Hello everyone,
We hope you are all doing well in this difficult time!
While a lot of people are stuck in quarantine and are financially struggling, most of us are luckily able to continue our work on the game.
A few months have passed since the last dev blog and quite a few things have been announced on our Discord and social media since, so we will try to summarize everything as much as we can!
A new playable creature: The Griffin
Due to a super generous pledge, we can confirm a new playable species for the game: The Griffin.
The backer asked for a corvid-jaguar hybrid and we settled for a default piebald pattern for the wings and head to add more detail to the character. Of course you will be able to customize it just like the dragon characters! While griffins are a rather unusual addition to the game, they will still get their own little place in the lore!
Foliage and unique carnivorous plants
Carnivorous plant in the third picture: Drosdaria
We added new foliage to our game, to make it look less dark and to be able to add more biomes, which can still blend into each other without looking too different or off. Some aspects still need tweaking, but we are quite happy with the look so far.
While the new trees don’t have any specific functions, the new carnivorous plants will be intractable and natural traps for smaller creatures. In some cases they will even be a source for materials, if you carefully approach them. Of course not all of them will be in such obvious spots!
Character Customization
One of the first things that will be added after the games recode is the character customization.
A few backer accessories have already been finished right after the Indiegogo campaign ended and we recently added our own cosmetic set for the European dragon. While the set looks like some kind of armor, it won’t add any extra points to your characters stats.
Together with the bone set, we did some major work on our character shader to support markings, different patterns and color customization! While we heard your concerns, that the full spectrum of colors might ruin the immersion of players, we don’t like putting a limit on it, because some players want to recreate their own original characters in-game and they don’t always have natural or dark colors.
Eastern Dragon
The addition of the Eastern dragon is still far away, but some work on the model has already been done. While we try to keep the classic characteristics of these dragons, some parts have been and will be altered a little bit more to make it a believable, living creature and not something that has been taken out of a traditional painting.
On top of that another one of our backers decided to back the “A New Look” perk and choose to add a furry version of the Eastern Dragon.
The character has been designed after the backers wishes, however some small parts of the concept might still change until we actually start working on it.
Rework, Rework, Rework…
While we continue to make new additions to the game, we also keep reviewing the things we have already made and try to improve them.
Our main focus is currently directed towards the animations of the European Dragon and the wing position (yes, we have seen your comments) since we are working on the movement part of the recode.
Below is an example of what we are aiming for. While the old wing position blocked the view on targets in front of the character, this version allows players to move the camera around and still have a clear sight on what they are about to attack. Since full folding isn’t doable due to clipping issues, this way of folding them is a good compromise and also more natural looking.
A smaller change has been made to the concept of the Kirin.
We improved its anatomy and also designed a possible regional version, since this character will be ones of the most common creatures. It also got a tail, but we still want to add the short variation as customization option.
Draconia on Steam
Our Steam store page is now live and you can wishlist the game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295900/Draconia/
Screenshots, videos and requirements are going to change as the game is being worked on.
Once it releases, you will get a notification that it is available for purchase.
If you backed the game on Indiegogo you don’t need to do anything. Just keep an eye on your emails!
Pre-release backers will get access to the build as soon as the movement and customization system have been worked on.
That is it for now. We hope we can show off the new movement in the next dev blog and maybe even portions of the customization system.
Thank you for reading!
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Come and chat with us: https://discord.gg/Bhx4F8M