Hello!

"Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights" is out now! However, keep in mind that it is still an early access and it might have some rough edges here and there. The game should last anywhere between two and five hours, depending on one's skill and chosen difficulty level.

The following features are also missing, but we hope that they will exist in the next patch:

1. Voice acting. To create an atmosphere specific to a story-driven game, full voice acting will be provided.
   
2. Vendors. Many players will notice that the main character will have in his inventory not just money, but different things that can be bought and sold. In the Early Access version these seem to be useless. But in the full version of the game there will be vendors. So, the player will be able to use the money, to sell and/or to buy things.
   
3. Open-world outdoors. Even if the story is clear and some places will become available only if the player will follow the thread of the story in order to solve the quests, for those players who would rather like to explore some nice places the outdoors will be really open world.
   
4. Localization. At least some foreign languages – as German, French, Spanish and Russian – will be available.
   
5. Full map. At his moment, the only way to find the right direction is by using the compass and the mini-map available in the upper-right corner of the display. The full version of the game will provide a full map where the player will be able to see its position in the large context of the level.

For a roadmap of the game we have the following community discussion:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1164690/discussions/0/1642052612850818216/

In the case of a bug or even worse, a crash we kindly ask for a crash log, since we haven't integrated any automatic solution yet. A guide on how to do that can be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1164690/discussions/0/3106891514136499183/




© 2021 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

With the last controller exiting the beta phase, we are now offering full controller support for Wigmund! The final details are also being tweaked, for our upcoming release in 25 February. The latest bugs have been squashed and the latest balancing tweaks were made. While it's still only an Early Access version we hope that we can provide the best possible experience from the play-ability point of view.

Our game should support the PS5 and PS4 V2 controllers, without drivers or any other fancy hacks and any XInput compatible controller. The action mappings for the XBox controller can be seen below:



© 2021 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

We have a release date, set for 11 January 2021. It is going to be a little later than we expected, since we still have some rough edges that we need to tweak and some quality of life improvements that help in making better the gaming experience. We would also want to support (at least partially) a controller scheme for our game, and while we are not 100% sure that it will make it in the January release we hope that it will come as a patch very shortly after.

Stay tuned for future updates on our social media and news section!

© 2020 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

We hapily announce that we're very well under way with the preparation for the Early Access. A huge part of this was the finalizing of the features, fixing of bugs and, of course, heavy optimizations for a smooth experience during gameplay. We think that the optimization part is not always provided a high priority, and that is why it was very important for us, since the game-play requires a very smooth combat experience.

That is why for 'Wigmund' we have created a special grid system that enables and disables entities on the fly as they are requested, and volume based instancing areas that automatically merge meshes at runtime into instances in order to reduce draw calls in a certain region.



Without too much ado, here are the results at maximum quality and the PCs specs that ran the game:
1. AMD Phenom X4, 12GB RAM, GTX970: Average 90FPS
2. AMD Athlon 3000G, 4GB RAM, GTX1050: Average 110FPS
3. AMD Rysen 5 4600H, 16GB RAM, GTX1650TI: Average 140FPS

Those are certainly not state-of-the art gaming rigs, and we hope that through those optimizations our game will run smoothly on the widest possible range of hardware.

As for the Early Access content we will have around 3 hours of game-play (probably around 4 for less experienced gamers) containing a part of chapter III. The game will have 5 chapters upon full release. The price will be around 15-19$ for EA and somewhere in the 25-30$ range for the full version. We will plan to release chapter after chapter every 3 months, now that we have all the base systems in place and fixes every week when that will be required. Each release will increase the game's price.

It is very probable that we will not be able to handle localization now, and that we will not be able to support controller (not even partially) but we hope to introduce it with the first content patch.

Aaaaand the release date... Since we still have balancing issues, some bugs, mostly related to the save/load feature we can't be completely certain, but it is very probable that we will have it somewhere in December.

Even better, while the programming part goes on, the props and environments are comming allong quite nicely, having finished more environments for caverns, woods, and villages!



Stay tuned for future updates on our social media and news section!

© 2020 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

Due to the size of the game and team, along with the unique gameplay that drives the game, we have decided that early access is the finest approach for the initial phase of the project. It will give us the opportunity to test your response to what we have created, especially from the gameplay point of view.

For the EA we plan to release a part of our story. It will contains one quest chapter (around mid-game), two environments, the dungeon and the castle, three full armor sets, three abilities, six weapons and more than twelve enemy types.

In other news:

• Sword Dance: Unleash a storm of steel around you causing extra damage
  
  
• Sacrality: Blast all unholy enemies around you, with a chance to knock them down
  
  
• Blessing of War: Bless your weapon to deal more damage at the slight cost of speed
  

• Four new boss events
  
  
• Eight new enemy types
  
  
• Dozens of new props and structures
  
• Many quests and quest events

More environments, items, chapters and enemies will follow in the next months, until we reach our full game. The full game is planned to contain about eight environments, seven armor sets, twelve abilities and dozens of weapons and enemy types that, even though are mostly done, there was not enough time to add them all to the story line.

We're also finalizing the quests and scripts that will imply the EA release, test out the game and eradicate bugs.

Stay tuned for future updates on our social media and news section!

© 2020 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

After a many internal discussions and due to the fact that we want to provide the best possible player experience, we have decided to push the release of the Early Access somewhere in the 4th quarter of this year.

The other news are that the 'core' of the game-play is in place, that most of assets for many environments are finalized and that the EA will come with one chapter out of the five that we have. It will include dungeons, castles and many fun boss fights!

Stay tuned for future updates on the described items on social media or our news section!



© 2020 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

We've thought to give a small insight to the game's internal mechanics, and especially to the combat mechanics.

Combat
Let's start with the combat. First of all it's real-time and is not selection based. Each action requires your input. Following less threaded paths, the combat gameplay (at least the mouse + keyboard version) basically consists in properly executing mouse gestures that will determine your character to perform certain actions. Those include allowing the character to attack, dodge, roll and block.


Damage
Once an NPC (or your character) is hit, the body part and impact point is detected based on the weapon's collision. A blow to the head does more damage than a blow equally powerful to the leg. If the body part is unarmored the damage is multiplied by a factor. An arrow or hit to the unarmored head (or body) yields 4x (2x respectively) more damage. Make sure you are always wearing a helmet or that injury might be your last one!


Damage mitigation
Armor plays an important part in damage reduction. Plate armor yields more protection but also weights more and weight influences speed. A roll or a dodge will avoid damage altogether. But when you don't have enough room, parrying or blocking decreases damage based on the shield stats and can knock-back enemies. Spells and arrows are only block-able with a shield.


Weight
The most important aspect of your character's speed is the carried weight. Having a heavy 2H weapon along with a full plate armor will make you slow and even over-encumbered. Wearing a lighter mail armor will make your attacks faster. And weight is important if you want to go for an ultra-heavy armored tank or a fast dps. Weapon weight is more important than the weight of the worn armor. A heavier weapon will slow you down more than a heavy armor.


Energy
Stamina will increase the quantity of energy that you have. Energy is required for sprinting and maximizing the potential of your hits. Attacking without energy will yield less damage. Rolling and dodging without energy will make them slower.


Equipment
Items don't have a level requirement but used without the proper constitution/agility points they will slow you down and will make combat very difficult and sometimes impossible. Always make sure you are wearing the gear with the proper weight for your character build.


Specializations
Our RPG does not contain classes, but you will be able to customize your character to be more prone to tanking, damage or casting. When leveling you will gain different stat points that you can spend on strength, agility etc. They can always be reset for the desired build.

And yes, there's also strength for extra damage, constitution for extra speed and dexterity for extra critical. Note that while the core mechanics are final the numbers and multipliers might not be final, some modifications might occur.

Stay tuned for future updates on our social media and news section.

© 2020 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

Game development is tough but we managed to overcome many issues and tackled a lot of missing features.

• Weapon holster animation
  
  
• Sprint, walk and run
  
  
• Various improvements for smooth animation transition

• Save and load system - This one was especially long and difficult
  
• Seamless map transitions
  
  
• User input improvements, no animation will block user input
  
• Equipment system addition
  
• New props
  
  
• New weapons
  
• New enemies
  
• Various fixes

We're also rigging and fixing many existing assets like enemies, environment pieces, animations and props. Stay tuned for future updates on our social media and news section.

© 2020 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

We've been working a lot to meet the schedule of the game and we have come with new updates!

• Two new companions: Wigstan (the Archer) and Cyneric (the Powerful)
  

• Asymmetric equipment system
  
  
• Interactive capes
  
  
• The seventh armor set
  

• Item icons
  
• Ability icons

We're also finishing new environment assets, new zones and new enemies. Stay tuned for future updates our social media and news section.

© 2019-2020 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights

Hello!

It's almost the end of the year and we thought to give a little bit of insight on the status of the game.

• Updated UI elements
  
• Minimap, Portrait, Action Bar

• Work in progress for companions
  
• Wigstan - Powerful ranger companion
  
• Cyneric The Powerful - Melee companion specialized in two handed hammers

• Four type of environment assets finished
  
• Dungeon, Caverns, Forest, Castle

• Six of Wigmund's future armors finished
  
• Three sets of heavy armors
  
• Three sets of light armors

Stay tuned for future updates on the described items on social media or our news section!

© 2019 The Scholastics / Wigmund. The Return of the Hidden Knights