Oct 22, 2020

Content Update! New Environments + Enemy, New Cards, Introducing Artifacts

Hand Cannon Virtuoso - Tadatoto

Howdy Climbers 😤

Pushed the bi-weekly Content Update last night! Just posting notes now to let you all know what's new.

What's New

Key Card Combat Tests + 4 New Rooms!

This Content Update adds Key Card Combat Test - a new type of room that require you to fight enemies and find a Key Card to unlock the exit and proceed.

There are 4 new Key Card rooms you can now encounter during your Climb. These 4 new rooms will fall under The Plaza floor theme once I move to the themed floor system.

I am pretty happy with how these rooms came together. They incorporate some new randomization logic so the enemies, key card, etc. aren't always in the same place. My level design chops are improving a bit as well, so I think they are more interesting to navigate than some of the existing rooms.

3 New Cards! Dynamo, Spare Magazine, and Pot Shot

This Content Update also adds 3 new Weapon Cards. All 3 of these Cards are unlocked by default, so it should help increase the variety of Cards for first time players until they unlock more.

The new Cards are...

Dynamo
An unrelenting engine - for those who can assemble it. Deals 10 damage and attacks 25% faster for each Dynamo in your Library. Damage scales with Card level.

Spare Magazine
Your next card has 2X times as many Uses as it normally has. Spare Magazine does not stack. Multiplier scales with Card level.

Pot Shot
The poor bot's grenade launcher. Gets the job done or your money back. Just kidding, you're stuck with it. Damage Scales with Card level.

Pot Shot is actually a lot of fun - it doesn't pack as much punch as the different Launchers you unlock later in the game, but it's a pretty fun early stage AOE Card :)

New Gameplay Element - Combat Artifacts

Artifacts are a new gameplay element I'm introducing that will give you, the player, some sort of risk/reward decision. They show up in the middle of different Combat Tests and such and you can choose to activate them or ignore them.

The first Artifacts I'm introducing are Combat Artifacts. If you choose to activate a Combat Artifact, you'll be blocked from exiting the current room until you defeat some amount of enemies at which point a Chest will drop with a reward such as a Card, Gadget, Stars, etc.

I have a bunch of different types of Artifacts I'm planning that I'll be introducing in subsequent Content Updates.

New Enemy - Turret Bots

These won't be new to folks who have fought Construction Bot, but now they'll start showing up throughout the levels.

Turret Bots are mounted enemies that snipe at you from walls, ceilings, and other weird angles.

Feedback and Bug Fixes

In addition to the new content above, I also fixed some bugs and addressed some player feedback:

Feedback

Some enemy projectiles are a little slower so active dodging plays can play more of a roll.
Store Rooms are now more common so you have more opportunities to spend Bits.
Flamethrower and Freezethrowers now have greater range (1.5X previous range). These cards feel a lot more useful now, I definitely find myself picking them up more often after this buff.
Individual Booster is slightly more powerful now so you can fly a bit better with just one hand.
Added some new stuff to tutorials regarding new Comfort Settings from last update.
Reduced build size - the game was pretty big unnecessarily so I found ways to take it from ~3GB to ~2.4GB. There is room to reduce it further that I have planned which should also help performance.
Reduced damage of Exploding Cubes so they are not a run ender anymore if you accidentally blow one up.
Buffed Boxer Bot damage (since they fight so hard to get near you lol)
Made view box for Cards/Gadgets/etc. bigger so the box doesn't disappear when you look up to read the text.
Flamethrower is now unlocked by Default to increase early game Card variety.

Bugs

Fixed big bug from recent Content Update that was causing analog stick controller schemes to sometimes get stuck turning in circles (sorry about that).
Fixed bug where you would be shooting, look at an Interactable, and get stuck shooting.
Fixed floor bug in Clockworks that prevented you from flying up from the water under the bridge.
Fixed floor bug in Terrarium that prevented you from flying after landing on Rocks/pipes on side of map.
Fixed Turrets/Barriers to actually fix in place when deploying instead of sliding around.
Fixed melee weapons (like Phantom Fists and Energy Hammer) to be smashable against the floor.
Fixed bug where Flamethrowers/Freezethrowers were not damaging Crystals.
Fixed some cases where enemies were shooting through walls (still some work to do here).
Fixed some cases where Turrets were failing to acquire targets (still some work to do here).

What's Next?

The next Content Update is scheduled for 11/04. I may ship a Patch between now and then.

This next Content Update will focus on:
* The last piece of the Locomotion system I want in place - some sort of short distance dash movement on the ground via analog stick
* New content from the Early Access Roadmap (New Cards, New Rooms, New Enemies).

Reminder that if you want early access to this content as it rolls in and are okay with the risk of some bugs, you can opt into the beta branch. I push new stuff to the beta branch as soon as it's basically done but it has a slightly higher risk of bugs. Otherwise you can stay on the default branch and get the less frequent but more stable bi-weekly updates.

You can opt into the beta branch by following these instructions in the Discord:
https://discordapp.com/channels/680320013831241731/694426975862915164/711485596614524928

Thanks and hope you are having fun.

As always, if you have any thoughts, questions, or issues, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me via the Discussion Forums or Discord.

Thanks,
Tadatoto

Oct 22, 2020

VALHALL: Harbinger launches in Early Access (Pre-Beta)

VALHALL: Harbinger - Beta Testing - AlexC

Hey Vikings!

Thanks to everyone for awaiting, we are very sorry for the confusion with the launch time. We got issues on the way and also found that ligtning strike feature in the final build causes crash in certain cases. It was cut for now, but will appear in the next patches!

We are excited to announce that VALHALL: Harbinger Early Access is live now!

Keep in mind that it launches in Pre-Beta.

About the mods availability.

We finally have the combat system reworked and started adding the new things on its base. It's been tested in multiplayer already, and after people weren't very happy with it, we understood that need to work on netcode much more. It will appear during Early Access in Q1 in improved state.

All the previously announced content will become available during Early Access on the new level we couldn't imagine before. You can find them on the roadmap on our website.

Roadmap

The game state you can try now is a part of a vertical slice of the new systems we are building for both old and new planned modes.

You might think - "Why do you bring the game so early in Early Access then?".
The answer is we want to open new VALHALL we're working on for tests for more people. This way we can build the new system in a right way while listening to the community, as well as have a possibility to continue independent development with your support. Earlier the tests were under NDA, now we want to progress publicly.

We want to be clear with you and suggest joining at this stage only if you are really interested in the game and already want to touch it.

While Pre-Beta doesn't provide full experience, it already has a full combat core (directional attacks, feints, dodges, advanced block, etc) and certain elements which we already added on top so you could tests it.

Weapon customization? No problem - it will appear in the November patch, we have already prepared big amount of modular items. Each is a piece of art and you will be able to build your own.

and...

That's all? Nope.
Many more weapons are in production right now.

etc.

Each weapon concept created with attention to details by a concept artist who knows what medieval battles are firsthand and "forged" by 3d artist who definitely knows what he is doing.

Dual Wield? All the animations are already done. It remains too add the logic allowing hit tracking for the secondary weapon and we will add in a patch so you could try it.

And so on.

We hope this information helps to understand what's going and at which stage is the current Early Access build. If you still have any questions or thoughts - feel free to share them with us!

Skal!

Oct 22, 2020

The Design & Art of Manifold Garden

Manifold Garden - William Chyr

On Friday, October 23rd at 3pm ET/12pm PT, I'm going to do a stream on my twitch channel where I play through older builds of Manifold Garden and discuss how the design and art style of the game evolved over the course of 7 years of development.

As a preview, here are some images from the first prototype (then titled "Relativity") that I wrote during Thanksgiving weekend in November 2012. It was meant to be a small practice project to learn the basics of Unity. I thought it would take me no more than 3 months...

This is what the game looks like now:

As you can see, A LOT changed over the years.

Here's a GDC talk I gave back in 2016 about the level design in Manifold Garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed2zmmcEryw

The stream won't be a lecture like the GDC talk, but instead It'll be much more casual. I'll play through older builds and talk about design decisions I made, why I made them, how they changed overtime, etc.

If you're interested in game development, definitely stop by and ask a question.

Oct 22, 2020

Golden Kings Herald

Dark Swords - DarkSwords

Demons of Dagfar are destroying our crops, killing animals and inhabitants of the world, destroying buildings. Their number is growing. The Golden King believes the reason for the invasion lies in ancient China. So, he sends the commander of the guards, along with volunteers, to investigate. We move out on October 23, 24 and 25 at 20:00 server time. The maximum number of places in the detachment is 50. Everyone is welcome.

Attention to the owners of private shops, we advise you to be with us on October 31 after 22:00.

We also inform you that THIS ingredients become useless in early November. We ask you to brew the necessary potions from them before the end of the month!

Oct 22, 2020

The Binding of Isaac: Repentance Dev Team Interview Pt.1

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - ty

It's been no secret that the original The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth dev team at Nicalis has been working closely with Edmund for over eight years. Since that time the team has developed two DLCs and now for Repentance we're working with three new talented members who help little Isaac continue to grow.

You probably already have seen names like Jeremy, John, Simon, Adrian and Matt from the credits--and we'll interview them at a later time--but this week we want to introduce you to three of our newest members of the Isaac dev team. On the internet you might know them as _Kilburn (lead designer), LeatherIceCreme (designer) and NotYourSagittarius (artist). We've gathered together to get a better understand of their background and what they're doing to make the last DLC to your favorite video game.

Before we start, the trio have a ton of interest things to share so we're going to break this interview into multiple parts. We'll be sharing some pre-production dev screen shots and art so this is your #nospoilers warning.

You made proceed!

OK, now it's your turn, as we talked about we want to give little glimpse into the people who are making their favorite game. Can you each tell us a little bit about yourselves?
_Kilburn (Vinh): I was born in the south of France from Vietnamese parents, my dad was a software engineer so we always had a PC at home for as long as I can remember, I was playing all kinds of DOS games as a kid. It didn't take long for me to realize I wanted to make games well actually, I was more interested in modifying them, adding stuff on top of them one of the games I played the most as a kid was Worms, I'd always dream about all the weird items and weapons I would add to the game if I could mess with its code in some way, it's probably the one game that really made me want to become a game dev.

I only got into programming much later though, when I entered high school, at the time I had very limited access to my PC since you know... strict Asian parents so my main source of entertainment was a graphing calculator. I spent most of my free time trying to figure out how to get games onto it, and eventually I started making my own, nothing amazing obviously but it was something to pass the time that's where most of my knowledge of Lua and C++ comes from, actually then when

When I entered college I got into this game called Garry's Mod, which wasn't so much of a game rather than an engine made to be modded, I made all kinds of small projects on it, including an attempt at a perfect replica of Team Fortress 2 which I eventually dropped after a year or two, I think still, I learned a lot from it, how a lot of game mechanics are implemented and how game engines work in general, and since I was studying IT in college at the time I got to apply a lot of what I'd learned as well

So, yeah, long story short, got my masters degree in IT, had a brief programming gig at a petrol company, then Rebirth came out, stuff happened and now here we are.

LeatherIceCreme (Nikola): My name is Nikola, I live in Serbia (not Siberia), I'm known on the internet as LeatherIceCream. My Isaac obsession started with me making animations of the Duke of Flies and "Isaac of Isaac: Reisaac" on youtube before becoming the room/enemy designer for Anitbirth. And today I'm still doing that but for the official game.

I'm pretty glad about this turn of events as I really like Isaac and I also really like making video games. As a kid I would draw levels of my favorite PC games in a notebook treating it as a pseudo-level editor, so to this day I really like making levels/rooms. And because I like making levels I also like making enemies to put in them, so I'm very glad I get to do some of that for Repentance. I've made a few standalone games already, so I've had experience with my craft from there.

I fell into making content for the actual Isaac game back before Rebirth was released in 2014. There was a mod for the original flash Isaac was called "The Community Remix Mod", I asked to join their dev team as soon as they released a trailer, and I contributed a couple of items to it. Shortly after Rebirth was release, I was invited to become a developer for the Rebirth port of that mod as well, which eventually became Antibirth. Some of the items from Community Remix that I made up even made it to Antibirth. I'm really not an "items idea guy" at heart, I'm more comfortable with the aspects related to level design rather than game progression.

NotYourSagittarius (SAG): Hi, I'm the main sprite artist of the three of us. I live farther from the other members so my sleep schedule has always been a little topsy turvy. I'm fine with it though! My discovery of Isaac happened when I saw the original flash game on Steam. I had some extra money on hand so I thought why not, I bought it for gits and shiggles. I got hooked a tiny bit but then it snowballed and now Isaac shows up the moment I pick up something to draw with.

I met Vinh and Nikola later on when Rebirth came out. We all had great ambitions to make this thing called Antibirth. I came up with the crazy idea of adding alternate floors for each chapter and I thought it was just a pipe dream. But it's a thing now, and that's badass, because you can achieve anything if you put your heart into it. And Antibirth was nothing but heart. Then Repentance happened. I was overjoyed. Our little monster is now official.

Aside from Repentance, I also have an artistic background and I draw things on the side. How long I've been drawing I don't exactly remember. I just know that I've taken it a little more seriously early in my high school days. I attended college quite a while back, and I still do! Except in this unusual time everything is handled online, which hasn't been easy on the mind lol. I'm currently enrolled in an animation program.

BACKSTORY TIME.

When I was younger was often home alone doing my silly little tasks, like drawing on my sketchbooks and listening to music very loudly in my room. I had a bit of a strange upbringing - my mom insisted I should get a career in medicine like her one day, but now she and the other members in my family support the potential I have in art and I am very thankful for them. I'm gonna try my best to repay them back. Normally I live in the Philippines, but once the whole pandemic passes by, I'm planning to move to Canada when the time comes. Who knows, maybe I could meet up with some online friends I know that live there!

What is it that drew each of you towards Isaac?
Vinh: An old friend of mine! I remember playing Super Meat Boy and thinking it wasn't really my kind of game, so when Isaac came out and I saw the same art style, it didn't really catch my attention either, until one of my friends threw the game at me and basically forced me to play it so he could watch. Then when I started getting into it I couldn't put it back down anymore. I've always had a thing for games that offer a large variety of weapons or items that let you play the game in different ways (hence Worms), so there was no way I could resist this.

I could have walked right past this game without noticing it if that friend wasn't as pushy as he was. The theme really spoke to me as well, Isaac is a pretty familiar name since I was raised a Christian, and my mother is quite conservative as well (though thankfully she's never tried to stab me with a knife!). And while I wasn't too fond of the art style at first, it eventually grew on me and I came to really appreciate its simplicity.

Nikola: Back in 2011 I saw a no commentary gameplay video of the original flash version of Isaac. The first item they picked up was Boom! and it gave Isaac a fuse on his head. I didn't know of the whole items appearing on Isaac's sprite thing in Isaac so I thought he always had a burning fuse on his head and it was metaphorical, as I knew Isaac's themes were quite depressing. I really liked the fact that the game looked like a flash game I'd play online for free, but the gameplay and art style were so great that it was elevated to a "real game", and it taught me that those things makes a game special.

It was strangely inspiring to me, as I've been making small flash animations (and sometimes games) for years before finding Isaac. It was also the first piece of media that really got me interested in drawing gory and gross stuff. And the use of religious elements for items really peeked my interest too 'cus not a lot of games did stuff to that extent back then.

SAG: Oh boy, where do I start. My younger self had an interest in dark themes and Isaac fit the bill perfectly, despite looking all cutesy and funny. I had a sketchbook filled with Isaac drawings but I don't remember where I left it. I think it's best I don't find it. Initially, I never found an interest in this game. I remember seeing the trailer and had zero clue what it was. It was on sale one day so I bought it for no reason. I can't really imagine what would happen if I never picked it up that day...

For me, it's the weird style of Isaac that drew me to it. There's something absurd about a round and happy creature carried by flies.

What did you think when we announced Rebirth and the artstyle, music and gameplay was changed?
Vinh: I was so excited for it! I'd just completed Wrath of the Lamb when it was revealed and couldn't wait to experience more Isaac. The switch to a pixel art style was a bit jarring at first but it grew on me pretty quickly and I completely stopped thinking about it once the first few screenshots came out. Of course I was looking forward to all the new items the most and I remember taking apart every single one of Edmund's blog posts, looking for new items and trying to figure out what they did and how they worked.

I also remember being really excited for all the new synergies the game would bring and any eventual new characters.

SAG: This was very interesting because the idea of Isaac getting a remake felt unreal. I remember seeing some pictures on Ed's blog and it looked promising!

I remember when Man VS Game was playing it at PAX and I was so excited to see all the new little things like Fatties and new room sizes. Needless to say I've never been so hyped about a smiling poop that whistles. I found the change to pixel art a bit strange but seeing how there's so many lovely and creative ways people are playing with the artstyle now, I think it's for the better! I can't imagine Antibirth being done in the original's artstyle...

Nikola: I did find the change in art style to pixel art weird at first, I was very fond of the flash Isaac art style as well as music, but Rebirth did grow on me quickly once I started playing it. Although I did have very high hopes for the attention to detail in rebirth art, as Ed's blog posts at the time really got me excited for the brand new game and it's improvements. I remember believing that the level of detail was going to be so high that in one of Edmund's early Q&As I asked him if the same enemy types will look slightly different depending on what area they appear in. So I'm glad that Antibirth/Repentance has that high attention to detail thanks to Vinh really liking that kinda stuff. Either way, I was incredibly excited for the game thanks to all those old blog posts.

The team’s art has very quickly been able to integrate into the art style from the original team.
SAG: I'd say it took quite a bit of time to fully grasp the artstyle. There's some very simple rules to follow but are difficult to master. Anti-aliasing and line thickness, for example, are simple concepts that can make or break a design.

I'd say the trickiest part aesthetic-wise is trying to come up with a design that looks like something Ed would draw. I would sometimes study what Ed drew in the past and try to integrate some of his design elements along with a dash of my own style when I make sprites. Size of dash varies from 'too scary' to 'too anime'.

Technical wise, I'd say the toughest part is doing floor art or anything that requires lots of shades in general. Floor art is the most beautiful part of the game but it's also the hardest and least documented - many people struggle with it as a result. Someday I'd like to make an in-depth tutorial on how floor art works. I can't guarantee it but it's something I'd like to try. As for what software I use? Paint Tool SAI. It's the same program I use for drawing and it wasn't designed for pixel art but I use it anyway. Gotta stick with what you're familiar with or so they say...

What is the design methodology when designing rooms?
Nikola: I find it comfortable enough to make about 20-30 rooms per hour (that includes testing and tweaking each room multiple times). What tool you use is a matter of preference honestly, you just have to use what you're the most comfortable with, as I am definitely a creature of habit. The way I make rooms heavily relies on what new enemies/obstacles Vinh gives me to play around with. I try to make some basic rooms of varying difficulties with the new entities, then I make a bunch of rooms pairing those up with complimenting enemies. Sometimes I might even think up with interesting ways that new mechanic reacts to other mechanics to make the occasional interesting rooms.

A lot of the new content in Repentance is meant to be harder than the base game, so for many of the rooms I try to put the enemies far apart from each other. This way players with busted item combos don't clear the room as soon as they enter it. I also try to avoid putting spikes or other dangerous obstacles 2 tiles in front of a door, as to avoid players accidentally getting hurt when backtracking and not paying attention.

How did you find working with the Isaac code base so far?
Vinh: Oh I'll need to go back a few years for this one. When I got Real Platinum God in Rebirth, I immediately started taking the game apart to really understand how it works (is that okay to talk about?). This was my chance to add all the items I had in mind so how could I resist? It took me almost half a year to gain near full understanding of the engine, from there we started more and more items, then moved onto more ambitious things like enemies and levels, then we got a tiny bit carried away and Antibirth happened.

After spending a couple years working with the Isaac engine unofficially, working on the Forgotten Booster and Repentance was basically like being in familiar territory and nothing really changed. I wouldn't be able to tell you how I make enemies and items, all I know is that I usually have a vague idea of what something in the game should do, then I type some code and it eventually does what I want. I can assure you I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time and Nik can probably confirm this, he's witnessed it for himself.

Sometimes it takes a lot of trial and error to get something that really feels right. The Forgotten is probably my second proudest achievement and I'm so glad he got a positive reception. He ended up quite different from his initial design, the soul was originally pink and didn't have a chain but we ended up making it blue once we decided it would be more interesting if it could only get soul hearts, and the chain was added to give an incentive to switch back and forth instead of staying as the soul and ditching the skeleton. My one proudest achievement? You'll have to wait until release for that one!

Are there room designs from Rebirth, Afterbirth or Afterbirth+ that you really enjoyed and tried to emulate?
Nikola: For the sake of consistency I do try to look at Ed's previous rooms as a guide. To me it's almost like the older the rooms are the more "pure" they are to me, and I sometimes look at them for inspiration. I also like to sometimes reference old rooms from previous DLCs, mostly to draw parallels between the "Base path" rooms and the "Alternative path" rooms. As for what to look forward to: I play this game every day and I'm no pro. I'm the closest thing to a casual player on the team, and I like to play the game a little bit "relaxed". So when something I did in a room bothers me a bit too much or I think it could have been more fair, I tweak it accordingly.

You've been doing pixel art for a few years now.
SAG: I've been doing pixel art since Rebirth came out. I found it an interesting subject to get my feet wet in. Eventually I branched out to other games that utilize pixel art like Nuclear Throne and to some extent, Enter The Gungeon. Making mods for other games is a fun challenge that really tests how well you can imitate their unique artstyles. In a similar way with Antibirth becoming official, there are those that push their skills to the absolute limit, and get their creations recognized enough to be put in the official game. Check out TF2 for example! They have a powerful community filled to the brim with boundless creativity.

TO BE CONTINUED...