This article is from the question "Roguelite game "Spiritfall" is available on Steam, what are the play points of the game worth sharing?" Paranoia's answer: https://www.zhihu.com/question/590959106/answer/2967527056
Say some of the new product demo festival my experience & predictions:
"Spiritfall" feels very good to use, far better than the also horizontal version of "Dead Cells".
The operation is similar to Smash Bros., you need to memorize the moves, and it is still slightly complicated to get started. However, I judge that the upper limit of operation is very large.
For the map, he made a lot of improvements: stitch the killing spire, but with a hidden room mechanic. At the same time, compared to Hades, the pure bonus room has been deleted (external rewards, which are an additional interactive in "Spiritfall", you can choose 1 of 2). The room selection experience alone is superior to Hades.
The flying experience of ordinary battles is very cool when you hit a wall. But non-wall knockouts can be a little uncomfortable. The game also adds a room (Monster Challenge Room) that knocks out like Smash Bros., which was mentioned in the interview and the experience is very good.
The plot part, and Hades is definitely thin, but the atmosphere is there, and it will not become a shortcoming. Getting started, in fact, can still be reduced, now the difficulty is similar to that of dead cells.
In summary, I judge that this product is at least a small explosion with sales of more than 100w.
* My explosive standard: In small and medium-sized games, the sales of small explosive models are about 1 million (domestic is considered a popular model), the sales of medium-explosive models are 200-300W, and the sales of large explosive models are about 500W (dead cells in the same type in this work). "Spiritfall" EA to the official, it is almost a year, 100w level sales as long as normal update is not a big problem.
Update the EA version experience, which is currently cleared:
The biggest problem with "Spiritfall" is that the EA version has too little content, and it can be cleared for the first time in about 2 hours, and it is not even a single complete experience (double blessing will not be updated this month), and it is planned that the second half of this year will be a normal experience.
Maintain my previous experience judgment, the game feels good and the operation space is huge. The upper limit is high, but the value is a bit problematic and needs to be continuously optimized. ACT's Floating Infinity Combo experience is very cool.
The rogue part, compared to Hades, is already fun even without double and legend. Because the game has many operational dimensions, there will be more genres and a very high ceiling.
The framework design of the plot is better than expected, and it will indeed not become a shortcoming.
Some experience issues, such as the sense of delay in the sprint and the range invincibility frame is too short (you can choose to bless the boost, but the default is too short). The platforming mechanism leads to various monster toys that need to be continuously optimized.
The most surprising thing is that the boss design is very bright, the first boss is just right, the samurai trio of the second group of bosses, and the scene of the third boss Skeleton King - the production team seems to show the boss design and implementation ability of three types of complex mechanisms, and the difficulty of mass production will be less after this foundation.
Why was I optimistic about this game before? Because as a producer, I know how difficult it is to combine the Nintendo Smash Bros. battle + meat pigeons, the production team can actually make it better, as long as it does not rot the potential of the game is unlimited - in addition, the audience of the Smash Bros. type of game is very wide, and the upper limit of this work is very imaginative.
Finally, the lesson of the game to developers is that the minimum experience of the EA version must be worthy of the price, for example, the expected experience of the 9.99 knife is 10-20 hours, and the minimum must be about 10 hours. EA is not a demo, but to give players a relatively complete experience, so that players can see the complete design and imagination space. "Spiritfall" EA without perfection, it is normal to be sprayed by players.
And my previous translation:
How Spiritfall brought platforming into the roguelike world.
Gentle Giant describes the production of his debut Spiritfall. The work is a unique blend of roguelike and platformer fighting elements.
About Gentle Giant Games: Founded in December 2020, it is a small indie game studio with big dreams. Eager to share passion with the world and bring games made with faith to players around the world. (Original: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/how-i-spiritfall-i-brings-platform-fighters-into-the-roguelike-boom)
Many games now successfully blend genres such as shooting, side-scrolling, dungeons, etc. Spiritfall's success was inspired by platform fighters.
Platform fighters: Basically refers specifically to Nintendo star Super Smash Bros.
The gameplay experience for Spiritfall is similar to that of Nintendo Smash Bros. Special Edition or MultiVersus. Scenes are 2D flat spaces where the player controls the character to jump between different platforms in the same scenario and fight opponents.
Spiritfall has 3 beta versions in 2022, and I've experienced them all. Although I don't play platforming games much, I understand the mechanics very easily. Don't play I don't know, play scared, this stitching gameplay and roguelike phase is excellent: choose from three weapons, immediately start smashing the training dummy, immediately happy, immediately on the head.
In addition, the producers also stitched the blessing system of "Hades". Players can obtain the blessings of the animal gods and form elemental powers. The overall battle stage has obvious vertical depth, a lot of elements, combined with the high amount of information in the platforming form itself, making the game as a whole more chaotic than "Hades". But there are also clearance skills such as Frozen Bomb and Dash Summoning Firebird, which can still be very satisfying.
The game will also participate in the Steam New Product Demo Festival and release demos, and open the EA version in March. I sat down with Gentle Giant about their debut and how it blends different mechanics, the game's roguelike structure, and various sources of inspiration.
Q: When you started Spiritfall, was you inspired by a side-scrolling action roguelike or a platformer? Which direction is easier to start with?
In the beginning, we didn't have a clear direction for Spiritfall, trying to pull away some of the best design points of the reference game that we liked and thought would fit together well. Because we were afraid of affecting the difficulty of getting started for casual players, we decided on a hack-and-slashy experience at an early stage, which was to try to remove some of the mechanics of a platformer.
In the end, we chose to preserve the mechanics of platform combat more deeply, and their presence made sense. Because we faced the challenge of figuring out which mechanics would satisfy both the single-player experience and roguelike random elements. It took us a long time to iterate, and we finally managed to get close to our original goal: to be friendly to newcomers while allowing hardcore players to experience enough depth. We thought that by filling the existing base framework with more content and freedom, the game would really stand out.
Q: The impact of platforming is evident in the game, but what other roguelikes or side-scrolling moves provide inspiration?
When it comes to roguelikes, the most obvious source of influence is "Hades." Supergiant puts various upgrade item combinations into a predictable blessing pool, which is very attractive in a game with many random elements.
At the same time, we focused on fast-paced combat during development, and Hades used a small battle space rather than a larger expansion level, which was a good fit.
Some games have an optional map (the Killing Spire kind) that allows players to make quick decisions, but also affects long-term choices, such as Killing Spire and FTL.
In addition to the meat pigeon game, "Hollow Knight" and "MapleStory" also provide a lot of inspiration.
We play so many rouguelike games that it's hard to pinpoint where an idea came from. The idea is that if a mechanic improves our combat system or something else, then it's worth looking into.
[Note 1] Further reading (this is my own addition):
Hades blesses random rules:
- When the reward is a blessing, one blessing god is random and has the same weight except for Toshijin (affected by external cultivation). At the same time, after the bureau chooses the blessing of the 4 gods, there are no special circumstances and only the gods who have been blessed will be encountered.
- Blessings that meet the conditions (some blessings have preconditions, such as double) enter the random pool.
- Blessings are prioritized, such as the blessing (general heavy throw) of the operation slot has a higher priority. At least 1 option will appear when you don't finish it.
- Blessing rarity, basic probability + bonus (external cultivation optional); When random, it follows priority → rarity. Minshen is randomized individually, including odds and some special mechanisms.
- If a slot blessing is already present, the probability of that slot blessing appearing again is greatly reduced.
- If there are less than 3 random after the rule of 1-4, it will be filled with a replacement blessing first, and if it is still not full, it will be filled with a high rarity blessing.
Q: Spiritfall has three weapons – hammer, bow and fist. How did you decide to use these weapons as an iron triangle? What weapons did you consider, but eventually cut down?
Spiritfall's weapons were designed around the style of gameplay we wanted to explore. The Warhammer is a heavy hit, the sister fist is faster, and the bow is used as a ranged weapon. Each of the different weapons is part of the game's balance, so it was necessary to test the changes in the way each weapon was used to face different rooms and enemies.
There are currently no weapons that have been cut, only weapons that have not yet been implemented.
Q: What cultural elements inspired the game, and how did they fit into specific elements/gameplay styles?
Visually, we drew inspiration from a variety of cultures when creating the fantasy world of Spiritfall, with Asian and Middle Eastern design and architecture being the most influential.
We wanted Spiritfall to be mysterious, where players enter the game with a sense of the unknown world and need to explore it for themselves to understand its lore and past. The characters' language, soul names, and similarities between souls and religions all try to evoke a feeling of being familiar but unfamiliar.
Another aspect we need to consider as developers is the type of game and its audience. Genre blending is challenging, and you need to know which types of games complement each other and how to keep different types of players happy with the gameplay. We've tried our best to make fighting game fans as deep as they can enjoy, while also opening the door for more roguelike-leaning players.
Q: Some roguelike games only show the reward for the next room, but Spiritfall doesn't just show what happens next, it outlines the complete path the player can take before reaching the boss. How did you think about giving players such a very clear map of the area?
We want to increase the depth of path planning throughout the game. Some roguelikes focus on timely decision-making and only show the reward for the next room. This works, but we feel like giving players who like path planning a choice, especially when making decisions where there are multiple other options.
We also didn't want to make the map too monolithic and make the game too fast-paced. Evil Inscription was a big factor in our map design, keeping it simple while keeping it interesting to choose, and we thought we could try a similar design.
Q: The December update includes the Monster Challenge Room, which is where players can really feel the impact of platforming combat. How did this design come about?
When we combined roguelikes and platforming, we realized that there were some questions about the emotional stress of players that needed to be addressed.
Initially, we tried ways to kill enemies quickly, which was a bit of excitement in platforming but not so good in roguelikes. In Spiritfall, the added knockback mechanic is mostly integrated into the wall bounce mechanic, allowing players to expand or create new combos while stunning enemies and dealing a lot of damage.
Still, we wanted to bring ring-out (Nintendo Smash Bros. Crash) mechanics into the game, as it's the core gameplay of platformers. We found a balance in these skirmishes: both increasing the pressure on the difficulty test and providing more rewards for players who passed the test. Putting them together is a very interesting challenge.
Q: What has changed in Spiritfall from the first beta to the demo version of the New Demo Festival? Did you surprise test players' reactions to these successive changes from the very beginning to the present?
Spiritfall has really improved a lot since the first beta, with new features, enemies, weapons, and mechanics like stunning. But it all follows the core direction of our game. The feedback from beta players was fantastic, so we were even more surprised by the player support itself!
We do QA as internally as possible, but the beta community helped us identify a number of core issues. We are confident about getting into the EA stage because our game has a strong kernel.