Hello, sky sailors!
During the release of Black Skylands: Origins we couldn’t help but worry about the game’s reception. We were also very curious about whether or not the players will like the feel of the game and its mechanics.
Everybody knows how important feedback is in creating something truly great. In the case of a videogame, player feedback allows for looking at certain aspects from a different perspective. Even better — it presents a whole prism of different views!
Today we’ve wanted to share how this feedback helped us and changed our development plans. Some changes were already implemented into Black Skylands: Origins — while others will be waiting for you in the final game.
Camera controls
Camera behavior was the first thing the players encountered. The camera was focused on the space between the player and the crosshairs — creating a sort of a dead zone above the player's sprite. In theory, this provided more precision for shooting from afar while giving easier, tighter controls when shooting at a closer range.
After taking another look, we put the focus on the main character — also lowering the minimum distance the camera can reach towards the centre of the player's sprite. This made controls much more responsive without sacrificing player's visibility.
Ship controls
This was one of the elements for which we really wanted to receive feedback. Originally we wanted to convey the feeling of piloting a ship amidst strong winds of endless sky. The ship turned slowly, with a noticeable weight to it and the cruising speed was definitely lower than the most conventional aircrafts.
However, after receiving the feedback, we’ve agreed with the players that things like these can quickly become annoying and negatively impact the gameplay flow. We didn’t shy away from making ship controls more “arcade-like” — now you can turn the vessel with relative ease and it also has a much higher max speed. And, most importantly, we’ve added a HUD which not only tells the speed but also shows the amount of gas left and HP of your ship.
Ground combat
Some players noted that ground combat can use a bit more action to make them more dynamic. We agree that, maybe, firefights could feel not distinct enough from aerial combat. The idea behind this iteration of ground combat was to create a baseline to serve as a starting point for feedback.
Now, after receiving feedback, we’ve made the player moves quicker, the enemies quicker and more aggressive, and projectiles fly faster. Feels like acting in the hong kong action movies!
Game balance
In the ideal scenario, when the balance is done perfectly, the player won’t focus on it. Yet, there is probably not such a thing as “ideal balance” since everyone has his own idea of an interesting game. Some players noted that Pistol was rather strong for a secondary weapon with unlimited ammo. While others would disagree with this since too often they’ve had to use Pistol after getting too little ammo from item drops. However, one thing universally agreed upon were drops of weapon mods — it was really annoying to get one for the gun you don’t own yet. Stop spoiling things!
In this case each opinion matters, and to achieve a happy medium a number of changes were made. We’ve reduced the spread of shotgun pellets, restocked the Rifle Ammo boxes, and, most importantly — we got into contact with RNGesus and asked him to stop trolling the players by giving them weapon mods they can not use!
What's next?
All of these changes will make their way into the final game. Speaking of which, let’s talk about our future plans! The feedback we’ve received helped us to outline aspects of the game, which need special attention. Here are some of these gameplay components:
Making piloting the ship more engaging
We totally agree that right now flights can feel a bit dull. As a part of a solution, we’ve increased the number of random events found in the open skies. However, we are want to make the minute to minute gameplay more engaging for the players. One of the ideas we have right now is adding some kind of boost after the player fulfills a certain condition — like picking up multiple oil containers in a row.
More aerial gameplay
The sky is literally in the game’s title. As such, we want to make aerial exploration in Black Skylands as memorable as possible. Storms? Swarm attacks? Sudden Falcon raids? Right now we can’t say what is going to be added to the game, but we have a lot of ideas.
Farming overhaul
We really want more options for the players for what to do with their harvest apart from selling it. Some enhancements were already made during the development prior to Black Skylands: Origins release — like crafting, supplying your fellow clansmen with recourсes and farming for rare ingredients. We’re definitely going to take these ideas to the next level!
Bigger freedom of choice
This one was noted by a lot of players. Since adding more variety makes development times proportionally longer, we can’t promise that we’ll realize all of the ideas we have for this. However, just as much as the players, we want Black Skylands to provide fresh experience on each playthrough even outside of open-world exploration. For starters, we are aiming to add more dialogue options and a couple more different approaches for quests — at the end, not every pirate prefers to go in guns blazing!
We’re very grateful to every player, who participated in our survey or left his honest review on Steam. Our team received a lot of useful information — some of it confirmed our own doubts, while the other part allowed for a different perspective. And we know, that only with our community we will be able to make Black Skylands a truly amazing game.
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Trim the sails to the lucky wind and stay tuned for more news!