DevLog #2

Hi everyone!

In this DevLog we’ll talk about the game design of Ringlorn Saga. Please keep in mind that this post will share some information about the inner workings of this game, so if you want to go in blind, consider reading this post after playing the game.

Initial Game Design

When we started the project, we already had several constants in place: Action RPG, open world, and real-time bump combat. The number of character attributes was also decidedly limited to just three: Health, Strength, and Defence.

This leads to a simple, generic premise: you explore an open world and fight enemies by bumping into them. Your strength determines the power of your attacks, your defence determines the damage reduction of enemy attacks.

Here comes the first challenge: how to make an interesting game out of this?

Combat System

First, we’ve added a switch between the Attack/Defence mode. In Attack mode, you attack at full strength but your defence is halved, and in Defence mode, your strength is halved, but your defence is full.

The next step was to prevent the player from attacking mindlessly. We’ve added a power bar that gets depleted with each attack and recharges over time, which enforced more tactical play: find a moment to land a strong attack or overwhelm the enemy with quick attacks. The recharging speed depends on the percentage of the player’s Health: the lower it is, the faster your power will recharge.

Damage types were added later and the combat system was adjusted toward finding ways to kill enemies faster and exploiting this knowledge. For example, bashing attacks will make Skeletons go down faster, but they will be ineffective against Slimes.

Directional damage was added to reward players for sneaking up on enemies, and retaliation/blocking was added to punish them for mindless frontal attacks.

Additional nuances and details were added along the way to spice up the combat system, but these details are learned best while playing.

Magic System

The ability to use magic was planned since the beginning but only came into the picture later, once the combat system solidified. The magic system was designed to expand players’ options while keeping melee combat the primary focus.

We’ve decided to limit the player’s spellbook to a handful of AoE and support spells, such as stunning all enemies on the screen for a short time or healing the player character’s wounds faster. Even with these limitations, it added more options to get out of a tough situation alive.

The magic bar also depletes after casting a spell and recharges over time, depending on the last spell cast by the player — certain spells can block spellcasting for up to 4 minutes. This is quite a lot, so to prevent magic from feeling “too little, too rare” the magic bar gets a small bump whenever the player kills an enemy.

In the next DevLog, we’ll continue talking about game design. If there’s anything specific you want to see in the next entry, please let us know.