Haven't posted an update in a while because I was struggling to keep productivity up and I'm going through a pretty turbulent period of my life.
I'm recovering from depression that made it quite difficult to do anything so making updates was a low-priority thing for a while.
Despite all that, I'm pretty proud of the progress I made in 2024, it may be some of my best work.
Let's get into it!
The initial idea
It all started with me deciding to work on the 8th story quest - Shadows That Remain.
This quest is supposed to take place in a stronghold somewhere in the lands ravaged by the King's Spell,
So I thought it would be cool to create a new overworld area and have the player explore it to find the stronghold.
The overworld area
LOTLW already had two large overworld areas - as I call them.
They have been bothering me ever since I have implemented them.
Every overworld area has three mini areas where the overworld events take place.
These mini areas are the source of my dissatisfaction: I made them quickly, so they are undetailed and very boring, not matching the quality of other areas I made.
Bad!
Mini areas do their job, but if I was going to make a new overworld area, I was not going to let the mini areas be as bland.
So at the beginning of this year, I quickly put together the overworld for Spellscarred Desert and began building the mini areas.
They have not turned out so 'mini' and have a lot of nice details.
Obsidian formations, craters, and dry grass for that post-apocalyptic look.
Not only do they look better and are larger for a more comfortable combat experience - they also are more rewarding than other overworld areas.
The players might find three tiers of loot chests and gold ore geodes for experienced gatherers to crack open.
Quick lore overview of the Spellscarred Desert: It's an area of the world that was ravaged by an apocalyptic spell that was allegedly unleashed by a king who was brought down by the rebellion, during the greatest war the world has seen.
The spider tank
With the 'mini' areas figured out, it was time to populate them with enemies for the player to challenge.
Instead of reusing existing enemy types like demons and rogues, I have decided to add an entirely new enemy type: Sentry, basically a spider tank.
They are denizens of sci-fi and cyberpunk genres, which I am currently drifting towards.
In the future, I plan to focus on sci-fi games, so I'm pretty glad that LOTLW was never *truly* fantasy: It has plenty of steampunk and industrial elements.
It would be pretty hard for me to work on a purely fantasy game at this point.
Anyway, sentries are autonomic military equipment brought to this world by the Order Tempest, a peace-keeping organization of this universe.
Order Tempest has not had a presence in this world for almost 200 years, but their machine soldiers still patrol the vicinity of their old headquarters - the central location for the new quest.
They are not aggressive to the player the first time the player encounters them, so it's up to them if they want to make sentries their enemies.
The abilities
Animating the sentries took weeks - it's my most ambitious enemy so far!
It took quite a lot of iterations to get it right, but I'm very happy with the end result.
With animations in place, it was time to make my beloved spider tanks to show teeth - or to be more accurate, missiles!
What I mean is giving sentries the ability to attack the player.
It's the first archer-type non-human enemy, so making it attack and behave properly was a challenge.
As I said, it is an ambitious project: Sentries are equipped with three unique abilities: Shell, Missile Strike, and Spirit Breaker.
Spirit Breaker has been added to the player's arsenal as well, it has been attached to high-level weapons.
Steel sentries are not the only new enemy types in the Spellscarred Desert: There are also 3 variants of charred demons.
One of them - charred balloons - has also received a new ability: Dark Star Singularity.
It's a mage variant of Spirit Breaker and it's probably my favorite of all the abilities I made.
Spirit Breaker fires an arrow that pierces enemies and dazes them, reducing their movement speed and making them easier to catch with consecutive attacks. The piercing property is especially useful when fighting more than one enemy at the same time because it deals damage to every enemy it will pierce.
Dark Star Singularity is similar to Spirit Breaker in the sense that it creates a piercing projectile.
However, instead of a lethal arrow, it's a tiny exotic star! Summoning this unusual astronomic object to this reality creates a shockwave that deals damage to all enemies in range and prevents them from attacking for 3 seconds.
The demons
As I just mentioned, the player may encounter not only steel sentries but also demons in the Desert.
These are variants of demons encountered in other areas.
They have been scaled up to match the intended difficulty of the Spellscarred Desert, which is an endgame area.
The loot
With the Desert populated with steel sentries, it was time to implement unique loot to make these tough new enemies worth fighting.
So here are the new items!
From left to right:
Steel parts
Crafting material for crafting new steel weapons.
Uncommon drop from steel sentries.
Reactor
Neck accessory, crafting material for steel generator.
Uncommon drop from steel sentries.
Steel generator
New level 30 mage class weapon.
For 'glass cannon' builds.
Crafted from steel parts and a reactor.
Comes with Dark Star Singularity ability.
Steel accelerator
New level 30 archer class weapon.
Behaves like a regular arc but is slightly faster, which makes it very powerful.
Crafted from steel parts.
Steel cleaver
New level 30 warrior class weapon.
Has stats comparable to a two-handed melee weapon, but is one-handed.
Crafted from steel parts.
Ability instructions: Dark Star Singularity
Unlocks this ability.
Tier 3 and Tier 4 reward: Found in high-level loot containers, dropped by high-level enemies.
Ability instructions: Spirit Breaker
Unlocks this ability.
Tier 3 and Tier 4 reward: Found in high-level loot containers, dropped by high-level enemies.
The stronghold and the quest
With loot implemented, now it is the time to work on the 'Shadows That Remain' quest, which will feature steel sentry as a boss encounter, unlock steel weapon crafting, and reveal the most important details of the story.
The quest will take place in the Order Stronghold area which is yet to be implemented, so I still have a lot of work to do for this set of content.
* * *
So that was my last three months!
Phew, it was a challenge to just write down all that, so I'm going to wrap up this update post right here.
Thanks for reading and until next time!
