MINI UPDATE
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LGF
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The festival was weak and nothing to be praised nevertheless the game was showcased at Soho's 01 albeit not in a playable form.
Progress
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Engine:
At the moment the engine is still being made more flexible so that we can do more things with it. Functional things like loading maps instead of the individual objects, multiple joypads and combo logic have still yet to be incorporated.
Gameplay:
Having been hooked by Eternal Sonata, the balance between 'platformer' and 'RPG' for KEZ is likely to tilt towards the latter; the game is essentially becoming an RPG with platforming exploration, as it turns out, the gorgeous Valkyrie Profile II, incorporates such gameplay.
Attacking is still real-time, but much unlike any other RPG, a fusion between 'Tekken' and 'Tales of', characters attack in real time with either physical, weapon, magical or ougi attacks in combos. Special commands (e.g. <- <- A , <- -> A etc) are used to do specific special variations of the attacks; the more comboing you do the more your burst gauge increases resulting in the opportunity to perform an Ougi (an suped-up onslaught). Commands vary in difficulty and different attacks are unlocked as your character/weapon levels up.
Taking a leaf from the magnificent looking Smash Bros and admittedly Marvel VS Capcom series, there are now assist characters planned who will join your 8 member party to help you in battle, much like other RPGs the party is determined by both the storyline and location which you are in and naturally, if you prefer, you can control them rather than have them attack automatically.
Visuals:
Should look alot better than the screenshots at the moment once we've got the special FX designed and some 3D sub-bosses roaming.
There's a feeling to change the sprites to make them more psuedo-realistic but the ends don't seem to justify the means on that front. Once the particle functions are coded up, there'll be dust sprayed when you jump and land, bloom in the forest and - touch wood - day and night cycles based on your system clock.
The animé style is here to stay, although as the story has been altered the game world is a little darker than was initially intended.
Cutscenes are done in real-time using sprites, 3D environments and portraits and hopefully voice acting aswell for some scenes.
Linearity:
Taking on board the comments about linearity, everything is being looked at from a multiple-paths angle and we're using Ocarina of Time as the reference for that. If you want to go to particular areas before the game 'wants' it'll be no problem, appropriate gating will be incorporated through the use of items and story. events.
Exploration is another crucial aspect, and I emphasized this to Gil Galvanti who is working on the engine. The 2.5D will be used to it full extent, in the demonstration video you can see that Kez goes into and out of the background on the Z-axis. Areas will need to be searched in such a way, for items, secret goodies and just to generally progress. In this way, the 2.5D environments will be played in 3D.
Audio:
At the moment we're thinking of having a healthy amount of voice acting in the game, particularly for the battling; the cost and just how we'll go about it is undecided but it's likely that we'll use British actors.
The game soundtrack is heavily underway, with around 50 pieces of music already completed.
Completion:
Doesn't look like it's happening very soon, demo not even on the cards for a long while yet. Probably some time in 2008, depends on how smoothly everything gets done. The next video will showcase an actually functional HUD, true multiplayer, assist characters and the battling.
Kez: Legacy of the Flame
