Dev Log #1

We wanted to kick this whole thing off officially, as Lords of Nether's store page has now been live for a little over a month! And what a turnout it has been! We have been watching the wishlists flow in and we are absolutely humbled by the response we have received from you all! Thank you so much!

So, to start off, we would like to introduce the game more intricately and describe the pillars of it's design, to give you a better idea of what Lords of Nether is all about! So let's dive in, shall we?

Introduction

Lords of Nether first began many many years ago as the side hobby project of one young teenager, drawing little line-ups of characters for a game he dreamed he would get to one day make. Now, all these years later, that dream is fast becoming a reality, having become a project worked on by a small but incredible and dedicated team! We have all poured our love, dreams and passion into Lords of Nether and we look forward to the day when it is in your hands, as we envision it to be!

But just what is Lords of Nether? Well, as is likely obvious to many, the initial inspiration of the game began with Dungeon Keeper, those many years ago. A fascination with being a dark power, moldering in the dark, dank depths of the earth and amassing armies of evil creatures to soak the earth with the blood of goodly heroes. In the years since, many, but not -so- many games have come and gone who have shared the same inspiration, each attempting to do something different to one another. So from that initial seed that was Dungeon Keeper, sprouted a niche genre that we in the community have come to call Dungeon-Managers. This genre however, is a bit poorly defined, given the various entries that have come and gone.

To us, Lords of Nether is a hybrid of the traditional God-Game genre, which Dungeon-Managers are a subset of, as well as Real-Time Strategy. We have long since longed to have a greater degree of control over what goes on in games like this, be it greater level of customization while building your underground domain, or more intricate control of your units, to allow for cunning strategies and the ability to react to events during combat as they unfold.

So, to put it succinctly, Lords of Nether is a hybrid God-Game/RTS that leans more heavily on direct, rather than indirect control. It puts you into the role of a powerful dark entity, an ancient and nearly forgotten evil known as a Netherlord, one of four such beings, who seeks to return to the world and wrest control of it from the forces of Light. You will get to excavate and build intricate dungeons, more suited to your tastes and needs than ever before, as well as lead armies of varied creatures from folklore, myth and popular fantasy culture. From Goblins and Hags, to the very Living Dead and Demons brought forth from the Burning Hells themselves!

And just how do we aim to achieve this? Well, it is time to talk about...

Design Pillars

When it comes to the design of Lords of Nether, be it in Art or Mechanics, we have a set of core values and goals that we adhere to, that we classify as our Design Pillars. Whenever we are making a decision, we try to make sure that it in some way enriches or helps towards these aspirations without harming the rest of the principles of our design philosophy. These pillars are:

• Classic Inspirations

• Solid Artistic Vision

• Strong Atmosphere

• Immersion

• The Villain Power-fantasy

• Rich Story-telling

• Simulation & Strategy Balance

• High Replayability

• High Player Agency and Creativity

• Difficult but fair

• Easy to pick up, hard to master

Lords of Nether draws inspirations from many classic sources, with the now legendary Dungeon Keeper series at their helm, as previously mentioned. Counted among these inspirations are things such as Diablo 2, Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Dungeons & Dragons, to name a few. This gives us many different sources to draw from and measure our work to, giving us measures of the intensity, mood, art quality and much more to strive toward.

Some of Lords of Nether's primary inspirations

The atmosphere defined early on for Lords of Nether is one grim, gothic and dark, however not one devoid of colour or contrast. We do not want a world that feels bleak, but one that is vibrant despite the general dank and oppressive atmosphere of a world on the edge of twilight. For this purpose we try to maintain a solid and unwavering artistic direction. While our initial intention was to present a grittier, grimier and more, for the lack of better words, blandly realistic world, this was largely a result of inexperience. This direction was used largely on placeholder assets that were meant to be replaced, which is much of what you have seen on our Steam Page, with much improved versions based on our current direction now starting to stream in!

A dark, yet fantastical world awaits, Lord!

We have worked to define the current and final artistic direction through the game as we found the prior one to not gel well with the RTS/Management format and to undercut the potential a classic fantasy setting like ours has. Where we find ourselves now is in a place of dark, fantastical, or stylized realism, where features, shapes and colors are emphasized to strengthen the visual language but never verge on cartoony or too over the top. Highly detailed models with realistic textures and materials are one way we want to ensure quality and maintain the realism of our work. Every element of our art, from concept through sculpt, texture, animation and all the way to music and sound are all made with the intention of evoking the nigh palpable and rich atmosphere we want in LoN.

Some examples of our new artistic direction

We place enormous value on our goal to create a highly immersive experience that will make the player truly feel like the Dark Lord, conquering and crushing your way through Antioch. We want Lords of Nether's campaign to have a rich story with many characters, twists and turns, set within a lore-rich world who's histories you can glean and explore as you go. While you are definitively the true villain of the story, the tapestry around you is painted in hues of moral grey, where the lines are sometimes blurred for other characters. Despots, arrogant or delusional individuals and those with a mentality of ends justifying the means, all shall come to fear you and suffer your wrath as you carve a bloody swath through Antioch.

In the more technical aspect of things, one of our primary goals is to allow you, the Player, a greater degree of control and expression in the game world, as mentioned. That has manifested in two primary ways – the ability to command your minions directly, allowing for complex strategy and more immediate reactions to events, as well as the capability to build in a much more personalized way, allowing you to design the spaces of your dungeon in a way that better fits your space availability, it's needs or the whims of your inner dungeon architect.

Commanding your units directly and building your dungeon intricately are key aspects of LoN!

It is key to our mechanical design philosophy that we try as much as possible to never force the player into completing challenges in the exact way we suggest or envision they could be completed. What we want to do is give you tools, a challenge and a suggestion on how to perform it, if even that after a time, and to let you figure out your way to impose your will and ensure your victory. From overall playstyles that may focus on different aspects of gameplay such as crushing enemies with your army, wearing them down with traps or spells etc., to the more minute aspects of how exactly you accomplish these goals, to even the decisions of what you build or what minions you draw into your service and what interactions they have with each other, all is meant to be a playground filled with toys for you to overcome whatever we put in front of you. We hope that this philosophy results in not only a much more memorable and individual experience, but also in high degrees of replayability, which we also want to foster by adding different game modes outside of the campaign, such as sandbox or survival challenges, multiplayer etc.

To sum things up, we are generally aiming to deliver Lords of Nether as a game that grabs and immerses you in a deep, rich and storied world, offers you difficulty and challenge and lets you run free with the tools at your disposal. We want a game that, as the old adage says, is easy to pick up but hard to master, as there will be many intricacies that may at first be missed and those more careful or discerning will likely conceive of strategies and methods that we have not even anticipated, but are gleefully excited to witness when the time comes!

It is our sincere hope and our constant aim to deliver exactly that! And we will continue to work tirelessly until that goal is delivered and beyond! We will continue updating you all as to the development of Lords of Nether, as well as revealing more about the internal workings and driving factors of the game!

Thank you for joining us on this first ever Steam Dev Log, we look forward to many more!

Until next time, Netherlord!