Hey folks! Long ago we promised you devlogs, and we've finally made good! We went a bit extra on it and turned them all into videos. Tonally, we tried to split the difference and make something accessible that game developers might also find interesting. We did five of them, each around 3 minutes long, and hopefully they give you a nice window into the creative processes behind Demonschool.
In this video we share our approach to battles without leveling or experience points, and our aim to make them quick to play once you have a handle on the systems.
In this one we discuss our approach to keeping a lively world while hopefully not overwhelming players. We really thought people would be playing the game more piecemeal over time, so we designed the game around that. It turns out a lot of folks are just playing straight through! Interesting...
Here, we talk about how we didn't aim for a proper school simulator, but instead tried to add small amounts of scholastic structure and feeling throughout the game. People at tradeshows really wanted more school, so we added the quizzes in response to that!
This video not only covers the soundtrack, expertly crafted by Kurt Feldman, but also how we tried to use music and pacing to support the actions and vibes that were happening on screen, with some light adaptive stuff in battles and conversations.
This one discusses in brief how we came upon our art style, how we tried to keep it consistent, and how it fits into the world narratively. If you want to see more about the art, don't forget to check out our art book DLC! The two books show a lot of preproduction work, early art that looks totally different, visual design documents, and a lot more behind the scenes stuff. It's almost a behind the scenes for the whole game, visually. The video here is a much much lighter version of that.
That's it! Thanks for checking them out, thanks for playing Demonschool, and please remember to leave a review if you enjoyed the game. Those positive reviews help us a lot!