Hey Guys!

​This is one of the last university blogs for Hero Rising. Not the last overall though! I will be continuing this series for your enjoyment and my recording needs :)

So, events...

​We have had the Fuze Collective Student Showcase last Thursday at Qantm SAE! Me and my friends at my university presented our work in a professional capacity, hoping to be noticed by the industry. It was awesome! Heaps of people showed up, I got some good feedback on my game, and I got to see how the rest of my classes projects turned out. All in all, a good go :)

​So I have handed in my project for uni. Whilst this is technically a 'finished product' I am still classifying the game as in beta, due to the amount of content I still wish to add to the game.
​First on the list? Implementing the microtransactions and advertisements properly. It's bugging me that they are ineffective. From there, I'm going to spend a couple weeks debugging the current build, so I have a platform off which to spring into adding content.

Further along the line?

Adding an overall game narrative to really give flavour to the game
​Considerably upgrading the aesthetics of training. It wont just be an arrow forever, trust me :)
​Upgrading work a bit as well, helping to integrate that narrative.
​I'll be working on making a bit better of a tutorial system than just the few pages at the front.

​I will also be putting in the Project Map page into the Hero Rising web pages for this site, so you can see my plan :)

​Thank you all for your support, it means the world!

​Peter Carey

Hey Guys, how's it going?

​Keen for the latest update? We have graphical updates, analytics updates, mechanical updates. All sorts of updates. Although I will be mainly focussing on the Play Testing that occurred recently, and how I'm changing the gameplay with data collected from that.

​So, small stuff to start. We are getting to the end! In one week, beta will be released and the university section of this project will be completed. As you know by now, I will be continuing work on this project post-uni, so don't fret on that part.
​
​As we reach the beta stage, graphics are taking a significant rise. Implementation of new township models;

Okay! So we're finally up to date on the devBlogs. Well, thats a relief to be honest. What now?

Now I start my latest devBlog series, devBlog of Awesome. This will be dedicated to Hero Rising Development, and all that fun stuff.

So what progress has been made?

Well, I've been pretty bad and havent updated in a while, so I have made a LOT of progress. Lets have a look;

#1, Updated main menu aesthetic -

To be honest, it really needed to happen. Hero Rising has a toony, vibrant aesthetic. And the old menu was black. Didn't work :P But, I feel that this one is a lot more open!

#2 As you can see from the pic above, I have also worked on the game logo a fair bit! I wanted to keep the toony feel, but I liked the earthiness of the brown, yellows and reds. So, yeh, that happened.

#3. You might have noticed that the blurred image in the back looks like the game area! Welllll, thats because it is. Major rehaul of main area aesthetic, and function. Here!

So, here we can see, some updated models, tags on the buildings so we know what they are... just real stuff that makes a game feel a bit better.

Notice we still have the bottom menu. That's not staying. All the buttons on that will be turned into buildings, signposts, etc until the UI is entirely diagetic (ingame).

#4 Bit of work on the Character UI screen. Not much on the aesthetic side, but its now a lot more factual. Trying to make it a bit more friendly with weapons and armour icons, etc, but thats only done for weapons atm.

Note that the "Giant Club" is a sword :P Kidding, thats just the symbol for 2H weapons at the moment. Hoping to make individual icons for each weapon and armour eventually!

There is a big space to the left I kind of want to put a character model in, so we'll see what happens there.

#5 You may have noticed, but the old UI looked a fair bit different. Thats because the old UI was purely diagetic, or existing in the game world. Which meant I had big cubes with writing on them. Now, its all done using standard Unity UI systems, which both looks, and acts better

#6 Bit more done on the work. Mostly scaling and aesthetic. It's harder now, so you get more of a challenge, which was needed to push the player into flow state. I have some cauldrons, thinking about either making them more flat shaded, or switching them out, we'll see. Oh, and im going to fill them with lava! The white boxes will become wooden beams, the ball becomes an ingot and I think I'll make the background a workship like scene...

#7 Train hasnt had much done on it, but my plans include making a character dodge things as you press keys. Could make it a bit more immersive and fun...

#8 Explore has had a massive overhaul, with more still to come. Looking at the picture below, you can see the player now has their own model in the game. You can't see here, but that dude's animated nicely and bounces in resting stance. Im going to add a walk anim to the next tile very soon. Otherwise, tiles are now pretty much indistinguishable, and there is a counter for the players Combat Power on the bottom.

Oh. and theres narrative.... :D

That panel to the left changes every time you move. When you first spawn its full of helpful instructions, etc. Then, when you move to a tile, its detects whether the tile has an enemy, and whether the player won the combat. It then chooses a narrative based from this, and inserts enemy and player names into it. I like this one, especially for its potential. I'm going to be making different sets of narrative for each area, which will go into immersing the player into the game world. Yay narrative!

Im also going to add some trees, etc, make it look nice.

#9 The feedback panel has also had a lot of work. Just for background, this pops up when you finish any of the minigames. It gives you your stats for the minigame, and your current stats for the whole game. I also added in more commercialization in the form of a small ad button. Clicking it brings up a 5 second non-skip ad, that increases the gold earned in the minigame by 150%. Feedback from my peers says make it a bit more noticeable, which is funny because I was trying to make it non-obtrusive. Fine lines :P

#10 Lucky last, I've done some work on the armour and weapons. You still purchase them in tiers, but I am revising how they affect your gameplay etc. Eg, a dagger may give you a slight chance to defeat an enemy above your health, using a sword and board set may give a chance to erase the energy cost of the explore action for that turn.

I also did some stuff making it so you knew what you could afford, etc, at the stores.

Well, thats it. Long read, should i do a TL;DR? Yeh I will. But for thee who read the entire thing, thanks heaps! Love the support :)

TL;DR -
I did a lot of updates, on a lot of areas. Things are going well and I have well set plans for the future.

Hello again! More news for my faithful followers :)

I have finished the programming work for the training and exploration minigames!

​ Rehash; Training minigames asks you to successfully input a changing string of directions using W, A, S & D. Exploration tests your effort in levelling, and your armour and weapons by pitting you against a set of enemies in a level.

​What? You want screenshots? Sure!

​Exploration:

Training!

I have also done work on the commercialisation/monetisation integration to the game. Now, the player can buy gold using gems, and buy gems using money. But no one likes Pay 2 Win, so I made a 10% chance for an enemy to drop a gem in the exploration!

Coming soon:
​    - Change gem drop chance by level of enemy
​    - Change the various statistics of weapons to help vary their effects

​Thanks for the input and encouragement guys, means a lot!

Hey guys! Thanks for your patience over the last couple weeks, things have been moving fast, and progressing. So, here is your much deserved update!

Work on the minigames continued, with the Work minigame mechanically working, and the train minigame on the way!

Rehash; The work minigame asks the player to put a coloured ingot into a similarly coloured vat.

Well, work has progressed, aesthetically and mechanically, so it now looks like this!

Which, I think is an improvement, what about you?

Aside from this, work on the Train minigame has also begun, and while its still in its natal stages, I can share its aesthetic so far;

Other than this, all I can really say is that my documentation is done, and minor playtesting has been performed! Thank you all for your support, see you soon for your next update :)

*EDIT* As previously mentioned, the next couple of posts will be from the old website, and will say stuff like "latest production from ShadowHands Interactive". Just skim that, its all under Dracon Interactive now :)

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest production by ShadowHands Interactive (*EDIT* Tolja). 

Hero Rising. 

First, I will like to introduce the project. Hero Rising is a project I, Peter Carey, am making whilst at university. It is for my 3rd "Game Studio" Unit, in which the focus is marketing and advertisement. 

Yep! Over the course of this trimester, and the far future, you will be seeing a marked increase in the quality and quantity of my devBlog and social media presence!

So please, feel free to look me up. In a post very soon, I will be posting all of my social media links, to be followed by native integration into the website. 

For now, my main focus is on Twitter! Please, look up @RarcethSH, and see how things are going. 

Also for this trimester, I am leaning away from the Blog Post concept, and more toward the devBlog ideas. So expect more colour, vibrancy and fun!. 

Thats all for now, but I leave you with some screenshots of my production so far, and a concept sketch I had commissioned for our Hero.

Thanks all!

Peter Carey
Founder - ShadowHands Interactive
Creative Director - Hero Rising

Hey guys! Just a quick heads up, this is not the first Hero Rising blog page. I used to have a page over on shadowhands.net, but now I'm here!

So hang tight, I'm transferring the blogs from there to here now. The timing will be a bit broken, but other than that, you'll be able to see my entire creative process :P

Thanks for the patience :)

- Peter