Continued from part 1

ENCUMBRANCE

Armor is finally no longer a matter of more is better, but presents a tradeoff and an investment as well as having a new layer of meaningful diversity. Heavier and more rigid armours are now more cumbersome which will affect your character's movement in many subtle but still important ways. Your character doesn't just move slower but differently, in ways that are realistic and convey added weight and stiffness. You can be effective even when heavily encumbered, but in some situations you will undoubtedly be at a disadvantage, with the correct training however this can be avoided.

ARMOUR SKILLS

We've introduced the first armour skills, those that are most meaningful for the current state of the game. There are 3 ranks of Manoeuvering in Armour which allow you to overcome the encumbrance effects of increasingly heavy armours. Deflection allows you to take better advantage of your armour, it effectively increases how much of your body your armour is able to protect and reduces vulnerability in gaps and weaker areas of armour.

ITEM QUALITY

Items now come in various qualities and conditions. We've introduced over 50 specific quality modifiers with various effects which improve gear diversity and randomisation. This gives many items that were previously just better or worse new roles, particularly with the introduction of the encumbrance system. The quality of items is not only reflected in their properties but also their appearance.

Item quality does not currently apply to weapons, this will be part of a larger upgrade to weapons with a procedural system for much greater weapon variety and meaningful effects. With this we will also introduce many new weapons and types.

Many completely new items have also been added throughout the game.

FIST FIGHTING

You should of course be able to fight with no weapon equipped and we've now introduced basic unarmed fighting. You can punch with your left and right, do uppercuts and either straight punches or hooks depending on how you move the cursor. This turned into some very fun boxing combat, which does require a new level of finesse and precision with the controls. With the introduction of the new arena mode we will include unarmed fights which we're sure will make for hours of solid entertainment.

GUI OVERHAUL

A long overdue graphical overhaul of the user interface is finally here. We've added support for nicer, proportional fonts and upgraded all shading and textures. It's a fairly superficial change, but one that was quite labour intensive, we do think it adds a lot to the game's overall presentation and atmosphere.

PLAYER JOURNAL

Each character now has a journal, currently accessed with 'J'. You can write notes on your progress, what you've pieced together of the story or anything you like. We're considering generating entries from your character's perspective as you discover various things, but some players have mixed feelings about this. Let us know what you think.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

There have been countless improvements and fixes to almost every part of the game since the last major release. Here's a list of some specific fixes for well known bugs or things that weren't broadly covered in the above wall of text:

• Cursor locks to full screen windows
• Added a checkpoint earlier in the game
• Improved locational damage mechanics
• Improved loot randomisation
• Fixed characters being unable to step in certain places
• Improved camera obstacle avoidance behaviour
• Improved pathfinding
• New shading and material effects
• Fixed "exorcist" bug
• Fixed strongbox bugs

WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?

This update was supposed to be about getting some more content in, and it was supposed to happen a lot sooner. The level of care we're putting into every aspect of the game has grown a lot, at some point we thought that with how much everything has improved, the more fantasy aspects of the game also needed some more love. A decision was made to expand on our underworld assets and create something more unique, that differentiated itself better from the rest. This also made sense from a longer term productivity and workflow point of view at the time.

Unfortunately we ran into some problems. One of our team members who was core to developing the new assets found themselves in a position of being unable to work much. We initially responded by working on bringing other aspects of the game forward, but the situation got worse and we just found ourselves with a lot more work on our plates.

We got through this little crisis in the end, things are back to normal now, the update has shaped up very well and we've made great progress on many fronts. We've got a lot more content lined up for Exanima, but the assets for this were mostly completed before even its first public release. Delays like this one should not happen again.

WHAT'S NEXT?

We will continue to complete and add features and content at an always faster pace, and at this point I think we can safely say that the days of improving things are almost entirely behind us. The list of features and things we need to do to support them is rapidly shrinking, from something rather daunting to something that looks much more manageable.

The arena mode, which was born as just a combat test, has proved extremely popular amongst players and in the next update we will expand on its features. Fights will be randomised, you will bid into fights and earn money to invest in better gear or even mercenaries to fight by your side. There will be skill progression similar to the story mode and some other features besides. These are great additions and quite simple to make. The arena mode is also a great way to introduce and test multiplayer features which we hope to add soon.

It has been a long and ardous journey so far, especially if you consider that we built everything from the ground up and taken on board every bit of advice and feedback. We don't know how much credit you take as backers and supporters of this project, but you should really take plenty. You made this happen and it's fantastic.



Best,

Bare Mettle