[2020] Hopoo Games Development Thoughts #15

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/632360/announcements/detail/2520276100969901364]here[/url].

Hey!

We have a variety of topics to cover in this Dev Thoughts so we gotta go fast NOW

Let's dive right in!

=== Hopoo Games is hiring! ===

As the title might suggest, we are hiring! This is big news for us, since we’ve always been an incredibly small company.

We’ve launched our new website http://hopoogames.com, where we’re hoping to start adding job listings over time. We also have a new official twitter https://twitter.com/hopoogames for Hopoo Games, where we will tweet company-related stuff. Our first listing is for a Lead Pixel Artist on a non-disclosed game. Stay tuned for that :-)

=== Console Update ===



With the launch of the console update for CU4 in June, see above our updated console Forecast! All three platforms were updated on June 23rd with the Artifacts Update. A major shout out to the team at PlayEveryWare who took our most complex update and knocked it out of the park.

=== Pricing Increase for 1.0 ===





When we first launched Risk of Rain 2 on Early Access one of the initial questions was if we would be increasing the price on 1.0, and our initial answer was “Yes.”

We still plan on increasing the price at 1.0. The game has grown a tremendous amount, and we think the value of the game is increased. Our plan is to increase the game from $19.99 USD to $24.99 USD.

We’re also hoping to have another Dev Thoughts focusing more on our plans for Post Release, so be on the lookout for that!

=== Keywords + Survivor Updates ===

One of the curious things about game development is that you never know how a change in one area can completely alter the game in a different area.

Strangely enough, we’ve seen over time that the limited text size of the Survivor Select’s skill descriptions have subtly impacted the designs of Survivors. We can’t really add more effects to skills without the text getting tinier and tinier - some existing skills are already incredibly small to read.



One of the changes we’re making for 1.0 is the use of Keywords. This is just a UI change, but the idea is that common behaviors (like freezing, stunning, or attacking while sprinting) can be summarized as a Keyword, saving up precious text space for other behaviors. Hovering over skills in the Survivor Select will explain what the Keyword is.

An example of what this allows is our Mercenary changes we have for 1.0.

The Mercenary’s fantasy was always intended as the hardest-to-play survivor for sweaty nerds. However, the Merc is actually not that difficult to play; you have a set skill rotation that typically does not change.

Something we’re adding to the Merc for 1.0 is the ‘Expose’ debuff, which is consumed when an enemy with that debuff is hit. Consuming the debuff reduces all your cooldowns by 1 second and increases damage.




This allows for the Merc to have dynamic cooldowns, and for greedy players to get greater cooldown reduction at the cost of completing their M1 combo. To compensate, we’re reducing his base health - higher risk, higher reward.

Debuffs like ‘Expose’ would typically be contained inside of the Passive, but the Merc already has a passive. The Keyword system allowed us to add a new effect to the skill without making the text teeny tiny.

It’s not a super exciting system - and we’re not going to start overloading all character kits now that we can - but we’re hoping that it gives us a little more room to breathe when it comes to survivor designs, both new and old.

=== Looking Forward ===

As we mentioned in the previous Dev Thoughts, we are trying to do more frequent updates and shed more light into our development process. Let us know if there are any specific topics around tech, design, business questions or any other topics you would enjoy reading about!

As always, thanks for the amazing support during Early Access and we can’t wait to share the 1.0 update with everyone.

-Hopoo Games Team