual Daggers

We’ve come along quite a bit with the dual daggers, there’s still a lot to be done. We decided that we didn’t like the original starting position for them, with the blade pointed forward. It looked like you were already in the middle of an attack. So we decided to go with an asymmetrical positioning having one blade covering your front as if you’re defending yourself. We thought this gave the daggers a nicer feel. So far we only have the basic attack chain animated and implemented. I’ll do another post detailing the daggers and the design of the daggers a bit more thoroughly once we’ve animated and implemented more of the initial versions of the moves.

Dual Daggers

Oh and here you can see a comparison between the two dagger positions:

Dual Dagger Idle Pose          Dual Dagger Old Idle Pose

New Map

We’ve started designing a new and much larger map to try out some additional game modes on! Here’s a still shot of the current version of it! There’s still quite a lot of work we need to do to it, but this is a decent rough idea of what we’re planning.

Cliff Map Prototype

 


Posted by: Eluem on 02/16/2016

Progress Update #1

01/19/2016

Some of the more technical system changes and additions took far longer than expected, so we didn’t get to finish all of what was planned. Such is the way of development.

Started Daggers

We started the work on implementing the daggers. We’re still trying to figure out exactly how we want the player to hold them so they look properly menacing.

We’re very excited to get these into a decently working order soon!

Dual Daggers

Working Shuriken

The shuriken throw ability is very fast paced compared to the fireball, and it’s quite fun. We still have to tune though, but we’re very happy about how the ability is turning out so far.

Here, the player throws 3 shuriken and then spends a portion of their mana pool to “reload” and spawn 3 more. The shuriken is the first ability in the game to rely on an ammo system.

Shurikens

Force Blast Projectile Reflection

This is a… blast! 😛 We still want to tune this ability to make it easier to pull off. Right now it requires some extreme baiting/predicting. A bit too much for the payout… but when you do pull it off, it’s really satisfying.

Force Blast Reflect

Updated Technical Items

  • Mana System
  • Ammo System
  • Improved poise system
  • Damage system refactoring

Posted by: Eluem on 01/19/2016