Ash of Gods Update #22

The latest Kickstarter update for AurumDust’s upcoming RPG Ash of Gods serves as a gateway to the game’s website where the real update awaits. This Developer Diary #5 brings us up to speed with Ash of Gods’ development now that the game’s almost here (it should be launching in March 2018). The update tells us all about the game’s 73 minute long soundtrack, the newly finished character models and animations, the recent changes to the combat system, and much more.

A few snippets:

That’s it, you have most likely the penultimate chance to tell us that we will fail, we are vile plagiarists and other similar things that Russian and Irish love to say. I hope I’ll write a post mortem with a smart look and a fat belly about how cool we all are and how we made it. And, of course, there is a chance that I will be lyrical poem “We done screwed up.” I’ll sum up some things here and I’ll tell what we are working now, what we are doing again for God knows what time and when will it all be over. I was recently told – “wait a couple more months, nothing further depends on you.” Hooray, if it is so!

[…]

Something we have definitely finished

Oh, these infamous second 80% of the project. Polishing and lapping added a lot of work that we did not plan to do (and who really plans ot? For sure you can get it on the first try) – 6 cutscenes added for almost 2 minutes of total duration, We drew small clips for non-plot deaths for the minor characters and main characters, made 3 new combat characters, added some text and rewrote a lot.

And we have completely, hallelujah, finished all the fighting characters. This long, spread of 15 months job has finally come to an end. In total there are 53 combat units in the game and here is most of them: Ash of Gods Battle characters sheetWe somewhat stuggled to finish this part of the work – our animation contractor (Mirball) showed itself, to put it mildly, not in the best way, and the animation and phase team worked with us directly as a result of it. Misha Filippov, our supervisor of rotoscoping, thank you very much – without you we would not have finished this work.

By the way, if you want to make a cool cartoon or want a lot of hand-drawn animation – write to us, I have really enjoyed working with it and we are happy to animate something for you. Cheap and with a high quality

The entire rotoscoping team, I’m sorry that I do not list all of you by name – thank you very much, guys. Your confidience, diligence and hard work have allowed you to make a livelike and cool animation.

In total, the project has 31,751 frames of combat animation, carefully and lovingly drawn and carefully painted in hand.

But the game was hardcore …

So, hold on, put away fires and pitchforks! I did not say yet that we have screwed up everything, we have just gave it one over with a file. Okay, seriously – we completely, for 100%, have reworked all the skills of all the fighting classes in game.

The game has 21 combat class. When some reporters use one year old screenshots in their articles and write that is just the same as in the game that we do not mention, I’m just cringing. If anything, the combat system is ours is from the beginning to the end. Nothing similar except for the turn-based system.

Moreover, the mechanics were slightly redesigned – there are no more skills that use up a turn without dealing damage. Instead, these skills have cooldown and they can be used without ending a turn. We have also finalized the number of skills per class and their order.

In addition to the new combat UI, the game now has a “story mode” – if you are not interested in fighting, you can choose it. Get stronger characters and more resources, and in the battles the AI will fight for you. At least, it will save you from the deaths associated with injuries in combat.

[…]

Instead of a conclusion

In January, we began to collect all the finished art for Lo Feng’s storyline in the game’s engine. I’m sorry to admit it, but from February we will work on the weekends as well.

Yes, as a manager, I’ve screwed up with overtime – boldly throw stones at me if you were not in my place.

Otherwise, we will not have time to test and polish everything. In March the game will be released in Russian, Ukrainian, English, German (thanks to Marcel Weyers), Italian (thanks to Giorgio Longo and the team) and Chinese. We are also translating to Polish (thanks to Michal Mroz) and to Brazilian Portuguese, but we will finish most likely in May.

Perhaps, we will also translate the game into Spanish and French, but everything is still vague. Chinese is actually almost ready – I just can’t get around to uploading it to Lokalise.

Regarding multiplayer — we have a working PVP mode. You can log in, chose the team comb and rush into battle. Now we are working on the lobby, the recieving of experience points, chests (upgrades are tied to boosters), ratings. I really want to be in time for the release. And yes, we will not have lootboxes.