DESERT REVENANT
How it all started, and where it’s all going.
Welcome Revenant,
We’re excited to announce that our game Desert Revenant is currently being prepared for full release. In this blog, we will be sharing with you updates about the game, the progress we’ve made so far, and an inside look behind the scenes. So blow the dust off your cards and join us as we make our way across the sands of Elmyr.
Small Beginnings
What started as a small game with the code name Project Eremus developed into a much bigger, more ambitious project. We initially aimed for a dungeon crawler, with a very short story and high replayability. However with time, we’ve come to that having a rich story would enhance the experience, and we love a good story. The game went through a lot of changes but the core essence remains: An exciting and challenging adventure in an ancient Arabian world.
The first poster we hung at our studio. Good(?) times.
The Story
The story we’ve been building was always set somewhere in an ancient Arabian world, this later became known as Elmyr. We’ve been interested in diving deeply into Arabian folklore, so you’ll notice that most of what you’ll see in our world is heavily inspired by it. Jinns are also a big inspiration for us, the Jinn Kings play a huge role in the story as you’ll find out.
The Art Direction
There’s a certain charm to hand-drawn and painted art that we knew from the beginning would be how we wanted our game to feel. We’ve been inspired by many 2D games and ancient paintings and we believe that this art direction we took can last for ages. We set off with mood boards that reflect what we wanted our world to be like and the characters we created were a mix of ancient myths and legends.
The area of the Sun King: The Temple Of The Sun
Early sketches of the Leper
Timelapse of the environment being created for a level in the Temple of the Sun area
The Gameplay
We love a good challenge, to think and strategize before making a move leads to a much more satisfying win. We also wanted a fun deck builder, the cards we created needed to have good synergy so that combining them to defeat the enemies was as fun as possible. By later adding rogue-like elements and a story that fits this playstyle, we made replayability.
Summons are your best friends. Don’t get too attached though…
Closed Alpha
We created a closed alpha for players to test the game with only the Leper as a playable character. We’ve gathered a lot of feedback concerning the gameplay that we worked on improving for a better Early Access. Our community grew our Discord server, the game was well-received. From the statistics we gathered, only a few percent of players were able to win the run against the Sun King. In a way, we feel that this is good because the game is difficult enough to challenge the players, but on the other hand, we’re hoping to make the game more user-friendly so that it’s easier for players to understand. We believe the UI needs to be improved to help new players get the hang of the game faster.
Trailer/First Announcement
Demo Update
- New Character (The Seer)
- New Dialogues
- New cards
- War Stories
- Bug fixes
- Quality of life improvements
You can now play as The Seer
New war story sketches
New dialogue scenes
New characters
New animations
Early Access
We’re aiming on releasing an additional map to play on for the Early Access at the end of July 2022. The new map will include new characters as well as new levels and a new boss fight.
New battle room in Area 2
Full Release
For the full release, we’re aiming on having 6 maps total. Each map will have new levels and environments that are completely different. We’ll also have new non-player characters and enemies as well as new Revenants for the player to choose from. There will be a more expansive playthrough by giving the player the ability to start from any map in any order. Each playthrough will be different and each death will be connected to the previous run.
Thanks for your support and we hope you enjoy our game,
The Kreationware team.
Kreationware Website:
https://kreationware.com
instagram.com/kreationware