Hello guys! Just wanted to show a little bit of new gameplay I recorded recently. It shows interface improvements, new sounds and music, a little bit of character customization and character creation, and also some combat and 1 quest.

I've decided to create a charisma based character and show off some companion control in this video. Everything is still very wonky and unstable, but I'm working on it. Anyway, check out the video:



Thank you for reading this post, stay tuned for updates.
Follow me on twitter for more info: https://twitter.com/OlegKazakov1990
Join the discord to talk to me and discuss a game: http://discord.gg/XQjSzCN

Hello guys! In this devlog I wanted to tell you about what I've been working on these past weeks.

First side quests.

I've started to work on first side quests in the game. I am still in testing approaches for quests, but so far it seems to work fine. I am trying to get away from simple kill/collect formula of the quests as much as I can, and for the most part, except for some starting quests that are supposed to be training ones, all side quests are quite complex.
I am trying to write an element of mystery to each quest, tough choices, different ways to solve them that depend on your character build, etc.
I will show you guys a couple of teasers from some of the quests I made:


I plan to have at least 15-20 side quests in each of the 7-8 game zones in the game, in addition to the main storyline and faction questlines. A lot of work to do, but I hope this will give players a few hours of very exciting gameplay.

Combat changes

I've decided to make a couple of combat changes for mage and archer builds. Now you can cast spells or shoot arrows and move at the same time. I decided to do this not really because I wanted to add more action, but more of balancing concerns, so these types of builds could easier kite enemies and escape tough situations.

Plans, news

Recently a great youtuber Click4gameplay made a preview of Gedonia, with a lot of new footage and interesting info. Go check it out, it's a great video:


I am planning an early access release sometime in 2020, probably spring/summer, so stay tuned for that. Also, I was planning some sort of alpha testing in January/February, I will tell more when the time comes.

Thank you for reading this post, stay tuned for updates.
Follow me on twitter for more info: https://twitter.com/OlegKazakov1990
Join the discord to talk to me and discuss a game: http://discord.gg/XQjSzCN

Hello everyone! In this blog post I wanted to share more details about battle system development of Gedonia, and also explain a little, why I chose to implement this system in the game.


I design fight mechanics for Gedonia to be inspired by older RPGs, which means auto-attacking and using a number of abilities to win. There aren’t much “action”y types of mechanics in the game, however, this doesn’t mean that the fights will be slow and boring. Actually, if you don’t pay attention, you can end up dead extremely fast. You need to use your abilities and items quickly and smart, that’s why there is a battle pause implemented in the game. If you played any Dragon Age or Kotor game previously, this will be very familiar to you. At any moment during the game you can pause it, look around, assign orders to your character and your companions and then see them perform those orders. Sometimes careful planning determines, will you win a tough fight or lose the game.


This week I’ve made a bunch of improvements for battle interface, controlling you and your companions, and their AI. I plan at least 20-25 different companions that you can meet and recruit to your party, which can be as big as 4 units. Some of your companions can be summoned creatures, like skeletons or elementals. In that case, each summoned creature eats the part of your maximum mana, while it’s summoned, and the max amount of them depends of your skill in magic.

Why I chose to not implement action combat in Gedonia?

In the comments for the recent reddit post a lot of people were saying that they don’t like wow-style combat that I chose to implement in the game. It’s completely fair for them to not like it, however I wanted to try to explain, why I chose this system instead of the more modern style of combat with aiming/dodges, flashy combos etc. It wasn’t just because it’s harder to implement it, although it is one of the reasons, but there are also many others.

1. Action combat devalues your equipment. If I want to put it simple – your armor doesn’t really matter, if you can completely block an attack or dodge roll from it. Yeah, new shiny armor item looks cool, and it might give you more times you survive an attack or less times you attack an enemy, before he dies, but it’s not the same is for example – finding a power armor in Fallout 1. I recently played two great games – “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning” and “Darksiders 2”. In both of them, I found myself not caring at all about each new piece of equipment I found, because it didn’t really impact my gameplay. What mattered is my personal skill, and even if there is nothing really wrong with that, I find that for RPG it’s much more important to have gear that is impactful for your gameplay. A lot of older RPGs had that, and I hope to achieve this in Gedonia too.
   
   
2. In more action-oriented game there isn’t much depth to the stats. Gameplay mechanics like dodge, miss, parry, block, attack speed are all handled with controls, and aren’t stat-based. This means you can’t for example create a character with a lot of dodge chance and base your gameplay around it, and that means less freedom in creating a unique character. And this is also very important in RPGs for me.
   
3. And finally, there is already a huge amount of great AAA and indie action RPGs out there. I feel that I might have a tough time be compared to them, or adding anything new. If you love action RPGs, you have a lot of choice, but if you want new RPG with targeted combat, not so much. I can’t even remember any right of top of my head right now.

I conclusion, of course action combat is flashier, more exciting in the short term, and more marketable, however I believe that it would be better to not go this way with Gedonia.

Thank you for reading this post, stay tuned for updates.
Follow me on twitter for more info: https://twitter.com/OlegKazakov1990
Join the discord to talk to me and discuss a game: http://discord.gg/XQjSzCN

Hello everyone! So, recently my post with gif became viral on reddit, getting at this moment more than 80k likes, and the gif itself got more than a 400k views. Not bragging here, just wanted to say that I’m incredibly overwhelmed by all the attention my small indie game got and all the support you guys gave me.
Thank you so much.

I haven’t posted in the blog for a while, mostly because I did a lot of boring work with coding, but I also got to develop a number of abilities and add some items to the game.


I managed to add about 70 new abilities to the game, for almost all skill types. It is mostly early-game abilities, requiring skill levels from 1 to 7-8 (out of 15 max). I’ve only started playtesting and balancing them in the game, still a long ways to go. I test abilities from a single school, but I think it will be a lot of fun when players start mixing different abilities from different skills and making cool combos. Anyway here is a small showcase of a number of different magic abilities I’ve added.


I’ve started adding different items to the database and assigning them to the loot tables from enemies, merchants and crafting. Armor, weapons, potions, scrolls, crafting ingredients etc. Not much to show there yet, I’ve only wanted to talk about my approach to itemization in the game. A lot of RPG’s kinda “shower” players with loot, drowning them in hundreds of different items, and it becomes really tedious after awhile in my opinion. I try to use different approach, where it’s not a lot of items in the game, and you rarely get a new item, but each one is unique and impactful. And I will also add a number of ways to improve your items using crafting in the game.

All of the items are handcrafted and in fixed locations, so, for example, you can discover a powerful staff hidden in one of the chests in the world, and in the next playthrough you can get to it early and get yourself a huge increase in power. Is it balanced? Probably not, but I think it’s more organic and logical this way, which for me is more important in the game like this.


There are hidden chests throughout the map, and I tried to make a loot in each one very important and impactful to reward people exploring the map.


One thing a lot of people keep asking me about is when the game will be available for alpha/beta testing. It’s very early right now, so I cannot announce a concrete date, but I think about doing some alpha testing in early 2020, so stay tuned for that. I will announce it in my blog, in our discord and everywhere I can basically.

Thank you for reading this post, stay tuned for updates.
Follow me on twitter for more info: https://twitter.com/OlegKazakov1990
Join the discord to talk to me and discuss a game: http://discord.gg/XQjSzCN

Hello guys! In this devlog I will show some more progress I've made with the game and talk about magic and magic combos I plan to implement in Gedonia,

I've been hard at work on more environments for the game, in particular I've completed basic layout of the main Capital of Gedonia, and started working on Magic Academy.
Tthe main, still unnamed capital city of Gedonia will be pretty small, but very tightly packed zone with living quarters, city market, park, king's castle and gladitorial arena. You will be able to enter most of the houses in the city, check what's inside, talk to people, find different quests.




Gladitorial arena will be a huge part of the game, because you will be able to enter gladitorial contests, fight other champions, become the champion yourself and receive a unique set of items and the title for it!




I've only started on working on Magic academy, which will be huge building with a lot of rooms, housing whole magic faction in it, and containing a lot of interesting magical items, books and secrets. It's located on the shore, away from big cities, but you will be able to find path to it and start learning magic pretty quickly!



Right now there are 5 types of magic planned in Gedonia:

• Elemental magic, which allows you to use different fire, water, lightning spells to deal huge damage to your enemies
  
• Arcane magic, which gives you powers to change reality in different ways, like slowing down time, teleporting or even flying
  
• Nature magic which gives you different nature-based buffs and heals or allows you to control animals around you
  
• Holy magic allows you to heal yourself or your allies or destroy undead
  
• Dark magic allows you to deal unholy damage and curse your enemies or raise undead servants

I am planning to implement combos between different magic spells, Some of them will be able to improve or decrease effect of your other spells. Some of them are based in real life physics, for example

You can create a ball of water that will slowly drown your enemy for the limited time, but also will remove all burning effects on the target. If you use freezing spell on it, it will create a huge block of ice that will freeze enemy for the long time. Alternatively, you can use lightning spell to deal double damage to the target and apply a shock effect on it.

Thank you for reading this post, stay tuned for updates.
Follow me on twitter for more info: https://twitter.com/OlegKazakov1990
Join the discord to talk to me and discuss a game: http://discord.gg/XQjSzCN

Hello everyone! Today I want to share some progress I’ve made over past two weeks and additional info about crafting, planned in Gedonia.

I’ve been working on adding new environments to the game recently, these are just rough base for the locations in the game, just buildings and terrain, no advanced props and decorations or npc’s. It’s a couple of towns and dungeons from first 3 zones of the game, and you can check them in this video:



More details about crafting in Gedonia

Generally, you can distinguish two approaches to the crafting in games nowadays – crafting a fixed item from a recipe (more classic approach), or modifying and changing an item endlessly with mods and improvements. I decide to go with the classic type in the game. There are 6 types of crafting in Gedonia so far: Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Alchemy, Cooking and Enchanting. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, except maybe enchanting, which will work quite differently from most other RPG’s.


The main difference between crafting in most other RPG’s nowadays and Gedonia will be that I will try to make crafting a separate and viable character progression path, instead of optional activity. You will get experience when you craft items, and you will be able to learn any amount of crafting professions you like. So, instead of being a strong warrior or powerful mage, you can be a skillful crafter, make a bunch of money, hire a couple of mercenaries, equip them with items, potions and enchants of your own making and beat the game this way. In the end, it’s all about the freedom of building a unique character with unique playstyle.

Thank you for reading this post, stay tuned for updates.
Follow me on twitter for more info: https://twitter.com/OlegKazakov1990
Join the discord to talk to me and discuss a game: http://discord.gg/XQjSzCN

Hello guys! In this second devlog for Gedonia I wanted to share some info about different factions and companions that you’ll be able to meet in your travels.
Factions play huge role in the world of Gedonia. Each faction have different relationships with another factions, and you’ll be able to gather reputation with most of them, which will give you unique benefits like items, abilities and quests.

Kingdom

This is a default faction you start with, it consists of population of different human villages across the realm, warriors guild, people of the capital and kings guard. If you improve reputation with this faction, you will be able to learn different fighting and archery abilities from warrior’s trainers in battle camps across the map. You will also be able to join traders and crafters in the capital and learn their skills.


Bandits

These outlaws have setup different camps in forests and ruins all across the map, and have huge lairs in the mountains, where they keep their loot. If you try to become one of them, expect huge your reputation with Kingdom dropping very quickly. You will be able to learn different rogue abilities, poisons and archery skills in this faction.



Mages, Necromants and Holy temple

If you want to learn any type of magic, you will have a choice of 3 warring factions. Mages can teach you different elemental and arcane magic spells. Necromants can teach you dark curses and how to raise the dead for your command. Holy temple can teach you to become a holy priest or a paladin. Priests despise traditional magic and hate dark magic, so learning all types of spells at the same time would be tricky, but not impossible.


Barbarians

Barbarians mostly live in the desert and are at war with the kingdom. You will be able to join their tribes and learn powerful berserker abilities or an art of using elemental and nature magic with shamanism.

Animals, goblins and orc tribes

These are different monsters that inhabit world of Gedonia. You won’t be able to join them, however there might be some quests involving tribe members, that you can encounter during your adventures.



Companions are a huge part of gameplay. Your ability to recruit a companion and create a party is controlled mainly by your charisma stat. Character with high charisma will be extremely weak in combat, but will be able to gather up to 3 powerful party members, that will do all the fighting for him, and use his speech abilities to inspire and buff them or demoralize enemies! You companions will get experience, increase their level, get new abilities, have bonus inventory space for loot and even be able to wield different armor and weapons.
First companion that I’ve added to the game is this cute stray dog, that will join you if you give him some meat and kind words.


Thank you for reading this post, stay tuned for updates.
Follow me on twitter for more info: https://twitter.com/OlegKazakov1990
Join the discord to talk to me and discuss a game: http://discord.gg/XQjSzCN

Hello everyone! This is the first post in the development blog I am making for my new game Gedonia. I’ve decided to start doing these to share my ideas and plans for the project, development progress and news. In this first post I am going to share general concepts and ideas for the game.

Role playing, stats and freedom

I am a huge fan of RPGs and MMORPGs, especially oldschool ones. One of the main reasons I love games like Fallout 1 and 2, Arcanum or TES games, is the complete freedom of making a unique character, and a unique feel each playthrough with this character brings to the game. On the other hand, I also love flow and feel of combat mechanics of such games as World of Warcraft and KOTOR. Gedonia is essentially a mix of all the things I like from these games, which I hope be well liked by you guys.

So what’re the stats and systems of Gedonia will be like?
First of all, you’ve got your main stats. Those are similar to SPECIAL system from fallout, and will influence your play style in major way. You’ve got pretty self-explanatory stuff like strength, agility, stamina, intellect and charisma. Most important concept I keep in mind, while designing these is that you can’t be good at everything. You can either be great at something and bad at something else, or be mediocre at everything. I feel like in a lot of modern RPGs you can’t be truly bad at something, for example in Skyrim, even if you are a warrior type character, you can still cast a little magic, sneak a little or craft something. I don’t want this to be the case in Gedonia. If you are a brute, with huge strength and stamina stats, you won’t be able to even use magic or sneak. I feel this is a huge part of truly making a unique character and playstyle.



Second, you have skills that you will be able to improve with each level. These range from weapon skills to magic, crafting and speech. Here you have a complete freedom of improving whatever you want, and learning different abilities. I want to make this part of the game rich and varied. A skill of using swords for example not only will improve your damage numbers, but will also allow you to learn a huge number of different attack moves. I also plan to make abilities that would require a couple of different skills to use, for example if you are good at elemental magic and swords, you will be able to learn an ability that will set your blade on fire and deal additional fire damage to each attack. Or an ability that would require a skills in speech and holy magic, which will start a prayer, dealing damage to all undead near. The possibilities are endless, and I am very excited to design all possible combinations.



And finally, you will be able to assign different perks that will additionally influence your characters. Want to make a vampire character? Assign a perk that will make him steal health with melee attacks, perk that will make him weaker during daytime, stronger during nighttime, and the perk that will decrease his natural health regeneration. These are still on concept, but I really want them in the game.

Stay tuned for more updates and more info about the game in the upcoming devlogs! Thank you.