Zetheros
Developer
Hey Exanimates,
Work on thaumaturgy continues and we're making steady progress. All the updates to the thaumaturgy UI, mechanics for multiple domains, potential and channeling powers are now complete. Force thaumaturgy is now properly integrated into the game (though we still need to build most of the individual powers) and everything is set up for future domains too.
As tempting as it is to just add more force powers now, we want to make sure all the mechanics are very well established, so we don't have to go back and make changes later. Right now we have two very different powers, blast and barricade, carefully chosen for covering the most challenging and different elements of force. In terms of effects, lighting, sound and physics these are well developed and provide the building blocks for most other powers, but there's still important details to get right before we consider them fully complete.
One important thing we focused on immediately is "casting" mechanics. So far using mind powers has been a completely hands free action, but this is not the case for the new powers. There's now casting animations and stages, specific action conflicts, recovery periods, input queuing, cancelling windows, new input modes and so on. Force is quite a combat focused domain and this is all very important for how the controls flow and feel. There's a lot more going on now and we actually re-designed our input processing, not just to support all this, but also future additions and some general improvements.
Everything is going really well, but there is a lot to get through. This feels like the biggest update yet in terms of gameplay. Force really adds a lot of new tools to the box, there's some real build diversity now and new progression mechanics that also tie into the story. We're going to have to make some tough decisions about what to include now, when it might matter most and what to leave to future updates. We know some of you probably just want anything as soon as possible, but a few small additions can make a huge difference in value when you dive back into the game to experience it all.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
Work on thaumaturgy continues and we're making steady progress. All the updates to the thaumaturgy UI, mechanics for multiple domains, potential and channeling powers are now complete. Force thaumaturgy is now properly integrated into the game (though we still need to build most of the individual powers) and everything is set up for future domains too.
As tempting as it is to just add more force powers now, we want to make sure all the mechanics are very well established, so we don't have to go back and make changes later. Right now we have two very different powers, blast and barricade, carefully chosen for covering the most challenging and different elements of force. In terms of effects, lighting, sound and physics these are well developed and provide the building blocks for most other powers, but there's still important details to get right before we consider them fully complete.
One important thing we focused on immediately is "casting" mechanics. So far using mind powers has been a completely hands free action, but this is not the case for the new powers. There's now casting animations and stages, specific action conflicts, recovery periods, input queuing, cancelling windows, new input modes and so on. Force is quite a combat focused domain and this is all very important for how the controls flow and feel. There's a lot more going on now and we actually re-designed our input processing, not just to support all this, but also future additions and some general improvements.
Everything is going really well, but there is a lot to get through. This feels like the biggest update yet in terms of gameplay. Force really adds a lot of new tools to the box, there's some real build diversity now and new progression mechanics that also tie into the story. We're going to have to make some tough decisions about what to include now, when it might matter most and what to leave to future updates. We know some of you probably just want anything as soon as possible, but a few small additions can make a huge difference in value when you dive back into the game to experience it all.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
