Greetings everyone, we have received our final approval from Steam and Caesar’s Revenge is set for release on August 30th! This update covers some of the work we have completed leading up to release.
Achievements
The game will launch with 41 achievements. Some track the player’s progress towards important milestones, while others are earned through things like completing time trials, finding secrets or by discovering creative ways to dispose of enemies. We have opted for achievements that support the game experience and encourage exploration – there are a few easter eggs but we have stayed away from anything too tedious. Now that the system is set up it is easy enough to add more in the future.
Time Trials
We have set the time trial times for all of the levels in the game. We hope that they are challenging but also possible for the average player to achieve. We did experiment with setting some really tough dev times but decided that they should be fun for most players to try to beat (also because there is unlockable content based on them). We do expect world record times will be a lot faster than what we have settled on but we are happy to leave those to the speed running community!
Shield Spearman Balance
Some of the most frequent feedback from play testers was around the difficulty of the shielded spearman enemy. We’ve made a number of changes to make this enemy type more manageable:
- Spearman collision mask reduced to make them easier to strafe around.
- Spearman vulnerability angle increased, making it easier to hit them around their shield.
- Spearman range halved – this was very over tuned and allowed them to hit the player from an unfair distance.
Beyond the direct nerfs, the arrangement of the final game will better ease the player into these encounters as there is an introduction and a level before the point that the demo started.
Player Spear Range
We have increased the range of the player’s spear by 25%. This should make a more interesting choice between the spear and the gladius while making it easier to fight mid-range enemies.
Collisions
The player collision code has been improved. Now the player will slide around enemies much more freely. This makes it easier to move in tight rooms and also makes circle strafing much easier.
Projectile collisions have been rewritten to be more accurate. This also solves a few bugs that were present (though not obvious) that could cause projectiles to miss enemies at close range, and another bug where projectiles could travel through walls.
Usability
Several updates have been made to make the gameplay experience smoother and more customisable. Some of these features have been in for some time (such as remapping controls and sensitivity) but there are some new additions too:
- Maximum field of view increased by 30% (for those who like to play in a fishbowl)
- Camera/head bobbing can now be disabled
- Options menu can be accessed from the main menu (before the game starts).
- Save files now compatible with Steam Cloud
- Game now pauses when the Steam overlay is open if the player is in a level
- Game now pauses when controller disconnects
Lever Glow
We are not opposed to players needing to explore but it is frustrating if you find where you need to go but miss the lever to open a gate.
Levers are often signaled by props, banners, and level dressing to draw the eye to their position. We also tried increasing the texture contrast but found that due to the way fog fading works, it didn’t make much difference.
We have now added a glow to the levers to make them more obvious through the fog. To keep it tasteful the glow reduces when you are close – this should help guide players through levels without too much hand holding.
Armor UI
The previous user-interface for the armor bar was quite confusing – it was a gray overlay that extended over the health bar. In theory this made sense but the way it was implemented looked more like negative space – as if the health bar was now depleting from the opposite end. We have replaced it with a chain mail overlay which is much more thematic and easier to read – a neat advantage of the chainmail is that you can also see your standard health bar through it.
Traps
- The spiked barricade hitbox reduced by 33% and changed from a rectangle to an ellipse. These static traps are meant to zone the player to a degree, but the 2d sprite made distance hard to judge so they have been made a bit more forgiving.
- The wall spike traps (found in Library) have new collisions to make them feel better (and fairer). Before, running into the spikes at any point would damage the player. Now, spikes that are already extended block your movement but don’t do damage – health is only lost if the player is hit by them while they are extending.
- Fixed a bug where grinders didn’t register as trap kills for the achievement
- Fixed bug where boulders would deactivate off screen and then would start rolling again if the player reapproached them.
A Note on Gameplay
The game description is updated to include the phrase “die-and retry” to better communicate the game loop to potential players. While it is a retro fps, the design does deviate from the more explorative, ‘campaign style’ shooters out there. We want to ensure that we attract players who want this kind of experience. Below is some of the rationale for the design:
Each level starts the player without any weapons (though one is normally provided). This allows us to highlight different weapon compositions and create more varied level designs (eg. a bow only level, or maps with limited or excessive resources). It also helps with balance and time trail times since levels can’t be trivialised by hording ammo. This is also important because most FPS games can throttle powerful weapons through ammo pick-ups which is tricky when many of the weapons are melee.
Levels don’t have checkpoints because the loop of the game is about learning the maps then completing them in a single run. Once learned, most levels are only a few minutes long, so this focus isn’t as daunting as it first appears. Secrets are also hidden throughout levels to provide resources to make encounters easier if players want to take things at a slower pace (sometimes these include dramatic boons like health regeneration or extra lives).
We hope that this new phrasing helps to indicate the kind of gameplay experience that the game offers. It is also worth noting that the demo jumped to levels throughout act I and while the ‘die-and-retry’ aspect is still relevant, the final games difficulty curve is a lot smoother.
Full game content
We have achieved our goals for release with 33 finished levels, 20 enemy types + bosses, a ton of traps, weapons, tile sets, bonus content and an original soundtrack. This project has been in development for a long time, and we are excited to see it finally release. Thank you to all the supporters who have stuck with us throughout development and followed the project’s process over the years. We’re looking forward to the August 30th release!