Why Prototyping is Important
And also why we stopped writing design docs
Not a big post or reveal but that’s kind of the point of this dev diary, with rare exceptions. So let me you show you how we dealt with one of the design issues this last week. Check out this video. Can you tell me what happened here? (You may want to turn on the […]
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Destiny's Influence on Witchfire
What elements of Witchfire are inspired by Destiny?
Many times when I am asked a design question by a programmer, my reply is: “See how Destiny does it.” This reached the point when this appeared on our team chat… People following the game have also noticed a lot of Destiny in Witchfire. Luckily, no one seems to have an issue with it… Comment […]
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Witchfire at Pixel Heaven 2019
Showing the gameplay at Warsaw's own retro/indie games festival
Last week we showed two minutes of Witchfire gameplay at Pixel Heaven 2019. We don’t have any plans to have a presence at any shows this year but we’ve made an exception for Pixel Heaven. Sure, it’s convenient, taking place here in Warsaw, but the real reason is that it’s truly a special thing. It’s […]
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Redesigning Weapons
From WW1 to dark fantasy
Missed the last entry due to national holidays but we’re back with another dear diary. A great thing happened that last week, though. Making Witchfire is super hard. It’s a project, uhm, quite big for a team this small. Painkiller was done, on average, by sixteen people: we started with eleven, but ended up with […]
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Snapshot: April 2019
Here’s what on our screens today: As always, my screen is email and playtests, but here’s something I needed to look at today: the concept art for the musketeer. The reason I had to check it out was to… …compare it to the in-game model. Any character in any video game has three forms: the […]
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Is Witchfire the Next Painkiller?
No. Saved you a click.
Some people who work on Witchfire were the creative force behind Painkiller. I guess this is one of the reasons we’re seeing this a lot of hope – be it in YouTube or Reddit comments – that our new project is basically Painkiller 2. So to make matters clear, let me use this week’s entry […]
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It'll be Done when It's Done
...but also, a short WIP video!
I was to give one, just one advice to an indie developer, it’d be: Never commit to a date. I’ve made the mistake of committing to a date many times. “Anyone can err, but only the fool persists in his fault”, said Cicero. Facing the facts, I am, apparently, not the smartest man on the […]
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Making a Gun Come to Life
Showcasing what it takes for the simple act of firing a gun feel good.
This week’s post is inspired by this fantastic tweet: We chose to show what it takes to make the simple act of firing a gun feel good. It’s more modest than the above tweet that shows what is basically a full combat encounter, but we hope it’s still interesting for people who want to know […]
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Current focus: Combat Vertical Slice
Also, what is the Vertical Slice?
In game development, the “Vertical Slice” is basically a high quality fragment of the game, a short one but long enough to represent the game. Imagine one level of Candy Crash or one bullet-time fight in Max Payne. It’s a simple idea. The cake is the game, and the slice of the cake is, well, […]
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