Hi guys!
Welcome to the next episode. In the first Devlog, we talked a bit about the game itself. We have mentioned its key features, explained its main story, and showed you some graphics with the released trailer. We also have promised you more content, so here we go! :)
Today we would like to cover the topic of the idea behind the game because - Yeah, you guessed it! Everything starts with an idea.
After deep research and analysis of the market and game genres, we figured out that we can create a game we are big fans of - a Metroidvania! To make it more memorable and to create a niche for our game, we decided to add spellcrafting and narrative decisions to discern our game among other Metroidvanias. We are big fans of the genre, so it was pure joy (for most of the time) to create such a game! Of course we drew some inspiration from Hollow Knight , Ori, and Guacamelee and analysed other titles to see what worked, what didn't work in those titles in regard to mechanics, level design and story.
One of the first mood boards & color concepts for locations:
Early concepts, ideas:
Concepts for Level Art:
Bring the idea to life
Game dev is not all fun and games, and we won't bore you with a lot of details about the less fun stuff that needed to be done to finish the idea for our game. Do not worry, let’s skip it to the good part!
In the first weeks, we spent a lot of time writing, designing, and discussing everything related to the game. Our Fox team: Designers, Programmers, Artists - everyone had their ideas, and we had to find common ground and the best possible solutions. Luckily, we survived the brainstorming era (and still like each other) and came up with a complete plan.
Final idea: Dark fairytale Metroidvania with a demigoddess as the main character!
Old gameplay video:
The game - in our thoughts - was supposed to be quite simple and approachable for every kind of player. We wanted to make the game enjoyable for everyone. We are aware that not everybody likes overpowered monsters or complicated systems. We’ve also decided to give the players a choice of difficulty level, so you can adjust it to your liking.
We kept the systems easy to understand. We are creating games for other people and they have to get a grasp on what we offer - so we had to balance originality and other factors. The best ideas are not worth much, if your players can't understand the point of what you present to them. And to give it more flavour, we created rich game lore for the player to discover during the playthrough.
Game's prototype - changes:
Prototype's map:
Our booth and the presentation of the prototype during the PGA 2021 - Polish Games Fair:
Introduction to lore
You have already learned some fragments about the plot in the previous article. You also know about magic, Rin, Teller, and the other kids. But who exactly is the Teller? What tragic consequences were we talking about? Can we tell you more about the fate of the World?
Well. Nothing is worse than an unwanted spoiler! So we will try to bring you a little closer to the story without revealing the secrets you will discover only during your gameplay.
In the game, you will play as the title character - Rin. The title itself certainly tells you that she is the last child. Teller’s child. He brought her to life and burdened her with the mission of saving the dying World. Because he could not undertake it himself, he gave back this burden on Rin. But why? What happened to the World?
We will try to answer this question in the next episodes of our Devlog.
See you soon!
