Hey everyone! It’s been almost four years since I’ve gotten to do an entry introducing characters to The Land of Glass, but 2018 is the year we put out our first piece of DLC—a full-blown campaign that’s easily longer than any of the others. It will also be free. With that, I’d like to touch on the two people you’ll get to play as, a married couple from the Aboravin Jungle.
Read MoreScarfoam Coast: Water, Kings, and Falls
So it has once again been way too long since I updated our dev blog. It's funny, I'm looking at that progress report from four months ago and thinking, "a lot of those numbers now read 100%." Progress is happening, and it's going quicker than slower to boot! All of the levels are done save some little details here and there, we have battle maps for every level but the one I'm about to talk about, we're maybe two songs away from having a full soundtrack, and all the dialogue is done save for one final round of editing.
We don't have a specific release date yet, but you know, soon.
However, we're here to talk about the Scarfoam Coast, or the water level in Land of Glass. This was the level I think both my brother and myself were dreading to make, partly because we had no idea what it should look like, and partly because the water engine can be finicky to work with. It does a lot with a little, but you have to know how to make it work to get the best out of it. Thankfully, I know the guy who made it.
Also, I made him do all the water.
Read More2016 Progress Report
Early last year I published a progress report of what we’ve accomplished on The Regret of Vitrerran. Well, another year has come and gone, and it’s time to do another one of these. Much like the first one, these percents are estimations, not all categories are created equal, and we are hoping to have this game done and out within the next eight to ten months.
2016 was a super productive year!
Maps
We’re defining maps as the level geometry throughout Viterran. If you’ve caught any of our Let’s Builds or our blog posts about the various countries across our continent, then you have a strong understanding of what we’re talking about.
Ice level: 100%
Fire level: 100%
Jungle level: 100%
Sand level: 90%
Wind level: 30%
Swamp level: 100%
Water level: 10%
Neutral level: 15%
Battle Maps
We’re defining battle maps as the small, usually 16x16 square maps where battles take place. There are between 10 and 15 per dungeon.
Ice level: 90%
Fire level: 100%
Jungle level: 0%
Sand level: 90%
Wind level: 0%
Swamp level: 80%
Water level: 0%
Neutral level: 0%
Dialogue
We’re defining dialogue as how far a set of characters are through their respective campaigns. It should be noted that all dialogue with the Merchant character—some 17 pages worth—is finished. I have not included those tallies in the below figures.
Kvalt/Tylek: 63%
Pakasoph/Caud: 100%
Herahk/Aros: 63%
Marcus/James: 63%
Art
Artwork is one of the biggest things we have left to do for Vitrerran, yet some aspects of it shouldn’t take that long to do. The portraits are a bit of a time-sink, but the animations themselves aren’t all that bad because once one walk cycle is completed, it’s just a matter of following that path. The mold’s been created, so now it’s time to replicate it.
Level Tilesets: 85%
Character Portraits: 50%
Character Animations: 40%
Cards
We really can’t estimate how far we are on the card front because Vitrerran promises to have a lot of them, and “a lot of them” isn’t a number. We’re making them up as we go in a sense, but the good news is they aren’t terribly difficult to make or churn out.
That being said, we do have at least half of them finished.
Sounds
Of all the rough estimates here, sounds are probably the roughest since I cannot say for certain how many sound effects the game will need. I also can only estimate how many songs we’ll have, but ideally I’d like to cap that number at 20. That’s two per dungeon for a total of 16, and then four more for things like boss fights and our overworld music.
Music: 60%
Sound Effects: 15%
Design
We’re defining design as playable and complete levels from a purely gameplay-driven perspective. This includes all fighting and rewards only.
Pakasoph/Caud: 40%
Kvalt/Tylek: 25%
Herahk/Aros: 25%
Marcus/James: 25%
Read MoreDevelopment Update: Before and After
On the last development blog, I posted a bunch of pictures of the Smaradagus Swamp, which is an example of what our game will look like when all of the proper art assets are in place. Well, we have more art assets in place! I've been spending the last few weeks going through some old levels and sprucing them up, adding trim to houses, grass to floors, and a bunch other little odds and ends to our world that really makes it come to life.
Read MoreMusic: We are the Ocean Born
Hey, have some more Vitrerran music why don'tcha!
So, this song is the main theme for The Scarfoam Coast, or our water area. I was trying to channel my inner Alestorm, and while I probably missed that mark by a wide margin, I am happy with what I got going here. This song was super fun to make!
What sets this one apart, I guess, is that it uses a new plugin called Sakura. Well, not "new" to the world but new to Dual Wield Software. It came with some awesome strings, including the violin and guitars you here in this song. I finally have an upright bass, guys. You have no idea how happy that makes me. Got a wicked nice harp too.
Pretty sure the Greyjoys liked to go "we are the iron born," so that's where the title is coming from. I'm finding it harder to pun off of A Song of Ice and Fire things as I make more tunes. I haven't read the books in a very long time.
Anyhow, cheers. Hope you like the song, and as always, follow us on twitter @DualWieldSoft, find us on FB, and some third thing. I dunno.
Song after the break!
Read MoreNew Song: When Winter Fell
Howdy everyone! Going to keep this short, sweet, and to the point: We recently put up a new song for Vitrerran called "When Winter Fell."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn64osvmyQA
For some reason, my blogging software isn't letting me embed the video. Sorry.
I've also gone back to "A Song of Ice" and made some changes. You can find the new version here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwDzbse-r7c
Read MoreSehktus Desert: Religion, Sand, and Heat
It seems like all fantasy-inspired video games come packaged with a long, sprawling desert, and The Regret of Vitrerran is no different. We, of course, promise better pacing than your average desert level.
The Sehktus Desert plays home to the oldest civilization on Vitrerran, the Areen predating the other races by what many scholars believe to be two hundred or more years. While historical records are sparse and open to conjecture, the Areen have taken this belief and embraced it. To many, age represents wisdom, and the Areen feel like their strict beliefs are deeply rooted in wisdom.
Follow the Hiernont. Follow the Tenants of Sollal.
Read MoreUtility Cards and Weapon Crafting
I’ve noticed that the more The Regret of Vitrerran grows as a game, the more ideas it borrows from other games. There are already a lot of little influences scattered about, such as the Megaman-inspired “Pick a character and play the game in almost any order you want” aspect to the story or the Baten Kaitos-inspired “Cards are actually attacks and spells” aesthetic. But I never thought we’d take ideas from more traditional RPGs.
Do you guys like weapon crafting?
I don’t play very many RPGs, but there are aspects to them I quite enjoy. World of Warcraft treated me to the pleasure of finding and upgrading gear, and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning showed me the joy of building new gear. There’s a strange little high you get when a raid boss drops a much-needed upgrade or a tough monster yields a very rare piece of crafting material. Shiny loot comes with the intrinsic thought of, “I can more easily save the world with this!” and I love it.
We’re bringing that feeling into The Regret of Vitrerran, though in a more straightforward way than the above mentioned games.
Read MoreCharacter Introduction: Caud and Pakasoph
I am really, really excited to talk about the characters for The Regret of Vitrerran, for they have been my passion part of this project. I love working on everything else, but writing…that is something special to me.
So. Caud and Pakasoph! Of all the characters I’ve started fleshing out, these are my two favorites. I love their personalities and the dynamic that is built out of them. There just so easy to write! The others give me all kinds of troubles, but these two somehow do all the work for me.
I suppose I should start at the beginning: When we were in early stages of design and looking at areas and spells the player should visit, one of the first places that I suggested was a swamp. There’s something kind of fun and creepy about video game swamps; you get all the joy without the bad smells or sticky boots.
Read MoreA Last Minute Change
The title to this post is one part joke and one part reality. As it stands, The Regret of Vitrerran is early in development and so any changes made right now aren’t and cannot be last minute. We haven’t even Kickstarted this yet! However, we did—or rather, Joe did—employ a very substantial change that has pushed our Kicktarter plans back a bit.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, the last two and a half weeks have been absolutely correct.
The Regret of Vitrerran is now a different game with different gameplay.
Read More