Elliot Cannon, Creative Director
This week is critical details week. Production locked the detailed milestone feature list on Monday and everyone is cranking around that. It’s very cool to have them lining up every hour so we can achieve realistically. Special thanks to Marco and Jason for owning this part of the game’s development. The Abyss Lord is going through team wide playtesting, feedback collection, and refinement. This fast type of iteration is something most AAA development studios can’t wrangle due to size and complexity. With a small studio, everyone can join in on playtests and give feedback. It’s much better that way in my opinion. Every person has a stake in what we’re doing. Anyone can express an opinion with the good of the game for you in mind. The Abyss Lord is in that phase where Dan is wrangling the team’s feedback and working with Derek, Abe, John, Brett, Collins, Jason, Brian, and Josh to bring him to the finish line.
Josh Javaheri championed the Hero Deck UI mockup iteration and what he has going is freaking awesome. He’s solved a ton of issues on flow between PC and PS4 in a smart way. The whole studio is chiming in on these, once again, something only small dev teams can do.
Brett and Collins are working on long-term game balance changes that will get us where the game needs to be once-and-for all in terms of how you play. You’ve heard me say multiple times that how you win needs to be up to what you put together, not just one crossword puzzle formula. That’s their marching orders and they are nailing it. The two of them working together is brilliant. I’m impressed and you will be too. Don’t forget, Collins is also cranking on new map designs to challenge your DD2 skills in ways different from the traditional defend the cart multi-lane configuration. That’s a lot! It’ll take time, but that two-prong approach will make it more fun for you in the end.
For me, I’m involved in just about everything. My job is to empower people, help them get the ideas into action, and as a veteran, enable them with feedback that comes from experience. This week, the details around account leveling need mega brain power on it as it touches on multiple areas of the game in different ways. It’s one of the trickiest ideas for DD2 that came from a brainstorm session last Monday, but I know we’ll figure it out.
I want give a special shout out to Argick for all the kind words and support for DD2 and Trendy in his Twitch stream last Friday from The Casters Guild. I appreciate the fact that fans and players make time to vocalize their opinions in fun, positive, and useful ways to make the game better. My wife and I watch these and actually take notes. At the end of the day, a fun game is what we all want and we’re working on it! We need a closet here at Trendy like the one in the back of Al’s Diner in Stephen King’s book, 11.22.63. That way we can get all the awesome stuff done in less than 2 minutes.
#backtowork
Daniel Haddad, Design Director (@Blacksmith)
Working with this here awesome team to complete this here Abyss Lord for you all to enjoy. We had a playtest that involved the majority of the studio and the reception was surprisingly positive. We still have plenty to do before I feel satisfied that he is ready to jump into your adoring hands but it was certainly a good sign! In the back of my mind I’m also churning out more ideas for heroes.
Tim Shannon, PS4 & Live Producer (@TimmyTrashTier)
MS21 has kicked off this week for the PS4 and we’re digging into better UI coding practices and memory allocation (our main source of crashes) - which I know is the super sexy stuff you come to me for. This release may take a little bit as we set ourselves up for developing on both platforms simultaneously, but rest assured we’re going to deliver.
On the live team side of things, Patch 10.5 came out this week with the Bow-Blaster for the Huntress added to the game to celebrate the Steam Group hitting 175k members! If you haven’t joined yet, do so here and help unlock the Apprentice’s Blaster-Caster for everyone.
Steven Collins, Lead Level Designer (@Esorath)
Taking a good look at our current enemy/tower/hero relationships we have in the game. Currently there is a lack of yin/yang or push/pull enemies that get you to use different towers in different situations. Finding a way to encourage and empower players to experiment with different defense setups to deal with the challenge that's coming down the lane. As well as still exploring different gameplay elements that can make new maps fresh experiences!
James Reid, Software Programmer (@Driscan)
Yet more meetings regarding UI, at least they’ve been extremely productive. I believe our UIs are heading down the right path. The big focus is to make sure everything works with both the gamepad and the mouse/keyboard. This allows us to develop one UI that works on multiple platforms.
Next week should see some significant progress on the implementation of these UIs. Can’t wait to share the WIP photos with you all!
Jason Yu, Associate Producer (@urfyness)
The Abyss Lord is undergoing some final tweaks in the mysterious world of design land. The plan is to get him out to our playtesters sometime next week, and we’ll make any final adjustments based on feedback. We’ve had one office playtest with him, and he’s been well received so far. I’m anxiously waiting to hear the feedback once a larger group gets to play him.
Josh Isom, Community Manager (@iamisom)
Speaking of Abyss Lord playtesting, we’re looking for volunteers for our Remote Playtesting Group. RPG members will get their hands on new heroes and content before anyone else! Of course, it’s not all fun and games -- we’re looking for people who will provide constructive feedback and spend a lot of time playing work-in-progress content. If that sounds like you, then email [email protected]!
Jesus Diaz, World Builder (@N3oDoc)
Working along with Daniel Diaz to bring some new levels. This week we are focusing on a Dungeon type level.
Daniel Diaz, World Builder (@DanielKaMi)
We're working now on some 'dungeon' type levels. Hopefully they'll bring back old memories for you. :)