Hello wonderful people from the internet!
With these new ‘progression blogs’, we want to offer an even deeper insight into our development. We will always show the current status of what we are currently working on. Therefore, these blogs will be a bit shorter, but should give you the opportunity to be directly involved in the process if you want to. But don’t worry, if a whole system is finished, there will be deep-dives again.
So let’s just get straight into it.
Passive Skill Tree
One of the biggest changes we’re currently working on is our progression system. We’ve been discussing how we can incorporate exciting elements into our passive skilltree. We don’t want a simple linear skilltree, we want to include the rotation (to some extent). This resulted in this preliminary diagram.
The player starts at one of the purple dots and can rotate the green disc to choose a preferred path. Once a rotation is made and the path is taken, the green disc must remain in that position. The player can then progress along the path until reaching a blue disc, where the same process applies.
You should also get to other purple dots via paths, only the path you take to get there is determined by the rotation. We thought this would add some flavour to the otherwise boring passive skilltree without becoming too complicated or losing complexity. What do you think about it, we love feedback and are always open to discussions (in chats or voice channel) on Discord.
For a more detailed explanation check our our upcoming dev livestream on Twitch.
Abilities
Furthermore, we are currently building a prototype for „Talk and Play“ (a small meeting of game devs) to test parts of our gear, the rotation ability and our enemies. For gear, we currently have the Syphon Beam and the Echobolts. We’ve also added placeholder VFX to give the whole thing better feedback. The gears already work, but we’re now considering whether to include the runes, which would of course give the whole thing even more depth.
First look at „Echobolts“
First look at „Syphonbeam“
For the Rotation Ability, we’re currently exploring two possible upgrade systems. One option is a linear skill tree. The other is a more dynamic approach where you collect special fragments – earned through boss fights, drops, or loot – which enhance the ability in different ways.
The current design starts simple: you rotate and deal damage when hitting the ground. With the first fragment equipped, you also deal damage while flying through enemies, in addition to the ground impact. Another fragment could add a healing effect while dealing damage, and so on. Our goal is to make the Rotation Ability feel progressively more powerful and exciting.
We’d love to hear your thoughts: Would you prefer a linear skill tree for this ability, or a system where you unlock and equip different fragments? And if you have ideas for unique or fun fragments, feel free to share!
Backtracking
Another thing we have thought about is how we can get unique backtracking in the game besides the usual stuff which will also be in it. You might gussed it, link it to the rotation mechanic and this time really close. You can use special „artefacts“ that allow you to destroy barricades that were not destructible before. This destruction is also tied to a direction, so you can only destroy this barricade in a falling direction with a specially equipped artefact, and so you can explore more and more of the world and solve puzzles with this mechanic.
Your Thoughts?
These are just some of the concepts we’re excited to try out. But we want to hear from you! Your input could shape the future of the game – no pressure, though.
(And if you don’t have any ideas, just tell us your favorite pizza topping. We’re flexible.)
ENSO Out
