Welcome Back, Tacticians!
How do you like the new site? As we gear up for our big announcement with a featured spot in the upcoming ID@Xbox show, we thought it was high time for a new look.
It’s been a couple of months since we shared a game update via the monthly stream. We hope to return to streaming soon but will be sharing updates via web posts like this for the foreseeable future rather than have you wait.
For those of you who want to skip ahead, these are the topics that will be discussed here today.
—New Looks—
Game Logo
As you probably noticed, Lost Eidolons has a new logo! Our last logo had emphasized the turn-based aspect of the game (that red square), but we thought it might be better to accentuate the fantasy genre by weaving in the dragon head design. Along with the logo, we are updating the title screen to better fit the mood of the game.
Starting today, Lost Eidolons will be using the new logo to represent the game.
Cutscenes
Cutscenes are hugely important for a story-driven game and we received a lot of feedback on exactly this during our first beta. So we spent some time last year rethinking how and when to present cutscenes for maximum emotional impact.
From the start of this year, we hit the ground running executing on the new strategy for cutscene production and we now have a new opening cutscene, new illustration cutscenes (watch some of them HERE) as well as full 3D cinematics to give specific moments that extra oomph for a more immersive experience.
Here’s a look at the illustration cutscenes:
And of course, 3D cutscenes:
Quite a few of the 3D cutscenes are in the final stage of polish such as lighting adjustments, while many more are in production as we wrap up scripting and storyboarding.
Just look at the difference between the before and after!
UI
We are still scrutinizing UI elements from flow to design, and have made quite a headway. Since it needs to be intuitive on the keyboard and gamepad, we are really taking our time and poring over everything.
Shall we take a look at some of the screens done in February?
Here’s a peek at the Equipment screen:
And the Rapport screen:
And the Dialogue History screen. We’re pretty proud of this one:
–New Sounds–
Voice-Over
You probably noticed from our social channels (TWT, FB, IG) that we have amazing voice talents dubbing Lost Eidolons. We’re in the thick of it right now and everyone at ODS is dying for the recording to wrap so we can put them in-game and test!
The videos represent only a snippet of the long list of exceptional talents we have voicing the game, and we’ll be sharing the entire cast list soon.
SFX
But that doesn’t mean our Sound team is twiddling their thumb doing nothing. With all the cutscenes coming together, there is a lot of SFX to add, tweak, and optimize.
We’ve also worked on adaptive music (beat and tune of the background music changes in response to the game) for combat sequences and are in the middle of testing it for good measure. It should help get your heart pumping in those go-for-broke attack moments.
–New Features–
Tutorial
Now let’s talk about the meat of it all–the gameplay. One of the biggest challenges our beta testers pointed out to us was that the first 8 chapters were a little slow to build up and doesn’t hook you into the story right away. So we created a whole new tutorial that takes you right into the thick of things from the start.
You get a glimpse of the story’s main conflict and learn the very basics of the game at the same time!
Here, Eden faces down an army, only 2 mins after you first enter the game:
Skills
New combat skills are in the works, and there’s even a skill specifically for Eden that plays a role in his storyline.
But the skills that robbed us of our sleep in February are not character skills–they’re accessory item skills.
There are three accessories that, when equipped, allow for special combat skills while lighting up the weapon selected.
Battlefields
As we unfold more of the story we explore the vast land of Artemesia that Emperor Ludivictus lay waste to. It is made up of smaller kingdoms that present a unique challenge in the form of the battlefield. These last couple of months, we’ve honed in on an imposing castle that appears in a few of the later chapters. Scenarios from this map introduce new game mechanics like camouflage and all the snow flurries.
Look at Andrea trying to camouflage herself to sneak past castle guards!
Well, that’s it for this update! Hopefully that gives you a good look at the progress we’ve made so far. And rest assured–we will be announcing our next beta very soon. Stay tuned and keep an eye out on our social channels (TWT, FB, IG), join our Discord channel, and sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t already.
Until next time!
