Everyone has been crunching hard for the last several weeks as we rush to finish off Reina & Jericho. The game has been very close to feature complete for a while, but there is still content that needs to be designed or improved. And bugs. Lots of bugs.
Lately the focus has been on two things: finishing off the boss fights, and testing the level design throughout the game for both platforming difficulty and routing issues.
Routing in Metroidvania games is a challenge, and in the case of Reina & Jericho it has a few added layers of complexity because time travel always adds layers of complexity. Thus far the bug rate has been very normal, but the actual traversal and routing issues have been quite minimal. All of this is either good news because the levels were designed well, or bad news because no one found any of the mistakes. Time will tell!
The other big achievement from the last few weeks has been wrapping up most of the boss fights. The final battle of the game remains outstanding but beyond that they are ready for play testing. Designing the boss fights has been interesting. I feel like the traditional game design advice – the sorts that would come up in a YouTube video – would be to come up with a mechanic for the fight and then build around it. Having tried that approach a couple times, I think I dislike it both as a designer and a player. There's an almost ideological rigidity that comes with it, and it feels like design decisions are being made in the wrong order. To use scientific terminology: Game mechanics should be the responding variable, not the manipulated variable.
The other approach I have heard of is to focus on the player’s behavior and ask, “What should the player do?” For example: “The player should have to duck underneath a big attack” would lead to to attack that covers a lot of vertical space but has a gap at the bottom the player can duck under. While I found this approach useful as a thought experiment, in practice it created battles that felt scripted. My preference has always been games where there were several acceptable behaviors to choose at any given time, and execution of general game mechanics was still the most important thing.
The boss fights that have come the most easily are the ones that were started by creating a clone of an existing boss fight, stripping out most of the attacks and AI behaviors, and then asking "What would make this fight feel different?" If all of the other fights are fast can this one be less about speed and more about timing?
Sometimes this has led to us using the exact same mechanic more than once but in a different way, or in concert with other boss abilities that force the player to use different strategies. Other times it has led to novel one-off ideas. In many cases this led us to migrate attacks from one boss to another to keep them more thematically consistent, and I think that’s been a good thing too.
In most cases there was still an initial loose idea – the boss of the Laboratory area is based on the idea of “Bullet Hell” – but there was never a specific mechanic in mind. Reina & Jericho doesn't feature a boss fight that is all about throwing boulders or hitting switches or bouncing energy balls back at an enemy. Some of those things happen, but quite frankly: in Reina & Jericho a *lot* of things happen in the boss fights and the player just has to keep up and be ready to pounce when an opening appears.
Sometimes this approach resulted in a game mechanic that became prevalent over the course of the development process, but other times it was nothing so concrete and more resulted in a feel that was unique to the fight. I think this encapsulates my own prejudices well. Most of the games that have boss fights I’ve wanted to emulate have just focused on the players ability to respond to what they are seeing. In Reina & Jericho almost every attack has numerous potential counters all tied to the core game mechanics, and your success or failure in the fight comes down to execution. I'm excited to see what people think.
The special event with Kung Fu Panda starts with a bang!
Transform your Turf with Po's help in the Kung Fu Festival, and collect "Chi Jade" to buy items exclusive to the event: a Castle Skin, Equipment, avatars, emotes, and more!
Hey everyone! First of all, we’d like to thank you all for playing the game and sharing your feedback and thoughts on the game. The server has been incredibly busy since the launch and while it’s amazing to see all the hype for the game, it’s also a lot of work to make sure all of you can enjoy the game as much as possible!
With that in mind, we put this patch together with performance and major bug fixes in mind, mainly a major overhaul to the Buildmode. This update brings a lot of changes onto the game so starting over is recommended. You might be able to continue your save but it's not officially supported.
Build System Overhaul
During the first week of alpha, we noticed a lot of difficulties with how the build system is structured. While what was in the initial version of the game wasn’t definitive (and still isn’t) we’ve overhauled the whole system to make it much easier for you all to build things around your farm.
This overhaul allows you to deposit items inside blueprints via the drone as well as manually. This means building blueprints that are placed high up or are overlapping with other blueprints is much easier now. You also have an option to automatically fill the blueprint with all the items you currently have when you place the blueprint down.
The newly added “Build Station”, located inside of the shed on the farm, allows you to access the crafting menu as well as the “Build Cache”. Build cache is essentially an endless inventory. Items placed inside the cache can then be pulled automatically into blueprints while placing them down or by depositing them using the drone.
You can toggle “Auto Fill” and “Deposit From Inventory” on the build menu itself. Keep in mind that if “Deposit From Inventory” isn’t checked, the drone will only attempt to pull items from the build cache.
Removing blueprints is now a lot easier as well, just activate deletion mode by clicking on the bulldozer icon. Following this, any blueprint or placed item will outline in red and will be deleted upon clicking. All of the materials that were used during the building of that blueprint will be automatically deposited into the build cache, allowing you to use them immediately to build something else.
Lastly, we realised it’s impossible to tell what a blueprint needs without actually placing it down. To fix this, you can now see the requirements of a blueprint by simply hovering over them in the blueprint list.
Graphics settings have been updated
We’ve adjusted a lot of setting in the engine and made a lot more options available to you guys. This means a lot of our players with lower-end PCs can now access the game. I will say though, while the game is now runnable on lower than minimum requirements, it is not supported officially by us. If you have problems with trees appearing as blobs, playing around with the settings should render them correctly. If you’re struggling to run the game, the most intensive graphical setting is the shadow quality.
Minimap new POIs
We’ve added Kyle’s fishing shack and the Shinto shrine to the map and minimap so it’s easier to find.
Fixes and Improvements:
Fixed an issue with the sell menu, where spamming the sell button would sell the item multiple times
The phone can no longer be opened while talking to an NPC
The game now saves a lot faster and it is indicated during the loading screen
Map panning speed increased and attached to the zoom level
The map can now be rotated via the right mouse button as well
Can no longer use tools while in air
Buildmode infoboxes now appear correctly
We noticed a lot of players were confused by what build items they had selected using the drone. We’ve added a hover box to the items to give you guys a 3D preview of the building/item as well as the name and description.
Buildmode now places buildings back correctly after the drone is recalled
Hose now has physics and extends with the player
Fixed a bug with Natalie having Katherine’s dialogue
Can no longer mantle or climb while the hose is active
Can no longer hold the hose action down when the hose is retracted
Shaking fruit trees will no longer push them into the ground
Dropped items such as fruits or sticks will always be picked up if your inventory isn’t full
Fixed an issue where shadow settings would get reset on every game launch
Helper widgets now disappear when the phone is open
Drone torch is now placed correctly
Drone camera now zooms
During buildmode, walls and fences do not collide with each other anymore for easier placement
Fixed an issue where opening certain menus would stop any other action
Can no longer pause the game while the tool wheel is open
NPCs awareness improved
Fixed an issue where names of storage boxes would get reset overnight
Removed the random default dialogue voices from the game
As always, if you have any issues, please join our Discord server below: We hope you enjoy this update!
