Hey there reader, we've been hard at work the past week further refining and improving the game. We're excited to show some of the things we've created such as: new visual effects, a character selection screen, a small tutorial and much more!

Brand new Tutorial Screen

We want to show you all the tutorial screen one of our artists made first. This will display while the game loads and should help first time players understand how the game works more easily. 

If you didn't notice yet in the tutorial we have decided to focus less on player vs player combat and more on using the environment to your advantage. One of the ways we plan on doing this is by giving players the ability to knock down certain trees to block specific pathways to hinder your enemies. To achieve this the artists have been hard at work creating assets to bring this idea to life. We have proper sound effects, visual effects and models for the broken trees, ready to be used.

VFX

While we're on the topic of making things more clear, here's another small thing we have implemented to make interactable items stand out more. They have outlines now, courtesy of our talented VFX and Technical Artist Trygve!

Let's pick it up a little, here's 2 visual effects we made for the most important features that didn't have them yet.

Some other minor stuff we have added was new sound effects and a shader that allows the player to see themselves through rocks, trees and other obstacles.

Characters

We also created a brand new character! Kind of... Well, we have a blockout for a new character you will be able to play as during the  match. Meet Steen!

Our Lead Environment Artist Cem also modelled the character selection screen so you can now choose if you want to play as Grot or Steen, but more about this later. The model is based on a concept drawn by Iris, our Lead Character Artist. 

Pre-game lobby

We also finished the core systems for our pre-game lobby! Players can now join a team, characters are automatically assigned based on their position within the team lineup. Each assigned character is shown with a simple idle animation, presented against a beautiful background designed by our talented artists, adding polish and atmosphere to the lobby.

The lobby also now tracks player readiness in real-time, clearly displaying which players are ready to start the match, helping ensure a smooth transition once everyone is set.

With team selection, character previews, readiness tracking, and the background all in place, our next step is to implement the tutorial sequence, guiding players through the basics of gameplay. 

We hope you enjoyed reading about this week's updates and that you will stay tuned for the next one!

With love and fire, the Dev-men.