Hey guys, Maevri here!
This week is going to be a little bit different. I’ve got a monthly update to share with y’all from one of the developers at Runwild Entertainment, the studio making Almighty: Kill Your Gods. We’ve got plenty more content from the game coming your way in the next few weeks, but for now I want to let y’all in on what they’re currently working on in game. This will also introduce some game mechanics we haven’t discussed before, so enjoy the inside scoop!
Almighty: Kill Your Gods Monthly Developer Update
So this month has been very busy (not that the previous months were any less busy) and a lot of things are starting to happen and move into place as we prepare for early access. The game was officially announced at the Guerrilla Collective show, and that we are partnering with Versus Evil who are publishing the game, and we have been really pleased with the response to date while understanding we still have a lot of work to do.
Some of us are working in different parts of the world, but all of us are working from home now. It hasn’t overly affected the game’s development to date, but it has increased the communication burden a little. Turns out you can’t just shout over ‘why isn’t this working’ over a microphone (well you can but it seems more impolite). We are a small team and we like to have everyone creatively involved, so tools like Slack have become even more important.
In addition to the usual polishing and bug fixing, we have been working out how the next God will work (more on that next month 😉 ). We’re also testing out how the Razorwing monster looks in-game, as its art has just been completed minus some last minute shader tweaks.
New Monster: Razorwing
The Razorwings come in 2 main forms, a fully grown adult version and the hatchlings. and it needed a number of things in terms of design considerations:
- Wings you could shoot off to stop it flying and be looted
- Claws it uses for brutal melee attacks that you could shoot off and loot
- A mouth big enough to eat players
- A stomach that can expand and is shootable
- Ability to run around on ground and fight
The smaller and less powerful versions have less horns but are essentially the same shape.
Following is an initial concept for the Razorwing design:
The Razorwing is slightly different to the monsters we have in game so far as it can fly and the others are land and sea based. But there are still some common traits that all monsters share in our game, including the over the top ability to eat you whole.
Eaten Alive
Monsters can eat you in the world of Almighty, not just stomp you or blast you with powerful magic attacks. If you’re stupid enough or unlucky enough to be standing in front of a monster during battle, they can grab you with their tongue or suck you in and swallow you down whole.
Now this doesn’t necessarily mean death for your character; you will sit in their belly for a short period of time, and other players can shoot the monster in the stomach to make it vomit you back up. In fact, making a monster vomit is usually quite good in making it produce ambergris, a valuable crafting material, so saving someone doesn’t have to just be an act of benevolence.
If you die in the monster’s stomach, and don’t fancy waiting to see if you will be rescued, you can just respawn. You’ll be happy to learn as well that your loot will remain there either way. Unfortunately for you, the only way to get that loot back is to either kill that monster or wait for it to excrete it out. Monsters can be like walking loot chests, with stomachs full of eaten loot if it has dined out on enough players. Exploring what monsters leave behind can sometimes be profitable, “where there’s muck there’s brass” as they say up north of England.
A monster can eat more than one player at a time, so you could have a little party with your friends as you start to dissolve in its stomach acids waiting for rescue.
Of course, getting eaten alive is only one threat you’ll face when trying to take down a monster. There are numerous ways to die, and you will likely die frequently early on. Just respawn and get back out there.
You may have gathered by now that Almighty is not a game that takes itself too seriously, but we are hoping players will have serious fun with the features we are working on. We will have further updates about monsters and other enemies you face in the near future. In the coming month we will be looking to get the next god – the Overlord – up and running correctly. This one’s a bit meaner looking than the first, and we’re looking forward to sharing more details about The Overlord with you all in a future update. For now it’s back to Slack meetings and epic film soundtracks as we hunker down and work on building this amazing game we hope you’ll love.
-Darran, Runwild Entertainment
That’s all for this week! As always, if you have any content or questions please feel free to reach out via our socials. You can stay in touch with me and the team by joining our Discord and following us on Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook.
-Maevri
