Hi! Dark Point Games team here! This is the place where we’re gonna be sharing some tales from our development process with you! We really hope you’ll enjoy our stories, as we want you guys to feel like you’re a part of the project. Let’s start with how the game has evolved from a fun idea to this complex, playable system of intertwining mechanics i.e. a video game! :)
One of our first ideas was to give Achilles a bow. After making a few prototypes, we figured out that it would force players to change their weapons a bit too often for our liking. That’s why we’ve changed the main ranged weapon of our protagonist from a bow to a throwable shield, and it pretty much did the trick. Other major changes involved the dungeons which, in their first iteration, were planned to have a predetermined level structure. Halfway through the development, they took a random-generated form to avoid repetitiveness, especially in co-op! However, the changes also affected opponents.
Other things that evolve during the production phase are game mechanics themselves. For example, in our initial prototypes, Achilles was very slow when using ladders. It just absolutely broke the pace of the gameplay, and we’ve decided to make the animation quicker and more snappy! The status effects system was also very random at the beginning, and we gave it a much-needed depth by incorporating the immunity stat and throwing the RNG hiding behind this mechanic out of the window. Even the HUD and the inventory screens were completely rebuilt, a few times even, between the various builds of the game.
But the ideas and game mechanics aren’t the only aspects of Achilles: Legends Untold that have changed throughout the years of hard work. When you create something on such a scale, it’s bound to change. Even in terms of graphics and visual designs. Let’s take a look at the first area of the game - Troy.
Troy was super important to us, as it has to deliver the initial hook for the player, being the very first map in Achilles: Legends Untold. I can’t even count how many hours we’ve spent rebuilding the level over and over again, and adding completely new assets and shaders, so we can make it super impressive to look at for gamers. We’re still constantly working on the lighting to this day. We’ve added Volumetric Fog, Distance Field Ambient Occlusion, and no to mention the foliage that our designers say is “still not good enough”. :)
As you can see for yourself, video game production is by no means a simple or easy process. The final or near-final product does not have to be an exact iteration of the original idea, and it's difficult to refrain from implementing new concepts on the go. That is why we at Dark Point Games like to say that game development is actually a kind of adventure!
Until next time!
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