With all crucial systems implemented we can move our focus to general polish and quality of life features.

Monsters now use visual projectiles when attacking heroes. Sounds obvious, but until now we didn’t need visual attack indicators. With arrows and magic bolts flying, the game is much more readable and, obviously, looks much better!

We improved the card rendering and logic so those card descriptions could include values dynamically sourced from the game’s data. This means that cards’ stats can be changed quickly in the data files and the card descriptions will change automatically. It also means that some values in the card descriptions can now be calculated by the game (for instance the final damage value when it depends on the number of monsters present or other not fixed conditions).

Now when the card description contains certain keywords or names of other cards there will be an automatic tooltip displayed for that card. This is especially convenient when one card refers to another card – you can quickly check its description and icon, and see if it fits your build.

We continue implementing new cards – right on the schedule. Below you can see a few examples. Some might look more familiar than others, especially for those of you who played the prototype:



The same goes for the artifacts. Among those added this month are:



Bloody grail – A random player gets a Healing Blood card at the beginning of the battle.



Flawed ruby – Start each battle with zero mana on the first turn and one extra mana point on later turns.

In order to level the playing field, the monsters have to evolve as well. This month some of them gained the following traits:

Explosive – When killed in the near range deals damage equal to its strength to all characters.

Vampiric – Gains strength equal to unblocked damage dealt.

As you can see some monsters will have to be approached more carefully than others and no single build will be universal.

Work on the game’s intro continues. Our plan for the intro sequence is to feature illustrations done for a few selected cards. That way we can have nice transitions between them and tie icons to real-life (well, game-life) events!

This month we focused on the Heavy Sword card and you can see the results here:





Last, but not least, we finally implemented the Cave location. We had the art ready for some time, but there always was something more important taking priority. You probably can imagine who dwells in this cozy, tribal area.



As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons!
Filip

We kicked May off with some heavy testing after adding the lobby screen and progress bar in April. Since the game is multiplayer, every backend change has to be scrutinized and tested under adverse network conditions like slow connection, heavy packet losses, and so on. The good news is that so far everything is solid. And what was not solid was fixed!

We finally added one of the most important QoL elements in combat, namely the incoming damage counter. It might seem like a no-brainer but until now something more important to add has always taken priority. Now we see how much damage heroes will get this turn, how much of it will be blocked and if the damage will be lethal. All this immensely helps with teamwork and coordination.



Another large feature we added in May is the card upgrade system. In Hellcard cards have rarities and upgrading them increases rarity. Every card has up to three other higher rarity cards it can be upgraded to. This system increases mobility within the deck since when taking a card you are not bound to it or its upgraded version ‘till death do you part. Instead, as the game unfolds, you can upgrade it into one that fits your bill.



After adding the Mark mechanic in April, the time has come for Stun. This is another new mechanic that was not present in the public prototype. Cards featuring this mechanic enable you to change the monster’s intent to “stunned”. That intent means that the monster won’t take any action this turn and in the next turn will return to the last intent. Be careful though - dealing damage to stunned monsters wakes them up!

All classes have cards with stun mechanics, but the Rogue excels in it. Obviously.



We consistently add to the list of implemented monster features. In May we added two.

The first one is triggered when the monster is killed and puts a card in the player’s hand. For example, killing a Goatman gives a healing card so sometimes it makes sense to leave Goatmen for later.

The second one adds Influence to the player. We talked in detail about the Influences system in the February update but to put it simply they are effects over time, basically. For example, killing Looney Ghost curses the player until the end of the turn decreasing damage dealt by 1.

We have started working on the intro (of course there will be an intro!). Not to get into too much detail (this time) but the intro will focus on how drastically and quickly can our heroes' circumstances change when timeless evil forces decide to play with their paper world.



We have also been working on making the interface more readable both during combat and outside of it. As you can see below it became more packed with info and yet more clean at the same time.



Last, but far from least, we are adding new outfits when time allows. Here is a sneak peek of the Archeress outfit for Rogue.



As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons!
Filip



Let’s kick this update off with the mundane, also known as the screens! We have finally implemented the main menu screen. The unearthly tentacles embracing the Old Cathedral still need some polish, but we are pretty happy with how it all came together.



Those of you who are with us from the first pre-alpha public test might remember the very spartan lobby window. It got upgraded to a fully-fledged Lobby Screen. Not only can you now see other characters in the party (important, but we will come back to this in a moment) but also get info on their status and progress.



Last, but very far from least, the Map Screen is now implemented. This one is important not only as a quality of life feature but also as a core mechanic element. The party can choose here which monster will dominate in the next fight and what awaits them after the battle. Slow but unyielding zombies guarding a mighty artifact or rather skeleton archers trying to cut you off from the campsite that could offer much-needed rest? Your pick. 



Aside from new screens and windows we also implemented a new artifacts! A few examples:

• Prism - upgrades one Mage starting card to a higher rarity
  
• First blood - when (and if!) the owner manages to kill the first enemy in a fight they get healed
  
• Unripe banana - at the end of the turn converts all unspent mana to block
  
• Evergreen leaf - whenever anyone in the party is healed, whoever carries this artifact is also healed!

Sounds simple but adding a tooltip system is a huge help even for us. Until now we had to learn by heart the function of every artifact and card, now we can simply hover the cursor over them. Hopefully, you will find this feature as helpful as we do ːarchduckː




Mark is another card mechanic we implemented this month. It’s intended to incentivize coordination between players and allows for impressive nuking if the party can play as a team.

It works like this: one (and only one at the same time) monster in a battle can be marked. The marked monster receives increased damage. Everyone can increase the mark, transfer it to another monster, double it, and more.

The marked target is of course highlighted so everyone in the party knows it’s doomed. And, especially, so it would know it’s doomed. 

We continue to work on icons for new cards for all classes. See if you can spot the mark-related cards in the mix!



At the same time, more variety is being introduced to arenas. Fighting in similar-looking dull dungeons gets… dull.



Finally, we get to talk about why seeing other party members gathered in the Town center on the lobby screen is important. How else could they appreciate the custom outfit that you fought so hard to get? After all, just like with the same-looking dungeons, fighting in the same outfit as other guys is boring. Just look at this Warrior embracing his inner berserker bear!



Or rather his external bear. You get what I mean ːarchduckː

As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons!
Filip

Most major backend systems are already implemented, which means we can move into the predictable realm of producing content. We will be tweaking stuff when it comes to the backbone but we don’t expect any major changes.

With backend systems completed, this is where the work is focusing right now. We have also added five new monsters. Some of them you already know, but now they are implemented on the new systems. Right now we are adding visual effects to them.

We are playtesting the game regularly and our main focus this month was on basic card visual effects. These include card movement on draw or play, effects on exhaust (some cards can be used only once in a battle and then they are exhausted), or adding a new card to the deck during battle. Especially that last one has to be noticeable for obvious reasons. All this makes the testing more and more a pleasant experience as the game becomes more readable and, well, nicer looking. Not to mention it makes spotting bugs much easier when cards don’t just pop into existence between frames!

We also implemented Character Creation and Selection screens:



We have finalized the design of all the cards for all characters (more than 300 cards total). This means we can start implementing cards at full throttle. Of course, we are prepared for changes in the cards. But changes will be a result of feedback from closed and open tests. For now, we are happy with the design and proceed with implementation.

Last but not least, we have also finalized one more location illustration:



As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons!
Filip

We have been working on what we call the “Influence system”. It handles every effect that is not instant but acts over time. By combining skills, buffs, and debuffs in one neat system we can now add, remove and activate a variety of effects that affect either a single character or are global. Activation conditions can be customized so this allows us to implement effects that tick after a number of turns, tick after a set amount of damage is dealt or tick after any other condition we might come up with. 

The aforementioned Influence system allowed us to implement more types of cards, including:

Cards that use influence for effects that span multiple turns
For example:

• Armageddon card which deals damage to all monsters four turns after being played.
  
• Momentum card that gives other heroes block whenever you play an attack card.

Artifacts. You will be able to pick up artifacts between fights and they will offer permanent effects.
For example:

• Kielbasa artifact that lowers the cost of one random card from starting hand to 0 mana.
  
• Silver mirror artifact that gives extra block to another hero every time they give you block.

We have also reimplemented the communications rose some of you already know from the pre-alpha tests. It lets you quickly communicate with other players via markers. It still uses work-in-progress visuals but is fully functional. Also, there will be more emotes to pick from in the final builds!


In the visual design department, we have been focusing on the game’s logo, adding more paper feel to it. You can judge the results yourself:



And we have finalized icons for the first batch of artifacts. Try and guess their names, so we can see if the icons are readable ;-)



As always,

Stay safe in the paper dungeons!
Filip

We kicked off 2022 with comprehensive tests of the multiplayer backend. One of the issues we had to tackle was the synchronization when one of the clients was running on a really slow computer hitting extremely low frames per second (4-5fps). We solved that issue, so good news to everyone playing on really slow hardware or with two instances of Crysis running in the background.

As the game is now playable (to some extent), we took some time to fully automate the Hellcard deployment process. Each commit to the main game branch automatically builds a new version of the game and puts it on our branch on Steam. This way, whenever it is possible, the whole team tests the most current release build directly on Steam. It not only saves time but also allows us to test the game directly in the final environment.

As you might recall we have designed and implemented a block system for rapid card implementation and modification. This month we evaluated the first 100 cards to see if there is any functionality they might require that is not yet available in the block system.

In the design department, we are wrapping-up mock-ups for all the windows and screens for the game. We are also implementing already designed windows in parallel to speed the process up. The priority is on implementing windows crucial to the core gameplay and mechanics. Below you can see some of the windows:


We have also created the first batch of avatars for the players to choose from. In a multiplayer co-op game making yourself look distinct is an important aspect. Not just for sheer vanity, which is important, but also to make it easier for other players to recognize you among others.


Of course, all the avatars you have already unlocked in Book of Demons will also be available for you to use in Hellcard.

As always,
Stay safe in paper dungeons!
Filip

We have officially finished pre-production and are now planning production. Since different teams define these terms differently I will elaborate a bit on what it means. Pre-production is where the more experimental and “one-off” type of stuff has to happen. Things like networking backend systems, editors, and other tools we need to make the game. Stuff can take longer than planned in that phase since it may turn out not to work or we can have “back to the drawing board” moments.

On the other hand, production is the phase where we know what has to be done, how many times it has to be done, and how long it should take. This means that in this phase we will be able to pin some actual milestones, deadlines, and dates. Before there were too many uncertainties for any kind of a solid plan.

The Multiplayer backend is now complete! It was a monumental task and something we never have done before. Feedback and data we got from everyone who participated in our pre-alpha tests were extremely valuable. It has shown us how much more solid and reliable this system has to be compared to what we initially planned. This impacted the production time but it’s finally done. Using our network code we can now reliably connect to each other, play cards, win (or lose) together. No more infernal errors known from the pre-alpha playtest. Hopefully. We are now testing the system checking edge cases.

It also means that before the year is over we will be able to play a multiplayer Hellcard game in the Thing Trunk team!

In previous posts, I have mentioned our “block” system for rapid card implementation. Using it we have already created the first batch of working cards that will be sufficient for our internal test. We have basic damage dealing cards, blocking cards, and so on. Not much variety but it will be more than enough.



We will be fighting against a very simple test enemy since that’s the first one we have implemented. It will only charge the players and attack, but that is enough to keep things interesting during the first game on actual backend systems.


In the design department work continues on adding more cards to each class. Things are getting exciting; up until now, all the cards were designed on paper. Now, with a playable network game, we will finally be able to test them and see how fun they are to use, and how well they synergize with each other.

We have been working on artifact icons too, the first batch is ready as you can see below:

And, last but far from least, work continues on new locations:



As always,
Stay safe in the paper the dungeons!
Filip

With most of the team back after the flu season, we are moving forward with work in all departments.

Most of the work focuses on multiplayer matchmaking. This includes finding the most suitable players, prioritizing diversity between classes, and merging different lobbies with similar settings.

We are not able to actually play together (yet) but we can create lobbies, find matching games and invite friends. With all this in place, we only need to implement the kick option and we are good to go ːarchduckː

As you know, since October you can draw, shuffle, and discard cards. And now you can also aim them at monsters (and players) using different targeting modes. These were present in the prototype, but for the real thing, we had to code them from scratch in order for them to be extensible and (eventually) look good. Here are examples of different targeting modes:


Single target - rather self-explanatory, can be used to target enemies or allies (but only with best intentions at heart!).


Cone - for targeting a group of monsters using a conical shape originating from the player.


Range - for AOE attacks and effects cast anywhere on the arena.

Please note that the cards shown are our internal placeholders and won’t make it to the final game. Unless we grow to love them over time. Who knows.

Besides further work on mock-ups for windows and screens, we are now focusing on how the battle arenas should look. Below you can see a concept for the catacomb arena.



In Book of Demons, maps were generated from smaller tiles that had to fit together. This allowed for a great variety of maps. The downside was that they did tend to look similar. In Hellcard we are free to create more custom and unique looking arenas. There will be a few of them but they will stand out and be more memorable. As you can see above we are also experimenting with adding objects in the foreground. This should create a better illusion of depth in the scenes.


As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons
Filip

Tis’ the season for being sick, so work was going slower than usual. At some point, we had more team members sick than not! Still, we have made some significant progress in both backend systems and visual design.

We have been working on what we are calling a “visual block editor” for monsters’ behaviours. It enables the design team to add new monsters quickly and experiment with their AI without bothering programmers. The funny thing is, the editor is actually neither “visual” nor “block”. It uses our engine’s object tree allowing for complex behaviours to be nested in a relatively easy way on the fly when playing the game. Here is how it looks:


This is what passes for a convenient visual block editor around here!



In the gameplay department, we have been working on basic card mechanics like drawing, playing, and discarding cards. Fundamental stuff that has to be done right so we could build upon it.

Design work continues on mock-ups for windows and screens. It’s a lot of work to put all the windows together in-game but we are making steady progress. Going for maximum clarity and compactness here. Here you can see a Rewards Window mockup already in-game:




Work is also progressing in designing locations for various events. Here we are designing the locations and already sketching and visually prototyping them, working in parallel to speed up the production. Here is a sample of our work in progress:



As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons
Konstanty ːarchduckː

This is the first in the series of regular monthly updates about Hellcard development, as promised in the last update. We want to keep you in the loop as much as possible

The whole Hellcard thing began for real around a year ago when we launched a pre-alpha demo. We wanted to see if the core idea works and if it’s fun. And it was - we spent the next few months gathering feedback, fixing bugs in the pre-alpha build, and preparing to make the real thing.

“Wasn’t that the real thing?” you may ask. It wasn’t. It was hacked together quickly using chewed gum and duct tape, like something MacGyver would make. From the player’s perspective, a large portion of the game was there: both multi and single-player, cards, leveling up, combat, and character progression, all was there. But below this facade was a mess and we couldn’t build a whole game on such a foundation. The final experience would be shoddy and bugs would be abundant even in the best-case scenario. In the worst, we wouldn’t be able to implement all we want to. Knowing that the core concept is now proven, we went back to the blueprints.

Since then we have been working on three aspects simultaneously:

• backend systems design and implementation (net code, card logic, etc.)
  
• content design (cards, enemies, etc.)
  
• visual design (locations, arenas, etc.).
  
• Backend systems

At this point, most of the core backend systems are implemented. This includes the very base systems like:

• Language subsystem - basically allowing translations and switching between them.
  
• Character loader system - a flexible system for storing all character-related data for multiple characters
  
• Card system - a surprisingly complex and flexible system for storing, saving, and rendering cards
  
• Unlock manager - system for storing unlockable content

We still are tackling issues with matchmaking code - it was wonky in the pre-alpha prototype as those of you who played back then surely recall. Now it’s completely rewritten but some issues remain.
The pre-alpha prototype sported just a handful of cards. Right now we already have designed give or take 150 cards with more than a hundred more to go. Compare this to the mere 29 cards available in the prototype to get an idea of how flexible the builds will be. At the same time balancing such a number of cards is tricky. This is where a closed beta will be important, no one will find loopholes better than the players ːarchduckː

We have also designed 20 monster types and are currently designing bosses. This includes not only how they look but their unique mechanics. Just like the Antiope who counted cards in the demo.

We are also designing artifacts (both common and class-specific) and we have already finished designing things the characters will be able to do between battles. Here is an advanced concept for one such location that can be visited:


A cozy campfire makes fighting evil hordes worth it.
And we are also working on the intro! We started with a screenplay and now we are wrapping up a storyboard (a kind of a comics-like image-based version that shows keyframes from the final animation):


A pearl? A flower? An eye? Only time and more color can tell.

As always,
stay safe in the paper dungeons ːpaperheartː
Konstanty