Hello everyone!

I'm Pietro of Lazy Duck Games🦆💤.

Our last devlog was back in July and now it's almost Christmas 🎅! It's been a while but we've made some progress on the design and mechanics of Sadie V2. If you don't like reading, jump to the end of the page where there is a short TL;DR.

Game view👀

The jam version of Sadie was built only for smartphones. For that reason, at the time, we opted for a portrait-view: a natural choice, if you develop for mobile.

But now we’re no longer developing just for mobile. We want to release Sadie V2 on PC as well (Steam, itch.io, and Game Jolt), and playing a portrait game on PC isn’t ideal. Having a big monitor and using only a small portion of it feels like a waste.

This led us to switch the game view to landscape, to support properly both devices. Here’s a little sample of the new view.

As you can see, the tileset extends horizontally, while the spell buttons are placed on the right side of the screen. Keep in mind that nothing of this image is final.

Game context 📖

During this time, we also laid the foundations for the new story, set in the fictional town of Blancheville, Louisiana.

The events of the game take place in early 2000s, but, like many good stories, the present is shaped by the past.

Withouth going into too much detail, Blancheville was founded in the late 1800s near a large salt cave called "The Salt Scar". This cave was exploited by the town's founding familiy. Over time, their greed grew, eventually leading them to their violent and murderous downfall.

By the early 2000s, what remains of this family is their large and abandoned manor, which is where Sadie will try to save her cat.

Clearly there is more under the hood, and we are still evaluating what to convey through dialogues / visuals and what to leave unspoken.

The Orchestrator 🧠

In the previous devlog, I mentioned a new software module that handles enemy AI: the Orchestrator. Integrating it into the game wasn’t easy, because all the enemies worked in a completely different way before.

But now, it works like a charm and it's easily extendible. With just two enemy types (a melee fighter and a ranged one), we've already created some intresting game scenarios, and we're really happy of how it behaves and the result in-game.

New game elements 🆕

Furthermore, we've added some new elements that enrich Sadie V2.

Turrets 🗼

Some levels will feature stationary turrets that fire projectiles. Unlike many games where they aim right at you, in Sadie V2 turrets act like clockwork: after the enemy turn, all active turrets will fire a projectile in the direction they're currently facing. After that, they all rotate their firing vector (clockwise or counterclockwise).

They are both a hazard and a resource to exploit. For example, you can push an enemy into a turret's firing path, or you can move strategically and let them do the dirty job for you.

Ignite drops 🔥

Speaking of hazards and resources, we also added the first enemy drop of the game: the ignite drop. "Ignite drop" is just a placeholder name, we haven’t decided the final one yet.

An ignite drop is a small flame that damages anything that moves over it, and it is dropped by some enemies when they die. Some enemies won't care and they will move into them, while others will actively avoid them. In any case, Sadie can use her push spell to shove enemies into the flames. 

We hope to create new ways of play with this new element on the grid!

Miss probability 🎯

In many strategic games, there are (lucky) moments when an enemy misses its attacks. After all, luck is always welcome, as it creates new opportunities. For this reason, we introduced a hit-chance system for all enemies: some of them will miss more often, while others will be significantly more accurate.

What about art 🖌️

We prepared a bunch of new concept for environment and enemies.

Beside that, we've drawn some new placeholders for background and tiles. More or less, each environment in Sadie V2 will have this amount of tiles.

About the characters, we are close to picking up the final design of Sadie.

So, we designed a lot and we've taken some big decisions about the overall look of the game.

RECAP🗒️

The game will no longer be in portrait view, but in landscape, since we want to release it on PC as well. 

We've also written the context for the game story, which we're using to shape Sadie's (mis)adventures.

The Orchestrator, the software module that runs the game’s AI, is now ready and we’re really happy with how it behaves in-game.

We've introduced new gameplay elements: ignite drops (temporary hazards), firing turrets and a hit-chance system for all enemies (they can occasionally miss their attacks).

Finally:

• we've established how the game will be viewed (bird's eye perspective)
• we've decided where we want the new UI to be placed
• we've (almost) finalized the design for Sadie

In the next devlog, we're planning to show you some actual gameplay, so you can have a clearer idea of the game. Time-wise, we expect to have something ready around March/April of next year.

Since I won't write for a while, I’d like to take the chance to wish you all Merry Christmas 🎅 and a Happy New Year 🎇!

See you in the next devlog!

Thank you for reading!

Pietro, Lazy Duck Games 🦆💤