Noseka: The Gold Project (tuxdb.com)

DEV BLOG #7 - April Update: A closer look at biome 2

Hello everyone! We haven't been very active on Steam, and we apologize for that. In order to have a continuous thread of DEV BLOG updates, we have decided to repost the articles originally posted on Kickstarter. The other articles will follow shortly, and we hope you will enjoy reading them! -- this article was originally posted: 04/21/2023 Hello everyone! Once again, this article is directly written by Inateno for simplicity in writing. A closer look at biome 2: an underground and labyrinthine biome in which you will face creatures capable of moving on walls and ceilings. Creatures that will chase you and jump on you! Today, I propose to delve a little into the content offered by this biome, but I still keep a lot of surprises for you. Biome 2 therefore requires a type of enemy that can walk on walls, ceilings, and jump on us. And as you may already suspect, we naturally thought of spiders. Except that many of you are arachnophobic. After realizing this, we changed our plans. Last time, I talked about my inspirations for creating Gold Project. Today, I will explain how and why we decided to remove the visual designs of spiders in the game, and what we replaced them with! PS: throughout this article, I will show spider designs in pixel-art, no real spider images. I hope arachnophobes won't be too scared seeing these images, I apologize in advance if it bothered you. Choosing spiders to meet the need for "monsters that walk on walls and ceilings" was obvious to us, so without thinking much, we started making this kind of design.
For non-arachnophobic individuals, it may seem cool. After some in-game tests, it was quite successful. Being chased by numerous spiders without any environment or music was already oppressive. That's exactly what we wanted... but. But here's the thing, we didn't consider arachnophobia and how many players it affects. After showing our progress to a friend who also works in the gaming industry, he mentioned arachnophobia and the fact that it affects nearly 30% of players! We realized that we would have a problem, and surprisingly, we don't have anyone on the team who is arachnophobic... so we just didn't think about it.

Changing the spider design to something else...

From a Game Design point of view, changing the spiders to "something else" is not a problem as long as the gameplay is respected, so we started discussing it. In a previous article "DEV BLOG #4 - How we create monsters in Gold" I told you that sometimes monsters are created based on a joke. Well, that's exactly what happened with these monsters! After all, in the game's story, the monsters of shadows and gold are humans corrupted by gold to the point where they transform into deformed creatures. So we came up with the idea of making monsters composed of arms and legs, like creepy assemblages. And the drawing result was pretty cool in my opinion!

A first test sheet "spiders for arachnophobes"

A drawing is not pixel art

Drawing on paper and making pixel-art are two different things. If we create concepts as drawings, they may not necessarily work when converted into pixel art.

There are issues with readability, detail, and resolution. And in our specific case with Gold, there is a crucial factor: the monsters are all black with very little red/gold detail. Having a solid-colored body can blur the readability on potato-like shapes. To explain it simply, having a leg that passes in front of the body will be completely invisible with only one color. Here's a diagram to illustrate the explanation.

PS: This is a high-quality diagram made on PAINT.net. There's a reason why I'm not the one doing the pixel art in the game! I think you've got the idea. However, we'll still show you the pixelated version we ended up with.

Finally, we ended up with something completely different, which is not a spider. Here is a new concept sheet to try to find readable monsters. Of course, not all of them are in the game. On this sheet, only 2 monsters have been selected.

The Boss of Biome 2, an exception to the rule

I want to clarify that we still kept a design inspired by a spider for biome 2. Named "the golden widow," we tried to avoid the small triggers that cause arachnophobia as much as possible. After showing this design to several people who agreed to participate in our survey, it turns out that this boss, half-woman, half-spider, is "acceptable."

If this design has bothered you too much, I apologize, don't hesitate to come and discuss it with me either on Discord or on Twitter, we will do our best to adjust the design of this boss if we can get new data. In your opinion, what will be the attacks of this boss?

General game progression, playtesting, and Beta access

Many of you are asking us where we are, when will the Kickstarter rewards be delivered, what is the release date of the game, and when will the beta start. For now, I can tell you that we are on schedule. The arachnophobia topic caused a bit of a delay in December, but we caught up, and overall, things are on track. We want to do the playtest quickly, but I can't promise anything in terms of dates, so you'll have to be patient. The same goes for the beta. We are quite demanding on the version we will give you. A little more patience, but it's worth it! That said, I can detail a bit the difference between beta and playtest:

playtest = a version with a lot of missing visuals, few sounds and music, placeholders / blockouts, empty or missing maps, an incomplete game.
beta = a game almost finished, some content is missing but the majority of the sounds and visuals are integrated into the game and the game is playable in most parts.

Regarding the development, we only have left:

the final mega boss
the skill tree
finalize the world map
and bugs, as you can imagine!

In other words, by the end of May, the technical development of the game will be almost finished! Also, we have had some questions regarding console versions. Know that someone on the team is actively working on porting our engine to the Switch, which will also be useful for the PS4 and PS5 ports. The Xbox port should be the easiest. Again, I cannot guarantee anything at this stage, but we are doing our best to reduce the release time between different platforms! Thank you for taking the time to read this article, I hope it was interesting. I will write a new article for you very soon! In the meantime, don't forget to come to the Discord.

[ 2023-06-17 11:00:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Noseka: The Gold Project

Dreamirl Developer

Dreamirl Publisher

2023-11-07 Release

Action Indie Strategy Casual RPG Adventure Simulation F2P Sports MMO Racing Singleplayer Multiplayer Coop EA Tags

Game News Posts: 46

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
🎮 Full Controller Support

Very Positive (77 reviews)

Steam Store

Public Linux Depots:

[0 B]

"Noseka: The Gold Project" is a 2D pixel-art metroidvania game set in a dark fantasy universe.

The game offers players a choice between allegiance to the Gods of Light and Shadow or the gods of Corruption and Gold!

But be careful!

Decisions made in the game affect your progression by changing the available paths and abilities.

The game's key art creates a unique experience for gamers with no run being the same as others, this duality encourages players to explore both paths.

Auria, the God of Avarice, took power over the city of Lemia after imprisoning the Goddess of Light. Kali, a fighter who lost everything at the hands of the gods, sets out for the city to verify the rumors surrounding this new god who corrupts and subjugates humans in exchange for wealth.

Explore the City of Gold and its cathedral, confront the creatures of shadow and gold, pledge allegiance to the god of your choice to embody their power, or detach yourself from the gods and suffer their wrath. Again

Game features

Meticulously crafted pixel art
2 Unique persistent worlds that evolve according to your chosen allegiance to the gods (The Path of Gold or The Path of Light)
A skill tree with over 50 abilities!
7 memorable bosses
Over 25 totally unique monsters with innovative gameplay surrounding each monster.
Easy-to-play, hard-to-master controls.
Smooth, pleasant platforming.
Fast, dynamic gameplay.
Pixel-perfect combat, subtle and accessible.
Several possible endings.
An original, epic soundtrack by Sarys and Xavier Dang (MisterMV), which evolves according to your allegiance.
An original storyline scattered around the world: find all the stelae in the game to understand the history and mysteries surrounding the gods (optional storyline).
A non-linear map: discover the world as you please

Backstory: The world of Noreya
In time immemorial, seven deities joined forces to shape the land we know today as Noreya.
Such was the power of the Seven that Men, as a sign of respect but also out of fear, began to worship them. Some sinners, however, strayed from the path, bringing out the most maliciously treacherous parts of themselves. From this malice came new deities, gaining their powers from the servitude of their subjects.

In the lands of Lemia, home of the primordial Goddess of Light, an endless famine persisted. The poor inhabitants' desire for wealth benefited the God of Avarice, who in turn promised an end to their misery. The god everyone now calls the "God of Gold" transformed all his followers into shapeless, tormented creatures: the golden shadows. Lemia, once so luminous, now gives way to unhealthy greed.

Duality: Pledge allegiance and receive the power of the gods!
With a skill tree containing over 50 skills, you can evolve according to your allegiance to the Goddess of Light or the God of Gold.

You can also play double duty, but in this case you won't have access to the most powerful spells. It's up to you to find the best balance for your style of play.

A world for every god.
No more metroidvania with a single map to discover.
In the world of Noreya, the world changes according to your allegiance.

Are you familiar with the Golden World and have now decided to worship the Light? Get ready for a whole new experience, forge ahead as you discover which areas have changed and discover which parts of the game are no longer accessible! However, in turn get ready to explore other new adventures that now await the servant of the Light!

Each version of the world conceals secrets and exclusive bonuses. Can you find the artifacts hidden in the depths of the world? Only time will tell!

The soundtrack

Signed by the incredible duo Sarys / MisterMV, enjoy an original soundtrack that will accompany you throughout your adventure.
Switch allegiance, and the music will change and evolve with you.

A game for arachnophobes:
Initially, we had planned to include spiders in the game, but we realized that many players are arachnophobic.
WIth this in mind, we worked on coming up with an alternative that works and retains the feel of the underground environments.

But who knows, maybe one day the spiders of Noreya will be released. But that's a tale for another time.

Read more on our dev blog:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1760330/view/3712699226995016096

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Ubuntu
Processor: Intel Core I5Memory: 8 GB RAM
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: RTX 1660
Storage: 1500 MB available space
RECOMMENDED SETUPOS: Ubuntu
Processor: Intel Core I5Memory: 16 GB RAM
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: RTX 1660
Storage: 1500 MB available space

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