Hello, again today I thought we should talk about a core component of the game more and break down the reasons why they work this way. So in this post, I will be discussing the arrows in-depth as they are the key to the entire game and I have yet to talk about them. Before we begin if you are looking for a breakdown of the most recent work please look over the Production Blog that is posted alongside this. So in guilded fletching, there are 4 arrow types that the player will unlock along the way, we start with the standard then unlock in order the bramble, warp, airburst. 

The standard arrow we will just call arrow from here is the only one that the player starts with. Throughout the first few levels, we will introduce the many mechanics of this arrow. It can do many things first is that it will pin into objects that it hits if it hits any targets it will trigger their effect just as a switch opening a door. The next function that this arrow has is it can be lit on fire if the arrow is shot through a source of fire this will allow you to burn vines this makes for more interesting puzzles as you will need LOS (line of sight) on a target to burn. Lastly, this arrow will do baseline damage to enemy targets it will be the most effective when it comes to damage as the rest are used to modify combat. This arrows job is to create a good base for the rest of the game to build off of.

This is the bramble arrow its main use is to blind objects. Now I could end it there as that is the goal of this arrow but let’s go a little deeper. If there are platforms moving in an environment this can be used to stop them for a few seconds to allow the player to get into position to fire a different arrow off. The idea behind this is to allow players to gain the positioning needed to hit puzzle components. This will have the same effect in combat that will stop enemies allowing the player to reposition themselves.

The warp arrow is the most mysterious of the 4 arrows as it allows the player to teleport around the environment at will think of an ender pearl from Minecraft. Now just being able to teleport would be too overpowered and would break all puzzle logic so we made it so that you need to hit a material to teleport to that location. For example, the tutorial level of this arrow makes it so that the player is given a jump that is just too big for them no matter how hard they try they can not make it BUT there is a strange material at the other side of this gap making the player want to shoot this. In combat, this does almost 0 damage as the arrow is very fragile. 

For the last arrow, we have the airburst which is the last the player acquires this is used to move and or break objects with in the game. First, lets talk about the combat this time it is used to push enemies away it is a much larger forum of CC (crowd control) than the bramble. The main use of this arrow is to find new paths in levels by breaking walls or moving objects. 

The 4 arrow types when combined in late-game can create very interesting puzzles that are not only skill-based on the player but will also challenge their knowledge of the game. The challenge from later puzzles will not only be from the puzzle its self you also need to have good aim.

Playtesting 

So we had a playtest recently and I just want to address something quickly from this as we had nowhere near the responses as the last one and this created very imbalanced data that I do not feel is the best to break down. Mainly players did feel that the player speed was better and the arrow firing was still much too slow. I will not be making the arrow firing quicker until behave the animation in the game as that could alleviate the issues.