The final entrees have been modified/balanced to closer represent how they may work in the final game. Without further delay here are the 4 finalists.

Deadman’s fury by Racer Delux
Attributes:
+3 str / +1 int
Traits:
-Melee attacks deal additional 1% fire damage
-Gain additional 1% fire damage with each successful melee strike (fury stacks 15 times )
-Loses fury stacks if hit
Special:
When at maximum fury, gain 10% life steal and 20% critical damage
Affinity:
Demonic
BackStory:
Armor forged from the shattered Carapace of a slain demon General. The fiery spirit of the demon still resides in the armor, imbuing attacks with fire magic.

Gamblers Rags by Robert Schiewe
Attributes:
+3 luck / +1 agi
Traits:
+25% Crit Chance
+15% Chance to get Crit
Special:
Landing 3 crits in a row grant “hot streak” (90% crit chance) for 5 seconds.
Taking damage during hot streak will do 2x damage and end hot streak
Affinity:
Balanced
BackStory:
Each of the gamblers rags previous owners has suffered a grim fate. Perhaps if one was capable enough to survive the bouts of misfortune they could unlock it’s true potential.

Seraphium Vigilant by Yan Zhao
Attributes:
+2 Luck / +2 Strength
Traits:
+25 Max Hp
+15 Max Mp
+15 armor
Special:
Recover 3% of Max Hp each time a demon is slain.
Become silenced each time an angel is slain.
Affinity:
Angelic
BackStory:
Templar armor blessed by Alagath herself, this armor grants extra vitality upon the user as they cut through waves of demons.

Vampiric Embrace by Brian Kehrer
Attributes:
+4 Strength
Traits:
+20 Armor
Disperse void magic when hit
Attack power increased by 1 for every 5 Hp missing
Special:
While wearing this armor, the wearers health is slowly drained
Affinity:
Demonic
Backstory:
Black armor that belonged a great demon vampire. Grants incredible strength and protection, but at a cost.

VOTING CLOSES JUNE 6TH

We would like to announce the Valdis Story A.C. item creation contests. These contests will allow you guys to get involved in a small part of development. The first contest will be to create an ‘Armor’ item for the game.

Armor in Valdis Story is not some disposable item that you discard after upgrading in the next town. There is no armor that is just better without question. Each armor has it’s own unique stats and special traits that lend themselves to different character builds and play styles.

How To Enter:
Entering is easy, fill out the following stat properties and send them in an email to Admin@endlessfluff.com . Be sure to put VSAC Armor Contest in the subject title.

Armor Name:
Attributes: (A total of 4 Points Max)
Traits: (3 traits Max)
Special: (unique ability)
Affinity: (Angelic, Demonic, Balanced)
BackStory: A good story may set you apart from the rest of the crowd

List of Attributes/Traits currently in the game at the bottom of post*
Don’t be afraid to make up your own traits and specials. If we like the general idea of the traits and specials you make up we will mold and balance it to work. We will also balance the numbers and modify the story to fit if necessary for the final version. Here is an example of an armor that is already in the game.

Armor Name: Judicator Raiment
Attributes: +2 Int / +2 Agi
Traits: +10 Armor/+5 Resist/+Running attack damage
Special: Critical attacks restore 2 mana.
Affinity: Angelic

Submission deadline is May 30!
After the Deadline Carolina and I will select 3 finalist which you guys will vote on to decide the winner. The winning armor will be included in the game along with the creators credit.

Extended list of traits as requested*

Attributes
-Strength
-Intelligence
-Agility
-Luck

Special traits
(These are general traits. Doesn’t include custom special traits on the items currently in game)
Armor (reduce physical damage)
Resist (reduce all magic damage or specific element if named)
A. ruin (ignores set amount of armor stat)
S. Ruin (ignores set amount of magic resist)
Focus (duration of focus mode)
Focus Effect (a passive power only active during focus mode)
Physical damage (can be separated by range or melee)
Critical chance
Critical damage
Bleeding
Magic Damage(light/dark/ice/fire/thunder/void/poison/divine)
+Hp (either flat number or %)
+Hp Regen
+Mp (either flat number or %)
+Mp Regen
Affliction Chance
Affliction Power
Affliction Resist
Immune to… (light/dark/ice…etc)
Life Steal (return life from physical damage)
Vamp (return life from magic damage)
Mana Steal

Actions
(Some of the possible actions in game to draw inspiration from when making your own traits)

-Walking
-Running
-Jumping
-Melee attack
-Ranged Attack
-Magic Attack
-Aerial attack (physical or magic)
-Healing
-On successful hit
-On critical hit
-Getting hit
-Getting critical hit
-Use potion (hp/mp)
-Killing blow
-Stealth ( Video ) (drains mana over time, any attacks end stealth mode)
-Block
-Parry
-Skill cancel
-Dash (performed after skill cancel)
-Dodge (normally dodge is triggered by using dash maneuver through an attack)
-Combo (length/style rating)

Focus Mode
Gain focus from combat, when the focus meter is full Focus mode can be activated. During Focus Mode Atk/Mag power increases as well as mana regen. Some Items and skills on the skill trees add extra traits to Focus Mode.)

Afflictions
Each magical element has an affliction type linked to it. Afflictions have a chance to happen on spell hit (sort of like a magic parallel to critical strikes). The player will have to learn the affliction skill from the magic skill tree for their spells to have a chance at causing affliction.

Light Class Magic
Light: Silence (Can not cast magical abilities)
Ice: Freeze (Freeze in place for a duration)(Shatters if hit with physical damage)
Thunder: Static (Reduces Atk/Mag power)

Dark Class Magic
Dark: Corrupt (Reduces Armor/Resist)(Neutralizes all healing effects)
Fire: Burn(Damage over time)
Void: Stun(Disabled for a duration)

Misc Magic
Poison: Poison (Low damage over time) (Reduces move speed and jump height)
Divine: Reckoning (Physical attacks against a target marked with reckoning do additional Divine damage)

Soldier(Angel):
Soldiers are the lowest rank in the Alagathian army, but that does not make them any less dangerous. Alagath has granted them the gift of flight and they use long pole-arm weapons to jab at their enemies while maintaining their distance. The are very evasive will try to wear out their enemy one stab at a time. Higher ranking soldiers are much more skilled with their weapons, unleashing rapid attacks. Some are able to summon Alagathian cherubs to fight by their side.

Time for the Wednesday update. Quick video of Tagu in action. You can see how the final experience has evolved from the initial concept. Tagu’s Halo is now a weapon used to harass targets that try to stay out of his reach. Backgrounds for this zone are work in progress. That ends the F.C.T.L. Posts for Tagu the Angel Juggernaut, next week we will change things up with a different type of dev post.

Today I’ll talk a bit about how Tagu is designed for combat. I wanted Tagu to look and feel sort of like an impenetrable Juggernaut. Tagu has extremely high armor and magic resist which reduces the damage he takes greatly. Tagus magic resist is significantly lower then its armor in order to give players that choose to play as a spell caster a bit of an advantage for this particular Boss fight.

All of Tagus attacks and movements are very slow and become predictable after you’ve been fighting for a while. I did this to allow the player lots of time to react to what Tagu is about to do, but I made the attacks very punishing in terms of the damage they do so they feel appropriately like they should be coming from such a massive enemy. Getting hit by Tagu is usually a result of being impatient and just rushing him or trying to get that one extra combo hit in when you know you should have stopped and evaded.

While tagus armor and resist suits his character is would make the fight extremely long if left alone, so I had to design in a weakness. I designed a large formation of mana crystals on Tagus back which serve as the source of his power. Every time Tagu attacks it costs mana, which the player is able to see along side Tagus Health bar. I implemented a number of incentive’s to make the player engage tagu rather then just evade him until his mana runs out. Different attacks cost different amounts of mana, so a skilled player will goad Tagu into specific attacks in order to drain mana faster. Every strike you land on Tagu causes it to shield itself which also drains mana. Finally there is the “Boss Battle Rating” wich tracks the time it takes you to beat a boss and rates you accordingly but I will get into that in another post. When Tagu is out of mana it enters a state where it is vunerable while it recharges it’s mana. This is the time when the player needs to go all out to get their damage in. I made sure that Tagus animations for the most part obscure the crystals so that it is very apparent when he is in this vulnerable state.

There are still some animations and tweaking to do but so far I find Tagu to be a pretty fun Boss Fight. I’ll try to get a vid of his battle up when all of his animations are done. One Down side of making his attacks very slow is that they require a LOT of animations frames.

Time for the Wednesday Update. After the sprite concept I then create a quick low poly model. After the model is rigged and textured I make a quick pose to do a test paint over to get an idea of how the sprite will be in game and see if there are any things I want to change.

I removed the wings from Tagus design (he really wasn’t using those things) and added in Mana crystals on his back. These crystals will act as Tagus source of power and his weak spot during the boss encounter. I then proceed key out some animations for all of Tagus actions. Before I begin painting over all of his frames I use the rough frames in game to test and balance the actual encounter.

On the next part I’ll get into how i design the encounter and maybe show a little bit of the fight in action

In KICKSTARTER news, we’re approaching the end of our campaign. We are currently at the 30k mark. These have been exciting times for both of us! In these last days, we’d like to offer higher pledge Tier if there is enough interest for it.

For 350$  you’d get all of the rewards in 150 pack ( Name an npc , preorder, pins, key chain, shirt, artbook w/drawing and art print) but you’d also get a 5 inch tall statue of Wyatt:

Do you recognize the awesome 3d skills?  It’s from our very talented friend, the awesome Nick Kuijten- you may remember  his work from when he did a 3d sculpt of Legend of Fae here (and if you can’t get enough he’s got more stuff here).  Nick strikes again!

Anyway, the only way we can offer this as a reward is if we are sure that there will be more than just a few to produce. If not  it would cost too much! So if you’d go for the Statue Pack take the poll and tell us so. If not, then just admire Nick’s craftsmanship with me! Thank You Everyone!

I will try to alternate between ‘residents of the abyssal city’ posts and this type which I am calling ‘from concept to life’ to give a better look into how I create enemies from concept all the way to their final version in the game.

For this I will be using Tagu the juggernaut. Tagu will be the first angelic boss I will be putting into the game.

The first step is a concept sketch of what I think Tagu should look like. While making the sketch I keep in mind things to make sure he looks like he fits in with the other angels while also making him a unique and recognizable character. One of the things we wanted to emphasize with the designs of all the enemies is that they belong to unified armies, either Angelic or Demonic, and not a bunch of random enemy units. After the sketch I do a couple of fast drawings of actions/animations to get a feel for what I want the character to do. On the next post I will show how I refine the concept sketch into a sprite concept that takes into account the proportions and colors used in the final game before making the low poly 3d.

This post is for those of you on KickStarter that currently pledged to get a shirt or are interested in pledging to that level. Vote for the  shirt that gets printed!

Poll Ends Friday 4/13/12  ( Next friday)

Have a great weekend!

Edit Time! Hey Guys, the winner is #5  with 27.51%. 2nd place went to #1 with 20.96% which is pretty close. Thanks everyone who voted and I hope the shirt will keep you cool and snuggly.

WINNAAAA!

Thanks to the extra funding we will be adding combat voice over to the game for special attacks, enemies, etc. But that is a ways down the road. For now here’s a quick look at the ‘Soul of the Frozen One’ an Ice magic soul that allows you to cast Ice spells. You can also see some of the work in progress for the second zone in the game. The demons are only there as placeholder you will be fighting angels in this zone once I have more of them complete.

In other news head over to the Take Up Arms post to vote for the weapon you think should be added to the game. For a while it looked like Bow & dagger was running away with the victory but whip is making a comeback. Grand Mace needs some love.