Hello Everyone!
The main story of the game is more than half way finished. We’re making content at a very good pace and are already expecting the game to go well past the 10 hour of gameplay mark. However the most important thing is that this time is not filled up by repetitive fetch quests, and boring stories. As the game grew we came up with new ideas, expanded our tools and I personally think we created something that will end up being worth your time. This post aims to share some of those ideas with you, and of course show off some new baddies as well. Enjoy!
Quests
It was important for us to design Quests that offer a variety of interactions and outcomes. We don’t want to be limited by dialogue options – your gameplay performance may push the quest in an unpredictable direction as well. Lose a fight and you might not get another chance to try. Succeed in a skill check and find out that you shouldn’t have tried so hard. Think of winning a friendly arm wrestling contest by accidentally ripping someone’s arm off.
Don’t worry, though, as the player agency is still the most important thing on our minds. Your intent and choices matter, so does the context of the situation. Then again, in a world where laws shaping the world are broken, both short-term and long-term consequences might be different than you expect.
Anyway, here is a graph depicting one of our short side quests:
Journal
Due to the nature of our game, the amount of UI elements on the world map is significant already. In order to reduce the clutter and increase immersion, we decided not to implement any kind of quest markers. Instead, we opted for a solution that rewards paying attention to the game world.
That also includes a less direct Quest Log, which is actually a Journal where the protagonist tracks what happened on your adventure. It doesn't tell you what to do, but stores important information and suggests possible solutions.
Marina Faction
With that out of the way, it's time we reveal the next major faction present in Shards of Order - The Marina.
The marina are people that live in the fishing village, the area boasts a number of fish like creatures, aquatic monsters and mechanics that focus on confusing the players. We’re gonna show off some of those mechanics in later posts but we can assure you that you won't be bored, this area will leave you scratching your head while you sleep.
Perhaps one of the coolest designs in this faction is the Facestealer.
As the name suggests its main shtick will be the ability to steal the faces of our beloved party members. However we’re still working out the artistic part of all that so you’re gonna have to wait a little to see the visuals of that happening.
Playtests
As we mentioned in the beginning of this post, a run will definitely go over the 10 hour mark, this is good news, but can pose some challenges as we are a small team so testing and most importantly balance is gonna get harder and harder as we add more content. The presence of playtests will be crucial as we REALLY don't want to release an unfinished game in early access. We aim to respect the time players will spend with our game and make it the best possible.
We already hinted at this possibility in our previous posts, but this time it's real. If you’re interested in helping us make this game the best it can possibly be, make sure to listen in on our communication channels (this includes here), as an official announcement will be coming soon.
Wrap up
Sorry for not releasing a post last week, our work hours were still kinda fragmented from the holidays and some organizational stuff, but we’re back to full throttle. We wish y'all a fantastic weekend, we’ll see you next week, and as always…
Stay safe!
Fardust team
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