This update brings a new weapon, effects and additional enemies to the fray. Behind the scenes work continues with presentation and options features being added. We have had a very motivated and productive few weeks with a lot of general progress on levels.
Sica
Matt
The Sica have been loitering in WeaponWednesday™ limbo for almost 10 months. They were initially created to fulfill Ivan’s hunger for dual wielding, offering a more interesting alternative to dual gladius. Sica in real life are not directly Roman but were used by Romans to a lesser extent than the Gladius or Pilum. They were more popularly used by peoples surrounding Rome primarily the Dacians, Albanians and Illyrians. The reason they have been so long in the making is due to rigorous and extensive gameplay and animation alterations. I planted this idea early on that Sica looked a lot like a boomerang, but this felt too farfetched at the time. However, as we struggled to balance and make the Sica feel fun the idea become more and more appealing. Ivan animated the attacks, the primary of the Sica being a flurry of cuts, all in quick succession – it is faster than the gladius but can only slice one enemy at a time. Initially the alternative fire was a scissor-like finisher but it was slow and under utilised considering how much more effective the primary attack was.
This is when the boomerang idea came boomeranging back out of the past, smacking into the game design, firmly lodging itself into the head that is the team’s psyche – the perfect solution for our problem. All according to plan! I grinned. Jordan threw together a prototype and before we knew it Ivan had the animations ready to go. The alternate fire is now a boomerang it can be thrown and returns, quickly becoming the perfect solution to pesky shield bearers. Unique now in comparison to all other weapons in the fact that it has infinite ammo (since it will always return to you) on top of being a powerful melee weapon. While thrown can still use a half strength primary attack with a single sword which adds a layer of strategy: when to throw, when not to throw, based on each enemy encounter. All up, an awesome addition to Caesar’s arsenal for sure!
Blood effects
Ivan
In the latest build, we did a third pass on the blood particle effects. This effect has been both a thematic and technical tug of war throughout the entire project. Considering that Caesar does a lot of killing in the game the blood effect needs to satisfying and clearly communicate a landing of a hit. Conversely, considering you are encountering many enemies in the game we can’t afford to have too many particles and effects due to frame rate considerations. This new iteration is both efficient on particle count while also being more visceral than the previous wall and mid-air splashes. The new textures have been hand painted in Paint Storm Studio with its new pixel precision feature.
Priest
Jordan
While this unit has been in the game for sometime, it is worth writing about at this point as they have become one of our key enemies. Priests don’t have any offensive abilities but revive fallen units to rejoin the battle. When approached, they teleport away from the player, making them tricky to dispatch. This makes for interesting target priorities as while they are harmless, they can end up causing a lot of trouble if left unchecked. The strength of this enemy is that they can be paired to any enemy type in an encounter to create compelling dynamics from level to level. For example, simple enemies like archers and swordsmen play very differently when augmented by one or more priests. Trivial enemies become real threats when revived as quickly as Caesar slays them. This design is continuously engaging as enemies are recontextualised throughout the game, giving this unit a lot of longevity. This is also the unveiling of some of the more magical elements in the game – Roman and Greek mythology will be in abundance.
War Pig
Matt
We talked about war pigs two years ago when discussing enemy types and it was more a joke than anything. I thought this day would never come – it was impossible they said, silly they said, but low and behold the team has come around and it happened. To my reluctance I spent Saturday making the War Pig, this time thinking it was silly, but oh how I was wrong. The War Pig is epic! Despite how silly it sounds, war pigs were real; Romans used them in warfare against war elephants. The elephants didn’t like the sound of the pigs, the way they moved, and of course the fact that they were on fire. Covered in pitch they would be set alight and bolt towards enemy lines causing the elephants to flee and inflicting casualties on their own forces as they trampled them down in a panic. Our war pigs are not burning, instead (and more humanely) they are carrying an explosive payload, trained to attack then detonate on command by those cunning senators and their legions. Caesar is sure in for a surprise. The pots they carry are the same as static explosive pots to make the pig read better on your first encounter with them. The pig itself acts as a sort of a homing missile but just like the static pots, the pig can be used to inflict damage on their own troops if detonated early. The pig was modeled, rigged, animated by me then and implemented by Jordan all within the day, hell of a Saturday!
Bug fixes
Jordan
After Chromacon we recorded a substantial list of bugs to fix and tweaks to make – the kind of list that comes from playing a couple of levels for 16 hours. We have fixed all of the issues encountered at this point as well as a number of persisting flaws that we hadn’t got around to addressing yet.
Options Menu
Jordan
I have recently been working on implementing the options menu into the game. Philosophically, there is debate to be had around what controls you give the player given the amount of time is spent designing specific experiences. For example, letting players turn off the music can dramatically change the mood of a key scene. Right now the Gore on/off doesn’t actually function – we are considering keeping it that way since the violence of ancient Rome is imperative to the narrative of revenge. To what extent should developers afford user preference versus honed designs?
A good example of this is how FOV adjustment is an expected feature in an FPS – a customisable element that other genres don’t normally expose. This feature isn’t a given in platformers, RPGs and driving games, allowing gameplay to be consistent and designed both technically as well as experientially. High FOV gives a greater sensation of speed so if you are making a game that is supposed to feel fast, should you allow players to make it feel slower if they choose to? The best argument I have heard for dynamic FOV comes from an accessibility standpoint as a fast first-person camera can make players feel ill and making it adjustable can mitigate these effects.
In terms of game play in Caesar’s Revenge, a higher field of view makes movement feel a bit faster and provides more periphery to the view port. Overall it feels like a good feature to include since the slider lets players set it higher than the previous default. A small takeaway is that increasing this cap has thrown off some of our culling distances: there are areas in levels that were previously out of frame that now need to be extended – easy fixes but building future levels with the max FOV in mind will make the process cleaner.
We have been posting a lot of updates on our Discord, the server is still small but is going really well. For a more spoilery behind the scenes look, we are being much more liberal with what we post over there in terms of development and work in progress stuff.