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Devlog IX: New Weapon, War Pigs and Priests

Written by Jordanon

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.

Caesar’s Revenge: Weapon Wednesday – VI

Written by Matton

Yo its weapon Wednesday! This week we got the big hook thing which strikes fear into the hearts of any Roman legionary. This guy is the: Dacian Falx or Thracian Falx or just Falx. In history it is described as an anti-Roman/anti-armour weapon with a punch. It’s shape is perfect for hacking at Roman troops hiding behind shields. The blades themselves had different degrees of hook to blade proportions, lengths and angles and came in one handed and two handed variants. The two-handed variant is the one you will find in Caesar’s Revenge. These two-handed Falx often had a handle at a similar or matching size to the blade. This gave a lot of leverage and power to the wielder but use of this weapon would cost protection due to the two-handed operation of the weapon using a shield is silly. This trade, however unorthodox, did pay off and was devastating when matched up with a classic Roman shield and Gladius style of combat. The superior reach plus the power and design necessary to punch through and over Roman Armour particularity the shields made a lot of common Roman fighting techniques and strategies useless.
Fun Fact: Roman helmets received modification during Trajan’s Dacian wars with the addition of cross-bars across the dome of the helmet, this change is often accredited to falx and its effectiveness at punching holes in Roman heads.

Falx Ceasars Revenge
But why is Julius Caesar using this heathen weapon? Lets just say when Mars gives you lemons you make lemonade. The Falx has become an iconic and infamous anti-Roman weapon in recent times and although its actual effectiveness and use in history is disputed the legend of its effectiveness provides the perfect alibi for the powerful, heavy hitting, shield splintering and armor breaking weapon type Caesar needs on his conquest for revenge.

Gameplay: The Falx like all our weapons has two attack types and primary and a secondary. The primary attack is is a powerful overhead strike from above, this is the shield splintering one! it ignores an enemies shield and deals damage directly , perfect for pesky Roman soldiers turtleing behind shields, it also applies a knock back. This attack due to its over the head nature is powerful but can only target one enemy at a time. The secondary attack is horizontal sweeping attack like the Gladius. A sweeping attack does not break armor as effectively but does apply knock back, it can target double the enemies of the Gladius currently a whopping 6! both attacks are balanced by longer wind-up and cool-down times. Attacks also slow you down to a walk while triggered, this means you have to tank a lot more damage while attacking. That’s the payoff to such great power. What I like about this balance is that it does not make the weapon “just a stronger Gladius” like we originally feared, but instead it it performs a different job completely. The Falx needs to be used with a different style of play, more patience and planning is involved in a Falx strike than with any other bladed weapon currently in the game.

Unique feel and divergence between the look and gameplay of each weapons is important in Ceasar’s Revenge. As always mechanics and visuals are subject to change as we tweak the Falx further but I hope you have all enjoyed this chunky sneak peak. You can check out the 3D model on Sketchfab below, plus let me know what you think.

He is here!

Written by Matton

Rats of Rome: This week’s Weapon Wednesday has been overrun with an infestation of Rats! So unfortunately, no weapons. But Instead, I will present to you our newest enemy: the Rat. Rats are the first animal to be added to Caesar’s Revenge. Rats were a common site in ancient Rome and still thrive in modern Rome today. Rats are excellent survivors and opportunists and flourish around cities due to the abundance of human waste. Ancient Rome was no exception! Rats could be found anywhere from the slums and sewers to granaries and markets. Thriving on the excess and vastness of Rome. Rats in these conditions have been known to grow bigger and bolder than wild counterparts. In Caesar’s Revenge rats are a menace in the backstreets or Rome and will no hesitate to try take a bite out of undead Caesar. Although the Rats grow bolder, a rat is no problem for an experienced warrior. If you can hit em!

Rat Stats:
What a fat rat model! a total 1256 Triangles, how disgusting (and excessive). His coat is made of 1x trashy 1024×1024 diffuse. Ratty was made quickly to render as a 16 frame run animation at 8 directions as 128×128 sprite (once of these directions can be seen below). A benefit of working with the lower resolution of this retro project is how it presents shortcuts in the modeling, animation and texture processes. shortcuts that would not be acceptable in a modern 3D pipeline become available and speed up development time.

Rats In Gameplay: below you can see an example of the Rat sprites in-game (behaviors are not final and could change). Rats much like in real ancient Rome are found in levels that are set in lower tier areas. Rats have always been destined to be the weakest enemy in Caesar. There attack is weak and they die in one hit from many weapon. But they do have some redeeming factors. They are small, many and determined! these abilities attribute to a slightly “hard to hit” combat style. Alone they are the weakest enemy in Ceasar’s Revenge……. But watch your back buddy.


Ratty Run: I during that animation process I looked into how rats move an discovered that rats have an interesting gait. One kind is called a Half Bound, this type of gait is an asymmetrical “true bound” found in rodents predominantly rats: “True floating phase (extended position only). Hindfeet land before forefeet take off – this creates a brief period of 4-point support/contactHindlimbs take up as much as 90% of propulsive force. Forelimbs function more for shock absorption and steering.” Info courtesy of the Animal Movements guide for animators by sumid very cool reference animating animals. I find it very helpful not only to follow a pose to pose walk/run cycle reference but to learn about the locomotion of the animal itself. this entails: where pressures are being applied like push and pull and importantly the pattern of the footfalls. knowing this gives you a better idea about what your subject animal is actually doing rather than solely relying on copying poses from reference and hoping for the best.

if you wanna have a close look at Ratty, check him out on Sketchfab below:

-RIP RATTY-