Hello friends,
Welcome to another hot Luckless Seven dev diary! Today we wanted to go over some of the final updates we are making to the introductory experience. While most of the work we’ve done recently has been focused on the later portions of the game, there have been some additions we have made to the beginning sequences to improve the quality. These changes will all lead up to what we hope will be the final pre-release demo.
Caption: Mark's not the only one getting a new face. Here are some new faces that you will battle in the upcoming Neropolis City!
On the art side of things, we are continuing to update Mark’s look via new character portraits for him. Not only will he have almost every expression redesigned to his new look - we are adding additional expressions to his already expansive set. By the end of Mark’s portrait redesign, he should have around 25 unique portrait expressions. We are also in the stages of creating more wallpaper/loading screen art. These pieces will showcase some of the environments of Arithia as well as many of the core characters in the story. A lot of work is going into these, and we can’t wait to show you the final products.
Caption: The Emerald Casino - The next stage of the tournament and story. Very large area with over 50 NPCs and many optional battles!
On the music side, our composer Brandon is continuing to pump out new tracks. Some of these new tracks will be replacing the music that plays during the starting areas. Many of those tracks are now several years old, and the style of our soundtrack has advanced greatly since our earlier years. We felt it would only be proper to update the tracks to areas such as Krista’s home. This should help freshen up the experience a bit for those who have played through the demo multiple times.
Caption: The city of water!
As we talked about before, the biggest change to the introductory experience is the inclusion of a new area called the Mind Lounge. This dream sequence area gives players a chance to run around, explore, and talk to people before their first Ekosi battle. This helps break the player into the game and also gives us a chance to better set up the story. It also gives us an opportunity to break out the werewolf into the game world!
Caption: The Mind Lounge contains our werewolf friend.
I’ll be honest - when we go to conventions, we get a lot of questions about the werewolf. You see him in the introductory nightmare battle, and then he’s gone for the rest of the demo. When we first designed the werewolf encounter, we wanted something that represented Mark’s anxieties and how he views himself. A manifestation of his self-doubt. The purpose of this is to paint a picture of how Mark sees himself and how he believes other people perceive him.
Caption: Over 40 new skybox backgrounds for Ekosi!
While the sequence is meant to evoke an otherworldly feel, the people that you will meet in the Mind Lounge are all people that exist in the “real” game world. While some characters may act or talk in an odd way, almost all of what they say is grounded in truth. In fact, much of what happens in the Mind Lounge is based on events that actually occurred in Mark’s life (some of them being directly related to actions the player performed during the campaign).
Caption: New skybox backgrounds include sunset, night, sunny, cloudy, and stormy!
We hope the Mind Lounge sequences, especially the introductory one, will give the player an idea of Mark’s backstory and help inform his relationship with the rest of his party members. All these changes will be included in the final demo build we are releasing. Over the years, the demo has gotten rather big in size. Due to the changes we are adding to the beginning day, the final demo build will most likely be focused on just day 1 of the campaign.
Caption: Luckless Seven dialogue system with the group's ringleader Krista.
We’ll have more news about the final demo release and new art assets in the coming weeks. Feel free to reach out to us on our Discord if you have any questions.
Thanks for reading!