Hey guys!

We’ve finally got Kyren, Armagon, George and myself moved over to the London office. :D OmnipotentEntity is visiting, too! We keep trying to convince him to stay.

I know there’s been lots of concern over progress lately, but now that most of us are in the same space and settling into a steady 9-5 work week, we’re really excited and motivated to focus on more frequent and substantial updates. Kind of amazing how much more can be accomplished by shouting at each other across a room than just pinging someone in IRC. :P

More on that next week, though!

We’re excited to announce that we’re publishing Witchmarsh— a 2D co-op platformer set in 1920s Massachusetts!

Currently in development by Inglenook, Witchmarsh is a gorgeous game that we’ve personally been looking forward to for awhile now. In Witchmarsh, you join a team of detectives in rural 1920s America as they embark on a mission to find and return the missing ‘Witchmarsh twelve’, who vanished under mysterious circumstances. Featuring 2-4 player online co-op as well as a single player mode, Witchmarsh also has an extensive character creation system that allows players to mix and match a large set of attributes, perks, items and weapons.

And tonight they’re launching their Kickstarter campaign!

Witchmarsh is tentatively set to be released in December 2015. We think it’ll appeal to lots of you, so check it out!

@InglenookGames on Twitter

Witchmarsh on Tumblr

Our artists have posted sneak peaks at the new ship tiers in various places, so I thought I’d give you guys a quick progress update here. :)

Omni’s been working on staffs. Basic implementation is finished and all fireable weapons are now lua-enabled! Randomly generated staffs are planned, but not yet implemented. Finally, YER A WIZARD. Or at least… soon you’ll be able to be sort of a wizard. A science-y space wizard. What could be better than that?

George’s first day in the UK office was today, and he kicked things off by teasing the new Hylotl ship design!

Rho also recently showed off some of the new Floran ship tiers, so now I’m gonna show you all 8! During tiers 1-3 you’ll be doing some repair work, but by tier 4 you get to start adding rooms! Shh, listen, flowers and vines totally work for a space ship exterior as long as you refer to them as spaceflowers and spacevines.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey guys,

So I thought I’d fill you in on some of the proposed monster changes so we can have a discussion in a similar fashion to the weapon changes.

So first off we’re going to remove knockback on monsters.

Whilst removing knockback makes little sense in the current combat climate. When coupled with additional changes we’re hoping it will lead to more timing based combat and less standing and mashing swing fast enough to knock all the monsters away.

The next change will be to the way monsters try to approach players. Rather than attempting to occupy the same space as the player, they will now aim to move to a position in front of a player. That we’re calling the “attack position”

On the left you have the old behaviour, where a monster would try it’s best to get as close to the player as possible. Doing damage through touch. On the right you have the monster moving to it’s new attack position where it will eventually lunge forwards in an attack animation into the players space. We’re considering removing touch damage on monsters to assist in this change.

Monsters in the attack position will attack the player after a windup animation, warning the player an attack is coming. Coupled with the removal of knockback, this means the player will have to dodge or block enemy attacks whilst moving into range to deal damage. Blocking is also being reworked.

Rather than shields having a somewhat complex means of mitigating damage. Shields will now have an amount of “health” as one of their stats. When the player blocks an attack with a shield a health indicator will appear above the players head.

Blocking during a monster attack will also cause the monster to be knocked down and stunned for a moment, giving you time to counter attack!

Shield health will regenerate quickly over time. However if your shields health is fully depleted your guard will be temporarily broken and you won’t be able to use the shield until it’s regenerated all the way back to full health.

It will still block the attack that breaks it however.

Blocking at the very last moment before an attack will cause a “shield parry”. In this case you will block the attack but your shield won’t take any damage.

It will also be possible to parry attacks with two handed weapons. However, unlike shields the player won’t be able to hold down the block button to ensure they block an attack, instead they *must* time it correctly or they will be hit.

A parry with a two handed weapon will also cause a stun.

We’re also working on a vast range of skills and attacks for monsters to utilise. Each will have it’s own attack position that the monster will want to move into.

Some monsters will attack faster than others, and combat will be far more reactionary and active.

Let us know what you think