Son of Nor - Action RPG

Links broken

 

Fixed. Sorry and thanks for the hint Beennn.

 

Only took a couple seconds to find without lol - really love the game, look forward to playing it. Voted!

 

Wow... Very Nice!

 

Phu, another week full of work done. AI is again the main topic in this week's dev diary. Still not perfect, but better than last week.

• Sarahul communicate between each other during combat.
• Sarahul have alarm mechanisms that alarm other Sarahul. See how it works and how they use it.
• You can disarm the alarm mechanisms.
• Introduction of the shielded Sarahul warrior. New and improved Sarahul model.
• Learn about the behaviour of the shielded Sarahul warrior.
• Son of Nor forums are live! Go there now and register!
• As always, please vote for us on Steam Greenlight. This is very important to us.

>> Vote for us on Greenlight. Thanks!
>> Join our forums and get into the discussion.

 

This one of the more original ideas I've seen. I would love to play this, and would gladly put down money for it as well. Keep it up!

 

Thanks David We hope it's going to be worth your money once we release it. And I hope you keep following our project.

 

And we have a new dev diary for this week!
And yes, I'm also wondering why the titles of the dev diaries are so strange ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In this week's dev diary we talk about:

• Julian seriously discovered he can change fonts for the intro to make it look more techie, since he's the tech guy...
• Things can now burn. We show a Sarahul tent that gets burned to the ground after treated with fire magic.
• The player character now has all animations, no more sliding on the ground when levitating rocks and moving.
• Jason heavily improved the fire particle effect. When rocks get enhanced with fire, it now looks so much better!
• Sarahul are still a little dumb, they kill each other
• Throwing a burning object now looks like a cool comet
• Julian shows how to disarm a Sarahul alarm trigger with a fire enhanced rock.
• Close-up rendering of a Sarahul sword.
• We show the Sarahul arch mage boss - I think for the first time.
• We completely re-designed the temples in Son of Nor. They always looked a bit too alien for the world of Son of Nor. Daniel sat down and drew new concepts for them, re-imagined. And we're very happy how this turned out. The new temples look much more integrated into the world, ancient, with carvings in the stone.
• Julian gives you an in-depth tour of the fire temple camp level we're working on. Enjoy!

>> Vote for us on Greenlight. Thanks!
>> Join our forums and get into the discussion.

 

Ouch, that must hurt…

• I try to welcome everybody in Portuguese.
• We came a long way with our fire temple map. The lighting was adjusted, fire places were placed.
• Sarahul now can follow waypoints and patrol an area.
• We implemented a new environmental obstacle: the sand curtain.
• Another obstacle, a wooden barrier that can be destroyed with only some of the player’s powers.
• Distract Sarahul with a fire enhanced rock.
• We fixed a bug where Sarahul would accidentally shoot each other
• See masses of Sarahul storming towards you. Oh oh…
• We have an animation error that looks like if Sarahul hobble.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com
• And please vote for us on Steam Greenlight! It’s very important to us!

 

Can you hear that? It’s the winds of change

• I try to welcome everybody in Euskara.
• We added ambient sounds: howling wind, dark wind, broadleaf trees, water sloshing, fireplace and torch sounds.
• There’s a new tutorial system we’re experimenting with.
• You can pick apart special basalt columns.
• The whole fire temple level was beautified further: we added trees, shrubs, little rocks and foliage.
• Pottery is now destructible, too!
• Jason improved SFX: wood barrier dissolves nicely in little pieces, wind triggers a dust cloud and flying pieces.
• Sarahul now move if they don’t have a line of sight and continue shooting if the player is close to them. Unlike last week where they just stopped shooting.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com
• And please vote for us on Steam Greenlight! It’s very important to us! http://bit.ly/SonOnSteam

>> Vote for us on Greenlight. Thanks!
>> Join our forums and get into the discussion.

 

hi nice,

nice update!
as far as the moving grass is concerned: i would recommend to use the advanced foliage shaders to get rid of this ;-)
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/133398-Advanced-foliage-shader-released
next to fixed grass bending within the terrain engine they will give you a lot more like improved lighting and touch bending.
the upcoming version 2.02 even allows you place grass like game objects anywhere in your scene be it on top of the terrain or any other geometry.

cheers,
lars

 

Hey Lars Thanks for the hint, hehe. I forwarded this to our tech guys!

 

hi chris,
it was a bit insolent to do such heavy advertising though...
if you or your tech guys have any questions do not hesitate to contact me.

and just another quick hint: having another look at the video the rather heavy ssao effect drew my attention: right in the first shoot when viewing over the canyon it does not fit well with the fog. so have you ever tried ssao with depth cutoff?
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/83543-SSAO-with-depth-cutoff-parameter

lars

 

hey lars, we're pretty happy with your foliage shader and I think we'll get it ^^. we also fixed the problem with the fog and ssao.

 

Preview time!

• We are super close to finishing a playable demo for gamescom in Cologne next week: The fire temple camp.
• We have most enemies, props, AI, effects, sounds, music in there. You begin to feel how the game will be – it’s so awesome when everything comes together
• We added dozens and dozens of new things and made tons of fixes to the level.
• Julian shows you the highlights, plays through and cuts together the best parts.
• This level will be available to all people who pledged for the “Fire Temple Camp Addon” on Kickstarter
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com
• And please vote for us on Steam Greenlight! It’s very important to us: http://bit.ly/SonOnSteam

 

hey chris,

i am glad that you like it.
just make sure that you also get the free "geometry brush afs" script. you will find the link on the first page of the foliage shader thread.

lars

 

Thanks lars for the hint! Will check it out!

 

This week we'll listen to some music and show you plenty of great screenshots of behind the scenes stuff!

• I was at demodays 2013 in Olten, Switzerland over the weekend, Julian was in Cologne at gamescom 2013 the whole week, showing off Son of Nor!
• New temple concepts get realized, Daniel concepted a temple entrance, Sini started working on it.
• New enemy type, more specifically a new type of Sarahul: Sarahul Seer. Daniel drew the concept, Adrian modeled and textured it. Ready for animation.
• Our big enemy the sand dragon also got into the next stage. Concepts were finished by Daniel and Adrian was looking forward to model this guy for a long tome now! We show new pictures of the progress.
• Daniel is about to finish yet another concept of a woman. She'll play a very important role in the game but we won't disclose what role exactly at this point in time.
• Julian teased our first piece of music last week. In this dev diary I give this first track the spotlight it deserves. Credits for the music go to our composer Mike!
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: forum.sonofnor.com
• And please vote for us on Steam Greenlight! It's very important to us!

 

We have 2 huge reasons to celebrate today!

We've been greenlit today! Son of Nor is coming to Steam! After our successful Kickstarter this is a huge dream come true! Thank you everybody for your votes. We're all smiling right now, talking about it in our perma Google Hangout.



Then, a few minutes later, we're watching the Unite 2013 keynote live, as Unity streams their event with YouTube On Air. And what logo do we spot in their keynote starting screen? Son of Nor was on of the games featured in that screen. A huge acknowledgement for us. I'm going to grab a bottle of champagne now, be back later.



And thanks again for all your support! Without all the help we've been getting during the last year it wouldn't have worked out like that at all!

 

Congratz on the greenlight! Well deserved.

 

Thanks J. Man we were so thrilled. Everything just suddenly happened.

 

Behind the scenes we keep optimizing the terraforming algorithm. We’re trying to get it multithreaded.

• We have been greenlit! Thank you all for voting! This is unbelievable!
• The new “please vote for us” banner that we wanted to sport this week is now obsolete. The banner is sad, but we’re happy!
• Tobi is back! He was one of the early team members of stillalive. Then he submerged in university duties but got back recently. He is working on optimizing the terraforming algorithm and making it multithreaded. It should bring a nice performance boost! But such a process is not without bugs. Some optimizations didn’t yield the wanted result.
• Telekinesis was greatly optimized. Picked up rocks no longer block your line of sight and get automatically placed beside you instead of in front..
• Placing objects in exact positions for puzzles is still possible by sensing what the player’s intentions are.
• Tearing out rocks from walls doesn’t feel easy. We introduced a resistance that pulls you back and you really need to tear out the rock with force.
• Daniel drew a more detailed face of the mysterious women we showed you last week.
• We show a sneak peek of the Scarab Queen enemy. We’re still implementing it.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

We're another week into Son of Nor's development. And look! It's Ricardo's SECOND dev diary! Finally you get a break of Julian or me.

• Kickstarter aftermath: We are counting every penny we get through our shop. Check how far in we are to the next stretch-goal
• Julian has been working very hard this last week, he’s now integrated the ability to put various enhancements in the same object!
• There’s also a new spell to check out, the Fire Snake. A combination between fire and essence.
• Jason is back from his sick-leave and he is now working on more effects. Lava is one of them.
• The Fire Temple is coming! Alex started working on it. It will have some serious action-puzzles and very interesting architecture. We have a sneak peek of the blue prints for you.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: forum.sonofnor.com

 

Since we can finally test a coherent level, we do so and introduce regular testing sessions.

• Chris tries welcoming you in Russian this week.
• We set up Bugzilla to better track all the bugs we encounter from now on. Basecamp was not really designed for such a thing.
• One bug is titled “Sarahul dancing around a place”.
• All our programmers are working like crazy fixing those bugs and send tons of changlogs.
• We established regular testing sessions. Every second Friday everybody quits their work and we playtest the level.
• Suuuuper early blockout footage of the fire temple interior Alex is working on.
• Jason worked on the Havoc spell. It’s the combination of fire, water, and essence magic.
• Jason also created a geyser effect for our coast level.
• Adrian is finishing up the ghost enemy that’ll roam the ghost city.
• Chris wanted to finally reveal what’s up with the mysterious woman.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: forum.sonofnor.com

 

Julian takes you through our efforts of improving the performance this week.

• Alert: a lot of coder art is shown, so artists, brace yourselves.
• The Havoc Beam: The ultimate elemental spell combination, it’s super, it’s powerful, and it’s still in the works.
• Julian talks about performance optimization. It is very important to us that the game runs as smoothly as possible, of course.
• The terraforming now runs on a different CPU core. We’re getting a lot more frames per second now.
• Our biggest level was a little crazy and unplayable at first. We used far too many and detailed colliders. We optimized them to find the sweet spot between collision detection and frame rate.
• Performance was also improved with the creation of occlusion culling data. In other words, only objects that can be seen are rendered.

 

Mucho mucho work is going on in our level blockout of the Fire Temple. Ricardo shows you areas and puzzles that are currently being created and tested. Of course, not always successfully.

• We were working on physical and digital Kickstarter rewards.
• We are participating in an Austrian game competition. Please vote for us! We put together a step by step guide here: http://bit.ly/SonSteps
• Tobi made a video of him testing the programming of a puzzle we’re doing for the Fire Temple. It didn’t quite work.
• Ricardo shows a number of puzzles within the Fire Temple level blockout as if he was there for the first time.
• Some backers haven’t yet filled out their survey. If you’re one of them, please take 5 minutes to make sure you get your rewards! Thanks
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

We celebrate our 50th dev diary this week! Let's take a look at what we achieved in the last year and what's new this week. Looking back, it was a long journey

• We're 50 and thus we're doing this for almost a year now! That's why we take the opportunity to look back at what we achieved since the first dev diary!
• It's been a long journey with many ups and equally many and violent downs. We're still here and it seems we're going to go on Thank YOU for hanging in there with us, for being interested, asking questions, critically commenting on our progress (liking our positive progress, constrictuvely calling out what you don't like). Thank YOU for a great 50 weeks. You're awesome!
• Many of us at stillalive studios work on Kickstarter rewards. Adrian modeled the Son of Nor medallion for the collector's edition backers. We produced two physical copies to check out the materials!
• The mysterious woman you know all about went into the modeling phase and progresses nicely.
• We show you another key figure in Son of Nor's story. The "Shrouded Figure". So we now have 2 characters we can't talk about. But we can show 'em.
• A lot of work is going into the user interface (UI). Ricardo started doing flow charts and mockups some time ago and he now works with Jason to implement the first iterations, while Jason experimented a lot with layout, design and buttons. Many, many buttons.
• The coder team fixed tons of bugs and improved overall performance.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

This has been a long week! Or at least it feels like it! Julian is back for this week's dev diary and he gets a little bit more personal by sharing his experience at Devmania and what he has been working on to improve the way feedback can be provided for Son of Nor.

• Bernd, Julian, Daniel and Tobi assisted at Devmania 2013. It was awesome! And they took pictures to show you guys. There was also a game jam in which the stillalive team participated in.
• Phoenix is the game we created at Devmania! It's kind of a tower defense game where you are a phoenix that has to protect its egg. We'll wrap up some things and then post the link in one of the next dev diaries. Stay tuned!
• Julian has finally implemented the magic charges mechanic to be able to store various magic abilities at the same time. The crystals that hold the charges are still to be implemented, but yay! We can now wreak more havoc without being interrupted!
• Comfort features: A small little detail Julian implemented is a mechanic that allows the game to be smoother and less bothersome.
• Feedback feedback feedback. This is super important! Being able to provide it easily is as important. The last tool we used was too complicated and had too many features we actually didn't need. Now do check the new feedback tool Julian worked on the whole weekend to make everyone's lifes easier. Ours and yours as soon as you lay your hands on our new builds!
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

Jam-packed episode about cluttering, Sarahul mages, scorpions, new player characters and work we do outside the game. Ricardo shows you around.

• 2 episodes ago we had our 50th dev diary, which was a cool round number. This time it's #52. Since we do this every week, it's been 52 weeks, meaning a full year of dev diaries! Turns out we started earlier. Whatever, it's episode 52, we're happy and take every chance to celebrate.
• Beautifying a level (i.e. adding plants and stuff) is a long process. We haven't got enough manpower in that area. Ricardo is learning the ropes of Unity to help out.
• Ricardo shows the current state of the Bible of Nor. A combined art book / lore book that's going to be available digitally and as physical copy for backers of the collector's editions.
• The map of Noshrac is another asset Ricardo shows off. The map of the world of Son of Nor that's going to be printed as poster.
• Programming of the Sarahul mage is progressing. An enemy type that doesn't fight with sword or bow but can use magic.
• Ricardo shows an early stage of the scorpion enemy. An enemy we're working on for a long time now but have had multiple problems implementing.
• Ruben worked on a new player character we call the "Weathered Man"
• The new temples we're working on are progressing. What we could only show as a rough blockout in the past dev diaries is taking shape. Alex and Daniel are working on it.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

We reached a milestone with the Son of Nor project this week and everybody and their brother committed to SVN what they've been working on.

• It's time to say hello in Gaeilge, aka Irish.
• There's a new variation of the Fire Temple Camp level. You know the one at night, now there's one at dawn. It's in line with the story for when you get OUT of the Fire Temple after having unraveled its secrets.
• A Sarahul army moves through the camp after you get out. They look like Morlocks of the movie Time Machine
• The camp has been extended. New content above the scaffold that we showed some dev diaries ago.
• New content: a new canyon sidearm that leads up to the actual Fire Temple was created.
• New machinery has been placed into the Fire Temple. Blockout assets are slowly being replaced by more polished models as work on those models progresses.
• There's a new enemy type in the Fire Temple, uuuh.
• Simultaneously, we're working on a completely NEW area that comes after the Fire Temple. It's in a veeery rough shape still.
• Good news for Fire Temple Camp backers: the build of the pre-alpha level for the add-on backers is almost done!
• Good news for Sandbox backers: An updated build is coming your way for in the Humble Store! We've updated it with an Essence Magic source, all the relevant spell combinations and we're going to place an enemy spawner for you so you can try smashing some enemies for yourself! Watch out for an email stating the updated build being ready for download And don't forget to send in feedback with our built-in F5 menu!
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

New content was added to the Fire Temple Camp, the Fire Temple and Lur's Temple this week. We also show a picture of a new playable character.

• We added terraforming and physics challenges to Cinder Valley, which btw is the official name for the level we called the "Fire Temple Camp".
• More work went into Cinder Valley to give it more verticality. We also added post-image effects to tune in on the atmosphere we'd like the level to convey.
• Ricardo shows scenes from within the Fire Temple with all the work that went into it this week. New rooms, textures, some polishing, mechanisms.
• The big empty area (early blockout) Chris showed last week (code name Lur's Temple, official name Yant’shaza) got a pretty big update. It's a Sarahul temple complex and you can see plenty of buildings now.
• Since Yant’shaza is a pretty big map, it needs to be loaded in parts. Julian worked on a transition / gate mechanism to unload parts of the level and load in new areas. WIP.
• Wind gusts push you around and make it hard to stay undetected while hiding on rooftops.
• Ruben almost finished modeling and texturing a new playable character for you to choose from. The weathered man. You can see portrait pic of him in the video.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

Play Phoenix, our Devmania 2013 game jam game. And lead dev Julian talks about localization and shows pressure plate mechanisms.

• More work on the game's menu. Before polishing it and making it pretty, the tech behind it needs to be solid. Especially translation of menu text is in the focus of this week's dev efforts.
• Menu in English and German are working. We're working on implementing the cyrillic script.
• Storing multiple elements worked already in the game, now we added a rudimentary visual representation to show the stored elements and the number of charges left. It looks ugly, don't look at it for too long.
• Physics based pressure plates were implemented that react to the weight placed on them. Example: A pressure plate reacting to 150kg of weight cannot be triggered with a 120kg rock. But if the player steps on the plate, too, bringing the weight over 150kg, the plate will work.
• We were at Devmania 2013 a month ago and participated in a 12 hour game jam (=an entire game was made from idea to implementation in only 12 hours). The resulting game was "Phoenix". A tower defense type game with no towers, but a giant burning bird. We released it for you to play and have fun. How many waves do you survive? How many creeps could you kill? Post some highscores here! http://stillalive-studios.com/projects/phoenix
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

Cushion falls with the wind push or do double jumps! Happy news for our Fire Temple Camp Alpha and Sandbox backers!

• Using wind push close to the ground when falling long distances will cushion your fall and reduce damage or even avoid death.
• Do double jumps by jumping and using wind push to push you higher in the air (unsure if this will stay in the game, we're experimenting with it)
• Experimentation with visual indicators for visibility. As sneaking can be a part of Son of Nor depending on the individual play style, one has to have an idea if one is visible to the enemy or not. The code is implemented but the art is still "coder art", so close your eyes and forgive us
• Sarahul can be really dangerous even in small groups! They're not the cannon fodder they once were.
• Some work was going on in Lur's Temple, or Yant'shaza (official name)
• The Fire Temple Camp level is ready and was submitted to the Humble Store for all the Fire Temple Camp Alpha add-on backers! Watch your inboxes as you'll get links and codes to download it soon!
• Sandbox backers! We've heavily updated the sandbox! We added new magic combinations, essence magic, wind push jumps, absorbing multiple elements and switching between them, a new loading screen to initiate multiplayer and single player games, and ENEMIES! If you want to join this ride, you can get the Sandbox for 5 bucks in our shop http://sonofnor.com/shop
• We're going to Spain! To Bilbao to be more exact. We've been nominated in 3 categories in the HóPLAY contest! Keep your fingers crossed for us, thanks!
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

Ricardo gives you an insight into how the game plays as more and more features are coming together in this week's build.

• Ricardo reveals his best German.
• Sini and Caspar worked on props that will decorate upcoming levels like plaques and columns, crates, bags, kegs, training dummies.
• Adrian spent time on different townspeople's clothes to create multiple characters in various outfits.
• Daniel drafted the 4th playable character code named sarcastic girl.
• This week, Ricardo put some "hardmud" into levels. It's got no texture yet but it works. Mud slows you down and can be dried with fire to trap enemies.
• We show off how to use different powers together in Yant'shaza. It gives another sneak peek at the variety of gameplay.
• Shoot fire on a sand floor and get glass and throw it at enemies.
• Julian's head is integrated in the game. Somehow. Very creepy...
• You can blast certain doors open using the wind power.
• Alex started work on the Wind Temple (formerly known as the sand temple).
• Music by our own Mike Skalandunas (original soundtrack) and shallow profound (for the trancy tunes)
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

You are doing a great job guys! so inspiring for newcomers as me. Keep on!

 

Thank you Wadabi! We're flattered. But we're newcomers, too. This is our first game and we spent a lot of time forming the team we have, a lot of time for organisation of our workflow and learning how things work. We just keep at it and constantly learn and move on. We make mistakes, we work to correct them. That's it, hehe.

 

Help us win the Indie of the Year Award on IndieDB, it's just one click

• IndieDB has its yearly IOTY Award (Indie of the Year Award) and you can vote for us here with just one click: http://www.indiedb.com/games/son-of-nor
• Julian is back from Bilbao and he made some new friends at the HóPLAY Contest.
• Creatures do not longer walk through each other. We implemented yet another creature collision detection and we think it's working pretty good this time.
• We still can't get rid of headbanging when enabling dynamic looking direction (Sarahul's head should follow the player dynamically). It's pretty annoying. Anybody know of a solution?
• New damage indicator for enemies. The more damaged the enemy the more it turns into sand.
• New damage indicator for players. Players also turn into sand and the vision gets clouded the fewer hitpoints are left.
• Players can pull objects out of the sand. This was not possible before. One first needed to use terraforming to completely reveal an object before picking it up with telekinesis. Now it can be pulled out. This also lays the foundation for the Noshrac Farm Simulator 2014 where you can plant and harvest carrots in a hostile environment. We think this could be a viable next project for us given the tremendous success such simulators have on the market. But instead of using tractors and trucks you would use telekinesis in a desert. This would be a truly novel gaming experience and genre mix. Fantasy farm simulation.
• Releasing a fire blast on water creates steam. The steam clouds the vision of enemies, making it possible for the player to buy some time to prepare another attack or run away.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

Oh, you released Son of Nor then I presume?

 

Well, mmm, mmhhhh, no. We're developing the Noshrac Farm Simulator as a spin-off in parallel

 

This week: FIRST BOSS FIGHT. And last days to vote for us on IndieDB as Indie of the Year.

• It's just one click! Vote for us in the Indie of the Year Award: http://www.indiedb.com/games/son-of-nor
• develop magazine, a UK game dev magazine, chose stillalive studios to be among the top 100 European game start-ups.
• Brain Hackers is a group of talented youngsters in New Mexico who experiments with the Emotiv EPOC brain computer interface and play Son of Nor with it!
• We show some footage of the first BOSS FIGHT in Son of Nor.
• Chris introduces the "Chris' Sound Cooking Show".
• Chris shows how the Scarab Bugs and Scarab Queen sounds were made.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

New visual FX, enemy AI improvements and Fire Temple beautification.

• Thanks to you, we made it into the top 100 on IndieDB! Thank you! Now you can determine if we're worthy of the 1st place Vote for us here to bring us to the top, and thanks for your help: http://www.indiedb.com/events/2013-indie-of-the-year-awards/top100#vote18033
• Adrian is puzzling together different townsfolk.
• Sini made decorated pillars for Yant'shaza with cool lizards.
• Jason added FX to our hardmud obstacle.
• An he also added an effect to the wind magic active area that indicates you can combine other types of magic with wind.
• The coder team improved enemy AI: Sarahul previously didn't see you when you switched to fire magic and had happily glowing hands of fire, which was strange. So now, even if you're hidden in the dark, when you activate fire magic, enemies will see you.
• We integrated new assets into the Fire Temple like doors installed by the Sarahul, guardian turrets that shoot moving things, force fields that hold metal pieces from the assembly line together, buttons, and the obelisk we showed months ago and looked totally different!
• Alex has started totally re-working the first level, The Edge. It's far away still but there has been some slight progress.
• We're experimenting with uSequencer for cutscenes.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

Live footage of our virtual Christmas party.

• Thank you everybody for a tremendous year. Several of us met live in Innsbruck, Austria, for the first time in real life. We planned our Kickstarter campaign and didn't have a clue how it would go. We played some Minecraft and League of Legends, had a great time. We restructured our team to cope with the workload and it did work out. We had a successful Kickstarter campaign! We were greenlit on Steam. We reached several milestones and are well under way with the game. This is more than we could ever hope in the beginning of 2013! This was all made possible by you and for that we're sending out our sincere thanks to all of you: our fans, backers, followers of our project, constructive critics who give us new impulses and ideas! We will have new and exciting things to show again in 2014! Stay tuned!
• We did some progress this week and we did complete a sprint but we had our hands full celebrating our virtual Christmas party.
• We're giving away 10 Fire Temple Camp demos! Watch our video.
• Next dev diary will be released after our holiday break, Sunday January 12th! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

Son of Nor goes eye-tracking. Row your boats with wind magic. And another boss fight!

• Happy New Year! And welcome to 2014 A great year for game development!
• We were approached by SteelSeries, a leading maker of gaming gear, and Tobii, a company specialized in assistive devices and eye-tracking. We agreed to a partnership to support their upcoming consumer eye-tracking device in Son of Nor. We'll report back as soon as we have the dev kits and know more about how this device works.
• According to The Indie Mine, Son of Nor is one of the "Most Anticipated Games Of 2014": http://theindiemine.com/most-anticipated-games-of-2014/
• We found a way to cushion a player's fall with wind magic without making the player able to fly.
• We're experimenting with yet another method of aiming with telekinesis objects. It's hard to get this right and make it feel right / natural.
• We implemented a mechanic to move vehicles or boats using wind push. It's a sail mechanic that can also be used for later puzzles to drive mechanisms or machines.
• We implemented another boss fight. Enemy behaviour for the Sarahul Arch Mage was programmed. Animations don't always follow the Sarahul's actions well yet.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

This week's dev diary shows quite some updates, but most importantly we introduced a new mechanic that can basically turn you into Darth Vader.

• Harness the elemental power of coffee with this very special and ancient relic. You can do spell combos with it too!
• Chris finally found a way to go over his problems with Mavericks+Unity and he's back on track with the sounds! this week, Fire Temple Sounds.
• Jason has been working on revamping some effects, the fire looks more fiery and hot, also there's a new enhancing objects with fire effect, and the tar pit is taking more shape.
• The Wind Temple is coming together with new assets being implemented. Daniel and Sini have been working hard on making this place look awesome. All temples are similar, but with each new asset, they look a bit different in a way. After all, they possess different elements inside.
• Adrian has been non-stop working on one of the playable characters, The Weathered Man. He has a big beard which means he is super cool.
• This week we introduce to you a new game mechanic, we don't want to spoil much, watch the video, you'll maybe see the dark side.
• Finally just for the funs, we show a small blooper of Ricardo messing around with the wind sailing mechanics, again, reference galore.
• Get into the discussion and join our forum: http://forum.sonofnor.com

 

Hey,

Game looks great! I had a small idea that would be cool for the game;

I saw you are making a tar pit, but perhaps if fire is on sand long enough it should turn to glass like real life. Even if the glass is temporary effect and it returns to sand after limited time, characters who walk on it should receive damage. Its a realistic+magic effect, just a idea. Great work!

 

Hey Chris,

I know you're not getting much if any replies on here but keep posting! Any traffic is good traffic. Tons of eyes see your thread every time you post.

Also your game looks great, well done to the team and I can't wait to try your game!

 

@TVE: This mechanic is already implemented See Dev Diary #57: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghJKiDuBAAs

@tynew: Yeah, I'm wondering why people don't seem interested to drop some comments and ideas. I see other games where there are awesome discussions going on. It's not that we're unapproachable or a super huge marketing company that is evil and should be avoided. We're just a bunch of guys that started 2 years ago What are we doing wrong? So, thanks for your kind words, it's good to hear them.

 

We made lots of little gameplay adjustments this week. So much in fact that Julian doesn't even know what week it is.

• We were working on an unobtrusive tutorial system to show first time players how controls work.
• Roast enemies over a camp fire.
• Julian addresses concerns that grabbing an enemy with telekinesis might be too powerful. He explains.
• Sarahul scout AI was improved. A hit now also slows you down a bit. AI is very complicated to work on. Creatures tend to do unexpected things and debugging is not that easy.
• The feeling of lifting objects with telekinesis was overhauled. Light items should feel light and heavy items should feel heavier. It takes a lot of try and error to get the feeling about right.
• We have a button that teleports objects.
• As a side note: Julian just declared this dev diary #63 (because it's cool in binary %111111). But don't worry, it's #64, you're in the right place.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss YOUR opinion in our daily team meetings!

 

We implemented a great sound system this week that safes resources and makes sounds audible that were previously silent.

• This week, we show the following progress: Sand Dragonling enemy, in-game menu, invisibility effect, sound level of detail system and new sounds for the Fire Temple.
• We also started an ask my anything on ask.fm with our producer Alex. We'd like to see if our Kickstarter backers are interested in the team http://ask.fm/AlexanderGrenus
• We're interested in your opinion regarding the invisibility effect. What do you think of it? Does it work? Do you have complementary ideas?
• What do you think of the new sounds? Any feedback you would like to pass on to me?
• Get into the discussion and leave comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss the different opinions in our daily team meetings!

 

Programmers have been kicking it this week, creating more internal tools.

• This week: new team member, our own cutscene editor, more concept art turned into 3D, some peeks at The Edge level, dialog system and NPCs talking, music in the Fire Temple.
• We're especially interested in what you think of the Fire Temple music, as this is the most important and concrete addition this week.
• Get into the discussion and leave your comments here, on YouTube, or join our forum at http://forum.sonofnor.com so we can discuss YOUR opinion in our daily team meetings!