Hey Reignbreakers, we’re kicking off a series of dev diaries this week to give you a behind-the-scenes look at development, what you can expect from the game, and why we’re making it! But first:
DEV STREAM
We’re going to go into all of this in much more depth in a series of livestreams over the next few weeks. Check out the stream on our Twitch channel on Wednesday, February 12 from 15:00-17:00 CET! Follow us on Twitch and turn on notifications to ask us your questions live!
Let’s get to it:
RAIDING THE BASTION
The queen has erected a technologically advanced stronghold to cement her absolute power: the Bastion. Everything inside is carefully guarded by animated machines and secured behind strong locks – luckily, you’ve got a big key.
You are Clef – a woman who grew up as a child conscript in the Queen’s private regiment, where you learned to wield their signature weapon: the Javelin. Equal parts weapon and lockpick, Javelins can beat down enemies as easily as they can break into Vaults.
WEAPON SPOTLIGHT: PEASHOOTER
Your Javelin always comes equipped with one of five different Bayonets, which determine what projectiles it shoots. The Peashooter is the first Bayonet type you’ll encounter in the game. But don’t let its humble name fool you – this Javelin can pack a powerful punch, shooting out a barrage of small bullets to chip away at enemies' health. Like all the Bayonets in Reignbreaker, the Peashooters have three different attack styles:
The Slam creates a mini turret that shoots bullets in many different directions:
The Strike shoots a barrage of bullets directly in front of you:
And the Throw lodges the Javelin right into the enemy's body and starts firing – gunning down the enemy and anything behind it:
POWER UP
This is a roguelike, so of course there are powerups you collect in each run to get stronger and encourage you to try out different combat styles. Inside the Bastion you’ll go from Vault to Vault. When you try to crack it, it triggers a combat lockdown that you must defeat in order to proceed. Each Vault is under the protection of one of the four Loyalists…more on them in a future blog!
ORIGIN OF THE GAME
Studio Fizbin has been around since 2011! We got our start making VERY different games from Reignbreaker: you might know us from our point-and-click adventure series The Inner World, or our puzzle platformer Minute of Islands, or our one-button-game Say NO! More. All of these games had a heavy focus on unique art styles and compelling worlds that tell socially-relevant stories. But after our last couple games, we wanted to expand and make our biggest game yet, and create something that had deeper and more engaging gameplay, while retaining the special sauce that made all our previous games feel Fizbin-y.
As we recently said in our dev diary trailer, Reignbreaker came about as a response to the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism in many places around the world. This makes a lot of people feel scared or helpless, so we wanted to create a power fantasy game where players could fight back, stepping into the boots of an anarchist punk rebel, using their controllers to smash apart a brutal and oppressive regime. Hell yeah.
So if you want to know more, tune in to the livestream on 12 Feb from 15:00-17:00 CET, or write your questions on this post and we’ll answer them live!
Next week we’ll take a deeper dive into combat. Follow us on social media to catch all the latest Reignbreaker news, and see ya next time!
– Studio Fizbin