Devlog: EVO, Kiera kit, Publishers and more~!

ROAAAAR! EVO is upon us friends! And we have been head down for a while now as we've been focusing on a few goals. At the moment we have the team split into two groups- One for the single player and the other on versus. This is what has had us busy:

A) Getting Kiera ready as playable character #2 for EVO and Patreon testing.

B) Getting the single player Act 1 complete for internal testing on Patreon.(August/September)

C) A very protracted publisher discussion period while the industry continues to shit itself.

A) Kiera Progress! Angery.

We've made some great strides on Kiera recently, in terms of her kit she's about 70% complete for her starters. As you saw in the video above, Kiera's hyper- Rage Burst is animation complete. We still need to do some VFX work, but this hyper will be amazing for A) people that get too close and cocky or jump in or B) A crazy pressure tool after a good up close and personal string.

We're currently working on the VFX and our new contributor Mackenzi helped sketch us some ideas. As we're working on the versus version of Kiera it helps us kinda brainstorm potential branches for her roguelike variant, which will have a whole new slew of moves. In terms of Kiera, she'll probably have an ancestral/tribal set of moves which bring out her inner beast in different ways.

Above are Kiera's concept aerials and frame data versus the completed ones. We wanted to her to have rushdown tendencies, but those had to come at a bit of a cost- So in general compared to Volley her range is a bit more limited, and her moves are a bit slower to startup. She needs to be up in your face to be most effective.

Kiera Cannon:

This was teased a while back but Kiera cannon, one of her signature specials is up and running finally. The VFX are still in progress so keep this in mind, but this is an awesome move that can be done from the ground or aerially to apply major pressure. Mainly, she can close distance quick with this, or anti air enemies.

We still need to do an EX version where she catches on fire.

EX versions of Kiera's base projectile are in, and can pin enemies down with dual hurricanes. We chose to go with a blue fire version to give this a little more sauce compared to her default one.

The new stage, EDEN bar is mostly done in 3D, but it just needs a ton of lighting refinement and characters to give this place a ltitle life. Lore wise it's an underground bar where seedy dickheads run the black market economy in the Shot One universe. Our friend CYSmix also contributed a track by the same name to this stage which is dope. Give it a listen!

We worked with our friend Matt at Bitgem to get the stage built out, one of the main features will be the main turbine in the cieling spinning and people hanging out in the audience and dancing in the BG (That's the vision atm)

For part B) The roguelike stuff we'll share more on that in a part 2 update for this devlog.

Part C) Publisher Stuff Amidst Industry Troubles

So one thing that had us quiet in June was that we were deep in talks with publishers and were gauging interest in the new direction for Shot One Fighters. The problem is, nobody seems to be picking up titles anymore. If anything, the industry is losing publishers and devs at an alarming rate this year. From my perspective (SB) - The industry is burning a candle from both ends which fucking pisses me off. No juniors being hired, senior staff being fired and new devs are not getting support or funding.

Every time a mass layoff happens at a AAA company, it's been sending a widespread message of caution. Mixed with the tarriffs, that has also excluded most foreign publishers doing any business with devs lately. So we are in a strange time for sure, a period of attrition that a lot of devs are not surviving. We are thankfully well positioned still because we've been crazy cautious since covid, but we won't complain if we get picked up sometime soon either. This period won't last forever.

(A budgeting and scheduling meet myself and Rigman went through for a publisher recently)

Another side effect of this layoff happy period is that companies become even MORE risk averse to new genres or new ideas. So in general we fall into that slot somewhat as we're trying something new here. But we're confident and we're having fun, so we're not slowing down anytime soon.

On a positive note- With the publishers we DID talk to, we've made it further than any other time we've attempted. Pretty much one step away from signing a deal, however the recent Microsoft layoffs delayed everything (Again, fear). The process of going through 8-10 levels of pitching, talks and being put under a microscope is exhausting- So that's why we were a bit quiet in June. The process started in March and we're still in it. Every time we do it we piece together the puzzle just a bit more and get a little closer to that point.

NEW PEOPLE WE'RE WORKING WITH:

Wondering where your Patreon money's been going? Shout out to some new amazing talented freelancers that have been helping us out on various parts of the game recently. We're still trying to collab with as many people as possible on the dev side of things. Over time we'll see this list grow quite a bit, as each of these peeps offers their own little slice of their creativity to making Shot One as good as it can be.

IN CONCLUSION: Have a whole new slew of content regarding single player, but that will be posted in a part 2 devlog soon. Thank you all for reading and till next time. The team is at it hard! <3

And to those coming to EVO, see you soon!