Introducing: Lair of the Namazu

Behold, Lair of the Namazu! 

In the last devlog, I mentioned how I had spent a month working on a rope because it was going to tie into the direction of this game. I am now excited to provide a detailed explanation on what that direction is. 

This game is set to take in place in Japan during the Sengoku era, and revolves around an unnamed fisherman who is the sole survivor of an attack on his village by a group of mercenaries. The rope ties into the gameplay as The Fisherman is someone who does not have extensive combat experience; as such, he is considerably weaker than his enemies. The combat in this game is set to revolve around strategy rather than strength, and The Fisherman uses his fishing rod as both a weapon and a tool. 

This concept was an idea me and a friend of mine came up with while we took a game production class in grad school. There were a lot of mistakes we made the first time we built this project, and since we had to work within the constraints of a semester our final project didn't implement a lot of the ideas we had drafted. We wanted to try starting again but could never get the ball rolling. After graduating grad school, I asked him if I could develop a similar game using some of our ideas to which he agreed to. A couple of months later he expressed interest in wanting to revive our student project, and that's how Lair of the Namazu was revitalized! 

The long break I took on coding was because I took it upon myself to learn 3D modeling. We settled on a low poly style reminiscent of the PlayStation 1, and the project has now gone through a visual overhaul using unlit materials and a low resolution. Some of the textures will need to be replaced down the line since we are aiming for an anime art style rather than realism. Additionally, the models for the weapons will have to be created at some point. I still need more practice modeling (especially since some of the animations didn't translate well to the models I created) but I feel glad that I am beginning to get the hang of modeling. 

In terms of updates to gameplay, the player can now perform instant attacks that will take down enemies in one hit. There are two types of instant attacks: one that can be performed by sneaking up to an enemy from behind, and one that can be performed on a tripped enemy before they have a chance to get up. Additionally, the game now has items that the player can use. These come in the form of medicine the player can consume to regenerate health, ropes the player must acquire in order to make use of the fishing rod fully, and kunai knives that will be required to perform instant attacks. 

We really hope this game peaks your interest, and we can't wait to share more updates in the future!