Hello fellow smithers!
Welcome to our first blog entry. Every two weeks we will make one of these to update you all on what is happening in our little indie studio. You can expect news regarding the studio as well as our upcoming VR title BlackForge. So let’s get into what we’ve been up to in the past months!
Recently a lot of time has been put into the business side of game production. This means that we have been working a lot on pitch material, budget planning, meetings with publishers and other potential partners. Development on the game itself has slowed down a bit but we have been able to push through some new features as well as prototyping new solutions for the game.
The game now has a working save system! So you will be able to continue your adventure where you last left off.
We are also working on a system that can evaluate the weapon you have created when you hand it over to an adventurer. This system will be able to identify what type of weapon you have created as well as how well it will perform in combat. This system is still in an early stage of development but works surprisingly well already.
When playtesting the game we noticed that players were a bit confused on exactly what they were supposed to do and how. We tried to combat this with a streamlined tutorial with text messages. I don’t know about you, but reading text in VR can be a pain. So we reworked that whole thing. Now you will be able to get support from the ghosts of your ancestors as they show you exactly how tasks are done. We feel this is a much better and intuitive way to teach players about the game. Of course more testing, polish and fine tuning is required to be sure.
So what’s next? A new demo of course!
We will soon be able to move more manpower into development. The plan is to create a more polished version of the game that is more in line with our vision on what the game will become in the end. We expect this to take two to three months to complete and will be available free for Oculus, Steam and Sidequest.
That’s it for now!
– Erik at Mana Brigade
November 10 – 2022