Tuoni Devlog #4 - New Systems & Metroidvainia Elements

Hi all! Lots of water has flown through the River of Tuoni since I last updated you! It changes now, as I have loads of new stuff to introduce. First and foremost, thank you all for your never-ending help! Many of you have already playtested the initial versions of the game, and your feedback has guided the development to more fruitful and interesting directions than I could have guessed. It helped me even turn one bug into a whole new (and super fun!) feature, but more on that later.

More and deeper systems

Games live and breathe from their systems. Tuoni's goal has always been to have meaningful and interlocking systems that feed into one another. Recently, I have spent a lot of time honing existing ones and adding new, complementary ones. Here's what's been cooking:

Crafting System

The game's demo will feature various raw materials for weapons and armor.

Here, for example, are materials for Weapons: Wood, Bone, Iron, Steel, Crystal, and Obsidian.

From the wilderness, players can find various materials. Combining 4 of them yields a weapon.

Recipes are both dynamic and unique. For example, 4 Iron chunks yields and Iron Sword. Combining 3 Iron materials with one upper-tier material (like obsidian below) produces an item of dynamic material, this time Ashen Iron, providing better stats and added Shadow Damage. (Player has filled all four slots with 3 Iron materials and 1 Obsidian material)

On top of these dynamic recipes, the game will feature hidden, unique recipes. The player does not need to explicitly learn them, as simply knowing the correct set of items is enough to craft anything. Many of these items will have more unique properties and even abilities, and will require something other than just normal materials to complete. Hints on what these recipes contain can be found in the wilderness with enough exploration.

Upgrade System

As the items we create and find in the wilderness can be quite fitting to our builds, it would be a shame to lose their relevance too fast. This led me to develop an Upgrade system: Smiths will upgrade your weapon to +1/+2/+3 if you bring them enough Trollstone to do so, boosting the item's stats. This way, you can upgrade your belowed Ashen Iron Sword and keep it useful against harder and harder enemies!

(UI is Work In Progress) Steam post image

Trollstone is a new gatherable that will be found in Troll-caves. This will bring us to...

Infinite Trollcaves

I mentioned how I turned a bug into a very fun feature. Well, this is it. One playtester noticed that troll-caves seemed to go forever and forever underground, with nothing really changing (apart from their computer almost freezing due to some unoptimized stuff, oops! This is what playtests are for). That was a clear bug, as the caves were intended to be limited to max depth of 10 layers. That got me thinking... Why not tho? Infinitely scaling troll-caves would be a rather awesome thing! Troll caves now extend basically infinitely (not sure what would be the limit, but it will be set by your hardware). The deeper you go, the more dangerous and ancient Trolls you unearth, along with their rarest treasures.

(Yosilmä Trolls lurking in a very, very deep levels...)

Rune System

The last full system I'll talk about in here is the Rune-system. Rune's can be slotted into Weapons and Armors. For example, Rune of Mahti will increase your Physical Power, making you a mightier warrior. Rune of Varjo will increase Shadow Damage and so forth. These are rather simple runes, but the game will also feature behaviour-altering runes, such as:

• Possibility to cast a certain spell upon weapon hit/being hit.

• Increased resistances or altered damage types.

• Synergies with status effects and abilities

• And possibly even new abilities if equipped.

The goal for the Rune system is to extend the build capabilities and make the items more valuable not only by stats, but also by the fact of whether they have a rune socket or not. Runes can also be re-socketed, so new and powerful gear can be modified to fit various builds more easily. And yes, Runes can also be upgraded with the Trollstone.

(Image of a player's crafted Nightshard Axe that has a Rune of Mahti socketed)

But what about the Metroidvainia Elements?

Yes. One reason I create games in the first place is to test if something a bit weirder could be pulled off. (Note, this is most likely done to some degree in other games. Drop comments if you know any, and I will be sure to check them out!) I dig how Metroidvainias (and brainias even more) do the exploration aspect. The gating thing is not just acquiring a key or killing a boss, but acquiring something seemingly not relevant, and learning how to use that in a certain way, to reach places you have not yet been to.

As I created various areas in Tuoni's Demo, this idea kinda grew on me: What if a Roguelike-RPG hybrid had such mechanics, even to some degree? Optional and exciting content hidden behind various gates that one can open if they know how to? Not gonna spoil anything, but let's say that this is how Crafting System will connect to exploration in a (hopefully!) very interesting way! I think this fits Roguelike-philosophy also very well, as you can have various runs where you explore different locations than last time. Note: This will touch on Optional content, so the game's main content will not require this.

Summing it up

Whoa, lots of new systems! The important thing to remember is that the number of systems is always secondary, and I believe the fewer you can get away with, the better. However, I believe these systems will end up feeding into each other and give players more reasons to explore the vast and magical world of Tuoni, including the never-ending Troll Caves. I will continue working on adding depth and content to these and existing systems before Demo-release, which will hopefully be soon. Thank you all for your great support, you make this game possible! And as usual: Tell your friends, Follow & Wishlist, and jump into Discord if you are not yet! If you have any questions, feedback, or ideas, let me know in the comments, and I will answer! - Old Dog