Gladius Roadmap

Hello everyone!

It has been 3 months since I first opened the game for early access, and I thought this was a good time to share with you the roadmap I have in mind as well as some thoughts about the game.

Q2 2017 (April-June): Refine gameplay

The focus for the next 3 months will be polishing and improving the gameplay. While this does not mean that I will stop adding more content it will not be the top priority. The list of things I would like to improve during this period are:

1. Gore

   Blood on weapons based on hits (In Progress) More dismemberment points (shoulders, wrists, hips). This will also make dismemberment more frequent. (In Progress) Visible damage on enemies. Doing this in a realistic way is hard, so it might take some time.

2. Hitboxes and armor

   Wearable armor (helmets and shields): They will break after certain number of hits and will offer protection. Fix remaining hit box glitches

3. Combat mechanics

   Weapon vibration on movement (In Progress) Sword Throwing (In Progress) Taunting Grabbing (In Progress) KO, enemies to go ragdoll after some hits, and get up. Realistic weight balance: being able to throw the enemy off balance.

4. Physics

   Physics grip: weapons not going through shields and swords (In Progress) Fixing flying characters and weird ragdoll movements

5. AI

   Better group fight AI Parring Better animations: mostly AI state transitions, and animals turning around.

6. New weapons and game modalities

   Double handed weapons (halberds, spears, etc.) Net and fork Arena Challenge mode

7. General polish

   Starting the games via gates Better Sounds Crowd Better bullet time visual effect Tutorial

Q3 2017 (July-September): Finish content

By this stage the game should be polished and the gameplay very solid, so the focus will be to add the rest of the content:

1. The games

   Day 4 - Naval Battle: Will feature boats and ballistas. I already started this one, so depending on the progress of the Q2 items I will try to release it earlier (In Progress) Day 5 - Siege of Carthage: Attack a fortress using catapults, climb the walls, and conquer it. Day 6 - Maze: This will be more of a puzzle game that you have to solve to get out, with fantastic creatures that try to kill you before you do it. Day 7 - Mount Olympus: Final battle where you will have to protect the gladiatrice against all kinds of enemies.

2. RPG

   Weapon upgrade and customization system Cells for gladiators

3. Steam Achievements

Q4 2017 (October - December): Multiplayer

While not part of the original plan, several people have stressed the importance of this feature so I decided to include it ːsteamhappyː I will add more details as we move forward but for now I'm thinking to add the following features.

1. Multiplayer

   Lobby Spectator mode Coop mode

With this new plan the game would be "finished" by the end of Q3, but officially leave EA mode by the end of the year to have time to add multiplayer.

Please, let me know your thoughts about the plan, specially about priorities or if you think there is an important feature missing.

Thank you so much for your support! :)

NOTE: Since the game has changed significantly with the last update and is now much harder than before, I plan to wipe the leaderboards next week. I know that this might upset some people but right now there are some scores that would be almost impossible to achieve with the current state of the game.