Hey Heroes,
It has been a while since our last Heroes’ Hall, but with the exciting news that we’re launching here on Steam this February 23rd we’re back and ready to rock!
To get things rolling, in this week’s Heroes Hall we’re taking a look at how the game builds a bespoke experience for every player, whether they’re taking on Tasos alone or with up to three other friends.
An Adventure Made for You!
When building a game world that is built for both single-player and multiplayer we faced the challenge, “How do we make this a satisfying, fun and fulfilling experience for both solo and multiplayer parties?”.
The answer for us came in the form of procedural generation of the game’s dungeons that not only build themselves around the number of players in the game but could dynamically shift in an instant should the player count increase or decrease.
This means that both someone playing on their own, as well those in a pair or group, will get a complete Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos experience with their own puzzles to solve, traps to deal with and enemy numbers to take down.
It also means that if you start of playing solo, you can invite a friend or three and the game will immediately scale to that change and then revert to the solo experience when they leave. This set-up is fully flexible, and we feel gives the player the freedom to experience the game how they please.
To give you a look at this process in action we’ve grabbed some examples:
1 Player vs 4 Players
In single player the lone Hero must place the blocks onto the pressure plates to pass the puzzle. In multiplayer examples of this puzzle type, the players must instead use their bodyweight to simultaneously activate the plates.
1 Player vs 2 Players
In single player the lone Hero only needs to use the button to alternate one colour-based wall, whereas in two-player they must rely on their party member to rotate the button through multiple walls that wouldn’t be possible if the Hero pulling the lever were on their own.
But not all puzzles are safe…
Many of the puzzles you’ll encounter in Tasos’ Dungeons won’t just let you sit there and solve them. You’ll have to contend with various traps and monster mobs that will take any opportunity to strike you down whilst you’re distracted.
But, should the worst happen and one of your party members gets taken down, what happens to the puzzle? Well, we asked ourselves this question and decided that rather than leaving players stuck, or forcing them to find a Resurrection Shrine, we would have the puzzles immediately change to be achievable by the remaining living players.
We’ve got some examples of this at work below:
When Arrow Puzzles go wrong…
They used to be an adventurer like you until…
Even more complex puzzles, like the one where you’re tasked with navigating an Orb through impassable barriers will change to still allow the survivors to complete it:
A Fair Fight
We’ve spoken of how the dungeon’s rooms and traps change, but what of the enemies?
Initially when testing how to balance enemies around player numbers we tried increasing enemy HP, as well as their numbers to increase the challenge for groups of players. However we soon found out that this led to fights being more chaotic and tanky, rather than as tactful and decisive as we’d like.
This led us to settle on extra enemies spawning instead depending on player count, thus maintaining a consistent combat experience whether you’re playing solo or in a group of two, three or four.
See you next week!
That wraps up this week’s Heroes’ Hall and by the Goddesses does it feel good to be back.
If you have any questions, feel free to pop them in the comments and we’ll do our best to answer them.
You can try out the free demo and support us ahead of launch by giving us a heroic Wishlist at the following link:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/787810/Rogue_Heroes_Ruins_of_Tasos/
See you next week!