Black Legend
Black Legend is a Turn Based Strategy Role Playing Game Developed by Warcave in Unreal Engine 4. It is my second professional project and the first time as Director.
Black Legend tells the tale of an accursed city inspired by the 17th century Low Lands. A mad alchemist has enveloped the city in a toxic fog and your group of Mercenaries have been sent to liberate it.
Premise
The party of four mercenaries about to enter the city of Grant.
Black Legend was my first project where I was involved from the start. As the only Designer, I took up the position of Writer, Lead Design and Director upon myself.
The intention of Black Legend was inspired by the Witcher series. Through their games, they managed to promote Slavic folklore and culture to the rest of the world. Our Lead Artist and I were both Dutch and were big fans of the Efteling, a themepark in the Netherlands where Dutch and Belgian fairy tales and folklore is presented through rides and attractions.
The plan was made to create a Turn Based Strategy RPG that would incorporate Belgian and Dutch folklore.
With only a small team and no dedicated PFX artist, our Lead Artist suggested to not rely on hard magic systems for our game.
I dove into 17th century history on Wikipedia and discovered a plethora of inspiration. However, it was when I stumbled on a Youtube video detailing plague doctors that the medieval theory on medicine and bodily humours caught my eye.
Humourism is the theory that balance in the body is maintained through four fluids: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm. Each of these fluids had an associated colour: red, black, yellow and white in that order. By using these colours and theory, I created the alchemy system.
Abilities would not just deal damage, but also apply “stacks” of these colours on the target. Colours on their own did very little, but could be combined through a “Catalyst” attack which then consumed the stacks and did massive damage.
This constant flow of building and spending, used by both the player and the AI would form the basis of our entire gameplay model.
The Alchemy System
Overview of the Alchemy system. Combining the four bodily humours would result in a Catalyst.
Combat Design
A combat encounter in the Harbour.
Besides the Alchemy System, we still had to hit certain notes when it comes to turn based strategic combat.
One of the common complaints in games that are in the same genre is the abundance of Random Number Generation preventing strategies from working, or dragging out battles. One of the core design aspects was the removal of RNG, or somehow being able to make it predictable.
Examples of this are the True Line of Sight rules, which makes every attack a guaranteed hit, provided the target isn’t obstructed by line of sight. This meant that everything, including units, could provide cover for other units.
Another system that worked well with this mindset was Adrenaline. Rather than giving a set chance to critically hit, this resource is built up every time you deal or take damage based on one of your parameters. Every time you do not critically strike, the chance would increase until you do, at which point it resets to 0.
Class Design
The Duelist Class, using Rapiers in their main hand and Parrying Daggers or Pistols in their off-hand.
Inspired by games like Final Fantasy Tactics, we settled on a large amount of classes. Initially we wanted classes to be created and discovered based on the equipment you gave a unit, but this proved to be too confusing for players.
Instead we opted to simply have the class be available when you find the appropriate gear in the world, either from shops or through exploration and finding treasure chests.
Each class was meant to be unique, and there’s 15 different classes to choose from. This was challenging but not impossible. Differences were made by giving each class 5 abilities specific to their class, as well as a certain number of bodily humours from the Alchemy System they specialized in. Certain classes are healers, others deal more damage straight up while some excel in catalyzing the bodily humours together.
Growth was another factor that played a big part, with each class gaining a different amount of growth in one of the five stats. This meant you could specialize in certain stats if you chose your classes carefully before leveling up, which added a whole new layer of depth.
Black Legend was created with an even playing field in mind. As such, this meant that the enemy AI would have to use the Alchemy System as well. By assigning values to potential tiles, targets and stacks of humours placed on the target, the AI gained a final value for each ability at their disposal, and would also try to maximize damage through the Alchemy system.
All this logic was custom implemented through Unreal Blueprints, with assistance from the programmers which provided tools and custom nodes for me to use.
AI Design
A common Mephistian Cultist, a standard enemy to the player when exploring Black Legend.
Level Design
The player standing in a small cemetary behind the church, near a gate that only opens one way.
Again, due to a lack of a dedicated Level Designer, I took it upon myself to create the Levels. This was a double challenge as Black Legend combined free exploration with Turn Based Grid Combat. This meant that levels had to be fun and interesting to explore, while simultaneously housing smaller “arenas” that were interesting to fight in when combat occurred.
For the overall design, I drew heavy inspiration from Dark Souls’ level design, adding treasure chests off the beaten path and featuring “loops” that would unlock shortcuts for future exploration.
While I have some experience with C++, lack of maintaining those skills in favour of focusing more on design has made it difficult to keep up with experienced programmers.
As such we agreed at the start of the project to restrict design to Unreal Engine Blueprints while the programmers supported the required nodes and tools via code behind.
All abilities, AI, Quests, Status Effects, Dialog, Triggers, etc. are made via Unreal Engine Blueprints. Nodes like “Damage Target” or “Apply Status Effect” were provided by the programmers to essentially allow me to create every ability in the game. An extensive amount of tools were also added to allow custom boss mechanics, and overall the project worked extremely well for anyone used to Blueprint implementation.
Programming
An advantage of working in Unreal Engine 4 is the ease of access that the Blueprint system allows for both prototyping as well as development.
Marketing
We lacked a dedicated person to handle marketing and streams. As such, I took the task upon myself to promote the game through streaming on the Warcave Twitch channel and Steam, despite my desire for internet anonymity. As such, we opted to hide the face camera.
Other responsibilities include handling interviews, creating promotional videos and capturing footage of the game.
