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Rite of Life is a life-sim RPG being developed for PC, Mac and Linux. It is heavily inspired by games such as Harvest Moon, Pokémon, Dark Cloud and Monster Hunter. It features a player-driven open world where you start with a small encampment. Through exploring, battling and gathering resources you can turn your home into a prospering town.

Post news Report RSS ROL New Year Update! - Visual Updates, Combat, New Characters, Minigames & More!

We're back with the first Rite of Life game dev update of the New Year!

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Happy New Year everyone! It's great to be back with a newRite of Life update. It has been a few months since our last one, so we have a lot to get through! Let's begin!

Forest Update

We’ve taken the time to redesign the forest. Originally in the alpha demo, the forest changed its layout each day. This concept came from when we were procedurally generating the surrounding environments. However, since the game has progressed, we’ve implemented seasons, weather and many other variables. We feel strongly that having a consistent design will allow us to improve the experience of exploring, gathering and finding materials in the forest. What we’ve been able to do now is explore ways the seasons and weather change the environment. Some quick examples include lakes being frozen over during the Winter, which could lead to access to previously cut off areas, or when it has been raining for long periods of time you will see areas flooded, thus additional resources being made available. There are lots of avenues for us to explore moving forward. We think this will make exploring the forest feel more dynamic and rewarding whilst retaining that familiarity of knowing the area and planning your day.

Forest Redesign 1


Forest Redesign 2


Forest Redesign 3


Forest Redesign 4


Home Updates

Alchemist

Eventually an alchemist will arrive at your home, their house will be rather eccentric to say the least. For the design of the home, we drew inspiration from Howl’s Moving Castle, we want the house to be very animated. It’s not entirely set in stone what the alchemist character will sell yet, but we’re thinking potions that affect encounter rates, the weather, drop rates, immunities amongst other things.

alchemist house


New Characters

We’ve also been designing some new characters for the home. We’re targeting around 35 unique characters in total once you have maxed out your home. Here’s a look at some of the latest designs.

New Characters

From Top Left: Doctor, Log Scaler, Alchemist. From Bottom Left: Postman, Tavern Owner


Journal

Journal


The journal has seen an update. We’ve implemented animations and additional sound effects. Additional tabs have also been added which include artefacts, fish and cards.

Artefacts

Artefacts can be found around the world of Rite of Life. There are now little treasure spots that can be visually seen, you can interact with these and you’ll find all sorts of things. If you stumble upon an artefact. The artefacts will be used to fill out the Town Gallery in the City Hall-like building that is built when your home reaches a certain level. You’ll also be able to decorate your house with the artefacts that you find.

Treasure Spot


Fishing

Fishing has seen a massive overhaul. It’s now its own minigame complete with its own festival/competition.

When you hook a fish, it initiates the minigame to catch it. You’ll potentially have three icons to click on as your lure spins around the circle. The primary one will be the fish that you have hooked, to catch the fish you must time your click so that your lure is in line with the fish icon. An accurate click will raise the bar on the right-hand side and move you closer to pulling the fish out of the water. If you mistime a click, the bar on the right will decrease, if the bar gauge reaches zero, then the fish breaks your line and escapes.


The second icon that you might see if you’re fishing outside of your home is to initiate a battle. Just time your click when your lure hovers over the icon, then you’ll enter combat with whatever you’ve hooked.

Fishing Journal


Lastly, you’ll occasionally see a treasure icon. By accurately timing your click, you can obtain all sorts of goodies from gold, items, equipment or accessories. Some can only be obtained through fishing. The location, weather, season and environment can affect what treasures can be found. So be sure to do a spot of fishing on your travels.

Fishing Festival

So that’s how the minigame works, but we also have a fishing competition that takes place every so often with the villagers of your home. With this you’ll be taken to a sectioned off area of the forest (no encounters with monsters) and you’re given a certain amount of time to catch the best fish you can. There are two factors that decide which fish is best, these are based on the rarity and size. You will automatically keep the highest rated fish, so just keep fishing as quickly and as best as you can! There are prizes for those that come 1st, 2nd or 3rd. There’s also an additional prize for whoever collects the most trash whilst fishing, we’re dubbing it ‘The Environmentally Friendly Award’. Lots to sink your teeth into with that competition.

Fishing Festival


Card Game

The card game has seen further visual improvements and we have also implemented all of Mount Cherufe's monsters. We’ve updated the functionality of selecting your hand before the game, and we have also added a tonne of sound effects.

Card Game Hand


We’ve designed and implemented the character that teaches you how to play cards. He works for the company that produces the cards and we drew inspiration from the kind of shady salesmen that wear those long trench coats and open them up displaying their ‘wares’. He’ll arrive quite early in your home’s development and will be the first character to introduce a new minigame to your home.

Card Shop Owner


This character not only teaches you how to play cards, but he also opens his own little card shop. From him you can buy ‘Trap Cards’ which we spoke about briefly during an earlier update. Trap Cards are used on enemies you encounter to turn them into cards. So, you can obtain cards through playing against other characters, but also through turning real monsters into cards themselves. This is the only way you can obtain shiny versions of the regular monsters. Shiny cards are the same as the original cards only they have a +1 on every attribute.

Card Shop Stock


There are various types of cards that you can collect. Monster cards are cards of all the monsters that you can encounter randomly via walking around in the environments. Then there are Boss cards, these are obtained by beating a boss in a surrounding area. For example, when you defeat the Mightytaur who is present in the alpha demo, you’ll obtain him as a card. There are also Quest Monster cards, these are obtained by defeating a certain monster for a quest and then taking the card from whoever set the original quest. An example for this would be the Moo Moo quest that is available in the alpha demo. You defeat the monster Moo Moo, then report back to the baker, Benjamin Bunns, then when you play him at cards, there’s a chance he’ll now use the Moo Moo card. Finally, there are Character Cards, these can be obtained by defeating character’s that are linked to the specific character. An example would be your father having your Character Card and after a certain point in the game (keeping this spoiler free!) he’ll begin to use your Character Card when you play him at cards. There’s a lot of complexity to how to collect all of the different types of cards, hopefully you’ll have a lot of fun trying to collect them all.

Card Game Spin


Card Game


Card Game Victory


Crafting

Crafting


The crafting visuals have had a revamp, it also includes sound effects and feedback on how much of each material you have. Anything you craft, you can then place down in your house.

Interior Editor


Cooking

Cooking too has had a visual update. Using the ingredients you grow on your farm, you can prepare certain dishes that will aid you in your adventures.

Cooking


Virtual Pet

Training

The screen where you train your pet is now coming together. The pet training and racing is one of the last minigames you’ll unlocking as you level up your home. Your pet will be in your garden attached to your home. You’ll be able to train it multiple times a day until it’s too fatigued.

Pet Training


Races

There will be a race attendant who you can speak to during a set time in the day. There it’ll open the menu shown below and you can enter your pet in one of these races once a day.

Pet Races


Pet Shop Owner

We now have the pet shop owner implemented. The character’s design isn’t finalised, but we’ll have more on that in the next update. The type of items that you can buy from the pet shop are currently items that aid your pet in its training. The energy bars allow the pet to train additional times in one day without getting fatigued as quickly. The pills/tablets improve the pet’s focus during training, increasing the chance of them gaining more attributes after a session.

Pet Shop Stock


Combat

The combat has seen a lot of fine tuning since our last update. We’ve taken on board loads of feedback that we received on the alpha demo and whilst exhibiting the game. There’s now clearer visual feedback on when an attack is super or not very effective against a monster.


Another issue that was recurring, is players weren’t noticing the armour bar that was present and when it had been depleted. So, we’ve now implemented an animation that plays when the player’s or monster’s armour is broken, and it is accompanied with a sound effect. Hopefully this addresses that issue.

There’s also a tonne of new animations added, screen shakes when certain attacks hit, a red tint as you take damage, colour coordinated digits for damage (separating the health and armour damage) as well as more fluid HP, AP and armour depletion animations.

Loot Screen

The loot screen has also seen a massive overhaul. One of the main issues with the original loot screen was it was very flashy but wasn’t providing the information quickly enough. On top of the fact that there are now additional materials that can be obtained after combat that can be used for crafting, we felt it best to make a more concise loot screen. This is still very much a work in progress, but do let us know what you think.

Looking Forward

Hopefully there's plenty there to sink your teeth into. Our next step is to finally plan out the home and how it expands. We'll be introducing more characters, more information on how the home progresses, the stages of development and also be showing off more of the Swamp and Mountain Pass. We're coming up to the final stretch now. We're doing everything we can to get this game ready for a 2018 release.

Also, we now have a Rite of Life Discord (Discord.gg) that you should totally join. We post more frequent updates in there. It's also great to get your feedback on smaller things and if you have any questions, we're really active on it.

Discord server


I think that just about wraps it up. Any questions, feel free to send us them via our social media channels, Discord or comment on here.

Kind regards,

Rebourne Team

Rebourne Studios Logo 1


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