The final trailer for Legends of Amberland II: The Song of Trees is available. Is shows gameplay, user interface and introduces a new soundtrack from the game.
Quick info:
Website: https://www.silverlemurgames.com/legendsofamberland2/
Presskit: https://www.silverlemurgames.com/legendsofamberland2/presskit/
Genre: Party-based RPG, Dungeon Crawler, Open World, Oldschool
Release date: 2023
Platforms: PC (Steam, GOG) and consoles (Nintendo Switch and possibly other)
Overview
This is a very unusual project for me. It’s not the first sequel I made but the first sequel to an RPG. Which makes a tons of difference. Typically (read always) the bottleneck is coding. You track bugs, implement features, etc. But with a sequel to an RPG it is a totally different story. RPGs are content driven, so, once you have a solid code base not that much changes actually in the programming department. In short, this project is made quite differently to all my previous projects.
To take this specific situation into account, development was divided into two projects. Project “A” which is about technical improvements (coding) and project “B” which is about making the actual game (content). The first is made using a mix between evolutionary prototyping and a research project methodology, the second using the old classic waterfall model.
What is done
Again, the unusual thing is that a lot was done before the project officially started. I ordered art assets and music from contractors, so they were experimenting and producing some content without my direct involvement. So, quite a lot was ready before it even started. Which is super nice.
The other nice thing is the source code, which is like 95% (probably) identical to the first Amberland. I was polishing the original source code for a few years, in extend beyond the simple support of an existing game, in order to keep the code as similar as possible for as long as possible. So, actually, art of the coding for the sequel was done before the project officially started. Note that 5% difference might sound like not a lot but it’s actually quite significant (to put it into a perspective bananas share 44.1% of genome with humans, yup). Basically, the game was extended and polished before it started (note for example the full gamepad support, dozens of tiny fixes, save system redesign, etc) and part of it was done in order to speed up future porting to other platforms.
So, what actually was done after the project was officially announced? Well, first all experimental assets were evaluated and it was decided what will be put into the game, analysis of the first game was made (part of it was listed in other posts https://www.silverlemurgames.com/2023/02/03/the-design-philosophy-of-sequel-to-legends-of-amberland/) and the coding started. The aim, and the top priority, was to produce better tools for me, to speed up development. A big part of it was reimplementation of the map structure to abstract entities (now you don’t put “tile with a tree” but abstract “tree” shape of variant #3). Which might sound boring and unimportant but is a huge help, since it allows a lot flexibility and convenience for me as a designer. The second priority was the editor. It was redesigned and simplified (and even there was a budget to add some frills), now I have even a cutting edge feature called “Undo” which is super fun since it’s the first time even any of my editor has it!
All right, lets talk a bit about features that are visible to you as a player. The code of map navigation was extended and now it allows things like “alternative entries to locations”, “mixed indoor/outdoor locations”, “portals leading inside other locations”. Which allows some interesting topography and connections between locations to be made. New tile types were introduced (like farmlands), stationary NPCs, more huts and more other things. Some extra dungeon features like doors locked by keys, illusionary walls, etc.
The big thing which was redesigned was resistances system and items. Now resistances have values (for example: Ring of Fire Resistance +10, Ring of Fire Resistance +20) and items can have suffixes “Helmet {of something}”. In the first game all items were hand crafted, which was a noble effort which proven not so great. Now I switched to predefined hand crafted unique items and semi-randomised regular items. Basically it means higher variation of items you find. As a bonus, because now I had more time freed up I could spend it implementing extra item properties (like “Invisibility” or “Heroism”) which were put as item suffixes. The random loot table was redesigned as well to provide a fixed chance for a certain item type (for example now 30% of loot will be weapons, regardless of how many items were “defined”) which means now various item types will have more or less equal chance of dropping so there should not be overabundance of certain items. And yes, because some people will ask, this also means extra staves for mages, actually there are now three basic types of staves so you even will have a choice what kind of magical staff to equip.
In addition to all those features I half made the first (starting) continent to see and test all those new features, I have a rough shape of the overworld map and the core storyline was told to my son before going to bed several times (several variants and iterations). Oh yes, also a small alpha test is in progress, so I can get early feedback and reevaluate what works and what not.
And some other things which are not listed here.
Summary
The project “A” is coming to an end soon, I think. Editor is almost done (just a few features I wish to have before I start to churn regular content). All critical/major systems which were to be redesigned are implemented or almost implemented. So soon I should be ready to start project “B”, and in the meantime or afterwards I will probably spend some time to implement some extra stuff.
Overall, the progress is good. Actually, when the core development is not about coding it’s almost boring, because nothing breaks… Before this project I never realized how expensive and troublesome the coding part is. It turns out that if you have a solid code base and no major features to code it is actually kind of like a walk in the part… at last that’s how it feels right now (or maybe that’s just my impression because my previous project was super feature heavy Stellar Monarch 2, so it’s a striking contrast), we will see. So far, everything is going fine and I see no danger of exceeding the 2023 deadline (actually I would unofficially speculate it should be ready somewhere this summer).
This is an overview of the design direction for Legends of Amberland II. It does not list exact features, but more like design principles on a more abstract level. Probably this would be most interesting to game designers and developers than regular players, but who knows.
Overall, it’s a direct sequel, like 90% code will be reused. If you liked the first game there are extremely high odds you will like that one too, if you hated the predecessor you will hate that one as well. But if you liked the first one but found it lacking there are decent odds the parts you did not like would be improved. As a principle, it’s an evolution, not a revolution. It will be basically a very similar game with various improvements, adjustments, slight changes in the design principles and other changes, but the nature and premise will stay the same.
Lessons learned from the first Legends of Amberland
While I was reading various articles, reviews and forum posts about Amberland I noticed an interesting thing. The things I had fun to make were valued very high by the players, while things that I did not enjoyed making were valued as poor or mediocre. Take as an example the overworld map (which I had blast making) vs underground levels (which I did not enjoy making that much). Overworld was evaluated as super fun to travel while dungeons were frequently evaluated as merely passable. It applies to other aspects of the game as well. Which lead me to a decision to alter the development process by adding an additional criteria, which is “do I have fun making it?”. Of course this would not apply to to UI, bug fixing, technical stuff, which obviously has to be done and it’s always tiresome and boring. But for the gameplay related things I would add such step and I feel it should result in a better game.
Another observation, all design goals I wanted to achieve were actually achieved, but… Sometimes, the cure was worse than the disease. For example “make shop items useful and make them decently priced so there is a decision to be made what should be bought” was achieved, everyone wants to buy the additional Girdle of Carrying and its price is far from trivial even in the late game. So, yes, I was able to “fix” the long lasting problems of basically any other RPG… but it resulted in side effects that negated the whole gain. Basically, a non trivial amount of players was simply sad they can not afford everything (which was the goal mind you, perfectly executed). Therefore, I decided to more carefully examine my design goals, especially if those were contrary to classic RPG design choices in other games. It made me realize that many, very stupid at a glance, limitations and cliches of RPGs are there for a reason, usually an important one and not visible at the surface. Definitely more care needs to be taken when it comes to innovation and wild ideas on this field.
Story of the first Amberland had two strong pillars (world lore and characters) and one weak pillar (plot). Lore was evaluated as super consistent, logical and with an excellent mood, not a single complain, a lot of praise, no alteration here needed at all. Characters (NPCs) were frequently valued highly for their lines and personality, no complains, can carry on with the same style. Plot was the part that many people evaluated as mediocre, some even as poor. While there were no terrible ratings of the plot there definitely is a problem with that aspect of the story. I was thinking about the reasons for a longer while, so I could made whole separate post about it, but the short analysis is this. The plot was too complex and too subtle (most people did not understood it, especially the relation between the spell of forgetfulness and the crown) and therefore it was classified as cliche (yes, not something one could guess is even possible). Next problem was related to lack of the final boss, which was confusing (yep, there was no final boss in first Amberland, the one you meet at the end is not the final boss), also environmental storytelling was lacking. The interesting thing is that when I inquired players and asked “what you think was the real story behind all those events” they did guess it right, despite at first claiming something else, so it’s not that it was too subtle or confusing… Anyway, definitely a different approach to plot is needed.
Many other small things. The list could go on much longer, there are other smaller observations like the Great Desert perceived unbalance, lack of magical staves, etc. These all were taken into consideration and many (maybe most?) of those are planned to be addressed in some form or another.
Design choices for Legends of Amberland II
I decided to alter my approach to the sequel design based on the analysis above. Note it will not list any exact features, it’s more like a general direction or a mindset I’m using for the sequel.
1. Respect the players’ time but do not obsess over it.
To my surprise I got zero, null, not a single one complain that the game was too long. I strived hard to compress the experience and remove every single boring part or potentially boring part. It proved too be too excessive, a more lenient approach would be better. Especially since all my games are anty micro-management in principle, so actually there is no real danger of me ever making a game that is heavy on the grind side, even if I tried and was paid a lot of money. My default game designer’s mindset prevent me from it. So, a more lenient approach, where I merely respect the player’s time but not obsess over it should result in a better game.
2. More RPG and less roguelike.
My background is from the roguelikes community, I do love resources management. I feel I might have leaned slightly too much towards a roguelike in the first Amberland (for example I knew during the development how much gold total is in the game and how many shop items the player can afford, a bit too excessive). So I decided to go more in the RPG direction. With a more lenient economy and less control over experience/gold, especially since the core balance turned out to be better than I expected. Also, the pillar of the game is “exploration” not resources management, so I will align other features to support it.
3. Observe the classic RPG design principles.
While innovation is nice I will now double check the validity of each decision especially if such decision is contrary to the classic RPG design. For example the damage/HP ratio problem, which was intended as an innovation and later had to be patched. Now each such decision will be accompanied with “why they did it that way” question before being implemented.
4. Advanced mechanics.
The encumbrance system was very, very well received. Such modern systems, easy to explain and deep in concept are good to be integrated with the game and those do not hinder the nostalgia feel of the game at all. While there is not much space to include many more such mechanics, the overall direction is good and more such mechanics can be considered for addition. Overall, examining the feedback, I feel the players would be willing to process a few more such intuitive yet deep mechanics so I feel I can afford to grab deeper into my designer’s chest and grab a few slightly heavier parts without making the game too complex if needed.
Getting into the mood, the proper mindset is the key to success.
Summary
There will be changes in some mechanics, but not to the extend of changing the nature of the game but rather for the purpose of replacing the parts that were not that great in hindsight (for example items will be a mixture of semi randomly generated regular items and a bunch of handcrafted unique items). Definitely I want to avoid “hey, let’s making something new here for the sake of being new” and only incorporate stuff that truly enrich the gameplay. In addition, the approach to several design philosophies will be changed to better suit the strong points of the game and the genre. Overall, the goal is to make the same kind of game as the first one, but even better and even more fun.
Version 1.27.1 released
A trivial update to fix one bug. The previous version had third party libraries upgrade which turned out to contain a bug which was fixed in the next version of the library. It affected only v1.27 since it was the only version which had the specific library version which contained the bug. The bug was causing problems with audio playback. This version upgrades that library to the newest version and therefore removes the problem.
– [fix] Updated third party libraries to the newest version which fixes the audio bug introduced in the third party libraries update introduced in v1.27. In short, there was an audio problem which occurred only in v1.27 and this fixes it.
Version 1.27 released
This version focuses on gamepad support and SteamDeck support. Now the game can be fully played using gamepad without the need for mouse or keyboard, this includes built in virtual keyboard for entering text into input fields (which does not rely on Steam API and can be used standalone). In addition load/save interface was fully redesigned and made more clear and convenient to use.
Note that the exact gamepad model support might vary, so it’s not guaranteed your gamepad will work and/or it might require configuring first.
– [misc] SteamDeck start with Gamepad enabled by default (PC plugged gamepads still require experimental features enabled).
– [misc] Exposed gamepad configuration in “data/gamecontrollerdb.txt”, so you might attempt to reconfigure your gamepad if it’s not mapped correctly.
– [misc] Technical update (the newest version of third party libraries).
– [interface] Title screen updated to make the title font consistent with the fonts used in the new banners.
– [interface] Main menu bottom buttons and text auto resized (useful for very high resolutions).
– [interface] The input field to enter hero name can be selected via keyboard (so able to create party without using the mouse).
– [interface] Launches the virtual keyboard when attempting to enter hero name if a gamepad is plugged in.
– [interface] Redesigned Load/Save screen. Now fully keyboard and gamepad friendly (and also slightly more intuitive).
– [interface] The text input field on New Save launches the virtual keyboard if a gamepad is plugged in.
– [interface] Load/Save screen has now disabled scrolling when a confirmation box is active.
– [interface] Various small improvements of the Load/Save screen.
– [interface] Now “LT” is listed as fists on the buttons combo (to avoid confusion, since it needs to be held first).
– [interface] Center gamepad hints position on buttons (prettier in some rarer screen resolutions).
– [interface] Gamepad hints for movement buttons (when held the “RT” help button).
– [interface] More gamepad hints in various places (on all Back buttons, notice on new game that “RT” shows help, etc).
– [fix] Incorrect position of input box on load/save screen.
– [fix] Incorrect mouse clicking zone on levers interaction via mouse when facing some directions (not that anyone uses mouse for it, but still).
The next instalment of the Amberland series comes to Steam, GOG and Nintendo Switch in 2023!
In the last month I was signing papers, negotiating, discussing schedules and planning stuff. So, here it is, the release plan of Legends of Amberland II: The Song of Trees.
– The game comes to Steam (PC). Store link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2110840/Legends_of_Amberland_II_The_Song_of_Trees/
– The game comes to GOG (PC). Store link: https://www.gog.com/game/legends_of_amberland_ii_the_song_of_trees
– The game is basically guaranteed to come to Nintendo Switch (console). I have signed the letter of intent with Pineapple Works, the guys behind the excellent port of the predecessor, to port and publish the game on Nintendo Switch. So, based on my prior experience with them, I would say there will be no problems.
– The game might be ported to other consoles as well. It’s being examined if it’s feasible technically and financially, so maybe. In case the game were to be ported to additional consoles it would be done after the release.
The planned date of the release is 2023. It’s not decided yet if this will be a simultaneous launch on all platforms or maybe PC version would be done first. Not sure yet. Similarly, it’s not decided yet to which languages the game will be localized yet (but English, German and French localizations are guaranteed) and if the localization will be ready upon release or as a patch later. Still, all of those (Steam, GOG, Nintendo Switch in at least 3 languages) are planned to be concluded by the end of 2023.
If you want to know more, here is the presskit.
The Steam Store page for Legends of Amberland II: The Song of Trees has been set up.
Planned release: 2022 or 2023
Version 1.26 released
In this version the interface was partially redesigned. Nothing groundbreaking, it’s still the same interface, but there were several smaller changes introduced to make it more spacey and more intuitive. Close screen buttons were made smaller and moved to another spot to free extra space, which allowed a bigger inventory box for example and thicker scroller bars. Some buttons were rearranged, merged, moved to different sections, etc. Again, a lot of things changed but it still has the same vibe so you won’t get confused. Equipping items was redesigned as well, now when you click on an unequipped item it will replace an equipped one (it was quite tricky with accessories but I managed to find an algorithm for it that works well), which is both intuitive and was requested by players for a long time (in case it’s needed I could add an option to disable it and make it work the old way, but I suspect there will be no such need). Also some other small changes, like the compass made more visible, extra icons on map interface, etc.
– [feature] Equipment gets swapped when attempting to equip and you already have an equipped item in that slot. It will also make last accessory unequipped when all accessory slots are filled and you attempt to equip the type of accessory you don’t have equipped yet.
– [feature] Mute on focus lost option (advanced audio setting). Note: if you installed the game prior to v1.26 you will have it off by default, it’s recommended to turn it on, you can do so via Options/Audio.
– [misc] Optimization.
– [interface] Compass redrawn to make the directions more visible.
– [interface] Wider scroller size.
– [interface] Added icons to map buttons (summon griffin, center on party).
– [interface] Close screen buttons made smaller and unified across all screens (when gamepad is plugged in the icon is replaced with gamepad hint icon).
– [interface] Close screen button moved to the top left corner also added “B” to the bottom hints display if gamepad is plugged in.
– [interface] Quests and Titles moved to info section.
– [interface] Removed right mini menu from Statistics and Inventory screens (redundant now since Inventory can be accessed directly from the main right menu).
– [interface] Inventory boxes made wider (possible now since right mini menu was removed and extra space became available).
– [interface] Used shop and deposit item boxes made wider.
– [interface] Other small interface improvements.
– [fix] Overwrite file notice was giving a wrong filename (the correct file was overwritten, just noticed box display was incorrect).
Version 1.25 released
This version focuses on fixing the remaining, usually low priority or very rare bugs, numerous small interface improvements and improved gamepad support. Gamepad support is still marked as experimental, so to use gamepad you need to enable experimental features in Options first. As a side effect of improving gamepad support, the game is also now almost fully playable (with few exceptions) via keyboard alone if one so desires. As of this version you can do everything via gamepad/keyboard except entering names for characters and savefiles (which will be added in future versions).
– [misc] Upgraded to the newest version of SDL2 (for better gamepad support and detection).
– [misc] Screenshots are now saved as .PNG (instead of .BMP) in the root folder (instead of data/).
– [interface] Options support keyboard/gamepad.
– [interface] Options video resolution selector simplified. Also rearranged placements of some options.
– [interface] Gamepad buttons L/R can be used for selecting options category.
– [interface] Display gamepad button hints on Load/Save screens (only if gamepad is plugged in).
– [interface] DELETE key and gamepad button “X” can be used to delete save files (on Load/Save screens).
– [interface] Load/Save screen shows 8 files now instead of 9, extra space will be used for additional information about the savefiles.
– [interface] Added location and highest party level information to Load/Save (will be displayed for new savefiles only).
– [interface] Display gamepad button hints on Map screen (only if gamepad is plugged in).
– [interface] Full map better adjusting size to the screen resolution.
– [interface] Adjusted positions of gamepad hints on screens.
– [interface] Some font colors changed to black (for consistency with NPC dialogue): Rest, Info.
– [interface] Inventory has a separate button on the right menu.
– [interface] Rearranged the right menu to make it more logical.
– [interface] Small inventory beautification, also added a colored tag for Quest and Special items.
– [interface] Adjust item bar size and text positions (making it look better especially at lower resolutions).
– [interface] Character statistics screen displays icons of statuses next to the statuses names.
– [interface] Small interface beautification (scrollers positions).
– [fix] Flee time penalty was 10 days instead of intended 10 hours (a bit extreme).
– [fix] Monsters entering illegal unlocked gate tile which sometimes allowed switching places with the party.
– [fix] Very rare “Item not found” bug in some high level chests.
– [fix] Quit from game was executed when ESC key was pressed on new game screen while fast quit option was enabled.
– [fix] Restoration spell reporting failure like heal (now it properly reports failure due to conscious/petrified target).
– [fix] Spelling mistakes.
– [fix] Locale improvements and fixes: ES,PL,FR,BR,DE.
Version 1.24 released
Technical update (fixes of some rare OS related bugs and better support for legacy systems). In addition small interface bug fixes.
– [interface] Esc key now closes any open confirmation/notification box.
– [fix] Engine upgraded (fixes to some rare OS related bugs).
– [fix] Esc key incorrectly closing overwrite file box.
Some of asked about Switch version update to v1.24, there is no need since Switch does not have ESC key and no Windows OS to fix, so none of this apply. Therefore v1.23 on Nintendo Switch is identical feature wise to the v1.24 on Windows/Linux.