Hello everyone!
Hope everyone has been doing well?
Its the first of the month and the first major official update since the campaign finished!
I have been working around with ...
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KZ Games
about 1 month ago
Second title (spin-off) game Yomi-no-kuni
Hi all,
I got a second game in the pipeline, called Yomi-no-kuni. It is a charming pixel art roguelike deckbuilding game set in the land of Yomi. It will share lore and have so...
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KZ Games
about 2 months ago
Ninja Town Roadmap to Early Access and more!
Hello everyone!
Below is the development roadmap over the coming year, as we aim for Steam Early Access release in Feb 2025. The goal is to get the majority of the mechanics up...
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KZ Games
about 2 months ago
Campaign has finished!
Thanks to everyone who backed the campaign! The fun starts now!
I will start sending out more details about the game in the coming weeks. I will also like to at least post one ...
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KZ Games
about 2 months ago
Home interior preview
Hi all,
Time for a sneak peek into interior scenes within the game. Video 1 has the player exploring the interior of one of the homes. Video 2 has the player picking up and rep...
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KZ Games
about 2 months ago
New Jutsu spell and post processing effects!
Hi all,
Just been working on some basic lighting and post processing effect in the prototype build. In the first video, you'll notice updated lighting, nicer ambient shadows ar...
Hope everyone has been doing well? Its the first of the month and the first major official update since the campaign finished!
I have been working around with laying out the foundation for all the inventory items such as weapons, scrolls (ninjutsu/crafting), and items (power ups/runes). Making it also display on the placeholder HUD. I have started sculpting out the terrain for Fire Town and it will be the first major town as part of Early Access. There are some mock up buildings and props positioned around the place so you can get a sense of the area, though this is far from finished. The town itself is based on Ginzan Onsen, which is a hot spring town in Japan and one of the main features is a river or canal that runs through the middle of it.
Level loading and transition is now in place which will allow me to put hints and tips on the loading screen. All the items above can be seen in the video below.
I have basic player / NPC speech dialogue up and running as you can see in the video below.
Lastly, this is an arial view of Fire Town's current layout. The river flows from the mountain to the north east to the west of the town, buildings on both side of the river, and two farmland to the far west.
Many thanks for reading, and as always please feel free to post any comments!
I got a second game in the pipeline, called Yomi-no-kuni. It is a charming pixel art roguelike deckbuilding game set in the land of Yomi. It will share lore and have some cross overs with Ninja Town.
I built a portion of this game last year and it has been sitting there collecting digital dust. This crowd funding campaign will be help me finish the game by allowing me to outsource the pixel art to TofuPixel (helped me with Mars Base) and other artist(s).
Below is the development roadmap over the coming year, as we aim for Steam Early Access release in Feb 2025. The goal is to get the majority of the mechanics up and running, with one of the town's available for you to start from. One of the goals of Early access is to be able to have you guys play and provide feedback. In turn I can polish the game while finish adding the rest of the game content as we aim for a full release towards the end of 2025.
Roadmap from now to Q1 2025
Fire Town - a hot spring town, and one of the four major towns.
Character builder - design your character from a range of outfits.
Quest content - quest content will be restricted within Fire town initially.
Ninjutsu setup - spells design, effects and animations.
Weapon setup - weapon design and animations.
Elemental setup - elemental affinity setup.
Farming setup - planting seeds, watering and harvesting crops. Each town will have unique crops suited for its geography.
NPC Pawn functionality - build your own pawn and select their persona.
Town NPC - regular NPC with daily behaviour goals/routines and can build friendship with by helping them with their work or quest(s).
Crafting setup - crafting or dismantling items.
Enemy setup - basic ai, combat and patrol design.
Dungeon setup - randomly generated dungeon and loot implementation.
Achievements - achievements (trophy) setup
Game HUD - user interface stuff.
Game options - load/save game, accessibility, graphics and sound options.
Steam Early Access!
Below is a rough sketch of the world layout and you will start out in fire town, west of the world.
Thanks to everyone who backed the campaign! The fun starts now!
I will start sending out more details about the game in the coming weeks. I will also like to at least post one development progression per month (most likely more) on here and in the discord channel as well.
For anyone who missed out, you can still pre-order and support the project by visiting the pre-order page here.
Time for a sneak peek into interior scenes within the game. Video 1 has the player exploring the interior of one of the homes. Video 2 has the player picking up and reposition props within the home. Eventually you will be able to decorate the whole home as you want. Make sure you have a look and let me know what you think so far?
Please note these are features are still early days so the animation and timing will be off.
Just been working on some basic lighting and post processing effect in the prototype build. In the first video, you'll notice updated lighting, nicer ambient shadows around objects, and len (blur) effect around the edge similar to Zelda Link's Awakening on the Switch.
In the second video I'm working on the Rock wall jutsu ability where its primary use is to knock back and split down the enemy line. I'm still working on the collision but you can see the effects here.
With my community first approach in design this time around, I have decided I want to let all the backers decide with stretch goal I should work on first. As we reach the first stretch goals (achievement) amount, I will focus on what was voted as the top option. As we hit other stretch goal amounts, I will send out additional voting polls.
Please visit the poll here or you can find it under the Community tab on the project page, or scroll to the bottom of this post to vote! Happy voting!
Woohoo, the project has just reached its funding goal! I appreciate everyone who backed the project, especially in these times of high inflation. I will do my best to make it a great and fun game to play!
With the stretch goals (achievements), my overall aims is to add more high level features to the game. One of the reasons I picked Backerkit was the community engagement features, I definitely would like to keep the community more involved in the design and development cycle with polls and discussions.
The next few stretch goals are:
Elemental summons: summon creatures to help with your day to day ninja activities such as when you need help with farming, fighting off hordes of enemies or just want a companion.
Randomized Dungeons: adding a touch of roguelite (random dungeons, buffs/boons) elements into the core mechanics, especially around the dungeon crawling aspects will help keep each run fresh.
Arcade mode: the concept for this mode is to allow you to just jump straight into the action and dungeon crawling part of the game when you only have a few moments to spare throughout the day. This is inspired by Hades and old school beat 'em up games.
Thats all for now, and once again, thanks for the support and I would appreciate if you would share the campaign with others who might be interested in the game so we can reach further stretch goals.
Just been working on some core functionality such as NPC dialogue, weapon and item picks up. Please note the functionality in the footage below are still early work in progress so they are not final and still need lots of polishing.
Thanks for backing the project early on, your support is highly appreciated!
My first question to the community is, what feature(s) would you like to see in the game? It could be something already mentioned or something totally different. This will help me prioritize design ideas.
