Overdue Update: Development Summary, Why We're Not Scaling Down, Where Things Stand
over 3 years ago – Wed, Sep 02, 2020 at 02:53:59 AM

Hey everyone,

Lou here; you might know me as Witchmarsh's story guy. I'm also one half of the core development team along with Joe. I thought I'd check in to let you in on how things are going, and why it's taking so long.

It's been a good while since the last update, but if you've been following along on Discord, you'll know we're still working hard, trying to finish this mammoth of a game.

In this post, I'll try to highlight some of the issues which have caused Witchmarsh to be stuck in development, but I hope it also explains why we're determined not to give up. I also thought it might be a good idea to jump back to the project’s beginnings, and give everyone a brief overview of how we got started creating Witchmarsh.

Getting Started (2013-2014)

Back in 2013 myself and Joe decided to make a videogame together. We’d graduated from University a few years before and even though we had no experience handling a videogame project of this size, we were sure we could handle it. We’d worked on some rather large projects in the areas of design and 3D animation, but in the end, games like Wizardry, Baldur’s Gate, Dark Souls, and other RPGs in development like Pillars of Eternity were what inspired us.

We both decided to quit our day jobs, stop taking on freelance work, and give game development a try. We were both avid readers of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, and it occurred to us that very few games at the time were set in the 1920s.

We set about, first in 3D, then later, 2D, creating a prototype for Witchmarsh, a spooky, supernatural mystery game set in the late 1920s. It seemed to be coming together exceptionally fast. By early 2014 we had a playable prototype, a small fan following, a publisher waiting in the wings, and a finished trailer; all that remained was to launch the game on Kickstarter and use the funds to build the rest of the content.

What could be easier?

Early Development (2014-2015):

Soon after the Kickstarter closed, we started to run into problems. In an attempt to keep things transparent, we posted about these at the time in some detail. The biggest issues, if you remember, were with the ranged combat and AI - both of which had to be completely remade.

Specifically, the game's firearms and throwing weapons didn't allow for shooting through targets. This made the ranged combat feel exceptionally limited in that you could only shoot at the closest visible target. On top of this, the simple enemy AI couldn't handle much more than running towards the nearest player and attacking/shooting. If we wanted to create complex levels with height, it would have to learn to move over those obstacles, all while factoring in which player to attack and how to reach them.  

These are all things we *should* have thought about before launching the Kickstarter, but we genuinely believed that the gameplay we had at the time could be expanded on and improved without any major setbacks. This was a huge error on our part.

"Had we chosen to scale everything down, I have no doubt that Witchmarsh would be finished and released by now; but it wouldn't be the game that we set out to make."

Early on, we also decided to remake each and every one of the game's 12 playable characters. You might have noticed that the sprites are now far more expressive, not to mention quite a bit larger.

This decision alone cost us several more months of development time. Each of the characters not only has a huge range of animations, but they also require heaps of code to pick which animations play and when - and that's not even touching on anything required for actual gameplay. In our prototype, the characters were not only smaller but had a very limited range of actions.

As we started to add more actions and weapon types, the work ballooned. Would we have made Witchmarsh with less characters had we planned for this? It's hard to say. For my money, game's large roster of characters is one of the things that sets this project apart from others - with good reason, no doubt. It turns out there's a reason most games tend to have between 2 and 4 unique playable characters!

On the bright side, the combat has become far more readable since we imported the new characters, and the game feels far more polished as a result.

Thoughts on scaling down (2015):

Around the time that we were rebuilding the ranged combat and AI (and going out of our minds with stress as a result), we realised that we'd taken on more than we'd bargained for. We also started to notice, a little too late, that games of Witchmarsh's scope are usually made by teams of at least 10-15 experienced, full-time developers.

Fixing the above-mentioned issues had already put us months behind schedule, and to speed things up we started looking at scaling down the project in order to get it finished in a reasonable time. We looked at dropping things like the branching dialogue system (which had yet to be created), a few of the playable characters, attribute tests, stats, abilities and spells - possibly rolling them into a much lighter system of 'talent trees' and character upgrades. This would have resulted in a game which felt more like an Action-RPG or Metroidvania in spirit.

Had we chosen to scale everything down, I have no doubt that Witchmarsh would be finished and released by now; but it wouldn't be the game that we set out to make.

After all, we didn't start out to make another Action RPG, as wonderful as those games are. From day one, titles like Wizardry VI-VIII, Baldur's Gate, and then later in development, Pillars of Eternity, and the Shadowrun: Returns series, have been our creative lifeblood.

Ultimately, we made the decision to go all in; we wouldn't scale down or rework the major systems, even if it would result in a far more realistic prospect for our undersized team.

"All-in-all, what we’re creating feels like a solid base, not rushed or covered in development bandaids. Something on which we could possibly create future Witchmarsh titles and adventures."

Looking back, I'm still not 100% sure that we made the right decision by refusing to scale down. But we’re making the game we wanted to make, and that has to count for something.

(On a final note, I completely understand when people are frustrated at the game being delayed all these years. I also think it's important to remember that we have literally nothing to gain by dragging it out unnecessarily. Speaking for myself alone, the delays have resulted in stress, burnout, lost sleep, problems with mental health and plenty more besides! We genuinely want the game to be finished as much as you do.)

Where things stand (2018-2020):

In 2018 I decided that I wasn't contributing enough in my role as writer. We were having some problems getting content into the game, as all of Joe's time was taken up coding. Although my work on the key parts of the story was nearing completion, Joe helped me to learn Game Maker so that I could play a bigger role in the game’s development.

Since then I’ve been creating the game’s events, cutscenes, environments, story structure and other content. With help from Rob and Matt, we’ve managed to flesh the game out immensely in recent months.

You can see a small demo of the new cutscene system above - all made with no code! It means that I can make the cutscenes and content myself, rather than simply writing them and handing them to a programmer.

In terms of getting the story implemented, the biggest breakthrough came last year, with our revamped cutscene system (see above) - which can take strings of commands and turn them into fully functioning cutscenes - with little-to-no code required.

This, along with Rob's dialogue system, has allowed me to implement large chunks of the story - even if parts are in a rough, blocked out form; the core of the game is starting to coalesce. It feels like things are starting to come together in many respects.

All-in-all, what we’re creating feels like a solid base, not rushed or covered in development bandaids. Something on which we could possibly create future Witchmarsh titles and adventures.

Of course, it’s still deeply frustrating that it’s taken so long to get to this stage.

We could have chosen to compromise on the scope, but we didn’t. Now all that remains is to get it done. And although we've yet to set a new release date, I can feel it drawing closer with the implementation of each new cutscene, chapter of the story, or combat encounter.

Until then, we still have a lot of work to do, and I’d like to once again thank you for your patience. It’s a monumental task and we genuinely couldn’t have gotten this far without this Kickstarter campaign, or the support of our community.

Also, please feel free to join the Witchmarsh Discord server! We always appreciate any support, questions or comments, so pop along!

Sincerely,

Luciano/Lou.

September Update
over 4 years ago – Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 12:01:54 AM

Hey everyone,

Lou here - you may remember me as the Witchmarsh story guy.

Well, summer’s over in the UK, and we’re preparing to settle in for a wintery Witchmarsh progress drive. There’s still lots to be done, and while we're happy with the progress that we've made, we still don’t feel comfortable setting a release date just yet.  As stated before, we're only a small team, and we only want to do so when we’re 100% sure we can deliver the goods on time. 

This means getting the core systems checked off,  backer testing resumed, and something else we’ve got in store (it’s a surprise; and a pleasant one, for a change). However, with each major system we complete, the closer we get.  As always, thanks for sticking with us as we try to get this ludicrously ambitious project out the door.

For now, here’s the progress report:

Cutscenes

Lately,  Joe’s focus (besides improving the AI) has been on creating new frameworks which allow me to create more of the game’s content myself.  As the majority of the game’s writing was completed a while ago, it makes sense that I broaden my role on the team in order to speed things up.

We’ve already had some success with this approach last year. If you remember, Rob created a branching dialogue script which allowed me to create complicated dialogue encounters (the kind found in Baldur’s Gate,  Pillars of Eternity,  etc).  I’ve since made around 80 unique NPC encounters for the city,  and over 300 dialogue events; including flavour text and conversational branches with characters.

I’m pleased to say that Joe’s now created much the same template, only for cutscenes.

We’ve had a cutscene system in place for a while now, but it required the coders to create them using a mixture of code and Game Maker events. With this simplified script I can now get to work crafting story events in full - not just the dialogue bits. We hope this will significantly speed up development.

Here’s what it creates in the engine. This example's pretty bare-bones, but I can't wait to get to work with real assets and story scenes.

I look forward to reporting on my progress later in the year - in the meantime,  be sure to keep an eye on the #updates channel on the discord server if you’d like to see smaller,  more frequent posts.

Faction system

One thing we’re excited about is the idea of dynamically shifting factions based on player consequences.  This is the kind of feature that we feel sets cRPGs apart from more action-based titles,  and we look forward to expanding it further.

Here’s the system being tested on two well-known enemies of the natural world: Skeletons and Eldritch Sea Urchins.

In the Pipeline

So what’s next? While I get to grips with making cutscenes, we'll start polishing up the character creation/selection menus to showcase in an upcoming video.

Since day one we’ve said that putting together your own personal team of private detectives should be as enjoyable as any other part of the game. That’s why we’ve been putting lots of effort into these systems - as an example, you may have already heard Francisco’s stunning theme music, or seen Joe’s animated waiting room.

Another recent edition is how the interviewing NPC now shuffles the pages as you change menu tabs (above).

 It’s a small change, but things that this really bring these menus to life. In the next update we hope to talk you through the creation of a party. We just need to do a little more work on the UI and functionality, and it’ll be good to go.

Full disclosure: It is already creating investigators as intended, it’s really just the biography, ability and talent pages which are giving us some issues. Stay tuned!

Screenshot Saturday roundup

If you haven't been following us on social media you may have missed  a few smaller updates. First up, we compared the UI as it is now - to how it was back in 2013 at the birth of the project.

We also posted up some combat scenes from the recent soundtrack reveal video. Like this one of the Techy taking on some creepy plants with a sawn-off shotgun.

There's also some environmental shots here:

Once again, thanks for sticking with us. We'll be checking in again with the character creation video and another roundup of Screenshots and videos!

- Lou

Progress Check, New Gameplay Footage
about 5 years ago – Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 01:19:57 AM

Hey everyone,

Recently we suggested the idea of doing a general progress check: where we take stock of the game’s features, assets, and discuss what’s still left to do. So here we are - with two new videos, to boot! :)

This update should hopefully clue you in on how far we’ve come, how the game plays, and some of the challenges that have resulted in delays. Last week we also launched a discord server, aimed at providing greater access to the devs and the community (we also use it for co-working).

Come join us! discord.gg/csWumEn  (Guidelines apply.)

Scenario Sneak Peek

As you might have heard, Matt (Leth) will be taking a greater role on the project moving forward. As a result of this, he’s not been completely up to date with some of our more recent progress.

In this series we’ll be guiding him through a work-in-progress portion of the game - discussing what’s left to do, planned and existing features, and so on. Enjoy!

* Note: As we mention in the video (and the post below) there's still a lot to do, and this area is still a work in progress. :)

Test Room - Movement, AI, Drop-through blocks

In our second video, Joe and Matt discuss the recent movement and AI progress. In particular, we’ve been working on adding a greater variety of ground blocks, including drop-through tiles and ramps, to spice up level design.

If you’re interested in seeing the problems posed by coding a 2D RPG with live followers - take a look. :)

Hope you like our developer-room aesthetic!

Features Check (Spoiler free)

As promised, here’s a breakdown of progress so far - system by system.

Playable Characters - Witchmarsh features a large number of playable investigators (12 planned). Each investigator has a large number of animations to keep the game interesting and readable.

Progress: 8 characters are currently fully-functional, although some of them are missing a few low-priority animations. We’re happy to leave the number at eight for now, as we prioritise more urgent content and systems.

Environments - As we’re keeping this spoiler-free, we won’t be listing any environments that haven’t already been revealed.

Progress: The tilesets for the city, marsh, crypt, eldritch tunnels, coastal areas and a few unique locations are in-game and functional. These tiles will be used to make up a good chunk of the levels in the final game, however, we still want to add unique set-pieces and rooms where possible. Adding interior locations to the town is also something we still have to do.

Our new dynamic background system for outdoor areas is currently only featured in the beach area (seen in the video above). We still need to update the other outdoor areas in the game to feature this.

Abilities/Magic - The ability system used for magic is functional as well as universal; this means that in theory you can take any spell used by an enemy, and give it to a player (and vice versa). Right now there are 6 ability types:

• Direct damage spells: Fireball, etc.
• Status effect spells: Acid Arrow, Curse, etc.
• Healing spells.
• Physical abilities: Smashes/jabs.
• Some special abilities designed for specific enemies.
• Gadgets: Items which replicate a spell (used by the Technician).

Spells can also backfire or ‘fizzle’ striking nearby team members. It’s a great system, but we haven’t reached the variety or quirkiness we’d like. Abilities also don’t scale with your attributes yet (more on this in the attributes section).

Exploration/Secrets: Travelling around from map to map is done. The world travel map isn’t, but it uses code we already have in place (allowing events/UI choices to take to you specific levels based on choices.) The artwork for the world travel map is complete, minus a few setpieces and locations (ruins, caves, villages, etc).

Progress: Searching for hidden items is functional, and is based on attribute/skill checks. It’s a great way to add replayability to old levels, as well as rewarding players who bring along an ‘explorer’ type character. Loot containers (including hidden ones) are in, with fixed/randomised items. The team can also rest, recovering HP, MP and Stamina - albeit with placeholder visuals.

Enemies: As mentioned earlier, the universal system that governs characters also applies to enemies. Enemies and NPCs drop whatever’s in their backpacks when they’re defeated - we’re aiming to add some new features soon which build on this (pickpocket, disarm weapon, etc). One of the great things about this feature is that a skeleton overloaded with loot will be more of a threat in combat - while also giving you a greater reward.

Progress: With enemies, any work that we perform on the AI and characters will carry over (as they’re all characters). Specific to enemies, the biggest task ahead is one of content; creating the animations, balancing, and coding some unique AI/events based on specific enemies and bosses.

Skills, Attributes, RPG-stuff: Here we arrive at the bread and butter. 

Progress: The framework is in place for your characters’ attributes and other stats to influence gameplay. Characters can perform attribute/skill tests in cutscenes, resulting in hidden branches and choices becoming unlocked. In combat, attributes influence some weapons/damage effects. All we need to do is roll out the system to the cover the remaining attributes/items/spells and we’re set.

Status effects, buffs, poisons, stuns/snares, debuffs, etc: These are all functionally complete, but there’s still more to do. For one thing, they don’t show up on the UI yet, which brings us to …

User Interface: In 2016 we completely rebuilt and redesigned the UI. Visually it’s looking much more finished and easy to read. It automatically scales to match your resolution, including 4k and retina. You can also manually set the zoom level of the game/UI if needed.

Progress: There’s still quite a few set areas of the UI that need to be made - but as the code is robust, it should just be a matter of expanding what we’ve done and then linking it all together. We also really need to add more quality of life fixes (shortcuts, tooltips, etc.).

Also in the pipeline is a ‘target enemy’ UI segment - which we hope will reveal details about the enemy (HP, Items, Stats) based on your familiarity with the enemy (number of times encountered + lore skill).

AI: Oh boy. This is something we’ve struggled with, and we’re still not 100% happy with how it stands. Friendly AI is performing more-or-less as intended, and will use any abilities/items you give them permission to. You can also issue movement/attack commands to your followers - although it’s a little buggy. The biggest challenge is getting them to follow the player over complex, vertical zones - as seen in the above video.

Progress: Speaking in terms of universal AI, there are a number of changes we want to make that will improve the flow of combat - but right now, it’s at least functional.

Story/Writing: Lou and the programmers now have a pipeline in place, whereby the writer imports branching dialogue and cutscene text directly into the game via a handy script. This was a huge breakthrough, as before that, Lou would have to write the scenes in a word processor, then pass the raw text over to a coder to script/implement.

Progress: The entire story is mapped out and written in overview form. Key cutscenes/large branching encounters have been converted to code using the aforementioned script and tested in-game. So far Lou has produced over 300 scripts, which include NPC encounters, branching dialogue trees, narrative events (e.g. inspecting an object) and cutscenes.

Features Check (Rapid-fire Edition)

Saving/Loading: Matt’s created the framework for this, but we’ve been waiting for all of the systems (especially relating to characters/story/character creation) to come together before implementing it.

XP/Leveling up: Groundwork is there but not currently functional. We’ll be moving onto this as soon as the AI and character creation are fixed up.

Cutscenes: In-game and functional, including features like camera movements, and interaction between the cutscene event and dialogue choices. The system is somewhat disorganised and non-universal. With a little effort we can fix this up and create a cleaner, more efficient method of rolling this out across the game.

Ranged Combat/Aiming: Done and done. This was actually one of the biggest challenges early on - especially getting projectiles to bypass hostile enemies in favour of your current target. As mentioned in the video, this allows for tactical decisions; like being able to shoot at an enemy on the back row. Ranged combat is also linked to some meta features, like stats and ammunition.

Sound/Audio: We’re currently using a mix of stock and foley sounds, but we’re looking into alternatives. Francisco is doing an amazing job on the soundtrack - and he’s even been recording songs in a studio with a live jazz band.

Inventory/Items/Looting/Currency/Equipping: Functionally complete. Some quality of life fixes are desperately needed, and we’ve still to do the shop system. We’d also like to make a very simple crafting/item-combination system. Over 120 items are in the game currently, in various forms of polish/completion, and we’ll be adding more in the run up to release.

Factions/Reputation: There’s a basic faction system in-game and functional. This allows events or actions to make categories of NPC hostile against the party/each other. It still needs to be tied to the UI. Enemies of opposing factions will fight with each other.

It also potentially allows for types of enemies to become friendly and conversed with - something we’re very excited about!

In Closing

Phew!

Well, there’s probably a few things we missed out, but hopefully this has given you a clearer picture of the challenges faced by a small team building an RPG. I hope it also highlights how far we’ve come - and what’s left to do.

Looks like there’s just time to plug the discord again: discord.gg/csWumEn Remember if you’re a Town Council backer or higher, you’ll get VIP access to sneak-peeks and a place to chat with devs and your fellow super backers - so come along. :)

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you there!

Inglenook Games

Discord & Publishing Announcement
about 5 years ago – Sat, Feb 16, 2019 at 12:05:53 AM

Announcement

Hey everyone, just a heads up. We’re moving on from our publishing agreement with Chucklefish, as per this joint statement:

“Chucklefish and Inglenook Games have mutually decided to end their agreement for Chucklefish to publish the 'Witchmarsh' game under development by Inglenook. This decision has been reached cordially, and each party wishes the other success in the future.” 

As far as development goes, nothing has changed, and we’ll be working closely with Matt (currently marketing & PR for Hollow Knight and Pathway) in the run up to release. 

Community Discord

Finally, we’re switching from the forums to a new community discord, so if you fancy joining us you can do so here: https://discord.gg/csWumEn Please note that guidelines apply (check the welcome channel), and you’ll need a discord account with a verified email address.

Hope to see you there! :)

Lou & Joe,

Inglenook Games

New Teaser + 2019 Progress Report
over 5 years ago – Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 12:19:30 AM

Hey everyone!

I know a lot of you are concerned about development, so I thought I'd bring you up to speed. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, however, we do have an announcement to make. 

Witchmarsh's composer, Francisco, was awarded a grant with which to record some of the soundtrack with a live studio band. We love what we've heard so far, and have put together a teaser video featuring the game's combat theme, some new gameplay, and clips from the recording sessions.

Enjoy!

It's not quite a new trailer or release date, but we'll hopefully get there before long. We hope you enjoyed it! :)

Why it's (still) taking so long:

In spite of some obstacles, made all the more serious by the small nature of our team; 2018 was still a good year for progress.

Looking at the screenshots, it's easy to forget that Witchmarsh is an RPG, and not a platformer with RPG bits tacked on. All of these databases (items, skill, spells, attributes, enemies/npcs, equipment) require heaps of dev-hours to put together.

On such a long project, burnout can creep in, too. There are times when it feels like something of a Sisyphean task. Lately however, we've tried to be more conscious of this, structuring our work and lives in a way which avoids over-stretching - like taking plenty of time off over the holidays, for example!

As we've touched on before, we understand the frustration going around, because we feel it too. We want the game out there, but we also want it to be right, while remaining loyal to the original concept.

Because of this, we've decided to wait a little longer before setting a release date. We hope to bring you more news on this soon! As always, thanks for your support and patience. We couldn't have come this far without the help of our backers and community.

We hope you'll stick with us. We think 2019 will be an exciting year for the project. :)

Regards,

Inglenook Games