Continued from part 1



Armor is finally no longer a matter of more is better, but presents a tradeoff and an investment as well as having a new layer of meaningful diversity. Heavier and more rigid armours are now more cumbersome which will affect your character's movement in many subtle but still important ways. Your character doesn't just move slower but differently, in ways that are realistic and convey added weight and stiffness. You can be effective even when heavily encumbered, but in some situations you will undoubtedly be at a disadvantage, with the correct training however this can be avoided.



We've introduced the first armour skills, those that are most meaningful for the current state of the game. There are 3 ranks of Manoeuvering in Armour which allow you to overcome the encumbrance effects of increasingly heavy armours. Deflection allows you to take better advantage of your armour, it effectively increases how much of your body your armour is able to protect and reduces vulnerability in gaps and weaker areas of armour.



Items now come in various qualities and conditions. We've introduced over 50 specific quality modifiers with various effects which improve gear diversity and randomisation. This gives many items that were previously just better or worse new roles, particularly with the introduction of the encumbrance system. The quality of items is not only reflected in their properties but also their appearance.

Item quality does not currently apply to weapons, this will be part of a larger upgrade to weapons with a procedural system for much greater weapon variety and meaningful effects. With this we will also introduce many new weapons and types.

Many completely new items have also been added throughout the game.



You should of course be able to fight with no weapon equipped and we've now introduced basic unarmed fighting. You can punch with your left and right, do uppercuts and either straight punches or hooks depending on how you move the cursor. This turned into some very fun boxing combat, which does require a new level of finesse and precision with the controls. With the introduction of the new arena mode we will include unarmed fights which we're sure will make for hours of solid entertainment.



A long overdue graphical overhaul of the user interface is finally here. We've added support for nicer, proportional fonts and upgraded all shading and textures. It's a fairly superficial change, but one that was quite labour intensive, we do think it adds a lot to the game's overall presentation and atmosphere.



Each character now has a journal, currently accessed with 'J'. You can write notes on your progress, what you've pieced together of the story or anything you like. We're considering generating entries from your character's perspective as you discover various things, but some players have mixed feelings about this. Let us know what you think.



There have been countless improvements and fixes to almost every part of the game since the last major release. Here's a list of some specific fixes for well known bugs or things that weren't broadly covered in the above wall of text:

• Cursor locks to full screen windows
  
  
• Added a checkpoint earlier in the game
  
  
• Improved locational damage mechanics
  
  
• Improved loot randomisation
  
  
• Fixed characters being unable to step in certain places
  
  
• Improved camera obstacle avoidance behaviour
  
  
• Improved pathfinding
  
  
• New shading and material effects
  
  
• Fixed "exorcist" bug
  
  
• Fixed strongbox bugs

This update was supposed to be about getting some more content in, and it was supposed to happen a lot sooner. The level of care we're putting into every aspect of the game has grown a lot, at some point we thought that with how much everything has improved, the more fantasy aspects of the game also needed some more love. A decision was made to expand on our underworld assets and create something more unique, that differentiated itself better from the rest. This also made sense from a longer term productivity and workflow point of view at the time.

Unfortunately we ran into some problems. One of our team members who was core to developing the new assets found themselves in a position of being unable to work much. We initially responded by working on bringing other aspects of the game forward, but the situation got worse and we just found ourselves with a lot more work on our plates.

We got through this little crisis in the end, things are back to normal now, the update has shaped up very well and we've made great progress on many fronts. We've got a lot more content lined up for Exanima, but the assets for this were mostly completed before even its first public release. Delays like this one should not happen again.



We will continue to complete and add features and content at an always faster pace, and at this point I think we can safely say that the days of improving things are almost entirely behind us. The list of features and things we need to do to support them is rapidly shrinking, from something rather daunting to something that looks much more manageable.

The arena mode, which was born as just a combat test, has proved extremely popular amongst players and in the next update we will expand on its features. Fights will be randomised, you will bid into fights and earn money to invest in better gear or even mercenaries to fight by your side. There will be skill progression similar to the story mode and some other features besides. These are great additions and quite simple to make. The arena mode is also a great way to introduce and test multiplayer features which we hope to add soon.

It has been a long and ardous journey so far, especially if you consider that we built everything from the ground up and taken on board every bit of advice and feedback. We don't know how much credit you take as backers and supporters of this project, but you should really take plenty. You made this happen and it's fantastic.



Best,

Bare Mettle

Continued from part 1



Armor is finally no longer a matter of more is better, but presents a tradeoff and an investment as well as having a new layer of meaningful diversity. Heavier and more rigid armours are now more cumbersome which will affect your character's movement in many subtle but still important ways. Your character doesn't just move slower but differently, in ways that are realistic and convey added weight and stiffness. You can be effective even when heavily encumbered, but in some situations you will undoubtedly be at a disadvantage, with the correct training however this can be avoided.



We've introduced the first armour skills, those that are most meaningful for the current state of the game. There are 3 ranks of Manoeuvering in Armour which allow you to overcome the encumbrance effects of increasingly heavy armours. Deflection allows you to take better advantage of your armour, it effectively increases how much of your body your armour is able to protect and reduces vulnerability in gaps and weaker areas of armour.



Items now come in various qualities and conditions. We've introduced over 50 specific quality modifiers with various effects which improve gear diversity and randomisation. This gives many items that were previously just better or worse new roles, particularly with the introduction of the encumbrance system. The quality of items is not only reflected in their properties but also their appearance.

Item quality does not currently apply to weapons, this will be part of a larger upgrade to weapons with a procedural system for much greater weapon variety and meaningful effects. With this we will also introduce many new weapons and types.

Many completely new items have also been added throughout the game.



You should of course be able to fight with no weapon equipped and we've now introduced basic unarmed fighting. You can punch with your left and right, do uppercuts and either straight punches or hooks depending on how you move the cursor. This turned into some very fun boxing combat, which does require a new level of finesse and precision with the controls. With the introduction of the new arena mode we will include unarmed fights which we're sure will make for hours of solid entertainment.



A long overdue graphical overhaul of the user interface is finally here. We've added support for nicer, proportional fonts and upgraded all shading and textures. It's a fairly superficial change, but one that was quite labour intensive, we do think it adds a lot to the game's overall presentation and atmosphere.



Each character now has a journal, currently accessed with 'J'. You can write notes on your progress, what you've pieced together of the story or anything you like. We're considering generating entries from your character's perspective as you discover various things, but some players have mixed feelings about this. Let us know what you think.



There have been countless improvements and fixes to almost every part of the game since the last major release. Here's a list of some specific fixes for well known bugs or things that weren't broadly covered in the above wall of text:

• Cursor locks to full screen windows
  
  
• Added a checkpoint earlier in the game
  
  
• Improved locational damage mechanics
  
  
• Improved loot randomisation
  
  
• Fixed characters being unable to step in certain places
  
  
• Improved camera obstacle avoidance behaviour
  
  
• Improved pathfinding
  
  
• New shading and material effects
  
  
• Fixed "exorcist" bug
  
  
• Fixed strongbox bugs

This update was supposed to be about getting some more content in, and it was supposed to happen a lot sooner. The level of care we're putting into every aspect of the game has grown a lot, at some point we thought that with how much everything has improved, the more fantasy aspects of the game also needed some more love. A decision was made to expand on our underworld assets and create something more unique, that differentiated itself better from the rest. This also made sense from a longer term productivity and workflow point of view at the time.

Unfortunately we ran into some problems. One of our team members who was core to developing the new assets found themselves in a position of being unable to work much. We initially responded by working on bringing other aspects of the game forward, but the situation got worse and we just found ourselves with a lot more work on our plates.

We got through this little crisis in the end, things are back to normal now, the update has shaped up very well and we've made great progress on many fronts. We've got a lot more content lined up for Exanima, but the assets for this were mostly completed before even its first public release. Delays like this one should not happen again.



We will continue to complete and add features and content at an always faster pace, and at this point I think we can safely say that the days of improving things are almost entirely behind us. The list of features and things we need to do to support them is rapidly shrinking, from something rather daunting to something that looks much more manageable.

The arena mode, which was born as just a combat test, has proved extremely popular amongst players and in the next update we will expand on its features. Fights will be randomised, you will bid into fights and earn money to invest in better gear or even mercenaries to fight by your side. There will be skill progression similar to the story mode and some other features besides. These are great additions and quite simple to make. The arena mode is also a great way to introduce and test multiplayer features which we hope to add soon.

It has been a long and ardous journey so far, especially if you consider that we built everything from the ground up and taken on board every bit of advice and feedback. We don't know how much credit you take as backers and supporters of this project, but you should really take plenty. You made this happen and it's fantastic.



Best,

Bare Mettle

Exanima takes a radically new approach to many things. Not only are we attempting these things for the first time, but they certainly are not easy to do. Inevitably the results are often not as good as they could be. We're always learning from our mistakes, listening to feedback and striving to improve everything. It's an ongoing process and we know that in time we can make the game really shine.

In this patch we've tried to address players' biggest concerns. We've made important changes to our animation system and combat, introducing features to dynamically change muscle tension and improving procedural elements. We've rebuilt most of our combat animations and improved the modelling of weapon mass. We've made characters negotiate and climb obstacles much better and get snagged on things less. Many other improvements and fixes have been made and this all contributes to an altogether better and smoother core experience.




You can approach the game in many ways and almost all the content is optional. Whatever you choose to do must be viable, you can fight or befriend who you encounter, explore, look for hidden treasure or piece together mysteries. We designed an advancement system that isn't based on just killing and major goals but rather rewards you for every little thing you do. Every new thing you discover, use, experience and accomplish awards small amounts of experience. Combat also yields experience based on the skill and equipment of your opponent.

Everything that grants experience is not repeatable so with each character what is gained is based on how much of the content they experience and how fully. A portion of the experience you gain is awarded as permanent global experience which gives you a nice starting point for new characters.

Experience earned is gradually absorbed by your character as actual learning towards whatever they are training. This feels more natural and realistic and prevents exploits.




Although experience will serve other purposes in future, it currently supports the training of skills.

We are working towards a total of 7 skills. Each skill has 8 techniques to choose from and 5 possible proficiency levels. You begin as Inept and reach levels of Aspirant, Novice, Adept, Expert and Master as you complete the training of each technique. The total number of techniques per character will also be limited to 15 or little more out of the total of 56 techniques.

This update features only the most fundamental close combat techniques that represent basic combat training. Upcoming skills feature more dramatic changes to gameplay and mechanics. Like everything else, skills affect players and NPCs alike so they also work to differentiate your opponents and promote more diverse tactics.

You must choose to train a skill technique to make progress, once training is complete a + icon will appear in the bottom right indicating that you should choose a new technique to train. If you are not training you will gradually forget experience that you've accumulated. Currently in arena mode you are automatically granted all techniques but this will change with an overhaul of the arena and its own advancement system.




We've been promising greater environment interaction and this update introduces pits, fire traps, levers, pressure plates, portcullises, buttons and puzzles. We've gone beyond the typical lever puzzles and added some Exanima uniqueness, and of course there's the important element of physics. There are many new features that open up a lot of possibilities that we've only just begun to explore.

When we first made the current content for Exanima we couldn't do it as per our design due to a lack of features and assets. Now we have what we need and we're revisiting our content accordingly. The first map is now as we originally intended, with new and improved lore relevant locations and spanning almost twice the area as previously. Our map designs are not linear so be sure to explore thoroughly and try different routes on different playthroughs. There are various new items and objects, including a container that you can carry to improve your inventory management.




This update introduces some important new features, improvements, many fixes and tweaks, but our efforts have been focused on even more important things for the future of the game. Our highest priority has been the content beyond the portal which has been largely redesigned to provide a more unique and special experience. Some post portal content will be in the spotlight of our next bigger update but there are many things we're working towards. The next update should be with you before too long but we may also release some smaller but significant updates in between.


Best,

Bare Mettle

Exanima takes a radically new approach to many things. Not only are we attempting these things for the first time, but they certainly are not easy to do. Inevitably the results are often not as good as they could be. We're always learning from our mistakes, listening to feedback and striving to improve everything. It's an ongoing process and we know that in time we can make the game really shine.

In this patch we've tried to address players' biggest concerns. We've made important changes to our animation system and combat, introducing features to dynamically change muscle tension and improving procedural elements. We've rebuilt most of our combat animations and improved the modelling of weapon mass. We've made characters negotiate and climb obstacles much better and get snagged on things less. Many other improvements and fixes have been made and this all contributes to an altogether better and smoother core experience.




You can approach the game in many ways and almost all the content is optional. Whatever you choose to do must be viable, you can fight or befriend who you encounter, explore, look for hidden treasure or piece together mysteries. We designed an advancement system that isn't based on just killing and major goals but rather rewards you for every little thing you do. Every new thing you discover, use, experience and accomplish awards small amounts of experience. Combat also yields experience based on the skill and equipment of your opponent.

Everything that grants experience is not repeatable so with each character what is gained is based on how much of the content they experience and how fully. A portion of the experience you gain is awarded as permanent global experience which gives you a nice starting point for new characters.

Experience earned is gradually absorbed by your character as actual learning towards whatever they are training. This feels more natural and realistic and prevents exploits.




Although experience will serve other purposes in future, it currently supports the training of skills.

We are working towards a total of 7 skills. Each skill has 8 techniques to choose from and 5 possible proficiency levels. You begin as Inept and reach levels of Aspirant, Novice, Adept, Expert and Master as you complete the training of each technique. The total number of techniques per character will also be limited to 15 or little more out of the total of 56 techniques.

This update features only the most fundamental close combat techniques that represent basic combat training. Upcoming skills feature more dramatic changes to gameplay and mechanics. Like everything else, skills affect players and NPCs alike so they also work to differentiate your opponents and promote more diverse tactics.

You must choose to train a skill technique to make progress, once training is complete a + icon will appear in the bottom right indicating that you should choose a new technique to train. If you are not training you will gradually forget experience that you've accumulated. Currently in arena mode you are automatically granted all techniques but this will change with an overhaul of the arena and its own advancement system.




We've been promising greater environment interaction and this update introduces pits, fire traps, levers, pressure plates, portcullises, buttons and puzzles. We've gone beyond the typical lever puzzles and added some Exanima uniqueness, and of course there's the important element of physics. There are many new features that open up a lot of possibilities that we've only just begun to explore.

When we first made the current content for Exanima we couldn't do it as per our design due to a lack of features and assets. Now we have what we need and we're revisiting our content accordingly. The first map is now as we originally intended, with new and improved lore relevant locations and spanning almost twice the area as previously. Our map designs are not linear so be sure to explore thoroughly and try different routes on different playthroughs. There are various new items and objects, including a container that you can carry to improve your inventory management.




This update introduces some important new features, improvements, many fixes and tweaks, but our efforts have been focused on even more important things for the future of the game. Our highest priority has been the content beyond the portal which has been largely redesigned to provide a more unique and special experience. Some post portal content will be in the spotlight of our next bigger update but there are many things we're working towards. The next update should be with you before too long but we may also release some smaller but significant updates in between.


Best,

Bare Mettle

Exanima features a very unique animation system, all character motions are the result of physical forces and virtual muscles. This combined with dynamic procedural animation allows characters to physically interact with and respond to everything. It's also what gives players control over their character's different motions and the forces exerted by them.

The benefits are a huge amount of depth and complexity to all interactions, particularly in combat. Every physical detail is meaningful and there is a great freedom and intricacy to the player's control. It is not however easy to do, we've faced a lot of difficult challenges with it. Trying to mix realistic physics with precise player control and also making it all look lifelike has on occasion made us question if we weren't asking for too much. It has been the game's biggest source of both praise and criticism. The realism has only highlighted the sometimes unnatural motion and many people say the characters look drunk and are put off by it.

We've always promised to improve animations and over the past 2 years we've spent a huge amount of our development time on this issue alone. We've continued to improve things but the criticism has remained. More recently we elected to stop trying to improve them so that we could focus on other aspects of the game.

While not actively working to improve animation we have been planning specific improvements that we thought promising and taking specific feedback on board. With the game now reaching a wider audience and the animations colouring many people's first impressions of it, we decided to prioritise some of these planned improvements.

This update features some of the most important changes that we had planned. We've often had very limited success with improving animation or none at all, this thankfully is one of those times when our efforts were successful. The changes concern movement and footwork in combat which has always been by far the most difficult aspect of the animation. The characters now move in a more deliberate way, there is far less "drunken" leaning and swaying and the legs move smarter giving the characters better balance. It looks much better and it gives players better control.

Things are still not perfect but they are much improved and we have addressed some major problems, in time we can look at addressing various other issues. We now have a more complete and flexible system which we can continue to tweak. There are of course also many other aspects of animation that we still need to improve, please understand that we are a small team and currently have no animator so these things can be extremely time consuming for us.


Of course none of this will stop your character looking like a drunken fool if you just hold keys and buttons down and wildly wave the cursor around. Your character doesn't just execute precanned manoeuvres at the press of a button, the whole point is that you are in control. You are in charge of your character's various separate motions and your inputs must be deliberate and work in harmony. How you move the cursor, how long you hold buttons down, how you time and combine your various inputs, these are all things that can have a very real effect on everything your character does and can easily be misused. Don't leave anything to the game, it's not trying to play for you.


We're quite excited about these changes, they are fairly subtle but very important. They have been in beta and we've watched various people play and were ourselves very impressed with the results, the response from everyone seems very positive. This next update was supposed to feature some character skill progression but this has been postponed slightly due to this change in priorities. The character creation screen does show our WIP skill interface, the first few trainable skill techniques should be with you soon and we'll continue to add more.

Besides this version 0.5.2 features numerous bug fixes, improvements and tweaks.

If you are experiencing issues with the game then please contact us at support@baremettle.com with as detailed information as possible so as to help us address your issues in future patches. The game is OpenGL based rather than DirectX and driver support for OpengGL is not as good, we really need specific information on your system and configuration to be able to address issues of this nature. Thanks!


Best,

Bare Mettle

Exanima features a very unique animation system, all character motions are the result of physical forces and virtual muscles. This combined with dynamic procedural animation allows characters to physically interact with and respond to everything. It's also what gives players control over their character's different motions and the forces exerted by them.

The benefits are a huge amount of depth and complexity to all interactions, particularly in combat. Every physical detail is meaningful and there is a great freedom and intricacy to the player's control. It is not however easy to do, we've faced a lot of difficult challenges with it. Trying to mix realistic physics with precise player control and also making it all look lifelike has on occasion made us question if we weren't asking for too much. It has been the game's biggest source of both praise and criticism. The realism has only highlighted the sometimes unnatural motion and many people say the characters look drunk and are put off by it.

We've always promised to improve animations and over the past 2 years we've spent a huge amount of our development time on this issue alone. We've continued to improve things but the criticism has remained. More recently we elected to stop trying to improve them so that we could focus on other aspects of the game.

While not actively working to improve animation we have been planning specific improvements that we thought promising and taking specific feedback on board. With the game now reaching a wider audience and the animations colouring many people's first impressions of it, we decided to prioritise some of these planned improvements.

This update features some of the most important changes that we had planned. We've often had very limited success with improving animation or none at all, this thankfully is one of those times when our efforts were successful. The changes concern movement and footwork in combat which has always been by far the most difficult aspect of the animation. The characters now move in a more deliberate way, there is far less "drunken" leaning and swaying and the legs move smarter giving the characters better balance. It looks much better and it gives players better control.

Things are still not perfect but they are much improved and we have addressed some major problems, in time we can look at addressing various other issues. We now have a more complete and flexible system which we can continue to tweak. There are of course also many other aspects of animation that we still need to improve, please understand that we are a small team and currently have no animator so these things can be extremely time consuming for us.


Of course none of this will stop your character looking like a drunken fool if you just hold keys and buttons down and wildly wave the cursor around. Your character doesn't just execute precanned manoeuvres at the press of a button, the whole point is that you are in control. You are in charge of your character's various separate motions and your inputs must be deliberate and work in harmony. How you move the cursor, how long you hold buttons down, how you time and combine your various inputs, these are all things that can have a very real effect on everything your character does and can easily be misused. Don't leave anything to the game, it's not trying to play for you.


We're quite excited about these changes, they are fairly subtle but very important. They have been in beta and we've watched various people play and were ourselves very impressed with the results, the response from everyone seems very positive. This next update was supposed to feature some character skill progression but this has been postponed slightly due to this change in priorities. The character creation screen does show our WIP skill interface, the first few trainable skill techniques should be with you soon and we'll continue to add more.

Besides this version 0.5.2 features numerous bug fixes, improvements and tweaks.

If you are experiencing issues with the game then please contact us at support@baremettle.com with as detailed information as possible so as to help us address your issues in future patches. The game is OpenGL based rather than DirectX and driver support for OpengGL is not as good, we really need specific information on your system and configuration to be able to address issues of this nature. Thanks!


Best,

Bare Mettle

It's been a pretty intense few days since release, we've been dealing with a lot of different things but here's a first update that fixes a large number of issues and adds a couple of features.

Our next update featuring the first few trainable skills should be coming within a week or so!


Here's the notable changes in 0.5.1:

• Added an option for checkpoint saves at the end of every map
  
  
• Added a low health warning. Don't forget to bravely run away!
  
  
• Fixed characters being unable to step away when pressed against walls
  
• Common cause is fixed, another cause on specific walls will be fixed soon
  
  
• Fixed issues with AI misjudging arcs of many attacks
  
  
• Camera zoom and pitch is now preserved between arena rounds
  
  
• The cursor now changes to reflect that heavy objects can't be moved
  
  
• Fixed torch arm sometimes getting stuck behind your back
  
  
• Fixed graphical glitch with teleportation effect
  
  
• Fixed custom key binding not applying to object rotation
  
  
• Fixed some display issues on systems with high DPI scaling settings
  
  
• Numerous fixes and tweaks

Best,

Bare Mettle

It's been a pretty intense few days since release, we've been dealing with a lot of different things but here's a first update that fixes a large number of issues and adds a couple of features.

Our next update featuring the first few trainable skills should be coming within a week or so!


Here's the notable changes in 0.5.1:

• Added an option for checkpoint saves at the end of every map
  
  
• Added a low health warning. Don't forget to bravely run away!
  
  
• Fixed characters being unable to step away when pressed against walls
  
• Common cause is fixed, another cause on specific walls will be fixed soon
  
  
• Fixed issues with AI misjudging arcs of many attacks
  
  
• Camera zoom and pitch is now preserved between arena rounds
  
  
• The cursor now changes to reflect that heavy objects can't be moved
  
  
• Fixed torch arm sometimes getting stuck behind your back
  
  
• Fixed graphical glitch with teleportation effect
  
  
• Fixed custom key binding not applying to object rotation
  
  
• Fixed some display issues on systems with high DPI scaling settings
  
  
• Numerous fixes and tweaks

Best,

Bare Mettle