





🌟 Special thanks to our amazing supporters:
✨ $10 Tier: [Geeks Love Detail]
🌈 $5 Tier: [Arch Toasty][Benedikt][David Martínez Martí]
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes (apologies for the many patches recently): - Fix some remaining prompt display failures. Reported by scj643 - Fix camera zoom going out of whack after a resize. Reported by scj643 - Fix another crash when trying to change button mappings Reported by an itch.io player
A hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix GLFW shutdown on Linux/Wayland leading to crashes on some systems Reported by scj643 - Fix controller support for DualSense Edge Reported by scj643 - Fix a compatibility issue on Wayland when trying to determine the monitor the game is on Reported by scj643, volkert, errie, wsg - Fix an issue when trying to open links on Windows Reported by Sunwise, itosan1114, nickc, Brbro - Fix a crash when trying to change button mappings Reported by an itch.io player - Fix a crash in the editor when using the move-to tool Reported by dell - Fix the wrong language being set during dialogue in some cases Reported by scj643 - Increase default audio latency from 0.005 to 0.02 to avoid crackling on some systems. This setting is not updated automatically for existing players however. If you experience crackles, try updating the settings file directly, which is in ~/.config/shirakumo/kandria on Linux systems, and %AppData%/shirakumo/kandria on Windows. Reported by scj643 - Support loading default-device-mappings.lisp from the game's source directory to allow ad-hoc controller mapping changes
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix audio output to select devices on Windows not working due to... bizarre and inexplicable behaviour of WASAPI. The new XAudio2 backend should be more stable. Reported by ReveN, SupSuper - Fix audio output on Linux to use PipeWire when available. - Fix audio latency on several systems. - Fix NPCs roaming far too slowly - Fix sources to work with the latest Trial release
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix the wave effect on the main menu, which had disappeared in a prior version - Fix sources to work with the latest Trial release - Fix the mod browser not working anymore due to an upstream modio API change - Fix the mod display not sizing previews correctly - Fix the database menu having misaligned icons and text - Fix the map trace display - Fix a minor typo in the German translation Committed by Jan Moringen - Set executable flag for install.lisp and setup.lisp so the README works Committed by Arne Babenhauserheide - Updated with-mesh-reconstruction macro call to be consistent with its changed syntax in Trial (as of commit ba1c063). Committed by Pranav Vats - Disable GOG Galaxy integration, which was causing crashes on several setups. Reported by TEATIME, pasza, Giaddon - Fix an isuse with dialogue choice scrolling Reported by TEATIME
A hotfix for Kandria has been released with the following changes: - Fix a crash when a toast is displayed while the map is being closed Reported by aerphanas, delta_zzerty, desmondlulu - Fix a crash due to race conditions with the OpenGL context on Windows while the game is shutting down Reported by bryan, RJ, azale, vovin, JoyousCoconut, skymt, Mateusz, nat - Fix a crash due to race conditions with windowing events while the game is shutting down Reported by Chris - Don't require fontconfig to be present on a target Linux system Reported by julius - Improve error reporting when the game crashes due to a corrupted or faulty install
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix a crash in the editor when trying to present a file open dialog for a directory that doesn't exist Reported by Muppo - Fix a crash caused by GLFW being unable to decode the clipboard contents Reported by Sunny - Possibly fix a rare problem with handling the login to the modio API through Steam Reported by Witch - Fix a crash caused by the OpenGL driver allocating a buffer object with a size that is different from what the engine expects Reported by Bushek, Liam, RJ, mikio, mrguy, spicypants, A_Keick, Cloud, drque
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix general issue with remote requests causing several features to stop working on Windows, such as the mod browser, news listing, and automated crash reports Reported by X-Calibar - Fix steam achievements not triggering correctly anymore due to a change in the SteamWorks SDK Reported by X-Calibar and Chimeran - Fix the editor not interpreting mouse movements correctly anymore - Fix the loading screen being stuck at 0% - Note: A report has been made that Discord can make the game lag and even crash. This seems to be due to Discord interfering with the OpenGL driver. If you encounter this issue, make sure that Discord's game detection is disabled for Kandria - Fix the game to work with upstream changes to Trial, making it possible to run from source again Reported by Trannus Aran
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix issue with damage shields and other consumable items causing a crash Reported by hide- - Fix issue with libevdev not being found on the Steam Deck Reported by ggnoredo
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Add option to explicitly set the display to use in the video options, and disambiguate monitor names in case the names are duplicated. This fixes the game starting up on the wrong display on Windows. Under linux the issue can persist due to issues in the underlying GLFW library Reported by Gootch03, EnemyStarship - Fix issue where leaving to explore early could leave you stranded due to the first fast travel option not being unlocked early enough Reported by spiralll_ - Fix a crash occurring from a stray UI unit conversion issue Reported by andrewbbaker
A hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix issue with vector type coercion Reported by Colesl4w - Fix wardrobe not displaying correctly due to a vertex binding point regression Reported by Nulmas
A hot fix has been released with the following changes: - Fix issue with feedback form leading to a crash Reported by TannerGH - Fix issue with exiting fullscreen leading to unpredictable and weird window sizes Reported by TannerGH - Fix fishing causing a crash due to an API incompatibility that wasn't noticed Reported by davepdotorg - Fix credits causing a crash due to a bad texture load Reported by davepdotorg - Fix failure of the Steam modio login flow leading to a hard crash Reported by campbellr - Fix rare crash when clicking on a title without a module entry Reported by monkey - Fix issue with lighting probe assuming a bad framebuffer binding state Reported by TannerGH, davepdotorg, and Jab Happy holidays, everyone!
A hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Upgrade to latest Trial version - Upgrade to the latest GLFW This should help with Wayland compatibility on Linux - Fix bad input mapping for Wii U Pro controllers on Linux Submitted by Calla - Fix the modder achievement not being awarded when opening the editor Reported by lonelygiraffe7 - Fix a typo in the item descriptions Submitted by Ikko Eltociear Ashimine - Fix default button maps not being correct for controllers that report triggers as buttons Reported by Calla
A small hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix display of outfits overlapping oddly in the wardrobe Reported by anonymous - Fix Kandria to work with the latest version of Trial Reported by monroth - Fix petting of critters being able to clip you into walls Reported by Zambito1
A hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fixed a regression that caused several collision volume issues Reported by anonymous - Fixed spurious crash due to race conditions during close Reported by trollcyborg.2.0 - Improved rendering of several parts of the user interface
A hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fixed a few minor issues in the Japanese localisation Reported by cxxxr - Fixed a problem on some Windows setup with the Secur32.dll Reported by TemprusofTime, kamiy, boum - Fixed minor mod issues - Fixed a glibc dependency issue on Linux Reported by Bellman Cryde
A free update has been published which includes a localisation of the game into Japanese. You can pick the language from within the game's language options, or if you start the game for the first time on a Japanese system, the language will be set for you automatically.
Another month gone by. There's no major updates this month, since we just had thelevel editor releaselast month. However, there is a somewhat major update coming out next week!
You may have guessed from the title, but we're adding Japanese localisation to the game! It'll release onWednesday, 12th of April. As someone that's been trying to learn Japanese for a long time, this is another step in the development that I've been looking forward to very much.
I'm also really glad that we can release this already, so it'll be well out by the time I visit Tokyo Game Show in September!
- Fix issue with missing libevdev on Steam Deck and other Linux distributions - Fix rare issue related to input stacking Reported by Markasoftware - Fix rare issue related to worlds listing Reported by Noob - Fix issue related to very old stale save files Reported by Pro Helvetia
A minor hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix rare crash related to lack of file open dialog support on certain Linux systems Reported by Docker - Fix bad action configuration for dash Reported by Cadspen
A new hotfix is live with the following changes: - Fix issue in depot directory listing causing local mods to crash Reported by Ghost_Hunter_2000 - Fix rare issue related to cursor switching Reported by Charlie - Fix rare save issue where catherine will lose her companion, leading to a crash Reported by Ari - Fix controller rumble stuck state Reported by Ghost_Hunter_2000
A new hotfix is live with the following changes: - Fix issue with interacting with fast travel while still in animation Reported by Dudude Dude - Fix rare crash resulting from in-progress workshop downloads for other games Reported by HoloRaptor - Fix resume saves being interpreted as "corrupted" when reloading a resume save in the same session Reported by Pir
A new version is live with the following changes: - Fix rare crash caused by entities going missing Reported by Subsume - Fix soft lock caused by inventory invariant mismatch after a crash Reported by Subsume - Fix issue with key button mapping configuration Reported by Cirrusscales
The first major update for Kandria is now live on all platforms! It includes the level editor, a modding system, some new sample levels, and bugfixes!
Let's get the important news out of the way: the next major update for Kandria will launch on Wednesday, March 8th, at 15:00 CET. The update will include a number of improvements, new features, more content, and a community event!
- Fixed an issue where saving over an old save file led to a crash on Windows Reported by pir, tttt, Jaunus
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix rare crash related to BVH degradation Reported by daddysnatched2202 - Fix rare crash related to pausing as a sound effect finishes Reported by jimbo8250 - Fix crash on new games Reported by F
It's already been a month since Kandria released! Woah, time sure flies these days, huh?
A new hotfix is live with the following changes: - Add a kiosk mode (no saves) to the debug options - Fix rare problem with resume saves not being used if there was a crash in the interim Reported by irgendnkerl, joram shrijver - Report better error on corrupted world or save files Reported by Goldberg - Fix chest spawn in a particular room dropping rarely the item into the abyss Reported by ikharios - Fix a rare crash on game close on Linux Reported by stacy - Report better errors when crashing due to out of memory Reported by Noob
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix race achievement checks not properly considering gold timing Reported by Justice - Show race times with hundredths of a second on race time stats panel Reported by Minirop - Fix the default pick for save states to consult the system's display name or Steam's username if available - Show Steam keyboard overlay when opening cheat menu - Internal changes to the world data layout have been made in anticipation of level sharing support - Creating new worlds, saving, and loading them works properly again
A small hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix being able to move when at zero health and dying Reported by Wobbly Python, Carrie Carrarium, Hempuli, Joram Shrijver - Fix being able to get instant killed from above 1HP Reported by Hempuli, Carrie Carrarium - Add initial delay to Mech boss fights to avoid cheap hits Reported by Hempuli - Fix rare problem where death slowdown would persist after reloading Reported by Joram Shrijver, Carrie Carrarium, Hempuli - Fix rare issues in dialogue not advancing properly or skipping strangely Reported by Hempuli, Ari - Fix wraw trader position to avoid being in damage range Reported by S Yoshiks - Add workbenches to wraw and cerebat locations - Clarify text when exiting to main menu
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix being able to move when at zero health and dying Reported by Wobbly Python, Carrie Carrarium, Hempuli, Joram Shrijver - Fix being able to get instant killed from above 1HP Reported by Hempuli, Carrie Carrarium - Add initial delay to Mech boss fights to avoid cheap hits Reported by Hempuli - Fix rare problem where death slowdown would persist after reloading Reported by Joram Shrijver, Carrie Carrarium, Hempuli - Fix rare issues in dialogue not advancing properly or skipping strangely Reported by Hempuli, Ari
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix rare problem with invalid checkpoint respawns Reported by DrSkipper and others - Fix rare issue with incomplete quest tasks still showing up on the map even though the quest has been completed Reported by ToxicFrog - Fix rare crash due to invalid input spam from the operating system Reported by AverageJez - Fix issue with keyboard input events after focusing on a text input field such as in the shop Reported by Hempuli
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix drones not exploding properly - Fix focus loss on game over screen when exiting focus Reported by Hempuli - Fix buying items that are out of stock still reducing scrap count Reported by Gwyn - Fix switching language while in-game not switching out default interactions Reported by elimik31 - Fix corrupted monitor names leading to a crash when opening the options Reported by charlieb - Fix a rare crash due to degenerate bvh leading to a stack overflow Reported by pfox - Fix a rare crash related to trigger volumes still being active for inactive quests Reported by pfox - Fix a minor mistake in the German translation leading to a crash Reported by irgendnkerl - Ensure the Zelah entourage also trigger Zelah when attacked Reported by DwarfWoot - Improve iframe grace timing, preventing you from being stun locked and insta-killed - Improve visual feedback when executing a successful dodge - Reduce damage dealt by drones - Reduce stun-lockability of rogues and wraw - Reduce lag time on attack moves
On Saturday the 21st, 20:00-22:00 CET / 14:00-16:00 EST there will be an official stream on Twitch where I'm going to give you a look at the level editor and you can give me feedback on what needs to be improved and changed about it. The official level editor release is going to be the first major post-launch update, and I want to make sure that people have a say in how it turns out. Hope to see you there!
A new hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix upgrade menu not updating requirements after activating an upgrade Reported by ShimShamSam - Fix nanomachine salves not stacking correctly Reported by Toxic Frog - Fix sneaky tutorial inconsistency Reported by ZTA - Fix crash when clicking on separators in the editor Reported by Heisenborg - Fix rare crash related to switching from gamepad to keyboard during gameplay Reported by Yoha Quiryn - Fix crash when unable to save temporary screenshot file to disk due to lack of space or permissions Reported by Batmanatee - Fix rare crash when updating the sound location of an elevator Reported by pfox - Fix crash when creating a new region in the editor Reported by Goldberg - Fix rare crash due to background load order weirdness Reported by Disappointment - Fix crumbling platforms pushing you out sideways in some cases - Fix empty textboxes appearing sometimes - Fix achievements for races and game endings not triggering Reported by Adoom Mear, Paragus Rants - Disable heat wave effect under epilepsy safety mode Suggested by Serth - Add a race stats panel, accessible via the cheat ``how fast am i`` - Change the ending stats panel to "X / Y" secrets found Suggested by HaltingState
A hotfix has been released with the following changes: - Fix text scrolling speed at zero not showing text at all Reported by Toxic Frog - Fix fish names being cut off when scrolling via gamepad Reported by Adoom Mear - Fix opening the cheat menu while fishing leading to input confusion Reported by Adoom Mear - Fix opening a chest while crawling under a block being able to clip you Reported by Mirarant - Fix hitting an open chest with attacks cancelling the animation Reported by Dwarf Woot
A minor hotfix is live with the following changes: - Added a few savepoints in region 2 to reduce excessively long stretches without any saving opportunities.
A brief hotfix has been released: - Fix crash related to saves done while an elevator is in recall mode Reported by AOAB!, derp rock galactic
A new hotfix is live with a few crash fixes that were reported.
A hotfix has been released with the following changes:
A hotfix has been released.
Kandria is now finally available for purchase and play! I recommend buying it on Steam, as the algorithm there will help us bring the game in front of more people, as well. However, if that isn't a possibility for you, there's also options on Itch.io and through Xsolla on our webpage:
I am also live on Steam, Twitch, and YouTube right now, to celebrate the launch! Come on and hang out in the chat: https://stream.shinmera.comKandria launches tomorrow, on Wednesday the 11th, at 15:00 CET / 9:00 EST! There'll be a launch stream for the occasion as well. It'll be live here on Steam, as well as on Twitch! I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have about the game, and hope to see you there!
In case you missed the yearly update last week: Kandria will release in one week from today, on January 11th, 15:00 CET / 09:00 EST. I hope you're as excited to play it as we are to finally get it into your hands!
To celebrate the launch of Kandria, I'll be streaming the game live on Steam and Twitch! The launch and stream will happen on January 11th, 15:00 CET.
It's that time of the year again! The end of it. And what a year it's been for Kandria. We're now less than two weeks away from the release. Yikes! Or should I say, woah! Well, let's take a moment and look at some of all of the things that happened, before we look at what the future may possibly hold in store for us. At least, if I have anything to say about it.
Honestly, so many things happened that I barely remember most of them. I had to go back through the monthly reviews to remember all of it. But then again, I've always been rather terrible at remembering things that far back in any chronologically complete manner. I won't be going over stuff in chronological order, either, but instead will touch on a bunch of individual topics. Let's start out with
To celebrate the launch of Kandria, I'll be streaming the game live on Steam and Twitch! The launch and stream will happen on January 11th, 15:00 CET.
This is a shorter update, as this month was primarily spent on translation and bugfixing, neither of which we can really tell you much about. If you missed last month's though, please be aware that the game will release onJanuary 11th!
This update's an important one! The final release date, a new trailer, and some more announcements. Dang! Well, without further ado:
So, we've been in beta for over a month and gotten lots of useful feedback. Thanks a bunch! We'll continue to listen eagerly for feedback as we move towards the end of the development. In case you missed the Kickstarter but would still like to support us ahead of the release in January, you can do so by preordering Kandria or its soundtrack through Backerkit. Unlike Kickstarter, this also accepts PayPal, if you don't have access to a credit card.
Kandria has finally entered beta, and the keys have been rolled out to all the Kickstarter backers of the Hunter tier and above. We've already got some good feedback in from that, and are continuing to polish the remaining areas. If you're a beta backer and haven't gotten your key, please check your emails and your Backerkit account here: https://kandria.backerkit.com/ In case you missed the Kickstarter but would still like to support us, you can also do so by preordering Kandria or its soundtrack through Backerkit. Unlike Kickstarter, this also accepts PayPal, if you don't have access to a credit card.
We're at Gamescom from Wednesday to Friday! You can find us at the Swiss Games booth in Hall 4.1. Come on by and chat for a bit, we even got chocolates!
The Kickstarter is finally well behind us, and we're back to working on the game full-time. Not that we ever really stopped working on it, mind you, but at least there's a bunch of distractions now well behind us. But, let's still quickly summarise all that went down, eh? If you backed us, I once again wanted to extend my heartfelt thanks to you. It's always very moving and greatly motivating to see people support what you do! You should have received an email from Backerkit by now that lets you set the details of your backer rewards. Please fill that survey out as soon as you can! If you didn't get any such email, you can manually trigger it again on Backerkit: https://kandria.backerkit.com/ In case you missed the Kickstarter but would still like to support us, you can also do so by preordering Kandria or its soundtrack through Backerkit. Unlike Kickstarter, this also accepts PayPal, if you don't have access to a credit card.
The Kickstarter for Kandria has been going well, we've reached three of our stretch goals already! If you'd still like to get in and benefit from some of the Kickstarter exclusive rewards, check out the campaign while you still can:
The campaign ends in 48 hours, so this is the last chance to back it!
A fix for surround sound devices has been pushed live. This should fix the nasty noise and artefacts some users have reported hearing on their systems.
A new update has been pushed that adds a few minor features and fixes a bunch of bugs. Most notably, it fixes an issue a recent update introduced that caused fresh installations to not support audio on Windows. If you encountered this problem, please try again with the latest update! We've also received reports of low framerates. We're currently still investigating what could cause this. A possible workaround for now is to try either playing in windowed mode, or toggling fullscreen off and on again.
Our Kickstarter is now live! Check it out: [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shinmera/kandria?ref=4m56rx ]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shinmera/kandria Please consider supporting us, your contribution would help us out a ton. Oh, and there's some exclusive early bird reward tiers that won't be available for long!
To celebrate the next fest I'll be live streaming some Kandria gameplay directly to Steam here! If you have any questions or would like to see some exclusive game content, hop on by! The event goes live 20:00 CEST / 11:00 PT
To celebrate the next fest I'll be live streaming some Kandria gameplay directly to Steam here! If you have any questions or would like to see some exclusive game content, hop on by! The event goes live 22:00 CEST / 13:00 PT
Okey, June is the month! The Steam Next Fest and the Kickstarter are both happening this month. Be sure you won't miss them!
Another month of polish, Kickstarter prep, more polish, and also some news on conferences! Plus, a small peek at the final boss fight. Exciting!
The steam demo's now over, and we've started polishing up the next demo. A lot left to do, but we've solidly entered the overall polishing phase of the production. As you might know, the last 10% takes 90% of the time, or something like that anyway! We also have some more news about the Kickstarter...
Another month, another update. Some important things to talk about this time. Namely, a new free demo on Steam, the Kickstarter pre-launch page being up, and our progress on the overall game!
There'll be a public, free demo available on Steam next Tuesday, 1st of March 2022! This is the first time the game will be available on Steam, so check it out!
January's already done with, and there's a lot of stuff brewing behind the scenes. One of those things I can already announce now, and I'm very excited to do so!
Wow, it's already been another year! When I was thinking about writing this year roundup for Kandria, I started getting the sweats, because I realised just how many things changed and happened during it. Even now writing this I'm not sure how well of a job I'll be able to do to summarise it all without forgetting about important details. However, since you can go read all the monthly updates, I'll just take this as a good sign that we made a lot of progress!
I'm happy to say that Kandria was nominated for the Game Development World Championship 2021's fan favourite! It would help a lot if you voted for it here: https://thegdwc.com/pages/game.php?game_guid=f9c7ff16-dd18-4624-8744-bd607f93eab7
November has been filled with horizontal slice development! Nearly all our time was spent working on new content, which is fantastic! The world is already four times as big as the demo, and there's still plenty more to go.
An event-ful month passed by for Kandria! Lots of developments in terms of conferences and networking. This, in addition to falling ill for a few days, left little time for actual dev again, though even despite everything we still have some news to share on that front as well!
A shorter monthly update for once, as this included two weeks of holidays, in which we were both morally, legally, and bound by higher powers unbeknown to us forbidden from working on Kandria. Regardless, progress was made, and news are here to be shared, so an update was written!
Big news this month: there's a new free demo release (!!), news on the Pro Helvetia grant and on Gamescom, and a lot of stuff to look at that we worked on!
A big ole update for Kandria this month! We went to GDC, worked on combat and user testing, improved the UI and dialog, added new music and sound effects, and more!
Another month filled with a lot of different stuff! We have a lot of conferences coming up, there was a bunch to do for marketing, the game has seen a lot of visual and gameplay tweaks, and we've started doing a lot of direct playtesting. Finally, the music has also made a lot of progress and the first few tracks are now done!
There's a lot of different news to talk about this month, so strap in!
Another hectic month gone by. Getting Eternia: Pet Whisperer done and published on Steam in such a short time was no small feat. There were a few hurdles along the way as well, especially when it came to getting it ready for Steam, but overall I'm really glad we managed to get it out. Having a bona fide released title is amazing! Most of the trouble with getting it put on Steam was the manual review process they have. It turns out, real people actually check your builds before you're allowed to sell the game. And not only do they check whether it launches, they also do other tests like whether gamepad support works, whether captions are included, etc. It's a lot more extensive than I had expected, which is really nice! Unfortunately I was also confused by a couple of options, and misunderstood others, so I had to go through the review a bunch of times, which caused a bunch of stress for me and ultimately delayed the release of Eternia by two days. Welp! At least now I know for the future that I'll have to start with the Steam review process well in advance of the actual release. With Eternia everything was so back to back that there really wasn't any more time for that than we had. The days since the release haven't been much less hectic either. There were a few bugs that had to be ironed out that prevented people from playing the game. Most notably:
Just a short announcement to let you know the our other game, Eternia: Pet Whisperer now fully available for purchase on Steam! Sorry for the bumpy ride leading up to the release, but I hope you check Eternia out! If you do play it, it would be fantastic if you could write a short review on Steam! Reviews help out a lot, especially for smaller titles like this. Thanks a lot for your patience and continuous support from me and the rest of the Kandria and Eternia team, and we hope you enjoy a relaxing experience with Eternia!
What a hell of a month! We got a lot done, all of it culminating in the release of the new vertical slice demo! This demo is now live, and you can check it out for free!. This slice includes an hour or more of content for you to explore, so we hope you enjoy it!
I can't believe it's been two months already since the year started. Time moves extremely quickly these days. Anyway, we have some solid progress to show, and some important announcements to make this month, so strap in!
I hope you've all started well into the new year! We're well into production now, with the vertical slice slowly taking shape. Much of the work in January has been on concept and background work, which is now done, so we are moving forward on the implementation of the new features, assets, and writing. This entry will have a lot of pictures and videos to gander at, so be warned!
The vertical slice will include three areas the central camp, or hub location, the first underground area, and the desert ruins. We're now mostly done implementing the central camp. Doing so was a lot of work, since it requires a lot of unique assets. It still requires a good amount of polish before it can be called well done, but for the vertical slice I think we're good at the point we are now.
The camp is where all the main cast are (Fi, Jack, Catherine, and Alex), and where you'll return to after most missions. As such, it's important that it looks nice, since this is where you'll spend a lot of your time. It also has to look believable and reasonable for the cast to try and live here, so we spent a good amount of time thinking about what buildings there would be, what purpose they should fulfil, and so forth.
We also spent a good deal of time figuring out the visual look. Since Kandria is set quite far into the future, with that future also having undergone a calamity, the buildings both have to look suitably modern for a future society to have built, but at the same time ruined and destroyed, to fit the calamity event.
I also finished the character redesign for Fi. Her previous design no longer really fit with her current character, so I really wanted to get that done.
On the gameplay side the movement AI has been revised to be able to deal with far more complicated scenarios. Characters can now follow you along, move to various points on the map independently, or lead the player to a destination.
[previewyoutube=h0ZiZnS_2WQ;full][/previewyoutube]
Quests now also automatically track your time to completion, which allows us both to do some nice tracking for score and speedrun purposes, but also to implement a race quest. We have a few ideas on those, and it should serve as a nice challenge to try and traverse the various areas as quickly as possible.
[previewyoutube=THJF6OifDSo;full][/previewyoutube]
We're also thinking of setting up leaderboards or replays for this, but that's gonna have to wait until after the vertical slice.
For look and feel there's also been a bunch of changes. First, there's now a dedicated particle system for effects like explosions, sparks, and so forth. Adding such details really enhances the feel of the combat, and gives a nice, crunchy, oomph to your actions. I still have a few more ideas for additional effects to pile on top, and I'll see that I can get to those in due time.
Also on the combat side, there's now a quick-use menu so you can access your healing items and so forth easily during combat. It even has a nice slow-mo effect!
[previewyoutube=F4EUe8V_QAk;full][/previewyoutube]
Since we're not making a procedural game, we do have to have a way of gating off far areas in a way that feels at least somewhat natural. To do this I've implemented a shader effect that renders a sandstorm on top of everything. The strength of the effect can be fine-tuned, so we could also use it for certain setpieces or events.
[previewyoutube=hIwZM7A4eVk;full][/previewyoutube]
The effect looks a lot better in-game. Video compression does not take kindly to very noisy and detailed effects like this. Having the sand howl around really adds a lot to the feel of the game. In a similar vein, there's also grass and other foliage that can be placed now, which reacts to the wind and characters stepping on it. You can see that in action in this quick run-down of the camp area:
[previewyoutube=_PQ_5eaVIXw;full][/previewyoutube]
There's a bunch of other things we can't show off quite yet, especially a bunch of excellent animations by Fred. I haven't had the time to integrate all of those yet!
We've also been thinking more about how to handle the marketing side of things. I'm now doing a weekly screenshotsaturday thing on Twitter, and semi-regularly post quick progress gifs and images as well. Give me a follow if you haven't yet!
Then I took advantage of Rami Ismail's excellent consulting service and had a talk with him about what we should do to improve the first impressions for Kandria and how to handle the general strategy. He gave some really excellent advice, though I wish I had had more time to ask other questions, too! I'll probably schedule a consultancy hour with him later this year to catch up with all of that.
Anyway, I think a lot of the advice he gave us isn't necessarily specific to Kandria, so I thought it would be good to share it here, in case you're a fellow developer, or just interested in marketing in general:
Well, 2020 has certainly been a year. Given the amount of stuff that's happened, and especially the big changes in my life around Kandria, I thought it would be interesting to write up a review on the entire year. I'm not going to go month by month, but rather just give an overview on the many things that happened and how I feel about it all, so don't be surprised if I jump between things a little bit. With that said, I want to start this out by thanking everyone for their support throughout the year. It's been really nice to see people interested in the project! I really hope that we can deliver on a good game, though it is going to take a long time still to get there. I hope you can wait for a couple more years! A year ago Kandria still had its prototype name Leaf, and I had just gotten done with a redesign of the main character, The Stranger. Much of the visual style of the game had already been defined by then, though, including the shadows. Most of the UI toolkit, Alloy, was also standing at that point. I think it was also then that I decided to do public monthly updates on the project. I'm glad that I started on that pretty early, as I got a few eyes on the project pretty soon after I had posted things on Gamedev.net. There's a lot more that needs to be done in terms of outreach and marketing, though. Since the Steam launch we've been thinking a lot about how to get a bigger community together and foster active discussion surrounding the project. For now I'll keep doing the monthly summaries and weekly updates on the mailing list. I'll also try to be more active on Twitter and the Discord, but other than that we don't have a solid strategy yet. The Steam launch and everything with Pro Helvetia leading up to that was a pretty stressful time all in all, when I was already running on fumes from everything else that had been going on. I'm really glad that I decided to afford myself these two weeks of holidays just to get away from it all. I didn't succeed entirely I've been thinking about Kandria every day in at least some fashion but I have been working on other projects at least, and been spending a lot of time just playing games, too, so I think I'm at least getting my mind cleared up enough to start fresh into the year next week. On the topic of Pro Helvetia, the story there began in February, when the Swiss Game Hub had a little presentation on the organisation and its grant programme. With a little push from fellow local devs I decided to take the step and try to apply. This in turn forced a lot of changes as I decided to finally properly go public. This meant finding a real name, creating a website and trailer, as well as a publicly playable demo, and mailing list to manage the marketing. And of course, polishing everything to actually run on other systems. I also got the Steam app at that point, with the idea of using it for testing distribution, but I only really got that sorted out after the grant submission deadline. When I applied at Pro Helvetia I didn't expect to get the grant and as expected, I didn't get it either. However, when we applied for the Swiss Games showcase in November, I did think we had a pretty good shot at it. Getting the message that we were, once again, rejected just two weeks before Christmas was pretty crushing, especially after all the work and rush that went into squeezing out a new trailer, new demo, Steam page, and press kit in time for it. Worst of all though, we weren't given any reason as to why others were selected over Kandria. I've tried contacting them the day after to ask for feedback, but have not heard back from them. I've never been a confident person, so getting these rejections has been wearing down my already feeble remaining amounts of confidence, which hasn't been great for morale. While I'm not a confident person, I am however a very stubborn person, so despite everything I'm still determined to see this through to the end. Worst comes to worst I'll have to finish it on my own, but even if that came to pass I'd still do it. This is the best shot I've ever had at getting a real game made, and I'm not going to give up on it. Moving on from these more rough sides of development, there has been a lot of progress this year, though a lot of it was in the innards of the game, and not necessarily on the visible side. That pains me a bit, since the screenshots from a year ago look very similar to the ones from today. I have to keep in mind that even without this, the progress made is necessary and valuable. Anyway, on to what I did do. I reworked the SteamWorks library to work properly again. I rewrote the sound system stack almost entirely from scratch to allow for more complex effects and to work properly on all platforms. Large parts of the engine had to be rewritten to fix some big issues in how resources and rendering used to be organised. Not directly part of the game, but still important, I made custom mailing list and feedback systems. Hopefully there will be less things like that that I need to do next year, so there's more time for the actual game. On the side of visible progress, most of it has been surrounding the combat system, and starting on upping the pizzazz by introducing fancy effects and post processing. There's still a lot more to do in that department though. Especially combat needs to have a lot more flare to it explosions should kick and spray particles around, slashes need to connect visibly, getting hit has to really impact. I've looked at some other games and how they handle combat, and it really does seem like a much larger part than one might think of how the combat feels depends entirely on how many effects there are piled on. Sparks, flashes, particles, and especially crunchy sound effects make an enormous difference. Don't get me wrong though, the animations of the characters themselves are also very important. They have to be fluid and have visible weight that is being thrown around. I struggled tremendously with that when I started out with the combat in Spring and had to do the first animations myself. I'm very glad that I've recruited Fred to take care of that part, as he's done an amazing job at it. The new animations feel a lot more fun, fluid, and real. Speaking of Fred, one of the biggest changes this year was that I finally decided to put not only my time, but also my money on the line and actually hire some people to expand the team. This is something that was a long time coming. I always knew when I started out that I'd have to eventually expand the team, simply because the scale would require it to get it done in a reasonable amount of time, and because I simply don't trust my own skills well enough to get a great product out of them. That's where the confidence thing comes in again. The hiring process took an entire month of my time, mostly because there were way more applications than I ever thought there would be, and I wanted to do my due diligence and investigate everyone to a good degree. Ultimately finalising the selection was also difficult for me, and took me over a week of deliberation. I'm happy with the choices I made, but I still wish I had the funds to just hire more people. Since the game is almost entirely built on a custom stack of software, engine and all, there's a lot of rough edges and corner case bugs that hinder development and cost us a lot of time. I really wish I had the funds to hire another skilled programmer to take care of those so I can focus more on directing the story, art, and general features and level design. Still, we're already on a tight budget that isn't going to last for the entire duration of development unless we can procure additional funding somehow. We've been talking about that a fair bit, too, but there's no clear decision yet. So far the plan is still to complete a vertical slice in the coming months and then do another planning session to see how things hash out once we have a better idea of the development costs involved and how the overall plot and world will pan out. Then comes another application for the Pro Helvetia grant in September. If we get that, we'll have extended funds for another year, which should hopefully bridge the gap well enough to pull through to the end. If not well, there's other possibilities that I don't want to really discuss yet as it's all still too uncertain. As you may know, during most of the development of Kandria so far I was a Master's student at ETH. I've been a student for a long time, since my Bachelor's took me a long time to complete, largely in part to not being able to take the stress of taking on too many subjects at once. Most of the classes I either didn't care for, or outright loathed having to work on, so it was not a very merry time. Still, I managed to persevere. Now, in the Master's programme for Computer Science at ETH there's a requirement to complete two of three interdisciplinary laboratories. You have to complete these regardless of the focus you take, and so regardless of your interests or target skillset. I tried all three, and failed all three, the last two of which I failed this Summer. All three were very hard courses that required a ton of time investment. I did not expect to fail them all. Whatever the case, this, in addition with the strict term limits at ETH, meant that it was not guaranteed I'd be able to complete my Master's even if I did decide to try them again in a year. It would mean spending at least one and a half more years to complete my Master's, if I managed to pass these classes the second time. I decided that these odds were no longer worth it. University made me miserable, and I was not sure how big of a benefit the degree would be anyway. So I made the big decision to work full time on Kandria, which I have now been doing since September. Doing this also shifted the project quite a bit though, as now it is no longer a game project I just want to complete on the side, it's now something that has to prove not only possible, but also financially viable, in order to be able to keep doing this. Naturally this places a huge burden on me, and even if I don't want to think about it much, my subconscious still does anyway. This has lead to a somewhat unhealthy work/life balance, where I couldn't justify working on other side projects like I used to all this time before, as the thought of but shouldn't you be working on the game, instead? always came creeping around the corner. This has especially been a problem in November and the beginning of December, and is why I've run so badly out of steam. These two weeks of holidays have really been great to get away from that. Still, I'm going to have to figure out some better balance to make this sustainable in the long run. I can't be going on holidays every two months or so after all. At this point I don't yet know how exactly to do this, except that I know I need to weave different projects into my schedule somehow. That's something to figure out in the new year. Tim and I have already been making some good progress discussing the characters, setting, world, and overall story in December, and I'm really eager to dive back into that and get started on planning out the first section of Kandria for the vertical slice. I also have a bunch of cool ideas for new features and effects to implement. I'm looking forward to diving back into all of that next week, but I'm also cautious about all the challenges we already know about. I really don't want to rush it and end up with something we have to throw away in the end. This entry has gone on for long enough already, even if there's a lot of details and smaller developments I skipped, so I'll try to bring this to a close. As always, if you want to be kept up to date on the development, sign up for the mailing list! Tim also wanted to write a little bit about his experience working on Kandria the past two months, so here goes: [quote=tim]Its been a whirlwind two months working on Kandria! Ive already gotten heavily involved in writing marketing text, developing the lore, and making a demo quest to learn the dev tools. Im looking forward to coming back after Christmas and keeping the momentum going for the vertical slice. I expect Ill be getting more hands on with the tools in particular, to write multiple quests for a hub-like area; now Ive learned the basics and will have more time, Ill be looking to structure it better as well, using the quest system to its fullest, rather than brute-forcing it with task interactions alone. :)[/quote] With that, I think I'll call the yearly round-up done. I hope next year will be better than this one, and am currently being cautiously optimistic about that. I wish everyone out there, and especially you reading this, all the best in 2021!
[ 6078 ]
[ 2031 ]
[ 4226 ]