Glyph Engine

She's very pretty.

Check Out the Poll

I had put up poll awhile back and gave it a good amount of time to marinate and gather a reasonable sample size.  It closed with 71 votes which is pretty solid - time to reflect.

So the goal was to get a feel for what people though the best XBLIG game concept was, just based on a quick description, and initial reaction. 

Avatar Turn-based RPG (16 votes):  With the popularity of Avatar games and their unique ability to boost sales (often simply based on Avatar inclusion), I actually thought this concept might have been more popular.   However, that might have to do with the demographic/type of person visiting our blog.  What's interesting is that while the poll was active a couple Avatar RPG (not turn-based, but action) games were released.   And from what I can tell, they are doing very well with sales.   That said, I actually have very little interest in developing an Avatar RPG - but conceptually I thought it had success potential.

Action RPG where you play the Shopkeeper (16 votes): I was happy to see this concept get some love because I feel like it's the most unusual of the bunch.   In my mind I envision this game as a genre mash up that involves RTS and Tower Defense elements, but where you play a modest shopkeeper dealing with obnoxious heroes, annoying critters, and thieves.  There are only a handful of games that force role-reversal and put you in charge of what is typically an NPC character, so it would be a fun concept to explore.

2D Co-op Action/Exploratory Platformer (with leveling) (39 votes): Conceptually this sounds like an auto-win because anything that can replicate the beauty and fun of a 2D Metroid and/or Castlevania game gets people fired up.    Add in co-op play, and you sort of have Contra with exploratory and leveling components.   I believe the catch is that execution is far more complex than the summary sounds.   Balancing the co-op elements and dealing with 2 players exploring various areas at the same time would get tricky.   You also have to allow a single player to play through alone, so co-op puzzles are void and you'd have to potentially scale the difficulty/RPG elements for 2 players.   Propper execution would be golden = offering the ambiance and pacing of games like Metroid and Aquaria (offering a less linear world), and letting two players enjoy that sense of exploration and conquest together.  It could be done - and I hope to attempt it some day.

Sweet Sweet Loot! or Sweet Sweet Loot?

The loot treadmill is very hard to get off of.  I am guilty of logging hours (okay, months) into Diablo and Borderlands looking for shiny, super rare pieces of whatever.   I am not sure of the phychology behind it - why do we care about puffing out our virtual chests - proudly trotting around with a rare item that we found because we grinded hours into a game and finally got a little lucky.  Yay?  Or pathetic?

Who just leaves this treasure out here in the open?

Action/RPGs in particular seem forever changed in this respect.   Diablo 2, Dungeon Siege, Sacred, Torchlight, and all of the others now hang their hat on (and seem to live and die based on) how much loot they can shove into the dungeons, and then how well they allow the player to manage all of that lootings (aka, interface).

Can a respectable and fun action/RPG be made that doesn't actively and purposely enable our loot addictions?  I think so.   

Treasure is a legitimate and important reward in any game that attempts to strike a sense of adventure and discovery into it's players.    But do we need to water it all down with a river of [sometimes] redundant and [often] uninteresting rewards?   Lately I've found that the loot/reward scheme and progression of items is so bland, structured, and predictable that it actually sucks the life out of 99% of the loot, and thus, any real sense of reward.  Maybe, just maybe, if I kill this boss for the 45th time he will drop that +5 awesomeness ring - that would be so much cooler than my +4 awesomeness ring!  Ugh.

The treadmill is still tempting - sometimes I think I see tasty little carrots hanging out there - and I think, "hey maybe I'll get back on for a couple hours."   It's not worth the sweat.    And I don't want to have to wade through a garbage pile for that one carrot.

So what to do, what to do.   Back to basics I say.   Remember when treasure was rare?   When it didn't diarrhea (verb) out of every nook, cranny, pot, enemy, chest and so forth?   Remember when you figured out how to find the red boomerang by throwing the blue one in a little pond underneath a hidden waterfall?  Oh baby.  Now that is satisfaction - that is reward that brings a smile (rather than delusional excitement) to the player.  And you didn't need to find 700 other worthless boomerangs first.

Legend of Kiflame will attempt to recreate the lost art of making treasure feel like actual treasure, not the gold nugget among piles of copper.   Rather than "hey cover up the rare loot with piles of mediocre shit," it becomes "hide treasure throughout the game and let the player earn it."

Maybe you can talk him into just giving it to you?

I find the former design approach a bit lazy honestly.  It succeeds in convincing players to hunt around for hours for somewhat inevitable payoff based on "hours in = reward out."  But that experience fails as a substitution for fun gameplay - maybe not when is was a bit of novelty, but now it's worn out it's welcome.

So will there be lots of loot in Legend of Kilflame?  Yes there will.   But the intent is to have created a variety of treasure that  is earned through the adventurous gameplay.  You won't pay for the best items with additional hours of your life.   It's your well-deserved reward for exploring the world and progressing through the story.

Port Town and Enemies Preview

We put together another video showing one of the important towns in the game along with some of the NPCs/Enemies Maya will be facing.   Lot's of subtle improvements have been made on the editor and Bryan is focused on getting combat rounded out. 

The engine is custom.

The music is original and will be part of the official soundtrack.

Vos Spectrals (Creature Feature # 1)

These fiery fuckers were conceived more in the vein of a "lava brute" than any sort of "fire fairy."   Since Spectrals are born of special planetary "Core," I knew that we needed a worthy beast to represent the familiar fire foe (alliteration attack) often found in a good fantasy-themed game.

But (!) I am tired of the standard representation (swift, elusive, and comprised of fire itself - and often ranged attackers).  So I decided to take a more prehistoric approach.  You don't often think of fire as lumbering.  But you definitely get that feeling about lava - more earthly and slow-moving.

So the Vos Spectral became a much chunkier, molten melee foe - pretty damn scary up close with two fists full of furious flames (oh god I am on a roll).   The elongated skull-like head is sort of like a demon dinosaur.  The trade off, of course, is that they aren't the most agile of fellows.  Run when you must.

Vos Spectrals will lurk in and around caves because they like being deeper in the ground.   In the past (before the Shift, a plot element), they were usually passive but territorial.  Nowadays they will attack on sight.  Also, they often will rest dormant and flame-free in compact lumps on the ground, so best to watch where you're walking when looking for loot in caves.  Don't want to wake one - or a whole bunch.

We recently did a little Q&A with VVGTV and they had the first look at this couple screenshots.   I wanted to share them on the blog now too and provide a little captiony color.

Maya defending herself from an aggressive Vos attack.   

Maya finds a remote shop in the Pampali expanse and has to fend off a
couple pesky Gubs. 

Getting Frisky with an Octopus

We recently worked on a 'postmortem' piece with the delightful fellows over at Armless Octopus.   These guys are very much on the pulse of the Xbox Indie Games, and have an excellent stream of content ranging from reviews, interviews, news, and hot-topic issues.   It's certainly a site worth checking daily to see what's going on in the Xbox Indie world.

Our article provided some history on how Opac's Journey and Legend of Kilflame came about, some of the harsh realizations we had, and where we're headed now.   Check it out.

Concept art for a Vos Spectral