Hey folks!
So, we’re a week from the launch of Seeds of Corruption and we have to thank you for your support and the overwhelming amount of feedback we've received from the bottom of our hearts.
There’s one amazing thing that you did: you trusted us, even though it’s our first digital game, and moreover – one released through early access. And we all know that early access – well – can be risky.
But from our part, we want to make it really interesting for all of you - we hope that you already feel like you have an impact on the game and additionally we want to share the way we think and work. In our previous crowdfunding experience, it worked great!
So there’s one thing that we need to share with you: a ROADMAP!
So when we launched in Early Access we were pretty happy about what we’ve achieved with Tainted Grail: Conquest: we knew that there’s “something” inside this game and we knew that we will be able to get it to shine a bit brighter. That’s why Seeds of Corruption were so important to us – we wanted to finally give the game something it really lacked: structure.
After launch, we’ve rushed certain things and weren’t really happy about them (like the first introduction of Corruption). We saw that this is not the way in which we should proceed further – it’s better to spend a little more time polishing things than throwing them into the game. That’s why it took us around a month between last updates to the main branch (except for the events we’ve launched in the meantime).
We want to draw from this experience – because it works better. So here’s a roadmap of what’s going to happen with Conquest.
ROADMAP
We’re aiming to have Conquest 1.0 ready within the next four-five months.
Probably around February / March 2021.
Gameplay additions
- 3rd class for Moonring: Necromancer.
We know it’s going to be another Summoner, but with a really, really cool twist ;) We hope you are going to love it! .
- 3 new playable classes
You can see them holding their place in the class selection, labeled as Fallen Kamelot. We can’t wait to start working on them - also - if you have some ideas - make sure to share theme with us!
- Quest-cards
It’s a unique idea we’ve had for a while now and we’re really excited about it. We want to introduce a new type of cards to the game, the “Quest-Cards”. The way they will work is that there will be certain events (like NPCs or Locations) in which you’ll be able to receive a Card which does something but after fulfilling certain requirements that card might transform into another card, doing something else entirely (much stronger too ;) ).
- Card crafting
Another idea we have is an introduction of a special place in the Village in which you’ll be able to craft your own cards. We don’t want to go into details just yet – we need to save something for our next updates, right? ;)
- New Events
We don’t want to abandon our weekly/bi-weekly events and we have ideas for new surprises that we’re going to introduce relatively soon. You can be certain that we’ll have something for Halloween, X-mas, and we’re going to try to keep things fresh and interesting in-between and after these dates.
When these things are done and working we’re going to say that we’re FEATURE COMPLETE. This means that we’re going to be happy with what’s in the game in terms of systems and mechanics and we’re pretty sure that they are going to make Tainted Grail an event more unique mash-up of RPG and Card Battler and Roguelike. Something that no other game in these genres can offer – even more so than in the game’s current state.
This doesn’t mean that we’d be CONTENT COMPLETE, though. (And it doesn't mean that we won't implement any quality of life features - we're currently rebuilding the way we handle the player's character's movement so that we can start working on controller support for example!).
Content additions
We’re constantly working on content. Either on creating new things or polishing up the things that we already have. In terms of gameplay-related things: we’re already testing around 20 new cards and passives and we’re waiting for features that will allow us to implement 6 new Runestones. We’re coming up with ideas for more of everything. We already have plans for 1 new bossfight and around 3 new enemies – and that’s not all.
You can expect MORE of everything (locations/NPCs – we have around 5 near-ready interactions that aren’t implemented yet, waiting for a 3D model or something else), and ideas for at least 15 more. And that’s the state for today, a week after we’ve launched with Seeds of Corruption.
No worries, Conquest is going to get BIGGER.
Polishing
We want the game to be as smooth and pretty as possible – within our budget and resources. There’s a lot of things in it that we aren’t happy about (this damned green fog at the game’s borders for example!), and there are things we know we could’ve done smarter.
These are the things that we’re currently fixing.
For example, our artists got really angry about the way we’re handling cosmetic items right now and decided to rework the system so that it’s easier for them to create new armors – and so that these armors can look better than they currently do. It should’ve been an easy thing, right? It wasn’t. Now, after we’re done with reworking our approach, it’s going to be and we’ll be able to create a lot of really cool stuff!
The same goes – just another very simple example – for the character’s hair. We were really unhappy with how they turned out and that’s why we weren’t adding more hair to the character creation screen. And so this week our 3D artist and 2D artist decided to just stop for a while and figure out a way in which we can actually make hair that doesn’t look like shit. The results are really promising!
Another thing we’re working on is the visual side of the game in general. We know that we’re not quite “there” yet. And that’s why we’re currently testing HDRP – a High Definition Render Pipeline – and the results seem, also, promising. It’s too early to show anything concrete but what we’ve seen internally is making us REALLY happy. We honestly hope we’ll be able to get this thing working because the difference between standard Unity rendering and HDRP is just mind-blowing. We’re doing this in order to simplify things, too – in order to achieve a lot of cool features we have in the game our Tech-Artist Magician had to come up with gigantic shader graphs/scripts because these things aren’t supported by Unity by default. They are in HDRP and this is a game-changer – for Conquest, and for all of our future endeavors, and we want to learn this as soon as possible.
Optimization
This is one of the most important things we’re working on right now.
We want to make sure that the game will run well and still be pretty on PCs that aren’t high-end machines and, believe us, we do know that it’s a bit crazy for an indie game to demand more horsepower than some AAA titles.
We are a smaller indie team, so that is why sometimes it is demanding, but overall - we will give our very best and you can expect some first effects soon!
Campaign
We've been a bit silent about the campaign for a while... and we'll be for a little while longer. We want to reassure you that the campaign is still a thing, it’s happening, and we do want to deliver it – but even though we’re doing some stuff behind the scenes we'd ask for a little more patience. We hope to have an update about the campaign around next week - there are just some things we need to check and discuss first :)
And so, that's our roadmap for the next few months!
- Some hiccups and bugs in Corruptions (mainly NPC spawn) and map refreshing have been (hopefully) eradicated.
- Corruptions have been slightly altered from the balance's side - the spike in difficulty increase is now much smoother, and the endgame Corruptions are a bit less frustrating and drawn-out in fights. This mainly affects Corruptions 3-7.
- Wyrdchild enemy has been nerfed, and shouldn't hit you 12 times in 1 turn.
- Last Resort passive skill now properly displays and triggers its' effect.
- All multi-Hit attacks are now tracked and registered with much greater precision (i.e. no more Combo Marks not counting towards Vulnerable under specific circumnstances, etc.)
- Quest exclamation markers fixed. Now should properly indicate where to go and disappear after interaction.
- Starting any interactions with a location and combat encounter at the same time is now queued properly.
- Moonrings no longers suffer from a short artificial delay after each fight.
So, have a great weekend & see you soon!