Welcome to the second article for GGDevlog of Stories of Bethem: Full Moon! This time we write about the latest game extension we released on April 10 (v1.2).
We'll explain the new content a little further and talk about the decisions we took for this update.
At first, I'd like to introduce the new trailer we made. You can tell us what do you think on social networks! We'll thank you.
And now, here is the content of the GGDevlog article of Stories of Bethem: Full Moon. We hope you enjoy.
Why did we extend the game?
We've got two reasons to do it:
- Trading cards inclusion. We added the Steam Trading Cards after the game release (three months later!). A lot of users already completed it, so we wanted to give them reasons for playing again and get the cards.
- Too much gems. Users told us that they completed the game with a lot of gems without use. Some users wanted a new very hard dungeon where spend gems.
The new dungeon
The game is based on this element and users wanted more, so it should be included in the new update. No doubts about this, but what kind should it be?
- Standard dungeon. At first, we are working on design a new dungeon like the rest of the game. Just harder puzzles to solve. There were 11 standard dungeons in the game before the update, so we discarded this to avoid getting bored.
- Colosseum dungeon. Other option was a place for fighting. But there is already one like this. Discarded.
- No sense dungeon. The last option we studied was a new level without logic. A place where the game mechanics could change.
We finally chose the last one and created "The Bugged Mansion", a place where what you see is not what it really is! Like opening a lock without key (we are not going to make spoilers!), using another items as portal or avoiding the painful hearts.
First dungeon with lock
Stories of Bethem: Full Moon has a design that limits new features due to the direct relation with the story and missions like becoming a VIP member of the Bethem Club (you need to complete the game 100% to join the club).
This is important because the user needs a reason to complete the new dungeon and new spells make no sense in our opinion: there is already a definitive dungeon with a great reward.
Furthermore, we have a new level but my 10,000 gems are still there. Solution: including a new element that can be obtained with gems and get one of its items in the new dungeon with a new feature: the costumes!
Costumes for Khoma
What about a shop for getting costumes? Would it be interesting for the player? In our opinion, they are not if this feature is just decoration: power-ups as costumes!
Blossom's Taylor Shop
Our challenge was to find useful advantages for the player. How could we find them? Easy, we just took a look at the things that users "hate" of Stories of Bethem: Full Moon and created a costume with a power for each one.
In example, I think that everybody hates the holes of Bethem. Aren't you? We created the Goat Costume for this. If Khoma wears it, holes are like a wall, he won't be "attracted" by them! And there are up to seven new powers with the costumes like gems value increment, truffle smelling or half spend of magic if Khoma's health is over 75%.
Khoma fighting with the Wizard Costume
Finally, we didn't want to break the game rules as it was designed. We included this advantages, but we tried to make them as a double-edged sword: the Wizard Costume reduces magic spent to half, but monsters are respawn between scenes.
That's all for today!
We like to hear users and get the feedback to include new elements in the game, but we think it can't be expanded again. Who knows?
And the super final conclusion: my English is freaking bad. If you read all the article, I would like to express my respect to you.
Please rate this article on Twitter and give us some feedback!
GGDevlog rating: Stories of Bethem: Full Moon #2 #GameDev #GGDevloghttps://t.co/w0yzsgoCUx
— GuGames Development (@GuGames_Dev) 22 de abril de 2016