«You have finally arrived, sinful souls».

With our project gathering new players under its grim banner, it’s time to talk a little bit about in-game lore. We wanted to create a dark fantasy world that is nothing like the real one. This world is overrun with living embodiments of deadly sins, monsters and their minions, magic and demons, ghosts, phantoms and lost souls. Seven Deadly Sins has a religious theme, but the game makes almost no reference to religion, the bible, or other literature. This is our version of the underworld.

Sin Slayers is a story about heroes cast into a godforsaken place; it’s about loneliness, despondency and helplessness. Our heroes awaken in a strange realm, with no memory of how they came there or even how they died. Now they need to fight their way through humanity’s worst sins to find salvation.



«Even after death, these brave warriors could find no rest. They are confined in a world between worlds, the Valley of the Fallen Sinners. There they met a blind sage who told them about the seven seals that bind this world. Our heroes cannot escape until the seals are broken and their guardians, the Sin Lords, are slain. Seven huge monsters. Seven embodiments of deadly sins. Seven horrifying battles on the way to salvation.».

Our heroes ended up in the Valley of the Fallen Sinners for a reason. Their sins are reflected in their abilities and appearance. The Warrior is filled with rage, the Huntress is lustful, the Priestess is envious, and the Paladin is a glutton.



The grim environs of this damned world provide their own interesting gameplay mechanics. Each in-game location is cursed in one way or another, always according to its Sin Lord affinity. For example, in the Forest of Gluttony you’ll gain sinfulness every time you eat. In the Village of Envy only sinful souls will be able to acquire soul crystals.

With the first four days of the campaign behind us, we managed to gather some long awaited feedback from our favorite content creators. We were very pleased to see the first reviews and walkthroughs of the game come in! Every video, stream and tweet means so much to us. We would also like to give our special thanks to Kickstarter commenters.

Now we know for certain that we’re heading in the right direction. Sin Slayers is loved not only by us, but by its future players as well. This inspires us to work harder and generate more updates filled with exclusive materials for you.

Today we’ll talk about the birth of Sin Slayers’ visual style — “Bold pixel”.

We love combining an atmosphere of dark fantasy with a classic JRPG battle system and an unusual story about fighting living embodiments of the seven deadly sins. Visually, we were looking at projects like Castlevania, Diablo and the Dark Souls series, with a goal of making something similar in pixel art.

Our lead artist has in the past worked mainly with 3D models, spending his free time learning pixel art. You know how it happens. You’re looking through your Twitter feed and see some cool pixel fan art and 5 minutes later you’re trying to recreate it yourself. The same thing happened with Stanislav. After drawing the Warrior character in the classic pixel art style, he decided to make the image “bolder” in order to create a new visual effect. His 3D experience was critical here.


Process of drawing a character in 3DSMax

We created the basic model of our hero in 3DSMax. We put him in a basic pose and rendered several images with shadow, dirt and environmental effects. Only after that did we outline the contours and superimpose primary colors in Photoshop. Rendered images were added on top of contours and fills. The end result was pixel art with all sorts of adjustable settings and graphical effects. The models turned out much more detailed, and interesting light and color palettes appeared. This means no more drawing shadows and dirt by hand. Most importantly, this technique gave us the unique atmosphere we were looking for.


Concepts in search of an art style

Later we decided to add some brighter shading to relieve the gloom. This affected the background, surroundings and the general “tone” of the game. That’s how we moved beyond classic pixel art to make our own style of visuals: dirty, bold and detailed.


Classic pixel art vs Sin Slayers pixel art

How did our heroes end up in the Valley of Fallen Sinners?

We can only guess how the damned souls of these warriors arrived in the Valley. But one thing we know for certain: every one of them is there for a purpose. Our heroes are no different. Because their souls could not find rest, they now wander the Valley of Fallen Sinners.

The Valley is cursed. There is no way for anyone within to leave or find peace. To lift that curse, our heroes must destroy the seven magical seals that bind the spell.

Each seal is guarded by a Sin Lord, a huge, monstrous manifestation of one of the seven deadly sins. Legend tells that only after the seven seals are destroyed will every lost soul be free to leave this world.

Are the tales true? We leave that question to you.

As a bonus — check out the Sin Slayers story trailer!

Hello everyone!

After a sleepless and restless week we’ve finally launched our Kickstarter campaign. To be honest with you, it was a nerve-wracking launch! Every day, hour and second felt like a century.

Today Sin Slayers met you, it’s future players, for a first time. This is a really important day for everyone in our team. Sin Slayers is filled with our love and hope for classic RPGs. It’s too early right now to draw conclusions, but we still want to thank you, our first bakers, and ask one simple question. What do you think about our project, future Sin Slayers?

We’ve got a breathtaking adventure ahead. We promise, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with each update. Be in touch, leave comments and stay tuned. Big news are soon to come!

Dear friends, today we have the most important news ever since the beginning of the development cycle. Two years ago, since the first concept art, we already had a vision of a complete Sin Slayers game. Our game already has a working Alpha version, but we know we can do better.

Today we launch the Kickstarter campaign to make that vision a reality. With Kickstarter support we’ll add more story cutscenes, new gameplay features, heroes, enemies, quests and locations.

Let’s create a game together that’ll be remembered fondly for years.

Kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blacktower/sin-slayers-heroic-saga-in-dark-fantasy

This year has been very intense for us and our game. We have achieved excellent results: our community has been growing at a frantic pace; we have received a lot of positive feedback from the gaming industry experts; we have been invited to showcases in different parts of the world. In addition, we have greatly advanced in the development of the game: paid attention to various game mechanics, added a lot of gameplay features, and tried to pull the graphics and UI to a new level!

We tried to have time to release the public version in 2018, and we almost succeeded. But something happened that no one really planned.

At the last DevGAMM conference 2018 in Minsk, we met with the guys from the publishing company, who offered us to work together to release the final version as soon as possible and noticeably improve the quality of the game. After lengthy negotiations we weighed all the pros and cons and agreed.

Therefore, in the outgoing year, we hasten to announce that the release is postponed roughly until the SUMMER of 2019, the exact release date we will announce later. And access to the early version for all who pre-ordered and supported us will be provided in MARCH 2019. We hope, it will not upset anyone.

In conclusion, we wish you all good Christmas holidays and a happy New Year!

We have a turn-based strategy game, so the gameplay on the map is also TBS.



When you get to it, the first thing you see is squares (cells, tiles). In each new move you need to choose one cell from several available. Once you have selected and activated it, it will turn over and you will see:

• icon of the event that is played on the cell
  
• the color ground of the cell

Let's tell about each point separately.

The icon on the cell after its activation shows that some event will be played. There are many events, and they are divided into two groups: ordinary and special. Here are some of them.

Usual events:

• fight against monsters
  your squad is attacked by one, two or three monsters
  
  
• traps
  traps deal damage to your squad, cast on it the poison and other negative spells (debuffs)
  
  
• altar
  the altars, on the contrary, cast positive spells on the squad (buffs), for example, increase defense or speed in battle
  
  
• teleport
  it opens an uncharted area of the map
  
  
• rest camp
  it restores vitals of the squad
  
  
• chest with items
  it can be opened, closed or empty

Special events:

• dead on the roadside
  it can be rummaged, but the results are always unpredictable
  
  
• dug graves
  in them you can find something, that the grave robbers did not have time to pick up, or be ambushed and regret your curiosity
  
  
• missions/quests
  sometimes you will meet the inhabitants of this dark world who need your help
  
  
• the wandering merchant
  he sells useful and sometimes unique items

Each cell is a specific location. For example, in the "Forest of gluttony" you will see meadows, marshes, living and dead trees and a cemetery.



The characters in your squad have special ability for a specific Location map. Each ability has its own way of using and terms of "recharging".

Abilities can be used in three ways:

• Instant way – the ability is triggered immediately after activation
  For example, the character "Priest" restores health points to the whole squad
  
  
• Targeted per cell – the ability is triggered when it is activated and one of the cells is selected
  For example, the character "Warrior" shows whether there is an event in the cell and in its neighbors
  
  
• Event-based - the ability is activated after a certain event
  For example, the character "Defender" can allow your squad not to fight if you opened the cage with the event "Battle monsters"

All buffs and debuffs that the characters are received at the squadron on the Location map, are automatically transferred to the battle with the monsters. Be careful in each turn and monitor the status of the characters.

You will win, when you eliminate the boss and his squad. On the contrary, the simultaneous death of all the characters is considered a defeat, and you will have to go through the map again.

That's all about location maps – I hope you’re intrigued. Please, write in the comments what you think about it.


The third devlog, which will be released soon, will be about...

Bye for now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/783190/Sin_Slayers/

Official website
We are in Facebook
We are in Twitter

The first thing the game introduces is the map. It is placed on one game screen and is divided into seven locations. All of them correspond to a certain theme both visually and by monsters inhabiting them. For example, the first available location will be the forest of the Sin Lord of Gluttony. In this location you will see how large crowns of evergrowing trees are replaced by fields and swamps. And if the local flora is quite friendly, the fauna is clearly doesn't expect to strangers’ visit. But about this we will tell you more in the next devlog.

So, before you go on a trip, you need to choose a location to explore. At the very beginning of the game only one will be available – the rest will be unlocked as you progress through.



The next step is to choose one of two difficulty levels. The complexity is also unlocked consistently, so you will have to start with the beginning. The complexity of the location affects the size of the game map, the missions, the degree of development of monsters and, of course, the final boss.

If you are not confident in your abilities, you can always repeat the passage at a lower level of complexity to collect additional resources, perform additional tasks or just to study the tactics of the enemies, for example.

The final boss is different for each difficulty. After the first passage of the location you will always encounter a henchman (right hand) of one of the Sin Lords, and after the second – with the Lord himself.



In addition, alongside with the game locations there will be the special locations on the world map. The most important of them is the Church. It is where your characters can fill their strengths, change clothes, learn new ones or replace old abilities and much more.

That's all for now. In the second devlog we will tell you about "Location Map". Comment what you liked or disliked in the map and levels description, questions and suggestions are welcome!


See ya!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/783190/Sin_Slayers/

Official website
We are in Facebook
We are in Twitter

Developing of the game is in full swing, we try to make it as interesting and unusual as possible. We have been doing this for the last six months, constantly redesigning the mechanics, the game objects and interface, searching for new opportunities for gameplay, writing concept documents and planning features. And we have a news.

In July, we sent an application for participation in Indie Prize, that is international indie games competition. It was exciting, because the competition is reputable, many games are involved, so the chances to not fit are big also. But on August 28 we received a letter that we became the finalists! And now we go to Belgrade to participate in the show-case at the exhibition Casual Connect Serbia. Cheers to our team (a.k.a me and the designer)))), and thanks to everyone who has been supporting us in the development. This is an important step in the development of the project.

So, if you're in Belgrade on 1-3 October, we will be waiting for you at the Crowne Plaza Belgrade. Let's get acquainted and communicate!

Best wishes, see ya.

We are glad to say about our campaign in BrightLocker.
It's an innovative crowdfunding platform for gamers!

Check our page here and take part in developing the game: https://www.brightlocker.com/games/sinslayers