TimeRivals
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #11

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we’re embarking on the #Blocktober challenge to create new levels and design new ways to get around the Arena, while injecting some holiday spirit into the proceedings as well…

Time Rivals v2

New Ways To Play

So, what new changes have come to Time Rivals? First off, we’re looking at gamemodes. Jamie and Joe have been creating new maps to experiment with new modes: Jamie’s gamemode is tentatively titled ‘Train’ and features the teams of Rivals battling over a central train carriage that will move through the map and over hazards when Rivals are close by it. We’re including Clone Pods in this design by creating areas where the ‘train’ will only be accessible by Clone Pod. This could create situations where the objective is stalled and both teams are desperately attempting to take control of it by tossing Clone Pods in from a distance. Once the train reaches one team’s spawn the game is over and that team wins!

Joe’s efforts meanwhile have been focused on ways that players can use Clone Pods to get around. Here Goobert is stuck outside a point and doesn’t have time to go around to an alternate entrance: a quick Clone Pod throw and a tactical suicide and suddenly he has a great view of the point from above and can unleash his Chem-Cannon onto unsuspecting Rivals fighting below.

Between U and I…

Jamie has fully implemented last weeks UI ideas. It’s not completely bug-free but it looks amazing in game and is certain to give players all the feedback they need while facing off in the Arena. We have new sounds that indicate when a ability is charged and ready to activate, and the gradient radiating off of your characters dash, special ability and grenade look awesome in action. There’s also a special effect for when a Clone Pod charges!

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Khris’s progress on Nova has continued onto this week, and our lightning-wielding gang boss has never looked better.

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SPOOK-Bert!

You may have noticed in the UI clip above we’ve added a little festive cheer to the mighty mecha scientist Goobert – he’s now wearing a mighty pumpkin hat to protect his noggin as he goes into battle!

We look forward to sharing new gameplay innovations and design changes next week!

See you then!
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #10

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, the dust has settled from Transfuzer but we’re continuing on development with new ideas and new directions for Time Rivals! We’re overhauling systems, creating new ways to play and refocusing Time Rivals to be truly unique, so lets start talking about what we’re up to!

Time Rivals v2

New Ways To Play

We’re approaching Time Rivals with a totally fresh perspective.  This means totally new ways to play in and interact with the Arenas of Time Rivals and new strategies for Clone Pod throwing and placement. Our first big thought was to build special interactable areas only accessible by Clone Pod – encouraging players to ‘spend’ a death in order to change the flow of the map and change the terrain. Currently we’re throwing out all manner of ideas, but below you can see an example in our dev build. Goobert uses a clone pod to get into a secret room, allowing him to activate flame jets on the walls that close off both entrances to a choke point. You can already see the kind of potential that these Clone Pods are offering us for new map designs and we’re excited to explore our options. 

Another new  way to play with Clone Pods is via moving platforms – we’re still in the ideas phase, but we plan to have interactable elements like this all across the Arenas of Time Rivals to provide players with interesting new opportunities they’ve never had in an FPS before. We think that by doubling down on these elements we can really create something new and exciting for FPS fans, and we’ll be sure to keep showing you our developments as we redefine what Time Rivals is and how you’ll play it in future builds.

You may have also noticed that Goobert is now ragdolling properly when he dies – a small touch but one that’s amused us a lot while continuing to test things out. It also looks admittedly pretty hilarious to see the mighty mech flop over!

Between U and I…

Yet again we’re updating Time Rivals’ UI to become even more readable. Jamie has been working on new ideas for the first-person view of the game, and while we’re still iterating and making changes we’ll share a few ideas we already have! Jamie’s ideas have progressed far already with the few concepts we have: we also had the idea to make health ‘tick’ downward like a clock, playing into ‘Time’ Rivals and hopefully alerting you quickly to damage over time sources like Goobert’s goo or Nova’s trap. 

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Nova-Haul

We may have neglected Nova a little during the Tranzfuser period but now she’s getting her fair share of attention from our 3D artist Khris! Nova’s getting a fancy new model that we can share the work-in-progress of below. 

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Highlight Reel

On the Last Episode…

We’ll leave you on some highlights from the Time Rivals playtest – it was a great time and we already look forward to sharing more playtest sessions with our growing community!

We’re going to continue working on the vision of Time Rivals and changing it from top to bottom. We hope you’ll follow along as we make changes and improvements to the Arena, the Rivals, and everything in between!

See you next week!
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #9

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we’re almost ready to start Protoplay! That means a whole host of tweaks and adjustments to our sandbox to make things feel that little bit better in the Arena during your upcoming playtest – so first off, before we get into this no doubt extensive devlog, here’s a reminder…

STEP INTO THE ARENA SOON!

Start planning which Rival to use and master now, because Time Rivals will be available for protoplay soon!  This weekend you’ll be able to download Time Rivals from our itch.io page right here:

https://studio316.itch.io/time-rivals 

The Showrunner’s got his eye on you. Make sure to impress him in the Arena when you arrive, and you’ll get renewed for another series or two!

The Rivals

Photo Finishing Touches

Shutter has been through a lot of changes lately. I’ve been tracking our Rival’s strengths over time and while Shutter has been very consistently strong, his in game performance can certainly be inconsistent in the heat of battle due to the inaccuracy of his SMG. So what have we been doing to our speedster in this last week before protoplay? 

Well, first off, Khris has finished up Shutter’s model. While we can’t say for absolute sure yet, it’s likely that you’ll see Shutter’s model sprinting around the Arena with his own unique animations when you come to playtest. Secondly, we’ve heavily adjusted Shutter’s SMG bloom and spread to make the initial accuracy very high, with a steeper drop off for the longer you fire. While working on Shutter’s SMG, Jamie made an awesome tool that tracks bullet spread, numbering each round to exit the barrel and indicating where they land, so we can see where the bloom kicks in and how tight the overall spread is. It’s really interesting and cool game-dev tech and Jamie deserves his props for it as it’ll no doubt be a useful tool going into the future.

We’ve got clips below of Shutter doing what he does best – running, and gunning. Will you be playing Shutter this weekend? 

Super Nova

Oh Nova, Nova. It feels like you’ve been neglected over this whole period (and, well, you have, but it’s for a reason). Nova’s a simple rival with a simple kit, and she’s always worked and performed well, even in pre-devlog builds of Time Rivals. The worst she ever had it was when we found a bug that stopped her shooting after her first death, but even then she made do with her Voltage Web trap and its high damage. 

So what have we done? Well… basically nothing. We’ve fixed a few issues that were holding back her kit, where her trap was sometimes falling through the world and where her ammo counter wasn’t displaying properly. Nova doesn’t need anything flashy, besides the lightning. She’s already proved herself in the Arena: will you be seeking to build on that reputation or tear it down?

Murder Machine

Matron’s been through a lot of iteration. Initially intended as a healer (That didn’t go so good in playtesting, trust us on this one), Matron ended up in the unique position she is now where her primary and ability feed into each other, a system no other Rival has. She didn’t have much identity until suddenly she had become one of the most fun Rivals in our internal playtests. When playing Matron you can either spam shards to detonate them all around opponents, or carefully deal consistent damage with direct hits. 

In the last build we limited Matron’s fire rate, to prevent spam. But we realised – this just wasn’t as fun, and it wasn’t as engaging with the cycle of her ability recharging. So now Matron can spam Dark Shards to her heart’s content once more (maybe a little slower) then use Dark Detonation to create a mighty explosion and rend any Rival unlucky enough to pass by. 

Will you fall victim  to the Matron’s dark shards, or will you be the one stacking the bodies high and keeping the Clone Pod economy rolling? 

New Goo

We’ve really struggled to make Goobert a force to be reckoned with over the course of development. He’s been the bulkiest, slowest Rival for a while, with the most limited range, and the longest cooldown ability with his GooBot which has had it’s own problems over time. So what could we do to upgrade the strugglling scientist? Well, it was obvious in hindsight… New Goo! But what does New Goo mean? Well, with Goobert’s newest formula (formula meaning ‘buffs’ in this case) you DEFINITELY won’t want to be taking a casual stroll through his goo puddles, as his damage over time effect now ticks large numbers fast, rather than small numbers slowly. 

This means Goobert can be used in the way he was always intended – to lane and block routes to objectives, with the loyal and eager GooBot to cover his back in case of a sneaky Rival trying to exploit a route he hasn’t already covered in goo. Previously the GooBot was a bit too eager and (quite hilariously) instantly detonated the moment you placed it – we later discovered the GooBot saw Goobert when it was placed and immediately blew up believing he was an enemy! Now though the GooBot only chases opponents, and we’ve already discovered how scary it can be when the GooBot is on the chase!

Here’s a clip of the New Goo’s potency – if you don’t slip, you’ll definitely dissolve running across it!

Goo-ing Up

We also fixed another Goobert bug, but I’ll hand the mic to Joe to explain this one. He created a Twitter thread about the problem and how we solved it right here:

With all these adjustments, Goobert has become one serious threat in the Arena. Watch your step!

Tech Talk

The Box! The Box!

What’s in the box? Jamie’s programming. He’s created the lovable DPS box so we can test optimal ranges, spread and other such effects. It’s kind of a thing you’d expect us to have done earlier, but now that we have the DPS box, we love him dearly. Jamie’s also made adjustments to the clone pod throwing because our Rivals may be badass in battle, but they really seemed to struggle when throwing their Clone Pods around, which felt horrible for gameplay. The new Clone Pod throw indicator displays a small Clone Pod in the landing spot, helping you aim your throw, and shows when a Pod will rebound off a surface. 

See them both in action below!

Between U and I…

What’s On The Menu?

Again? Yep, again. We’ve redone all the menus specifically for protoplay, now focusing on simplicity and ease of use. Jamie made this new simplistic design, easy to use and with a new Rivals subpage that displays all our awesome Rival models while you wait for a game. The new look is below, and still could be subject to change given just how many main menus we’ve had in the last three weeks!

We’re heading into some uncharted waters now with Time Rivals now the Transfuzer period is over. However, rest assured – we’ll be seeing you again next week with more updates and feedback on our playtest! We hope to see you there!

See you next week!
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #8

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we’re bringing in some final polish and small updates to get Time Rivals into the perfect position for Protoplay! First – an announcement…

The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For… 2 

We’re excited to announce the dates and times of Time Rival’s first open playtest! Mark your calendars and set a reminder, as time will be limited due to server costs (being an online game has its drawbacks sadly). We hope to see you there, and we’re excited to see which Rival will come out on top!

The Rivals

Return of the GooBot!

The GooBot has become Jamie’s pet project over the last week. He’s given Goobert’s ability a lot of character, and a new look that makes it look just adorable enough when its on your side and frightening when its coming for you at max speed! He’s also added animations that make the GooBot come apart as it explodes and sprays its deadly chemicals, which is super satisfying to see!

You may also notice we’ve spruced up our test-fire level some, and updated Goobert’s first person view of his Chem Cannon with a temporary model. Hopefully Goobert will fare better in this week’s playtest and the upcoming Protoplay event! Make sure to follow Time Rivals on Twitter @TimeRivalsGame to keep up to date on Protoplay news and when you’ll be able to get into the Arena!

Flash Photography

Shutter has recieved some updates to his abilities too. His camera flash now has a unique model courtesy of Khris and a wind-up sound to alert players close by they’re about to have their picture taken. We’ve also added some VFX to the flash, rather than just make your screen white like it used to. Will these changes make Shutter even stronger in the arena? Only time will tell!

And the camera trap isn’t the only thing that we’ve updated on Shutter! We’ve added a reload animation to Shutter that puts the swagger of his character on full display. It needs a little more tweaking, but here’s how it looks ingame!

Between U and I…

What’s On The Menu?

Joe has implemented some changes to the main menu, based on what I concepted last week. We don’t have things like a series pass or friends list implemented yet, so right now the main screen looks a little sparse, but its all a part of the development process, right? Check out how the menus look below!

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Our next update will be the final devlog before the end of our Tranzfuser development period. We’re reaching the end of this chapter in Time Rival’s development, but in the grand scheme of things we’re only getting started.

See you next week!
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #7

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we’re beginning to see Time Rivals take shape and get polished up for the Tranzfuser proto-play event with new sounds, UI, quality of life and all the little things that will make Time Rivals tick!

The Rivals

Balancing Act

The team has been running a few internal playtests in preparation to make sure all of our characters feel good to use and play differently. We’ve played on our first map with everyone and worked out some problems, but still have many more to work out. Just this week alone we’ve implemented new sounds, a new look for our Clone Pod respawn screen, added bloom to Shutter’s SMG, changed the UI, gave The Matron a special float property that makes her movement slightly different to others and more. You can see these new changes below!

These fixes come with a whole host of new things to update though. For some reason in our latest build Nova can no longer shoot after her first death in the Arena! We’ll be fixing that little problem soon. As we’ve playtested we’ve determined that aside from Nova’s current problem Goobert is the weakest of the Rivals in game and he’ll be receiving some relevant buffs to his range, damage and health pool. 

Currently contending for the crown of best Rival in the game are The Matron and Shutter. While Shutter has always been a strong Rival in playtesting, Matron suddenly jumped up in our last patch to become a favourite with her new animations, floaty movement and the efficiency of her shard detonation ability. 

It’s awesome to see each of our Rivals really start to take their own identity and shape up as a unique force in the Arena. Don’t miss out on your chance to play them all, coming up soon as part of Tranzfuser’s proto-play event in two weeks! 

Between U and I…

What’s On The Menu?

I’ve continued to work on new concepts and designs for our menus, so that when you launch Time Rivals you can immediately jump into quickplay, look at our roster, view online friends and more. While Jamie works on the technical side, I work on making things look pretty, and here are a few ideas I came up with for the main menu, as well as for our Rival select screen. 

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Heads Up!

We’ve implemented some of the HUD changes we previewed last week. We’re in the process of tweaking the icons and sizes, but we think the new UI looks unique and suits the game and abilities well! Also, look at the new Clone Pod respawn menu: the game will give you a small preview of the area around your placed Clone Pods, allowing you to see where the fight is and get right back into it.

Sound Off

I’ve been working on new sound effects to implement to make Time Rivals that much more satisfying and to give players more feedback in game. While we still need some animations to match up to them, these sounds are a step in the right direction for the feel of the game overall. 

The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For…

We’re also delighted to present the game’s first trailer! We’ve already changed so much since this trailer build, which just goes to show how rapid the development of Time Rivals is going. We hope this preview gets you excited to play soon!

Next time we’ll have more polish and more quality of life changes for you. The game is really taking shape nicely, and we look forward to sharing more encouraging developments!

See you next week!
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #6

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we’re beginning to think about our open proto-play playtests. We’ve also implemented new animations, new ways to use clone pods, and have been working on the promo banner for Time Rivals!

The Rivals

Group Shot

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on the main banner art for Time Rivals, featuring our four base roster characters. Expect this to change and upgrade over time as new Rivals join the fight – and there will certainly be more promo art coming from me in the future! This is still a work in progress obviously (we still have to design Goobert’s gun Jamie!) but here’s a look at how it’s coming along!

Between U and I…

I’ve also been working on some UI redesigns. While we haven’t implemented them yet, these sketches are informing how we’ll change the UI to be more clean, responsive and give you all your information fast. You can see the raw sketches and how we built up to a confident point below. 

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Steaming Up, Part Two

Jamie has given an inspirational interview on how his Steam implementation process is coming along! We’ve encountered some small problems in the Steam implementation process and Jamie has decided to open up about how his week has gone trying to fix the Steam implementation.  

Go Long!

Clone Pods are key to Time Rivals of course, and this week we’ve received  our Clone Pod throw animation from Emily, who the studio has outsourced many of our future animations to. She’s done a great job in making the animation dynamic, here’s the base animation and how it looks like in-engine. (If you’re interested in more of her work, check her animations out at https://twitter.com/animator_emily !) We’re still working on retargeting the animations for our characters, but while we’ve been working on doing that our designer Joe has been working on the level, implementing arena hazards too to inspire some cool Clone Pod plays! 

Here’s the current WIP level shots!

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That’s all from this week! Next week we’ll have updates on the UI, and some alpha gameplay footage as we’ll be collecting footage over the weekend for our first trailer!

See you next week!
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #5

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we added some new sounds and effects to some of our characters, have some stories to tell about the Tranzfuser competition and have been working on the Time Rivals Steam page!

The Rivals

Sound Off

Our designer Joe has been working on implementing new audio across all characters to add some life to each character’s unique attacks. Audio has been a little bit of a problem in Time Rivals history – back in the prototype phase, we had issues with sounds coming from a rock we later came to nickname ‘The Rock’ for how often issues occurred with it. Hopefully now we shouldn’t have any such problems, and you’ll be able to enjoy the sounds of Time Rivals without issue.

Here’s some clips of the sounds for each character!

We’ve also been balancing out our characters. Last week Shutter was one of the strongest Rivals and Matron one of the weakest: this was because Shutter’s SMG spread was very small and his damage was strong, meaning that in the ranges where it was hard to keep him away with precision weapons it became almost impossible to get away before he could burst you down.  The Matron, on the other hand, had too little damage on each shard fired – only 20 – and couldn’t spray and pray in the same way Shutter could, requiring precision. On top of that, her shard detonation ability was a typical cooldown instead of always being an option in case you missed a shot, which made it really frustrating to miss as you wouldn’t always be able to explode the shards for AOE damage. Now both characters have been adjusted accordingly, and we’ll see who ends up the strongest in this week’s internal playtest!

Steaming Up

Our programmer Jamie  has recently implemented Steam into Time Rivals to take advantage of steam lobbies to work with our AWS matchmaking system! This will allow players to invite and join friends in their lobbies before jumping into a match. The matchmaking system will take into account the type of game and map you want to play, and take you and your friends from the lobby and pair you up with other players looking to play that exact game, eliminating the use of empty servers, or game waiting times! Trust us, the screenshots of the system below are super exciting for us!

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Tranzfuser and Protoplay

Over the last two weeks we’ve been stepping up our production as we continue to work on Time Rivals as part of the Tranzfuser competition. This has meant doing some stressful pitches to industry professionals (which Joe handled amazingly well) and working our way up to the Protoplay event, where we’ll be properly showing off Time Rivals and starting up even more regular Time Rivals content including our Steam page. That’s right, Time Rivals is coming to Steam! 

During the protoplay event you’ll even be able to get involved in an early playtest for Time Rivals, featuring all four characters on the base roster and with our first map. You’ll be fighting just as you will in the final release, throwing Clone Pods and using abilities to defeat your Rivals on the battlefields of time. We look forward to seeing you there!

See you next week for more updates!
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #4

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we have our final Rival and some of the more necessary things in game development to talk about – optimisation, gameplay fixes and the inner workings of the game.

The Rivals

Lightning in a Bottle

Our final Rival to be revealed is Nova, and the first, ironically, shall be last. Nova was the first Rival we prototyped for Time Rivals, and her gameplay has been ready for quite a while because of it.

Nova is the leader of a cyberpunk gang, having been adopted into it and rising to power after being rejected from a human experimentation facility as a child. The experiments done on her gave her control over electrical fields and allow her to  project lightning bolts from her hands with the aid of her special gauntlets.

Her gameplay is designed to be slightly more accurate and long-ranged than Shutter’s spray and pray SMG gameplay, and her special ability is to drop a lightning field that will slow and damage anyone who walks through it.  

Here’s Nova’s concepts, and some gameplay in progress! Note that Nova’s model is old and will be replaced with a newer one to match the updated concept!

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Full House

And with that, every Rival we want to have in the base roster has been revealed in some capacity! Check out how they look in-engine! (remember people – still a work in progress!)

Quality of Life 

We’ve been making little changes to the individual Rivals to make our gunplay feel that little bit better. Jamie has been working on adding some sway to weapons to make them feel that much more natural. It does come with its own bugs and issues though…

As for Shutter specifically, we’ve been improving his SMG’s spread and responsiveness.

On The Next Episode…

This week’s devlog was short and sweet. Now that we’ve shown you all our characters, now it comes down to us polishing them all up to perfection, and creating the kind of scenarios and gameplay that’ll keep players enjoying Time Rivals for a long time after release. We may not have any new Rivals up our sleeves, but we can’t wait to show you how our current group develops! Next week we’ll have more gameplay clips, some insights on how we plan to balance things out, and news on playtests: it’ll be one you won’t want to miss! 

See you next week!

 
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #3

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we’ve worked in all corners of the Time Rivals world: character, map, systems and more. Let’s jump right in!

The Rivals

Darkness Calls

Last time we had a devlog we showed you our speedster Shutter – now it’s time for a Rival a little slower and more methodical. The Matron is a macabre and creepy machine discovered by the Showrunner in a mysterious monolith buried in the Arctic. 

Taking the form of a nun and draped in dark garb covered in strange and occult symbols, the Matron hovers over the battlefield and uses a group of unique sharp black shards to attack with. These ‘dark shards’ can either be used to impale opponents and deal direct damage.

Her ability adds a little extra depth though – any shards that the Matron misses will embed into the ground or walls and can then be detonated to create small AOE damage bursts. Consider wisely how you use The Matron’s dark shards: for one on one combat or to lay traps that you can detonate to kill clusters of enemies?

Here’s a refresher at how her shooting mechanics work in-engine! 

 

Our 3D artist Rob has been at work creating the Matron’s model, take a look at how the frightening machine will look when you face her in the Arena!

Introducing the GooBot

Matron aside, remember Goobert? Designer and artist Jamie has been continuing to develop Goobert in-engine, creating his signature goo gun and ability. His goo gun sprays puddles of corrosive, toxic goop over the Arena and deals damage over time to any Rival stood in it. These puddles grow the more goo is added to them, and the larger the puddle, the longer it’ll take to vanish.

This means Goobert is excellent at denying the opponent area control and blocking off sections of the map, perhaps to ferry them into an ambush by Shutter or a Matron explosion. His primary weapon is backed up by his ability, one we’ve fondly nicknamed the GooBot. The GooBot can be placed down by Goobert and will slowly rotate on the spot, its field of view indicated by a glowing cone in front of it. If it sees you, get ready to run! 

The GooBot will track you down, following you up stairs and around corners, determined to get close enough to detonate and unleash a large pool of goo that will also briefly slow you down. This means chasing a Goobert can be risky, as he can use the GooBot to get a quick advantage in battle if he has it charged – or deploy it more strategically to ambush enemies off of points.

Check out Goobert and the GooBot’s gameplay below! 

Clone Wars

The Clone Pod is the most important piece of equipment for a wannabe Rival. The Clone Pod is what’ll give you the opportunity to use spawns strategically and turn deaths to your own advantage, so it’ll be up to you to engage with Clone Pods and form your own unique tactics for outplaying other Rivals.

The Clone Pod can be thrown and ricocheted off of walls and hard surfaces, tossed through windows and over buildings, and will always activate as long as it lands within the playable space. When it lands it’ll display a small hologram of the Rival that placed it to alert friendlies and enemies to who could be appearing there any second. 

Here’s a look at the Clone Pod toss and how it looks ingame!

On Location

We recently purchased an asset pack for our first level to help us get it looking good for playtesting. Check out the effect below! In time, we’ll be creating our own assets to fill the level with a certain Time Rivals twist, but until then we’re more than happy with this!

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On The Next Episode…

Next week we’re hoping to have gameplay for every character done and dusted. We’re running an in-house playtest tomorrow, playing each of our unique Rivals and seeing who comes out on top. Which Rival do you think will take the crown, and which dev? (me, obviously.) 

See you next week!

 
TimeRivals

Time Rivals Weekly Dev-Log #2

Welcome back to the Time Rivals Weekly Devlog! This week at Studio 316, we’ve continued to expand the systems and world of Time Rivals. We have exciting progress on another Rival to share with you,  and some previews of more to come!

The Rivals

Quick as a Flash

Last week we brought you Goobert, the chemical scientist who returned from the past thanks to the Showrunner’s technology. This week we’re focusing on his polar opposite, who we teased a little last week: Shutter, the overwhelming and quite literally blinding fast Rival who comes from our present. 

 Shutter is an ex-Yakuza member who retired for a quiet life in photography, but when the Showrunner arrived to recruit him Shutter could not resist the kind of photo opportunities a time-travelling TV show might present to him. Shutter picked up his trusty SMG once more to leap into the arena with and didn’t look back. This week we’re giving you a closer look at the Rival – his concept, the continued work in progress of his model, and his unique gameplay.

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Here’s a look at Shutter’s gameplay too! His primary weapon is his SMG, which we’re planning to make a simple, consistent DPS option that will be easy for everyone new to the game to pick up and play around with. It’s harder to balance than you’d expect – we have to consider fire rate, bullets to a magazine, spread and of course damage per bullet. 

Our designer Tom has been working on Shutter’s gameplay, and here’s how the SMG works in game thus far. We also have Shutter’s own unique ability figured out and being worked on – a flashbang effect that Shutter uses a camera to perform (here represented by a white box), in fitting with his character. Here’s a clip of the first iteration in action! Remember, these are works in progress, and things will definitely be more polished up when Time Rivals releases.

So who’s up next? All we can say is, something wicked this way comes. Take a quick preview of next week’s focus, the mysterious and frightening Matron. The Matron will fire shards of concentrated dark metal, penetrating right through opponents and causing concentrated explosions with any missed shards. This prototype was created by Joe, and we’ll have more to share on the Matron next week.

On Location

The first multiplayer arena for Time Rivals will be set in a scenic riverside town inspired by the likes of Venice. The water will serve as the main arena hazard, where the canals strewn across the map can be used by canny players to quickly take advantage of their placed Clone Pods, dying and quickly respawning at a point of their choosing.

We’re still in the process of developing our map, and with the constant changing and iteration of our characters we still have to playtest with these changes in mind. Regardless, here are a few shots of our blockouts. Tom has been working on the blockout for testing, thinking about different gameplay styles and sightlines. It’s always good to have options! 

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On the Next Episode…

Next time we publish a weekly devlog, we’ll have more to share with you on the mysterious Matron, our next Rival for the pipeline, and some more nitty-gritty mechanical work that shows you how each Rival will play in the Arena.

See you next week!

-Time Rivals Dev Team

 

It is pronounced “Three-Sixteen”

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