Hello everyone, As promised last week, here's a roadmap for the next few months – please don’t take this as set in stone, this is game development and stuff often changes including content and timings! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44971889/32fbc5b8e668b88ae52ab9635bc7eeb670f602cc.png[/img] So let’s go a bit more in depth into what’s coming up in the rest of 2024… [u][b][h3]Weapons update[/h3][/b][/u] Right now there is quite a limited weapon pool, and the weapons themselves don’t encourage many different playstyles. This will change with a sizeable expansion of the weapon pool, I mean we’re talking [b]triple[/b] the amount of weapons in-game. This includes a rework of how the existing weapons work too, so don’t get too comfortable. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44971889/ee2bcafa2215c918a09f0c3394d2fc6b627eaad0.png[/img] [b][i]If only I could find a way to un-blur this image to show you the roster... mwahaha[/i][/b] Different weapons will encourage different playstyles like rushing enemies, crowd control or getting timings right. This should put more decision-making and strategy in your hands, especially when combined with what our later updates will bring. If you want a hint for one of the new weapons, the devs like to call it the 'dagociraptor'... [u][b]Speed boost[/b][/u] There’ll also be some adjustments to the speed boost – we’re adding a gauge to show its progress, more visual feedback on what is actually triggering the boost, it will be more difficult to trigger (and easier to lose) and the visual effects will be calmed a lot. So it should end up being more rewarding to trigger and have more urgency to it once it’s triggered, and won’t assault your eyes half as much :D [u][b][h3]Medallion, ‘Rescue’ feature and Bestiary update[/h3][/b][/u] Let’s talk about medallions first. These are what should allow you to create your ‘build’ – a key part of pretty much every roguelite. Right now the whole system is too complicated/obscure, so people don’t see where to create synergies, and many medallions are too niche so their triggers/synergies are rarely seen even if you know what you’re doing. This has two effects – people don’t realise that there’s this whole other layer to the game so they think the game is too simple, which is rarely a good thing, and they also don’t know how to reach higher levels of damage that you can get from good builds and so they get stuck at lower difficulties. No surprise then that this will have a pretty extensive rework – we’re keeping the medallion system but it will be chopped and changed quite a bit to make it much more intuitive and to allow you to have more agency when crafting your builds. Of course we won’t give you all the tools to make the exact build you want each run, you’ve gotta have some RNG and trade-offs in there somewhere to keep it interesting!! So yeah, the name of the game here is to add more variety and choice to your runs, more replayability and to improve comprehension of the game for new players. [u][b]Rescue[/b][/u] The ‘Rescue’ feature will test your platforming skills while adding some variety to your run and giving you the opportunity to win big rewards... We won’t say more than this but it’s going to be fun 😉 [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44971889/2d372e6af513c0931917c259fec8ff0c4365bab8.png[/img] [b][i]Here's a small clue, beautifully hand-drawn by our game director :P[/i][/b] [u][b]Bestiary[/b][/u] The Bestiary will do exactly what it says on the tin – you’ll be able to see all the different enemies’ information, but there’ll also be challenges to complete for each enemy type to win rewards, and maybe some other things too! [u][b][h3]Mother of all updates[/h3][/b][/u] The big one. The bee’s knees. The best thing since sliced bread. The dog’s bollo- This hefty chunk of content will bring you biomes (yes, multiple), bosses (yes, still not a typo, multiple), a new story act, complete dialogue refresh, new enemies, an overhaul of ALL the art design, a polish of the skill tree system and some other bits and bobs. As this is quite far away, we can’t really say much more about it except that it’s going to rock your socks off. [u][b][h3]Update timings[/h3][/b][/u] You’ve probably noticed in the roadmap that the updates have moved to every month, not every 2-3 weeks. First off, this is a rough roadmap so the timings might change anyway. Secondly, it is likely that we’ll be dropping minor updates in between the big ones to add bits of polish and other things, so we’ll still be present. Thirdly, considering the size of each update, the timings are actually still quite quick ^^’ Lastly, the big November update needs a lot of developer time and testing considering all of its content, and on top of that it’s being developed in parallel with the other updates by our small team. So yeah, our producer has a constant headache called ‘Rogue Prince of Persia production planning’. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44971889/67e0f4268852a7ed6baebb54a054543748b65c76.gif[/img] [b][i]OK, just one weapon tease[/i][/b] Voila. That’s what’s in store for the rest of the year and we’ll probably find something to add in December too. Lots of chopping, changing and reworking, but this is Early Access and this is exactly why we wanted to do it – to hear from you about what works, what doesn’t and then changing, removing or adding things to make the game better. We can’t wait to show you what we’re cooking up and we’re very confident that everything which is coming in the rest of 2024 will put the game in a really solid position to build on with you after the end-of-year break! Thanks for playing, Matt & the EE team [url=https://discord.gg/princeofpersia ]Discord[/url] [url=https://twitter.com/Studio_Evil ]Twitter[/url] [url=https://www.tiktok.com/@evil.empire0]Tiktok[/url] [url=https://www.instagram.com/evilempire_studio/ ]Instagram[/url] [url=https://www.facebook.com/evilempirestudio/ ]Facebook[/url] [url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxxaHW3xw8sByMXnrcAMEPg]Youtube[/url]