Last month I “celebrated” two years of work on Betrayed Alliance Book 2. At this point, the number of backgrounds has soared way above the 56 backgrounds I had in Book 1.
We’re sitting at around 80 or so, with each one taking somewhere between 2-4 hours to make.
Here’s a nice mix of many of them for you to enjoy…and for me to post somewhere to feel good about myself 😉
Summer break has come to an end and it’s back to school for both myself and my kids!
This time of year always comes with a change in routine and that always gets me anxious about whether there will be time to do things. But there always is, so I’m going to try not to worry.
Onto the update!
Current total of Backgrounds that are “basically finished” 68 of an estimated 100. Originally the plan was to have around 56 or so, the same as Book 1, but that estimate was clearly way off, most likely due to the fact that there are two playable characters, and each must have a reasonably sized chunk of forest to explore.
You might notice a couple things in some of the screenshots as well – creatures! Actual things! This last few months a friend of mine from Twitter and Discord volunteered his talent with some creatures designs. His name? Karl Dupéré-Richer. He’s also the sole artist on Amazing Fix, a hidden object game.
Here’s a few of his designs for Betrayed Alliance:
These lovely monstrosities will feature as battle opponents, environmental barriers, and perhaps even helpers on your quest. Karl is an extremely talented guy and a great follow on Twitter, as you can see from these images and I’m indebted to him for his cooperation.
Speaking of combat, with new creatures, I also decided to update the Battle System, both gameplay-wise and aesthetically. I talk more about the details here.
Things come alive when you start integrating new characters, but even more so when animations get put in and the characters can actually do things, besides getting the “You can’t do that.” response from the text parser.
Also, have I not mentioned that I put together a proper game image for Betrayed Alliance Book 2?
I haven’t talked about it much, if at all. I’ve written a little bit of music for the game, and I scored most of Book 1, with the addition of free-to-use music to supplement what I had. While I have some talent for music, I’m not feeling at peace with what I’m producing for Book 2. If the Kickstarter I have planned for November goes well, I will be hiring someone to compose for the game using the MT-32, something I know nothing about.
At this time, there’s not much more to share, but it’s on the horizon.
The game is still mostly a pile of artwork assets, scattered story notes, and puzzle scribbles, but with each new background, animation, and implementation of code, it is moving closer from project phase to game. There’s still a TON to do before it makes that shift, but the feel of it has already shifted.
Here are the past development updates if you want to see more:
Action elements in the adventure genre tend to be the exception not the rule in modern adventure games, but the early Sierra titles, especially the hybrid Adventure/RPG series Quest for Glory and the space adventure series Space Quest used them frequently.
Also, I like them!
There’s no hiding that my Adventure saga Betrayed Alliance is heavily influenced by Quest for Glory (particularly the EGA ones) series and as such I’d always planned on having a battle system.
Today I want to look at the combat system in Quest for Glory 1 and determine what it did well and what, if anything, can be improved on.
So I asked some people their thoughts: Here’s a sampling of responses:
What Quest for Glory 1 does well:
Some criticisms:
From the responses I think we see that the combat was generally liked, but that they just ended up spamming the attack button as dodging/blocking was not really responsive or intuitive. The stats upgraded fast enough that the “attack-all-the-time” strategy worked and while there were perhaps better examples of combat, this one was good enough for the game it was in.
Since Quest for Glory is a stats based game, this design may be intended. The game doesn’t require any real twitch-type skill, but rather the stats do the heavy lifting, which at least one of my responders remarked as a positive quality as they don’t generally like arcade-style combat. That said, having stats for “dodge” and “parry” make it seem like these skills were designed for use, but from the responses I got most people end up ignoring them.
Combat in Betrayed Alliance Book 2 will emphasize a strategic block / attack rhythm where the player must read the opponent’s intentions visually. While there will be a few stats that can be upgraded, the game will not reward a reckless “attack at all costs” strategy. As mentioned by some commenters, better signposting of attacks as well as more frames of animation could be helpful.
“But I don’t like combat”
That said, for the many people who dislike arcade style aspects in adventure games, I am including a way to overcome enemies without always entering the combat arena. I want to give the player the freedom to dispose of their enemy obstacles in different ways.
This is not a concession by any means, but an intended gameplay element. There are two playable characters in book 2 and they have different gameplay styles. In Quest for Glory terms, one is the fighter class and the other is more like the thief. I’m building the game-world to allow the player to influence which of the two will be more likely to encounter the various enemies of the game (and how to dispatch them).
It’s a mess! Visually and game-design-wise. Just a mess.
Design:
The rhythm of battle in Book 1 is not bad. Enemies telegraph attacks (but also fake-outs) with enough time to respond. There is a cool down period on both blocking and attacking which forces the player to be more strategic. Successful blocking not only rewards the player with not getting hit, but also gives a chance at a counterattack which doesn’t affect the attack cooldown (and is always a guaranteed hit).
In this way the design of combat in Book 1 is pretty good and has a bit more to it that Quest for Glory 1’s combat, but there are a ton of problems with it too:
From a design point-of-view combat in Book 1 is competent in an of itself, but as a mechanic in the overall game itself, it’s completely underdeveloped and useless. This is mainly due to the strange development of the game where the first 1/3 of the game was released as “Book 1,” a division that was not originally intended. The area in which combat was to feature more prominently is not available in Book 1 as it is the sole environment for Book 2. But due to this separation, combat in Book 1 rightly feels unimportant, because it is!
The Combat system is being updated for Book 2, as combat will feature more prominantly. Both the aesthetic and mechanics of combat will change.
The targeting system is being scrapped as it’s too clunky and unintuitive.
The emphasis on blocking will still be operative as it was in Book 1, along with a cooldown counter for both attacking and blocking to avoid spamming either attacking or blocking.
With only two major actions (attacking and blocking) buttons could be freed up for different actions. I’m currently looking at using one for a short-term block that will also render the opponent more vulnerable, similar to the “perfect guard” in Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Just as in that game, this parry offers a reward at the cost of taking a risk: miss the parry and get hit unguarded, but if you parry it just right right, you get an open window for attack (and probably a 100% hit rate and likely a higher critical hit multiplier).
I’m also interested in having both a sword swing and a sword stab, each having greater applicability in different circumstances. We’ll have to see how these develop as I test things out.
What do you think can be done to make combat more enjoyable/challenging/fun?
I heaped myself a bunch of praise when I looked at the Overworld Structure for BA: Book 1. As much as I enjoy patting my own back, today I’ll be moving my hand to my forehead as we look at some puzzle choices.
This puzzle has three steps:
As a puzzle, it’s fine. Not earth-shatteringly good, not rip-out-your-hair-bad. The signposting to say “copy cat” is clear once you’ve heard the dialog from the soldiers watching the Whispering Caverns. The signposting for the correct sequence of steps is carved into the puzzle structure itself, which is also told to the player if they happen to “look at” the puzzle board itself.
The design feels arbitrary. Simply put, why is it there, other than just another obstacle for the player? And what reason is there for a squirrel?
It breaks the immersion when it’s just some random puzzle.
What’s worse is that it was designed with a story purpose, but very little made it into the game.
The puzzle leads to a hidden grove, meant to be a “special place” for the main villain (Gyre) and his wife, who had died before the events of the game. The spirit of the wife “haunts” the place playing music, which has led to the spread of the legend of the “Muse of the Mountain.”
The puzzle needing two participants was originally set up for Gyre and his wife to gain access to their secluded sanctuary. With her passing, Gyre had trained an animal to replicate the pattern so he could still gain access. I never devised a way to get this information into the game, sadly. About all that made it into the game were the rumors about the “Muse of the Mountain” which you find in an optional library book.
From its inception it was designed to be a music-puzzle, where the player (along with the squirrel) would repeat the four chords of a song that could be heard playing if one listened near the entrance.
The woman/spirit the player finds is seen to play music and sings all of her dialog. The lore is that people can hear her singing, but Gyre cannot due to his heart being clouded with thoughts of revenge.
So what happened? I hadn’t considered the limitations of sound in SCI, particularly the ability to only play back one sound at a time. The idea was each block played a tone, but when the player and squirrel would step on two different blocks, it would play two sounds making a small chord. That didn’t work at all because it couldn’t!
A concession was made to add arrows onto the puzzle board itself and remove any correspondence to the notes and the solution. The puzzle became more of a dexterity challenge than a music puzzle in the end.
While the puzzle is generally fine in a vacuum, I do regret how I poorly I translated the puzzle from design to execution. I feel it lost almost all of its story meaning, and most of its original puzzle design as well.
It wasn’t until about the last month or two before release I had (for other reasons) decided to use “SCI Audio” which would open a parallel program that plays music separately from the game program. This program did allow for multiple tones at once, but at that point, the puzzle was already in place and the release was coming too soon to go back and change things.
Yes, I have regrets, but this puzzle still has some things going for it.
It’s your opinion that matters, not mine. I just made the puzzle, you got to play it. So what are your impressions?
Slattstudio 