An introduction

Hello everyone! Hope you’re all doing well at the time of reading this, and welcome to the first ever severed fates dev newsletter! Since we (LightWhisp) don’t have the time to edit a bunch of devlogs and everything else we need, we’ve decided to turn our devlogs into newsletters for you all to read to understand what’s been going on, where we’re at, and some behind the scenes on the game. We’ll be splitting this into a few sections, as this is the first newsletter and therefore the one with the most we need to talk about the base stuff. We don’t need to explain what Severed fates is since you’re already here. You already know its an asym that doesn’t use momentum and uses the TD formula (no stamina, survivors with the ability to be more dynamic). You want to know the more distinct stuff. And we’re happy to tell you!

Art style

If you aren’t too aware with how Severed defines its artstyle, we split it up into three sections:

Remnant (survivor) artstyle

Remnants are all setup to be under one universal artstyle to indicate that they’re all on the same team and all were modified by _____ in some way. The inspiration for this artstyle actually came from the practice of creating hand painted textures, and introducing texture through allowing tiny clumps of paint to try (fig 1, fig.2).

In order to achieve this effect, we use a blender addon and hand paint every texture ourselves. That means every skin, every survivor, everything is hand painted to make sure we do the ebay we can! We decided to take this avenue for a few reasons:

1. We wanted to create the feeling as though what you’re playing IS a painting, and thus are painting your own story every time you play a round
2. This style is something we haven’t seen used yet, so it was a good way to get our own identity
3. It’s sick

You can see some examples below.

Fiend (killer) artstyle

Fiends are a bit more involved than remnants, as their entire development process is lead under a different philosophy. Fiends are, from the ground up, meant to reflect their original material as much as possible. We treat other people’s work/oddities with respect, and thus we strive to make sure we become the “definitive” portrayal of them in an asym. That means their model style, painting, and movesets all need to reflect the foundations of their character the most (except kolossos we’re not doing a td model). I’d like to point to bad future as an example.

Bad Future’s portrayal

If you aren’t familiar, Bad Future is an oddity created by A_R and is part of a shared universe of multiple similar entities. It’s really cool! You should check it out. Getting back on topic though, the team was super excited to portray Bad Future and put a ton of thought into it. Naturally, her model had to be polygonal and low poly as she is portrayed, so we started with that (shoutouts to yuki to making an extremely accurate portrayal with ONLY a front view. You guys have no idea how impressive that is) (fig.1).

Since we knew we wanted to incorporate her multiple phases, we knew we had to make her a phase killer. Naturally, we chose the phases that have the most differences visually (fig 1 phase 1. fig 2 phase 3. fig 3 phase 5.).

Next, we need to paint them and they’re good to go! We basically take this avenue with EVERY fiend, and we do so to ensure we can make them the best they can be in respect to their creators.

Map artstyle

This is something we’re super psyched about. Within severed fates, each map will contain it’s own unique, isolated artstyle separate from fiends or survivors. Now, you might have a few concerns so we’re going to explain things. If you’re concerned about art style clash. Don’t worry! We’ve accounted for that, and we always make sure there’s a good blend of contrast and harmony between characters and maps to make sure it doesn’t blend in too much or be jarring. Actually, in the case of act 9, its artstyle is OVERLAID onto the rest of the characters. Since act9’s artstyle involves adding posterization to the whole map, we’ve allowed characters to be a part of this lighting system. Making it so that everyone gets a specific look on act 9 (fig 1.).

Universal mechanics

While we won’t be able to show and discuss everything, we do want to clarify a couple things.

1. Stun stacking IS in the game, but is HEAVILY punished (stacks can only go up to three stuns, and each stun afterwards is heavily nerfed. Only do this if you NEED an extra two seconds for a clutch).
2. Every map has a unique mid-round gimmick players can interact with in order to have each game feel different
3. Final 80 is something you’ll see, with each map having some sort of final 80 modifier. Unlike other final 80s, however, the ring will only spawn in the final 60.
4. There will be a quick comms mechanic that allows characters to quickly communicate intentions and small strategies without needing to type.

In the case of point two and three, we can show you an example! Let’s take a look at act 9’s map gimmick, in which fiends and remnants have universal cooldowns to pull levers connected to bridges across the map. Said bridges will then rise up or lower, allowing for dynamic pathing that can either help remnants stall the fiend, or make fiends force a 1v1. You can see so in (vid. 1).

When the final 80 for act 9 starts, the map will determine where the exit will spawn, and begin to compress around that area. We took this from the scene in sally.exe where crimson does the same to sally. The goal is for each and EVERY playthrough of a map to be unique, even if you played the exact same setup.

Deciding the roster and their movesets

The question we get asked the MOST often: How do you pick who’s going to be in the game? Well, that’s a great questions! And we’re happy to explain here. Right now, we have a few rules in order for any given character to be considered as a fiend:

1. Are they a character that can be represented in a unique way gameplay wise?
2. Do they have any troubled backgrounds (like being stanos)?
3. Do they look like sonic (heavily lowers chances)?
4. Does the team think it’s realistic to add them in a good and respectful way?

For remnants, it falls under the following considerations:

1. Do they look like sonic (heavily lowers chances)?
2. Are they an oddity survivor?
3. What timeframe do they come from (modern or classic)?
4. How would they be represented gameplay wise?
5. How would they contribute to the current archetype diversity?

This ensures we can make sure that the roster isn’t just oops! All sonic and provides a healthy diversity in both fiends and remnants. When it comes to movesets, we have a few core principles that we ensure the entire roster adheres to.

1. Every remnant MUST contribute to the team as a helpful addition (no pure selfish playstyles)
2. Every character as a whole MUST promote skill expression and reward good play. No handouts.
3. The kits most not be overdesigned
4. Remnant kits MUST not be able to 1v1 the fiend
5. Stuns from remnants must be scarce

You’ll see all of this more as we get more gameplay to you. But in the case of metal sonic, we encourage you to read this document regarding his design and general philosophy for characters!

With that, we’ve covered the basics for Severed Fates and our first ever entry. We hope you all look forward to what’s coming in future dev newsletters, along with the future of the game as a whole.