Welcome one and all!
With Next Fest behind us, the next big thing is just on the horizon! Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times is out NEXT WEEK?? Less than a week?? It's almost Warped Worlds & Celebration Times! (this joke 2 weeks in a row? Really?)
In anticipation of the full launch, we're continuing our Before and After series and showing you what the game looked like from prototype days!
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When I was first designing Rhell, my initial thoughts were ‘I want to make a game that has a lot of freedom and COMPLEX STUFF you can do.’ I knew I just wanted to make something that would be a fun challenge to make.
I had a few early design ideas in my head. At one point, Rhell would have used a 365 calendar system to mirror the real world, and have you solve puzzles across its giant world based on that, like ‘oh this maze in the forest only appears on foggy days’. Which is where the original ‘human’ style Rhell design came from.
Another idea was for Rhell to be way more like a classic 2D Zelda, and revolve around an 8 element puzzle system, having these 8 key elements react in complex ways. And another idea was for Rhell to be in a tough RPG dungeon crawler, where you had to use environmental systems to defeat monsters and avoid traps!
Though out of these the idea I kept coming back to was the 8 element puzzle game! Only I wanted this system to be more complex, and kept adding more and more details.. Until 8 elements became the 40 runes that Rhell uses today.
Surprisingly most of the rune ideas I came up with ended up making their way into the final game! Though a few ended up being totally cut or reworked.
An early rune idea I had was ‘light’ and ‘heavy’; these would work by altering objects to either be lighter or heavier, and would have a similar effect on steams, beams, areas etc. After designing, I realised it was just kind of boring as an ability, there really weren't a lot of situations where the player would think ‘oh yeah I want Rhell to be heavy here’. It felt very much like a rune players would occasionally use but not often find useful, which I could work with! I took the effects that would be useful with these runes and applied them to elemental effects. Gases became light and metal became heavy, which allowed me to keep these runes unique effects while also adding elemental interactions as well! Like metal being electrically conductive, and gas being able to be walked through.
Another interesting change is that originally, electricity was its own unique rune. When cast, it would make an object electric on top of its existing effects! Obviously this system kind of defeated the purpose of electrical circuits, since if any object COULD be electric, it removed any nuance with electricity being used as a puzzle. This was pretty easy to change, since I still wanted electricity, I decided to instead add it as an elemental form. This meant I could keep some puzzle ideas I had with creating electric circuits while allowing the player to also create their own electricity.
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With less than a week, what are you guys looking forward to most in the game? We're so excited and hope you are too!
And just a teeny tiny reminder about our quiz currently running! Answer questions to get yourself a chance to win a copy of Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times on launch. New questions will appear here every weekday until launch (final question on 10th March, so coming up soon!) The winner/s will be selected based on a weighted prize draw. Every correct answer = 1 chance to win, so don't worry if you miss a day or don't know all the answers!Be sure to check back for new chances to show your knowledge - or join our Discord and sign up to the Rhell's Quiz role to get an alert when the next question drops. Here's the 10th question!
Catch you this time next week, it'll be post launch!