AQ2D
Artix Krieger
| Thursday, July 3, 2025
Greetings and salutations,
I promised a player on Facebook that I would do an update post this week. We have had our noses on the grind-tombstones of Bludrut Keep for an unspeakably long time. This week the whole team started testing it together and it turned into the most fun work frenzy I have experienced in years!
Combat is feeling really fun. I cannot wait for the next test so you can try this. Spider & Immortal Joe fixed all the known combat issues. (*whispers* It got complicated, so there were aaaaaaaaaa-lot) In previous posts we talked about how there are two versions of each class-- a retro one and a new Infinity one. That was a terrible idea! Now there is one version of Warrior, Rogue, Mage, & Healer. When you log into the next tech demo and have any of those classes, you will automatically be using the new Infinity ones. They feel similar to their AQWorlds counterparts, but have the Infinity-only features built into them. Also, Warrior now has a whirlwind attack.
"Cutscenes are done baby! Awwww yeah! "
I have been biting my nails over how we were going to pull off cutscenes in AQWorlds Infinity. Ghost & Tunik really came though. All of the cutscenes for Bludrut are now in the game. We will talk about this more with some examples lower in this post. The quests and machines are done too. We are doing a polish pass over everything now.
As the team played through the release together, we have been running into a bunch of weird things. Like quest glitches, buttons that mysteriously stopped working, and monsters that would die... but their graphics had a mind of their own.
My last run through ONLY had 17 pages of bugs & issues... which may not sound like a good thing, but I assure you it is! The just two prior it was only one page. >_> Because everything broke and I could not test far enough to find any actual issues. XD
If you walked into my room during the day (at my house), you would say "Hi Artix, and also hello to everyone else!" No one else is in my room. But a flood of devs would cheerfully say hi back through my speakers. We work together all day in voice chat. We post code, bugs, graphics, and other stuff back and forth in the normal chat. when the whole team gets in a groove like we have these past few weeks it is super fun and productive. An extra cup of coffee never hurts :D
Ironically, I am wiring this post to you from the Lab. Nythera (player support), Jongaar (music), Quibble (my friend fro New York), and I are here today. I put this post together from random pics & GIFs that were on my desktop from this week.
Weapons in Infinity now drop from monsters with enhancements. Yorumi (coder) set enhancements to drop at your current level. Good for testing-- but obviously they should drop up to the level of the monster you get the drop from. These enhancements are separate (and different) from the ones you use in regular AQWorlds. Which is super weird. Maybe we should rename them to something else in Infinity to avoid confusion. They are what gives your weapons, armor, and items power. Next up, Yorumi is working on a shop where you can upgrade & level up your enhancements.
a.k.a. The Dialogger
Tunik (UI & programmer) sorta remade Flash in Unity. Boy did things change since the early versions of this. Originally I had asked for something like a visual novel editor, LOL. It has evolved into a tool that can very rapidly produce cutscenes. Both with built in animation or full cinematic animation.
I am so excited that it was possible to throw this test cutscene together in about 2 minutes using the Dialogger. Things like transitions, moving the camera, and playing animations is great. Also.... it is able to be translated! (You know, I probably should check that the code base that does the translation did not break before posting that last line. Maybe instead it would be safer to say "It will be translatable!")
I am perpetually embarrassed for how long it is taking to finish and release Infinity. It is extremely important that we release a game that it fun, fast, and respects the time and effort you have put into your AQWorlds character.
The next test will be our most important one. It does not need to be perfect, but it needs to be fun. I do not have a hard ETA for it because we need all the known issues resolved before we can bring you and the other players in. The last Tech Demos were pretty good. The feedback was positive and we were moving the right direction. When you hop into this and swing your weapons down the 4 levels of Bludrut Keep, the most important goal is that you say, "Yes. MORE!"
Battle on!
Artix
AQWorlds 
DragonFable 
EpicDuel 
