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 MoreSmaradagus Swamp: Muck, Tradition, and Stagnation
So it's been a full year since I've done a level writeup and then posted a ton of pictures, which is a transgression I shall now fix! I hope you like swamps.
The Smaradagus Swamp is a rather gloomy place located right smack-dab in the middle of Vitrerran. It's populated by a group of frog-like creatures called the Tranalid, and on the whole, is the biggest nuisance on the continent.
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Read MoreMore Music!
Holy crap it's been two months since we last updated anything! I'm...really really sorry about that. Been a crazy year so far. There will be a bigger update on THAT sometime in the nearish future, by the way.
For the now, here are two songs, both of which are on our Youtube channel.
More after the break
Read MoreThe Land of Glass 2015 Progress Report
With the start of a new year comes both resolutions and reflections, and while we aren’t quite equipped with promising any of the former, we can certainly offer the latter. 2015 was a pretty busy year for The Regret of Vitrerran, and we’d like put out a kind of progress report of sorts. For those interested in the game, it’s only fair you know how far in we are; and for us making it, well, having this out in the open is very helpful.
What follows is a haphazard list of what goes into making a video game and how far we’re in. Please keep in mind that the percents are rough estimates and some categories are much bigger than others.
Read MoreMount Nefisigg: Snow, Castles, and Knights
As production for The Regret of Vitrerran continues, I'm finding myself heading back to older levels to spruce them up a bit or even completely add new parts. As I was building the interior of Castle Alboiss, it occurred to me that I've yet to write a blog about Vitrerran's ice level, which is strange since it's been fairly complete for a long time now and acts as the setting to our demo. It's high-time we've had a writeup about it!
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Read MoreCharacter Introductions: Marcus and James
With The Regret of Vitrerran demo in its final stages of completion, I think it’s time to talk about the two characters you’ll play as. It’s also just been awhile since I’ve written about the writing aspect to our no-longer-so-little game, and that needs to be fixed.
So. Marcus and James! I really like these characters. Their surprisingly comedic, which isn’t a direction I had thought either would take. But they have this amazing back-and-forth that’s one part sarcasm and one part sorrow. Both characters have lived less than ideal lives, and they cover their true feelings up with biting jokes and outright insults. They don’t like each other. At all. But they also have a begrudging respect for each other’s abilities, and they share a camaraderie in being outcasts.
Like all the characters I’ve worked on, I created Marcus and James only after I designed their home, in this case Mount Nefisigg. Mount Nefisigg (and Castle Alboiss) is the lofty dwelling of King Midus and the only knights of Vitrerran. It’s biting cold, corrupt, and filled with self importance. It’s also a place of high invention with a host of powerful mages.
So, let’s talk Marcus first.
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 MoreAn Overview of Vitrerran's Combat System
We decided to get together and explain The Regret of Vitrerran's combat system in a bit more depth as screenshots don't do the game much justice. We hope you enjoy.
Read MoreSvarog: Volcanoes, Lava, and Ash
I've spent the last few days finalizing the basics--and that's an oxymoron, I should think--of Svarog, the fire-themed level in The Regret of Vitrerran. This is the first level I started working on sometime early last year, and it's crazy how different it is now than when I first started.
So, time to show it off!
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.
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