Mr Zed - [Research] into Future RPG!

Hello friends!

I hope you are having a wonderful day

Today I come with some news.

First

The free demo for Yaradiel’s crown is up on Steam!https://store.steampowered.com/app/5096740/Yaradiels_crown/It took almost a month to get all the stuff approved, and man, I almost lost my hair with all the anxiety.

So, if you can, go and wishlist the game, as with all the internet stuff nowadays, it helps the algorithm recommend the game more!

With that out of the way, today I come with another poll, but before asking questions, I want to explain some stuff.

Those that follow us for some time may have heard of “Deviance”, a mythical game that has been in development and has been cancelled at the same time!

The true story is that I started that project three years ago after some issues with Unity and I planned to move to Unreal engine 5. Quick story short, I was backstabbed and betrayed by not one, but two programmers. I hated every moment of working in unreal 5, and after unity got  his shit together again, I decided to cancel the unreal project and start it again in unity.

However, due to time constraints, that game was never gonna arrive to patreon in time, and I did not feel it was okay to ask people for money without anything to give in return. So I just cancelled Deviance for the time being and started with Yaradiel’s crown, which was going to be a much smaller (in scope) project than Deviance. Yet here we are two years later, and man, the project got big!

Around a year and ago I started working on prototypes and what I've been calling R&D (research and development). I made a prototype, then keep doing small bits from time to time, and for some time now, I been wanting to do a test build. This was going to be originally what I wanted a small group of you to test. But life decided I wouldn’t get enough time to work on this and now it isn’t ready. 

Sorry for the long story, here comes the important part. I started playing more, and testing more, and I’m feeling like the game has become too soulslike. And that’s something good because I love soulslikes but I think I went too far for an adult game, and I feel like the gameplay became not only more complex, but also requiring more attention, and is also impossible to play one handed. 

With the results of the previous poll, I got a bit concerned, and started thinking of ways I could make it better. At the end of the day I want Deviance to be the best (possible) adult RPG. I foresee that I will struggle with this for a few more weeks before taking a final decision. 

An alternative surged, which was to change the core combat to a target-based combat. Think of World of warcraft, or Rift, but of course, single player. I don't know if it is due to the melancholy of Wow forever affecting me, but I have been having a lot of fun with the more “chill” gameplay, and I figured this could be a good element for Deviance. While the mmo-style could also step more into 3 player party (with npcs) and playing in specific roles for dungeons (tank, dps, support) which is not possible in the soulslike style. (granted in the soulslike style you will be able to travel with one companion)

The main tradeoff I see would be the loss of “immersion” because of all the UI elements in the screen, and using “abilities” for everything. The main win I see would be a more chill experience and that it can be played one-handed. In this case most of the complexity would come from you making your build and customizing your stuff, rather than from the moment-to-moment gameplay.

So here is the question: What (standing) gameplay would you prefer to play?

Animation based gameplay (Aka Soulslike), with all the complexity and enemies being very punishing when hitting or using abilities on you.

Animation based gameplay, but with a bit less complexity and enemies being not so punishing (so you can fumble or face-tank more hits)

Animation based gameplay, but super simplified, think something like Skyrim/Fable 1 with 3-4 actions/abilities to use at most, and less builds complexity.

Target based gameplay (Aka mmo-style), with complexity, and enemies being punishing when you don’t interrupt or avoid abilities

Target based gameplay, but with an evade roll (mixing stuff, yay, sounds fun in theory) and enemies slightly more aggressive

Target based gameplay, but not so punishing

These are the options.

Just vote on whatever you would prefer. You can vote one, two, or even all five options if you think you will enjoy all of them. 

The sex gameplay will be more similar to Solas city heroes for the Soulslike version, and to Yaradiel’s crown in the Mmo-style version.

And no, as much as I would like, just making test prototypes for all options is not possible.

Sorry for the long post.

I’m not making this game just for me, but for all of us, so I’m really interested in what you guys and gals think and desire, and while I always have the last word (because I’m the one putting 2000 hours on it), knowing what the people want really helps me steer the ship in the right direction.

So please take a minute and vote, this is super important, hopefully, Deviance will be the best game of its type!

This month’s update will arrive on Friday 16th. It is taking me forever because I’m having to input SO MUCH DIALOGUE, and that takes me a lot of time. The saddest part is that most of this dialogue won’t be immediately accessible to you guys, but it is required to be in the game so when I add loyalty quests things don’t just fall apart.

Have a great day!

Cheers!