Kalia and the Narrative

Hello all! Today I wanted to bring another detailed update on KatFS's alpha development. In the last devlog, I discussed some of the tech upgrades that the game's systems would be receiving, most of which have been implemented by now and have been working wonderfully (albeit a lot of the game balance has been thrown off in the transition, but sometimes it's good to force a fresh perspective on things).

But this time I want to write about the game's narrative upgrades. Kalia and the Fire Staff has always been intended to be a narrative-heavy game (not to be confused with "story-heavy" or "dialogue-heavy" or even "cutscene-heavy"). Kalia is not just wandering through differently-themed dungeons for the heck of it, there's a reason and purpose to her journey and every step along the way. This is an area the current demo has failed to address thus far - it showcases locations and enemies but fails to give it all coherence and a sense of progression and narrative beyond "this chapter comes after the previous one" - but that was understandable as the purpose of the demo has been to showcase the game's systems and be a "proof of concept". With the game transitioning into an alpha stage, it was time to plan out the game's narrative proper, and that meant writing a game script!

So, that's a lot of telling, let's lift the veil a bit and show some of the narrative changes and upgrades (along with their gameplay implications) that have been written thus far for the three demo chapters, starting with the Facility!

While the Facility is the first chapter in the demo, in the full game it will actually be the third chapter (second if you don't want to count a prologue)! In the current version of the demo, Kalia begins in a room filled with several broken fire staves, and with a hole in the wall leading to a cave behind her, which hint at the narrative plans behind the full chapter. Kalia will actually enter the facility after being injured by a major fall she suffers at the end of the previous chapter. Also, Kalia will not have the Fire Staff at the beginning of the chapter, instead being armed with a normal quarterstaff that has no magical properties (but still packs a punch).

The initial moments of the chapter see Kalia break some crates to find a healing potion (the first available in the game) which the player is prompted to immediately use to heal her injuries from the drop and serves as a tutorial for using potions. Not long after, she arrives at the room where the fire staves are stored, which will be much larger than the current cramped side room in the demo. Lines upon lines of shelves packed with damaged staves, storage crates all over the place, dormant conveyor belts and tubes connecting to other parts of the facility. And a single staff still intact, awaiting on a stone surface. In the full game, the facility is presented as an ancient factory of magical artefacts, and it's clear that objects like the Fire Staff were a mundane part of this past society, who was able to mass-produce copies of it and other magical objects.

As Kalia grabs the last Fire Staff, a security sentinel awakens and attacks her, ready to defend the facility even after millennia of decay. The demo's "Damaged Sentinel" boss fight would take place at this point rather than at the end of the chapter, serving as the game's first boss fight. Unlike in the demo, Kalia only has access to the staff's basic melee and ranged attacks, which should make this a more involved fight. Defeating this boss unlocks the Fire Spray special ability, however.

In the demo, the facility chapter is very puzzle-heavy, and this carries on to the full chapter. However, the demo's puzzles have felt a bit all over the place and that they were placed just for the sake of being a game obstacle rather than making any sense in the game's narrative. The full chapter will see Kalia initially restricted by the facility's dormant machinery, unable to get its powered doors and gates open. Not long after defeating the sentinel, Kalia would arrive at the facility's generator room, a massive piece of ancient machinery just waiting for a jumpstart to bring the whole city back to life! The game's first puzzle sequence takes place with the purpose of getting this generator running so that Kalia can have access to the facility's machinery. Subsequent puzzles see her operating said machinery and activating additional sectors of the building in order to proceed. Finally, the chapter ends with a second sentinel boss fight, this time an almost intact one, presenting additional challenges over its damaged counterpart.

With the front entrance of the facility blocked, Kalia is forced to detour through the adjacent Mines.

The Mines in the demo mostly follow the narrative beats that have been planned for the chapter, only in a way more compressed manner to fit in the demo. There will be more of a buildup to the spiders rather than them being introduced right at the start. The break in the middle where Kalia gets to wander in an overgrown ravine is planned to be part of the full chapter. A segment where Kalia would have to break columns to create several bridges over a major abyss within the mines is absent from the demo, but the concept is applied throughout via the stone bridges the player creates by exploding tall rocks in the demo. The full chapter will be focused on explosive puzzles like its demo counterpart, but there will also be a focus on light and darkness, with torches that the player can light up to illuminate the way. Very likely, the pits will be a hazard to the player and enemies alike, whom can wander or get knocked off to a deadly fall (in the demo, invisible walls prevent things from falling off pits).

A major divergence between the demo and the full game, however, is that the mines will lead to the Underground Forest chapter, not the Lost City as experienced in the demo. Speaking of, let's skip to the Lost City, which is a big one!

Unlike in the demo where Kalia is immediately put on the streets of the lost city, in the full game the player will experience a buildup to it as Kalia catches glimpses of it from a distance and makes the journey towards it, having to fight a gate sentinel to enter it. Once inside, she finds a place that's filled with zombies and has had many of its zones quarantined off by the goblins, making getting around it complicated. The demo has a major ambush at the market plaza, which is a set piece planned for the full game as well. The concept of needing to explore the city in search of three keys to open a gate is also something that will very likely be present in the full chapter (albeit maybe with some changes). Oh yeah, and remember all these streetlights? It was thanks to Kalia's reactivation of the facility's power generator that they're back on. Talk about leaving an impact in the world!

The demo rendition of the lost city has Kalia arrive at the city tower shortly after... Actually, the demo doesn't even do a good job of presenting this location as Kalia's objective. At this point in the game, Kalia will have noticed the high tower at the center of the city, and seeks to climb it in order to get a good view of her surroundings and try to pinpoint a way out of the underground. Anyway, rather than beelining for it, in the full chapter Kalia will have to detour through the city's sewers and canals, a garden district, and back to its core before she can reach the tower. Which yes, will be guarded by the landship like in the demo.

These are merely some examples of the greater adventure that awaits Kalia in the full game. The demo has been only a small sample of what's to come. But how did Kalia get lost in the underground world? Was she the first one to find the lost city? How will she get back to the surface? And what's with all the damn zombies and skeletons? Those and other questions I hope to answer when KatFS gets its full release, but you'll have to experience it for yourself then. ;)

For the time being, see ya!