Kura5: Dev Update

Hello! ChickenHat here!

[EDIT] I went through the effort to make a dev update for you guys, only for it to be accidentally deleted. This is a rewrite of this update.



It’s been a long time since I posted a proper devlog on here. I wanted to make a big post that answers the question “What did the one boktai fangame get done this year?”



You can also think of this as a sort of belated “year in review”, discussing different things that we cooked up!



There’s a lot to read below the cut, but certain features for the game are still in the works, and so won’t be talked about here.

Obsessing Over Colors for 3 Hours (Again) Plus New Areas!

Kura5 doesn’t have any lighting, no lights/shadows are calculated, not even fake vertex based ones! All lighting in the game is implied through use of color. In the original GBA games, time of day was done using a color palate swap. Kura5 utilizes something similar, in that we use LUTs (look up textures) to change the color of a scene.



Previously we were simply adding a color filter to the scene, which muddied up some of the colors. Using LUTS, we can have some nicer colors for different times of day.

A lot of new areas are being constructed, but they are still in the blocking stage. A few people have sent in requests for a post detailing how levels are made, but I’ve always been leery about making those because unfinished levels are never too pretty to look at.



But here is a level that’s a little more polished! It’s an undead train dungeon. Does that mean the train is undead or the dungeon? Who knows, but those tables sure look fun to hide in!



NPCs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A lot of NPCs have been made to popular the world of Kura5. Some of them are sunny, some of them not so much.

Items

There’s been some online feedback talking about how the items in the demo looked flat. I agree, so the item shaders have been updated to make the items look more appealing.



Frames and Blades

Frames are back! This menu underwent a lot of iteration until we finally settled on what you see here. (It’s still subject to tweaking) Much like in boktai1, Annie can collect different frames for her gun that have different stats and secondary attacks.



For example, the Dragoon can still fire off charged shots. Annie will start the game off with her “Ranger” frame, a basic gun that she received upon first becoming a member of the Guild.



Emil starts out with his sword “The Eye of Corvus”. Much like Annie’s frames, you can find different weapons throughout the game, but the difference between melee weapons is different than the difference between gun frames. More on that some other time!



Wanted: The Vampire Menace, Reward is a Million Soll!

You may remember in boktai1 that Django had access to different vampire spells, such as C-Bat or C-Wolf. This is something I’ve been wanting to have Emil do since day 1, but it wasn’t until now that he can finally show them off!



C-Raven (NOT a crow, there is a DIFFERENCE) is Emil’s smaller and lighter form. It allows for faster movement speeds and the ability to fit into small entrances he otherwise couldn’t enter. Emil can also caw to distract enemies, the most important feature.



C-Wolf is a homing attack that bites a patrolling enemy in the neck, draining the life out of it and restoring Emil’s HP. It hits twice if it connects with an enemy and can only work if an enemy is hit from behind.



Game Feel: Fancy Capes and Solar Bullets

Since the demo, I’ve received a lot of feedback regarding combat. A lot of effort has gone towards smoothing it out and improving the game feel. Things like hit lag, vibration, better VFX, and changing how one attack blends into another.



Using the Dynamic Bone Unity package, Annie and Emil both have fancy physics added to their scarf/cape. If Annie’s scarf is called “The Crimson Scarf” what is Emil’s cape called anyway? [EDIT] As of this update, the cape is the “Pthalo Cloak”, despite it being purple.



Annie has also gotten some TLC! Annie’s shooting/aiming code has has an overhaul to make sure that you hit your target when you want to.



Enemies: New Monsters and Bounties

“The Huntress has slain so many that her dress is now dyed crimson with blood. She sports a golden ax as a status symbol among her sisters.”



A lot of new enemies have been programmed in, both old and new! In addition, a bounty system for enemies is being put into place. The Guild will deposit soll into your bank account for every enemy that Annie and Emil destroy. However, their bounties may shift depending on the weather and other factors.



The Huntress is a new class of enemy in the game’s code, called a “Dueling Enemy”. A Dueling Enemy is a child of the Patrolling Enemy script, but has more attacks than the standard patrol enemy.



Although it’s not quite ready yet, this Mett is training very hard, as you can see here. It’s not quite used to being outside of a turn based game yet, but we will see where his behavior goes.



Finally, a patrolling voodoo doll. People who have been following for a long time may recognize this enemy, as its model and design has been done since 2014. It wasn’t until now that its AI was finally programmed in! As for its attack pattern, we’ll leave that a secret for now.



Thank You!

If you’ve made it this far, you’re either crazy or a dedicated fan. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you for your support.

I also want to acknowledge that a lot of new people have started following us within the last few months, with some who are new to boktai. Welcome solar guys, gals, and pals! I hope that at the end of this journey we will have made a boktai game that you all deserve. We have a long road ahead, but…

“The Sun will rise tomorrow!”

