Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times · published
Welcome to our first ever POST-LAUNCH Rune Record! What a journey it's been with everyone, we made it! We couldn't have done it without your support, what an amazing community we have. Seriously, we've been so excited and hoping y'all love the game, and you've come through! We've been reading through all of your reviews and we're so touched, so many kind and positive words for our favourite little mage :') We're not far off being 'Very Positive' on the reviews, so if you could pretty please take the time to leave your feedback on the Steam page, it would mean so much to us! In the world of indie games, it's every little thing that counts.
We are also aware of the Steam Deck troubles some of you are facing and are actively working on it to make it more playable! We're aiming to bring you updates on that as soon as possible.
Did you catch the launch stream yesterday? In case not, you can still watch the VOD here (Twitch) or here (YouTube)! Obsessed with Jennifer, Alice and Boba's costumes, can guess who they are?
And how cute is this cake that Jennifer and our Video Producer, Reece made for Alice? I'm totally not jealous that I live too far away to have joined the team for launch... sob sob
Oh, and before we hop into the Rune Record of the week, you guys totally have to show us your different solutions to the puzzles in the game! We're so keen to see what you all cook up. Pop them in the Steam Forums or over on Discord! Or just let us know your go to combos down here in the comments, one of my colleagues loves using dummies for everything.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
This week, we asked the dev to show off their favourite feature(s) they added to the game! Here's what they had to say -
My favourite feature BY FAR is Rhell's transformations! In case you haven't tried it for yourself, when Rhell is hit with one of the 15 different elements in the game, she will transform into a totally unique state. These were such a pleasure to create, both the animations and unique state systems I loved so much.
I think a main part of why I enjoyed each element is that I treated each as if it was its own unique system. Rhell as a puddle moves and plays completely different to Rhell on fire, or Rhell when she is goo, or Rhell when she is sticky. It felt like an exercise in creativity trying to think of how Rhell would interact in each of these states.
My favourite by far is the snow state! (which I made a devlog all about a year ago!)
This element was my biggest challenge, both in animation and design.
To start the animation for this state is that Rhell becomes a snowball with a little cartoony face and carrot nose. This, while being a simple model, had to have its own animation system to rotate fluidly with the player's movement. The snowball isn't actually rolling! It's just being told to rotate realistically with the velocity that the player is moving at.
Then, when creating this feature, I ran into another problem that maybe only I would ever notice, and that is that the snowball IS SECRETLY FLAT! Honestly, I don't actually think this was very necessary, but when designing the snowball form, I wanted it to fit more with Rhell's toony world… so despite being a 3D sphere, it is completely squished on the Z axis to give more of a flat 2D look like Rhell has.
Finally, we have Rhell's movement when in the snowball form! Obviously, the main standout for this mechanic is that she grows as she rolls around. This turned out to be really simple to design, as players who have tried Rhell's challenges know, size change mechanics are already a system in Rhell's spells! All I had to do was use a modified version of this system to steadily grow the snowball as the player moves around. Though, my favourite aspect of this was all the minor details, like -
What if you fall into water? Well, then the snowball should shrink.
What if you touch lava? The snowball should instantly break open!
What if you roll against a wall? The snowball should be able to roll steadily up the wall with how big it is.
Designing the snowball felt like I was thrust into making a whole new game, and I LOVED fitting it into the weird world of Rhell.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
And that's on Alice's favourite features in their game! Let us know what your favourites are - NPCs, spells, runes, anything you loved most in the game!
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
We're absolutely in love with this Rhell fanart done by themorrow_art on Instagram!
Please do go show them some love over at https://www.instagram.com/p/DVyQGJfDTaz/ <3
Catch you guys next week:)