Masquerada Official Soundtrack now available!
over 7 years ago – Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 08:39:50 PM

Hey folks,

We're delighted to announce that Josh Whelchel's inimitable soundtrack for Masquerada is now available for purchase on Bandcamp, and we'll shortly be making it available via Steam on its own as well as through a game + soundtrack bundle. Please run out and share this news with your friends, we'd be real happy if you did!

For all backers at the Dirge tier and above, you will receive a personalized download code through our BackerKit portal, in the same manner you received your Steam key. This key will allow you to grab your copy of the soundtrack at Josh's music site, via http://joshwhelchel.com/yum

If you somehow haven't heard the music yet, here's a preview of all the good stuff at Bandcamp!

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IN CASE YOU MISSED/MISPLACED THE BACKERKIT EMAILS AND DON'T KNOW WHERE TO FIND YOUR STEAM OR SOUNDTRACK KEY:

Please visit masquerada.backerkit.com and fill in your email to get a new link to your BackerKit dashboard. The dashboard may present you a survey asking if you want a Steam key or a future PS4 key, if you missed the survey previously. We've received a number of queries from backers who missed the original email notifications due to spam filters or the email header failing to attract attention, and these backers didn't know where to grab their digital downloads thereafter.

If you've completed the survey, there should be a Digital Downloads section visible on your BackerKit dashboard where you can retrieve your Steam key - and also your personalized download code for the soundtrack.

Once again, we hope everyone's enjoyed Masquerada so far - and for those who haven't experienced the game, may you find a nice pocket of time to immerse yourself in the intrigue of the Citte real soon!

-Brian

About Steam reviews
over 7 years ago – Wed, Oct 05, 2016 at 10:38:46 PM

Hey everyone,

We hope everyone who received a Masquerada Steam key has been enjoying their adventures in Ombre! 

We wanted to highlight some recent changes introduced by Valve to the Steam system involving product reviews by customers who own the game. The key issue is that Steam currently makes a distinction between customers who purchased the game directly on Steam, and customers who received the game through a key that was redeemed on Steam.

All of our Kickstarter backers would be considered to be in the latter category. And what happens here is that Steam has "neutralized" all the user reviews from such customers who used keys - these reviews do not contribute to the user review score that is stated at the top of the page, even though these reviews are still visible to anyone who trawls through the entire bank of game reviews. (Masquerada's Steam user review score currently reads 80% based on 15 reviews, although there are over 40 reviews as of this writing.)

While a diligent customer would likely read a good chunk of the user reviews, there are plenty of Steam users who will make snap judgements to purchase or not based on the Steam user score. If we want to make a bigger impact, we have to keep that score up, but given the situation, there's nothing much our team can do beyond improving the game as best we can. So we have a big favour to ask:

If you have friends who you believe would enjoy Masquerada but don't own the game, please encourage them to purchase the game and to leave reviews that will be visible!

It would help us a ton if we could improve our user review score! In the meantime, we have been eagerly reading all the reviews that players have left for us. For you backers who left reviews both delighted and disappointed, thank you so much! While you all obviously pitched in financially into the game, it still means a lot that you would take the time to play through our labor of love (some of you really sped through the game!) and to share your thoughts about it. 

For the backers who didn't recommend Masquerada, please know that we do hear your complaints (yes, about the AI issues, the autosave system, walls of text etc.), and the Witching Hour team is still hard at work figuring out the best ways to improve the experience where we can. We've patched the game to v1.02 since launch to try and address these issues, and hopefully over time we will be able to turn your disappointment into delight!

-Brian

Steam Keys have started going out!
over 7 years ago – Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 05:48:32 PM

Hey everyone,

A quick update to let everyone know:

We've begun distributing Steam keys for Masquerada through BackerKit! If you backed us and selected the £14 Sicario tier and above, you most likely should have received your Steam key via the email address reflected in your Kickstarter/BackerKit account. Pre-order backers for the Steam version should also have obtained their key.

The key is for the full version of the game (not the pre-release version, which we have sent to a couple of press and streamer contacts), so the game will not actually be available until 9:00 AM Pacific Time on 30th September, as intended. But if you have the key, rest assured you'll be able to download the game once the appointed time arrives!

Please note: If you haven't filled in the survey we sent eons ago asking if you wanted a Steam key or a PlayStation 4 copy, you will not receive a key until you've submitted the survey and indicated that you want a Steam key!

If you did everything you needed to do and still haven't gotten a key, please contact us!

- Brian

Evolution of Enemy Design Vol. 3: The Plant Fey + announcements!
over 7 years ago – Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 06:49:07 PM

Hey everyone,

 It’s Brian here again! I know our update for the next volume of Evolution of Enemy Design is a bit overdue, and I apologize for the tardiness that occurred while we spent five days in the clutches of the Gamescom show floor. We had a grand time with the German gaming audience, and hope we’ll have an opportunity to go back.

Still on the subject of conventions: Ian and myself will be showing Masquerada at PAX West in Seattle next weekend, at booth 6003! (On the 6th floor, you can look out for the giant tower you see above and you’ll find us.) You’ll get the very first look at the prologue chapter of the game, and see how the troubles of the city of Ombre got started. If you lovely folks will be there, come say hello!

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: We’ve just sent out a survey through Kickstarter (or direct email, for a select few of you) requesting for how you’d like your name to appear in the credits screen of Masquerada. Please reply to this survey by September 9th! If we do not receive a reply from you by that date, we will use your Kickstarter username as it appears in our database. 

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Now to the Evolution of Enemy Design update, here’s something new – we’re unveiling the plant fey enemies, hailing from the depths of the Pindrop dungeon! 

Above, we have the original concept sketches from Xin Wen, who describes them as chimera-style forms, starting with the tank archetype on the top left, the “wolf” on the top right, and the bottom sketch features an orangutan-inspired tribal warrior.

Working off of Xin Wen’s sketches, Shaun sculpts and textures the plant fey, adding some additional twisting branches to accentuate the plant-based nature of the fey. Now, if you’ve been following the previous volumes of this series, maybe you might have noticed a small problem?

If you thought these enemies basically look like the rock fey from the Cleaver that were featured previously, you thought right! The color scheme and textures used on these plant fey designs were too similar, save for the green foliage and brown branches.

Our lead Peter took the groundwork built by Xin Wen and Shaun and created a new set of concept art, taking cues particularly from Groot (as made famous by Guardians of the Galaxy), the Forest Army from Maleficent, and other unsettling forms and body structures.

The revised concepts gave Shaun clarity on how to reform and repaint the models he’d made previously, arriving at the 3D models on the right side as depicted above. The art team could have stopped here, of course, but there was a nagging sense that they could still make the models more texturally interesting and convey a feeling of weathering and decay. So in came Peter with another paintover of Shaun’s new models, as seen on the left side of the above exhibit.

 And here we have the final models to be seen in game, ready to do battle with Cicero and company! (Well, there’s the small matter of rigging and animation, but that is an entire discussion that could probably fill a documentary…) 

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A last word: The environment for video games on Kickstarter is getting more and more difficult to succeed in with every passing month, and as devs we’d be remiss not to support fellow creators braving the mounting challenges of games crowdfunding. So here’s a shoutout to the brave souls at Spooky Squid Games who’ve pushed out a campaign for an arcade adventure inspired by the real-life stray dogs who ride the Moscow Metro. Behold: Russian Subway Dogs!

Alright, till next time - and please don’t forget to reply to the new survey! Thanks, folks.

- Brian

Evolution of Enemy Design Vol. 2: The Bolgia & The Rocklings!
almost 8 years ago – Sat, Aug 06, 2016 at 12:38:03 AM

Hey everyone,

 Brian here, back with the latest edition of Evolution of Enemy Design! But first, a quick reminder: 

Please fill in your BackerKit survey form regarding your choice of digital game edition and shipping address (if required)!   

Now, this week, we’ll be starting with some critters that’ll be all too familiar to those who’ve experienced the Steam demo of Masquerada. Enter the Bolgia family: the shell-clad fey who roam the sewers of the Quiet Order! 

You’ll see the original Bolgia concept design by our artist Xinwen inset on the left, while Peter followed up with the isometric artistic rendering of the creatures, and then Shaun prepared the wireframe 3D model based on Peter’s work. The smaller fey, aka the Lesser Bolgia, were just pests with no appendages, while the big boss, the Bolgia, came with asymmetrically-sized claws. 

The Bolgia had a relatively straightforward path from concept to final design, but once deployed into animation, we found a problem with the mostly-dark green and grey coloring of the Bolgia. It was hard to distinguish the Bolgia’s claws from the rest of its body during combat. In the rendering below, Shaun attempted to make the claws a different shade of green to improve how the claws stood out, but this wasn’t effective.

 In the end, the team realized the red shell of the Lesser Bolgia was more fitting for the intimidating larger presence of the boss Bolgia, so Shaun swapped the shell colors for the minions and boss models. Turns out this helped solve the problem of making the claws more distinct, as the red shell clearly made the outline of the claws pop against the Bolgia’s green inner flesh!

That's it for the Bolgia, but we've another family of fey to explore, which we briefly touched upon last time: The "Rocklings"!

As with "Rockthulu", these beings occupy the subterranean levels of the Cleaver. Peter's early designs experimented strictly with chunky, fearsome silhouettes: 

These silhouettes were elaborated upon by Peter with further designs and suggestions from the designers, incorporating possible attack styles such as energy projectiles, whips and self-detonating critters:

 Based on these designs, Shaun began modelling and texturing the first Rockling: 

 However, the art team found the above level of colouring and detail wasn't popping, particularly at the isometric view. So Shaun re-jigged the texturing style and geared it for a simpler cel-shaded look:

 Additional texturing and bits of contrast (particularly with the pink crystals) were added to result in the final textures below:

 And these two below are the variants with whip attacks, and a special energy projectile burst attack!

OK, I think that was a meaty enough update! You'll get to meet all these guys in the first couple of hours of Masquerada. In the next update we'll cover enemies from a brand new area nobody will have seen before in any of the demos we've shown at PAX or otherwise, so stay tuned!