Archive for 'Blog'

We’ve made some minor updates to the Save Menu based on game testing that we hope will improve the player experience. The two changes are i) adding the party member HP and MP bars to the save menu and ii) adding the actual time of the save file to the display.

The first change was prompted when, after creating multiple save files at the near the same location in the game, we couldn’t easily determine the state of the party (e.g. ...

As we continue to play test, we also continue to revise the flow of our menus. One notable change is the movement of sub menus from lower level menus (e.g. Skills) into the main menu.

For example, clicking on “Skills” used to open a new menu which had the “Skills Sub Menu” in the upper left hand corner with the three primary options (“Use”, “Learn”, and “Equip”) but we found that it took up too much valuable menu space in those ...

It’s taken us a while to get around to it, but we’ve now implemented “rows” into the battle system for Last Dream II. As part of that, we needed to create a menu to allow the player to change the row of each party member. The screenshot shows the current draft of the menu with the Hunter (Atalanta) and the Princess (Ismene).

A bit of background on the row-based targeting system that we’re carrying forward without much modification from Last Dream ...

The character prologues feature a variety of instrumental music to complement each setting. Our hope is that players will find the music immersive and enjoyable, while not being distracting.

While game testing, we noticed that the fire crackle sound effect we overlaid on the scene below was distracting, as if a character was drumming with sticks. To correct this, we repeatedly played the scene’s music while simultaneously testing various fire crackle sounds.

The original sound effect we selected before mapping the scene ...

Another major character who you’ll meet during your Last Dream II journey is Starkad. Hailing from the Viking-inspired continent of Thule / nation of Vanheim, Starkad is a bloodthirsty mercenary who will do anything for another gold coin. He proudly bears numerous scars along with a lost eye. If asked about them, he will gladly recount with relish the deaths of every unlucky warrior who dealt those injuries.

Starkad first appears in one of the character prologues; however, we don’t want ...

One of the things we would have liked to have done in our previous games is to have soldier sprites that were unique to each nation. Luckily, with the help of our graphic artist (www.twitter.com/UncleBladey), we’re able to achieve that goal  for Last Dream II and have so far crafted unique soldiers for the two mighty nations of Delos and Vanheim. In this post, we’re showing the walking sprite for the Vanheim Soldier who will appear ...

Another area of recent development has been the addition of music and sound effects to the Game Options menu, Character Selection menu, and Prologue Selection menu. Sadly, these menus had previously lacked any sound, so this addition was required.

New selection and activation sounds were found to replace the existing sounds which we believe are a significant improvement. 

At this point, music and sound effects are now carried through from the beginning of the game into the prologues. Some of the in-game ...

We don’t want to ruin the story, so we’ll gloss over how or why Princess Ismene joins your party. But regardless of the reasons, Ismene joins your party for the second half of the Hunter’s prologue. We’ve created the idle, injured, unconscious, and normal attack animations for Ismene but still need to do some work on her skill animations.

In this particular battle, Atalanta and Ismene are fighting a Black Hawk in the Northern Dryades Forest. 

Along with all of the work on the battle animations for the Hunter’s prologue, we’ve also been pushing on creating the cutscenes that develop the Hunter’s story. In this scene, the Hunter has finally found the Boar that she is seeking as the prize food for the feast to celebrate Princess Ismene’s arrival.

This cutscene represents mid-point of the Southern Dryades Forest and after the completion of the scene, the player can return to Greenwater to proceed further in the prologue.

One ...

In this video, we’re showing the animation for the Hunter’s first skill – Scan. The scan skill has the ability to reveal all the information regarding an enemy including all of their attributes, remains, stealable items, spoils, and elemental weaknesses. The scan skill can be upgraded to have a skill time that is quite fast (10% of a normal skill) so that its use doesn’t significantly detract from dealing damage. But Scan not only reveals enemy weaknesses, but it also ...