The Kristala Dev Blog - Issue #16
Welcome back, beings of Ailur! You're tuning in to the official dev blog for indie action RPG Kristala, developed by the incredible team at Astral Clocktower Studios.
We're super pumped you're here.
We've got a lot of exciting updates to share with you today, and while we're not incredibly happy about this whole pandemic business, we're super grateful for the opportunity to connect and get down to business on getting this demo complete.
We feel like we've been teasing the completion date for Kristala's demo for quite some time now, and it feels really awesome to actually be on the precipice of having the project ready. You'll be able to get your hands on it super soon. We promise!
Until then, we're continuing to serve up some super fresh dev updates that are still warm from the oven. So sit back, relax, and get ready to take a deeper dive into the fantastic, dark-fantasy world of Kristala.
Programming
No one's been bustin' buns quite as much as Will has recently. As our fearless lead programmer, a lot of the finishing touches for our demo fall on his shoulders. Luckily, Will can handle it.
This sprint, he worked on repairing and setting up functionality for our Equipment and Inventory menus; his new changes allow for both controller and mouse input. He also worked on the functionality for highlight selection as well as the back button functionality, plus the ability to remember which slot players clicked on so they don’t have to navigate back to where they just were within various menus.
Sounds kinda confusing for the rest of us programming novices, but Will's got it covered.
Will also made changes to loading functionality to fix the bug we shared last week where the player character seemed to be falling indefinitely upon load, because the character was loading before the level itself could.
Beyond that, Will addressed the AI for various enemies and finished up the lock mechanics for the doors and gates that will be found both in our demo and the full version of Kristala.
Here are a few funny clips Will recorded while working on the door functionality.
Once Will perfected the door functionality, he went ahead and actually set up all the doors and gates that will be featured in our Dalamase’ swamp level.
Lastly, Will created a few destructibles and placed them into their proper sub levels, then implemented and refined a few more things...like our earthquake spell and the special attack for our Nisargan Impaler weapon.
Before we move on, let's take a peek at Will's full walk-through explanation and demonstration for the three kinds of doors we've utilized in the game thus far.
Tiffany lent a hand to some programming-related tasks this sprint too.
First, she finished up the Water Wheel sidequest she'd been working on. Specifically, she worked on fixing duplication, ensuring the poison pit drained properly, and adding a "quest completed" check mark on level load.
She also made it so that journal entries or quest items display properly when accessed from the inventory, and then added short inventory and equipment descriptions where needed.
Lastly, Tiff anchored the Use/Drop widget when using a controller and addressed a strange collider issue we were experiencing in the water village sub-level.
3D Asset Design
Last issue, we shared some initial shots of the model Nick created for our magic lantern-fruit tree. Here are some updated shots of this awesome asset.
Nick added some gorgeous veining texturing along the trunk and branches of the tree, which represent the crystal essence that’s coursing through the tree itself, marking it as a magic object in the game.
Nick also continued to finesse the various warp consumables we shared last issue. We liked the way these consumables looked so much that we asked Nick to apply the same crystal-caked aesthetic to a couple boulders with varying emissive levels to be placed throughout the environment of our Dalamase’ swamp level.
How cool would it be to find something like this in the wild?
In addition to the boulders, we tasked Nick with creating some custom, exotic, fantasy plants and foliage to be used throughout the Kristala game.
We’re so pleased with how these are looking. Stay tuned for updates!
Lastly, Nick started work on this cool, Nisargan eminence bomb. This is a special item that's unique to the Nisargan clan lands. Players will find all sorts of clan-specific, unique items all over Ailur as they progress through the Anagativan clan lands.
If you've been following our development journey for Kristala, you know that our talented 3D Environmental Designer, Cass, has been working on a bunch of custom structures for our regal Nasahara Ruins level.
This sprint, Cass continued on that journey, refining each model's textures and ensuring every little detail is on point. We’d say he’s done a really great job, wouldn’t you agree?
Here's a peek at the finished textures for the third damaged row house and some of the progress Cass has made on the intact, undamaged structures too.
