Dev Update #2 - Dungeons & Dwarves!

Hello folks!
As promised, we're back with our biweekly Dev Update to give you some visibility on what's going on behind closed doors. If you haven't read it already, you can find our first Dev Update over there! But first, a little message for our backers.

Pledge Manager - CrowdOx Surveys are out, make sure you read this article to avoid any issues later on! And now, onto our Dev Update!

Important Note: As a reminder, everything you're about to see is Work In Progress! That means some of it may look clunky, janky, broken, empty, ugly - and even if it does look "okay" or pretty good, it's not final (so it will look even better in the final game)! Also the design is not final, so things may work differently once the game goes live. 

Main City

When you think city, you think... well, many things depending on the person, I'm sure. Our Concept Artists have started working on houses & shops to populate the as-of-yet empty streets of our main city - it's going to be bustling with life in the end, and you'll get to see it progress at our side! As a reminder for those who may not be too familiar with the process of video game development, it is always possible that some ideas you see as concept art won't be making it into the final game - whether it is because of time constraint, technical requirements, not fitting with the art direction... Still, enjoy some of our houses, it's... on the house! (Please don't hit me.)

No, you can't roll initiative to start a fight with me. I don't care how lame that was, that's not how it works.

Level Building

I hope you studied the source material we covered last time and know exactly what Level Building is! No? Anyone? No one? You can't just keep blaming failed skill checks on the dice rolls you know, at some point the Game Master is going to notice. Anyway, our Level Builder has been working on some levels that we're not quite yet ready to fully reveal, but that we can already tease as they're being made!

It would be a shame if these ladders were to... Remind me, are you proficient in Acrobatics? No reason, just asking.

Art Direction - World Map Research

We briefly talked about it during our last Development Update, our Art Director is currently (among other tasks) working on a visual for our World Map, that will be used to travel from location to location. We're still very early in this topic, so there may be a lot of changes coming up!

Welcome to Solasta, the temperature outside is currently 22°C and we hope you enjoyed flying with TA Airlines.

Character Models - Dwarf

Our bushy bearded friend is making his debut in Solasta! We've made some tests to see if our current clothes could fit by morphing them to size, and it turns out he's quite handsome when fully clothed. Please give a warm round of welcome to our Dwarven brothers!

Adventurers by day, dancers by night.

Equipment

Anyone here hates loot? Alright, security please grab this imposter and throw him out. Who in their right mind hates loot? Are you telling me that there are some adventurers out there who aren't just a bundle of greed? Wait, saving the world? When did that come into the equation? Anyway, we've been working on adding more equipment - and by we, I meant our Concept Artists. Here is but a fraction of what has been produced during these few weeks - and if you're a weapon lover, keep an eye out on our Twitter Account during December! We'll be doing a little Advent Calendar of our own.

Reminder that not everything you see in Concept Art pictures may make it to the final game, and that's normal!

Environment

I remember watching a video of someone playing the Demo during Kickstarter, and going "that's some good-looking door!". It made me very happy, because people often focus on the story, the gameplay, the characters (and there's nothing wrong with that)... but you rarely get any comment on the environment, the little details here and there. Hidden somewhere at our Artists' Table is our 3D Artist, who's been making all kind of contraptions for our Level Builder to use. Walls, floors, pillars, doors, banners, decorations... everything that brings a level to life instead of being a bland combat area that looks just like the previous one. 

I wouldn't be sure, but I do believe it has something to do with the door. The locked door? The one you tried to open by force?

Spell VFX

We'll close this Dev Update with another round of Spell VFX. Before that, we want to correct something we said in the previous update - while we originally wanted the visual effects to scale with the level of the spell, after further scoping this may not be possible depending on the priority of other features - the usual hurdles of Game Development! That means the effects we've shown in our previous Dev Update may be toned down, since these were low level spells (remember, we're still very early in alpha so things will change a lot). But enough of that, check out Spare the Dying and Inflict Wounds!

Inflict Wounds Spell Effect

Spare the Dying Spell Effect

I hope you liked what you saw! As usual, don't hesitate to head to our Official Forums or Discord Server to talk about everything Solasta. Dev Update #3 will be back in two weeks!

Tactical Myzzrym