Numatian Games explains the difficulty level of their Lords of Xulima sequel:

The Sequel: More casual or more hardcore?

Greetings!

Recently, there have been some hot discussions in the forum about if the sequel of Lords of Xulima would be more casual to attract more potential buyers or more hardcore to please the old-school fans. So we would like to talk about this topic and clarify this aspect before the rivers of blood flood the forum. 😉

First, don’t confuse Accessible with Casual

A game can be more casual or more hardcore independently of their accessibility level. Lords of Xulima is big, challenging and deep, with lots of mechanisms and possibilities but, it is very accessible. It is very easy and simple to play (move the avatar, talk with NPCs, disarm traps, level up, combat…). We dedicated a lot of work to achieve that level of simplicity of playing. On contrast, old-school games seemed much more hardcore than they actually were because of their obscure and awkward interfaces.

We will always try to make the games as accessible as possible so any player can play it, but with the same level of challenge and depth as they were originally designed.

[...]

So how will the sequel be?

Let’s just say that in Numantian Games, we will always focus on creating deep and challenging games. It is our seal and always will be. So, of course, it won’t be a casual game and it won’t have casual options to disable mechanisms of the game. We will use the same method for casual players: a low difficulty mode, but they will have to play the same game with the same mechanisms (food, traps, encounters…) as any other player.

Indeed, the game will be even more challenging, more open, with more depth, more options to evolve the party, and many more secrets. There will be a special ending that will be a truly hardcore experience 😉 and more special rewards for the higher difficulties.

Numantian games provide more info on the reasons why the first game was as open or linear as it was and why there were randome encounters, while adding information on how they want to deal with that in Lords of Xumlima II.

There were two types of barriers, ones that were only powerful guardians like the army of the impious princes that protected certain regions. Those barriers weren't impossible to beat without triggering the events that removed them (killing the corresponding prince) if you had a very powerful party. The other barriers were fixed and impossible to beat until you got special items or did specific things. For example, the Ulnalum Guardian that prevented to enter in Varaskel or the Yul statue in Rasmura that protected the bridge access with a halo of darkness.

We set those barriers for two reasons. First the story, the story was more coherent if the main story dialog was played in its natural order. Second, it was to avoid the player from getting lost too soon. In LoX’s earliest version, we first tested with no barriers at all. The testers wasted a lot of time trying to figure out where to go, what areas they could explore or were too dangerous. Ultimately, they became frustrated very quickly. In contrast, with those few barriers the world continues to be very open with lots of things to do, the story flows better, and the player is not overwhelmed by so many options at the very beginning.

Numantian Games promises that Lords of Xulima II will be an overall better game than the original Lords of Xulima. But before that they will release a Non-RPG:

New Game Incoming

It has been a long time since our last update, yes, but don’t think the Numantian team has been on holidays since then. We have been working hard during these past months on our new game. We will announce it for Christmas and expect to release it for the end of Q1 2017. Although it is not LoX II or even an RPG, we are sure this game is going to please all that have enjoyed Lords of Xulima (even the main developers are playing it a lot instead of working on finishing it…). We will talk more about it in the next update, but let’s drop a tiny hint: its initials are T.A.B. Any guess?

The Sequel: Lords of Xulima II

We decided to create a different game before Lords of Xulima II for two reasons: First, to have more time to design it with new and fresh ideas. And of course, we will be continuing the original story. This story, by the way, will be much more epic than the first one. The first game, “A Story of Gods of Humans” is actually the prequel to the main story. Second, we would love to produce Lords of Xulima II with much better quality in all aspects: graphics, sound, and voice. We believe that the new game will help us reach that goal.

Keep in mind, behind Lords of Xulima, there are 4 years of development. Designing a 100-hour RPG, with the world, gameplay, mechanisms, puzzles, classes, and everything being coherent with the main story was like squaring the circle. And the sequel is much more ambitious.

We are very proud of LoX. It is not perfect, we know it, but we will use all our experience and all that we have learned so far to make the sequel even more special and unique.

Let’s talk about RPG gameplay

Some months ago, we started a thread where the players can give us their feedback for the sequel. We wanted to know what aspects of the original game they liked the most and which of them they did not enjoy as much. We were also interested in new ideas and suggestions.

In this update and others to come, we will discuss different gameplay topics and how they will be implemented in the sequel. We will post new updates every two to three weeks. Each one of them will cover a gameplay aspect.

Game Length and Replayability

We love long games, especially in the RPG genre. In the old-school days, games like Wizardy VII or the first Might and Magic games were huge epic games with 100+ hours of content. Nowadays it is rare to find a game that lasts more than 20-30 hours.With Lords of Xulima, we wanted to bring back those huge stories of the past when you had time to slowly evolve your party from weaker than rats to adventurous young men to powerful demigod heroes.

In this case, we think we went too far since Lords of Xulima is a bit too long. This isn’t a problem in itself, but the third part of the game suffers a bit, as it lacks in fresh content, too much combat, and less variety of enemies. We had to do it because of the long story. The eight temples / gods should have an equal level of importance. But to keep that in the story, the gameplay suffered. Nevertheless, with the last part of the game, it was interesting to drink the blood of a king through the horn of a demon or find an old sea-route in some ancient ruins to reach a small isle and there find a speaking chest with the most powerful weapon :o)

For the sequel, we plan on making it shorter of about 40-50 hours for the main story. However, it will have different endings depending on your actions. One of the endings will be especially difficult to achieve. Only the most hardcore players will be able to beat it after 100 hours+ of playing.

Additionally, we are going to focus more on the replay value. Since the game follows a story, there must be a lot of static content (dialog, places, puzzles, NPCs …). Though it won’t be a procedurally generated roguelike, there are some aspects of the game that can make every new game more random and unique:

• More Variety of Classes: New classes that make you play the game in a different way. We will talk more about them it later.
• Traps: Most traps will be randomly placed. With each new game, they will change.
• Static Enemies and Random Encounters: In LoX I, they had a bit of randomness but in the sequel, they will be much different.
• Dynamic NPCs: Some special NPCs will travel through the world. Their interaction will have important effects on the player.
• Special random world areas and dungeons: Some world areas like Geldra and Pernitia from the first game will be generated randomly. Also, some optional and special dungeons will be random too.
• Special Items and Artifacts: Every game will have a set of special items whose nature and location will change. Special Bosses: Some bosses will change with every new game, such as their nature and location.

What do you think?

Next time we will talk about “Linear or Open Worlds“.

See you soon!