Knock, knock, seekers!
Friday has arrived swiftly, and the developer diaries are here again to share with you what we worked on this week.
CBT Patch
The closed beta test is well on its way, with bug-fixing in progress, and feedback actively being collected. However, we collected most of the issues and put out a major patch. We hope we’ll finish working on the CBT and update the live version of the game next month.
Do you love animals as much as Vanadis does?
It's best not to argue with our archer too much, otherwise you might experience the full force of her pets. To make it clear that you shouldn't mess with Vanadis, we're sharing some visual examples.
Plus, they’re simply beautiful, aren’t they.
Bandit set: we need your opinion
There's no limit to perfection, so we're continuing to improve game balance with new outfits. This week, we asked which version of the new set you prefer. The voting is still open, and your comments are highly welcome!
Perfectionist’s burden
We're constantly improving visual effects to create a pretty picture and a more immersive atmosphere. Yes, being a demon's minion is a heavy burden in every sense.
Some characters not only look audacious but make audacious movements too. You have to admit that this is an extremely high concentration of audacity in just a few pixels. And it looks quite unnatural, too. To tame their behavior, we took some disciplinary actions.
Emergency resuscitation
Once again, Bjorn has found his way to our operating table. The thing is he’s developed a habit of losing his things during adventures. We had almost given up on finding the reasons for his remarkable absentmindedness, but our animators came to the rescue. What would we do without them? Diagnosis: the patient was suffering from internal code conflicts, and the animation was causing complications. We prescribed crutches and sent him home for further outpatient observation.
What about some chit-chat?
Let's get acquainted!
My name is Andrew, aka Innrey, and I'm the founder of RedBoon Studio. I’d like to tell you about some interesting moments that took place and the experience we gained over these long four years of development.
The second week of CBT is underway, with many bugs identified, but we're fixing them quickly and successfully. At the same time, we're continuing to develop new content, which we hope to show you soon. I'd like to thank all the participants of the closed beta for their reports and suggestions, especially Altair, CallMeShadow, Dark Knight, GribanovIV.
Many players have emphasized the unique and recognizable imagery of KOTCL in their feedback, and I'm damn proud of it! Of course, there have been and there still are shortcomings, which we continue to work on. In the near future, I'll try to announce the release date and share more about our future plans.
One thing I can already say – my team and I, and the players who help us – we learn something new every day. What can you learn in 4 years of game development? It may seem surprising, but we've learned how to make... games. We’ve learned how to make cool 2D animations. We switched from Unity animations to Spine, which immediately revamped the behavior of characters in the game. We've learned how to work with sounds – there are more of them now, so the scenes have become more immersive, and I hope events will become even more enjoyable. We've learned how to code – it's challenging to make it in a way so that you don't have to rewrite everything when a new programmer comes along. Mind you, we had to change programmers three times -_-
However, now because of everything we’ve learned, we need to polish the entire project, as the difference between before and after is quite noticeable. Personally, I've learned not to lose heart and not to abandon the project in seemingly hopeless situations but to keep on improving our game.
One thing that I’d like to mention specifically is the importance of proper task setting and communication with the team (especially if your team is small and proud!). Through my own (sometimes painful) experience, I've seen that the level of detail of a task and of its discussion determine the speed, the quality of realization, and the task’s impact on the entire development pipeline. From the outside, you could say that 4 years is a lot for the development of a game. I agree, but it's also an invaluable experience that will help me to make the next game faster and even better.
Sincerely yours – Andrew aka Innrey
See you next Friday! Don't forget to check if you follow us.
