Hey all!
So, the last announcement posted had a roadmap that listed several things that had to be done before the arena could be launched. Both fortunately and unfortunately, there has been a big change to that.
First some positive news!
I have been very busy creating new enemies, and finding ways to make them exciting and fun. Since this early access portion is mostly just a horde mode, I have been able to have a lot of freedom with the kinds of enemies I create. Below are some images of a few of the enemies you will face in the game.
As well, the enemies all have something that differentiates them from the other ones, giving you a unique challenge depending on the mix of them in front of you.
Secondly, work has been progressing well on the redesign of the arena map. While currently I do not have anything really worth showing, the redesign is adding some new elements and features to the map that originally were not there, such as elevation changes, area traps, as well as some secrets and some hidden Easter eggs that I hope you find.
So what's changed?
tldr; I have changed my approach to how combat works in the game, causing a delay.
While testing out the game, the main issue I found was that arose was that the gameplay was very monotone. The combo system showcased on Instagram was not the most exciting after some time with it, and dodging the witch spell was also hard with the movement system I had. To change that, I added some abilities that made the game more exciting and much more fun. However, this introduced a lot of bugs into the game. And despite numerous attempts, the final method to fix this, which works much better is to use Unreal Engine's Gameplay Ability System (GAS). However, that means that I won't be releasing the game as soon as I had hoped, leading to a delay in progress.
What does that mean?
In the end, what this means is that this coming week is going to be spent reworking the combat so that instead of using the previous method of combat interaction, I will now be using the GAS framework, which requires a far more involved approach.
Hopefully, this only adds an extra week or so, but only time will tell.
In the meantime, make sure to stay up to date by following the progress on Instagram here, as well as on this page, where I will post updates every other week.
See you all next week!
~Ninja Software Studio