Introduction

Thousands Layered Blade: Reforged is actually a remake of my Android game, Thousands Layered Edge, which tells a story of a young assassin in her mission to prevent a civil war in a country in the Far East. My vision for the game is to make something more like playable art than a game. The graphics are inspired by Okami and Sumioni. However, while Okami tends to be more colorful and Ukiyo-e-like, I decided to go further by keeping the color palette limited to shades of black and red.

The story is inspired by the manga Azumi, where the player meets a dilemma between keeping the peace and the human costs of the Empire she serves. The gameplay itself is inspired by For Honor's directional attacks and parries combined with Sekiro's stamina tug-o-war. This game is for players who like slow-paced, high-tension combat. They can expect a focused experience where every move carries weight.

Software Used in Development

I am using Unity, specifically version 2021.3. Most of my custom solutions are in the shaders. Many of the core shaders are actually legacy code brought over from the original Android version, but I developed new post-processing effects specifically for Reforged to handle the simulated brush strokes.

The main purpose of these custom post-process shaders is to eliminate thin, digital-looking outlines. The shader effectively "thickens" and softens the lines by drawing them several times with specific offsets, which creates that hand-painted, ink-on-paper look.

Style of the Game

I love 3D games that don't look 3D. Also, I'm aware that with my modeling skills, I don't have a chance to compete with games with realistic graphics out there. I also love the artistic styles of sumi-e paintings, but my drawing skills are not good either. So, I try to simulate them using 3D graphics and shaders.

The sumi-e charms, like Zen and empty space (Ma), are purely visual and do not have any role in the gameplay itself. On the technical side, the empty space actually helps by reducing the number of objects to be drawn, making the development more manageable and more optimized.

Main Mechanics

The game shares the same DNA as the Android version. It uses directional attacks and parries. Although the Android version is more static, as players can't move around since it was inspired by swipe-based combat games, the remake version is more dynamic as the gameplay core shifted to 3rd person hack and slash.

All characters, both player and enemy, can attack in 4 directions: up, left, right, or down. They can also parry into the same 4 directions, while blocking doesn't have any specific direction. All characters also have 2 gauges: health and stamina. When a character blocks an attack, he will lose stamina while the attacker gains stamina.

When a character successfully parries an attack by matching the direction of the enemy attack, he will gain stamina while the attacker loses stamina. Any character that runs out of stamina will be staggered and open to attack, which will reduce their health for a brief moment until their stamina resets.

The Mini Games

There are several mini-games that function as a break from the combat, but they still act as a form of storytelling. Most of them are carried over from the Android game. For example, the boat mini-game is basically an avoider game with simple left and right controls, where the player needs to dodge cannonballs fired from a warship they are chasing.

There is also a horse combat mini-game where the player defends themselves from enemies while chasing a caravan. This one actually shares some of the controls from the main combat system.

Conclusion

I think the best advice is to start small and start simple. It sounds like a cliché, but it's the only way to actually finish a project. For me, this game was a remake of my own Android title. That helped a lot because I already had a functional game as a base to expand from.

Instead of trying to create a large game from scratch, I focused on taking a core idea that already worked and refining the art and mechanics to make it something better. Don't be afraid to keep things manageable. It's better to have a polished, small game than a broken or unfinished, big one.

Players can find more information about the game and add it to their wishlist on Steam. They can also follow the development of the game on X (formerly Twitter).

Angga Afriadi Hanif, Technical Artist

Interview conducted by Emma Collins