Hi folks!
So how did you like this year's Gamescom? While we prefer the actual event and getting to meet everyone in person, it sure was nice seeing The Hand of Merlin featured in the RPG section as one of 35 selected games, out of hundreds that applied!
More than 500 people played The Hand of Merlin Demo and we got some great feedback on our Discord server. Did you miss the chance to grab the demo? Read on!
We’ve talked about it and decided that the demo will be available only during the events in which we’re participating, ending with the Steam Games Festival: Autumn Edition. The demo will always be limited to the first zone, but we’ll keep updating it with any crash fixes, typo fixes, and gameplay rebalancing if needed. If you have anything to report, your best bet is to tell us over at our Discord server, where we’re always listening and trying to gather feedback for improvement. There will most likely be minor content additions as well, like an intro cutscene when the game starts, a couple of new skills, etc.
Half of the team is currently on vacation, so the rest of us has now moved on to making the rest of the game. The status of the rest of the game is as follows:
- The world map of zone 2 (Marca Hispanica) is done (but will receive visual tweaks), and zone 3 (Al-Andalus) is partially modeled and needs to be finished. Our lead artist assures me it’s quick work to finish it, and after that, it needs to be textured.
- The node network layouts for zone 2 are being worked on, but in general, they’re not difficult to create and aren’t a development bottleneck. The node network layouts for zone 3 will be coordinated with the world map model itself, but we have a good idea of how it’ll look in general.
- The encounters for zone 2 and zone 3 have to be written since each zone has its own unique setting and stories. Our quest designer Mia has created a bunch of templates for zone 1 which can be reused for all the other zones, and it comes down to our writing duo Verena&Jonas to write them in their specific style.
- There are 10 combat maps for each of the second and third zones, and our plan is to create around 5 more unique maps for each zone, and then create the alternative versions of them all (corrupted and non-corrupted version).
- There are 3 more monsters that haven’t been seen yet, and we have their abilities on paper, so those need to be created, and after those are working the AI needs to be done. Our tools allow us to quickly create both the abilities and AI, so those should be quick once we work out how the monsters should behave.
- Every ability available to player units has been created, and what’s left is mostly creating their upgrades, which should also be extremely easy for some (decreasing cooldown or cost), and just marginally difficult for others (ones that change how they work mechanically).
- Moar relics! Creating them is also pretty straightforward and fast.
- Particles and destructions of environment objects.
So as you can see, there’s work to be done, but everyone knows what they’re doing and we’re getting used to our tasks so the speed of production is increasing, we should have little trouble meeting the deadline for release. We’ll see what our plans are for post-release, and I’m sure I’ll communicate our plans once we get closer to that period of our lives.
If you haven’t tried the demo, don’t worry, there will be more opportunities for that during the coming weeks. If you have, come join our Discord server and tell us what you think!
MarkoP
https://store.steampowered.com/app/600610/The_Hand_of_Merlin/