A lot has been added into Render to flesh out the original tech demo into a more exciting experience. First up are the new weapons and abilities. These are incredibly important to the experience of Render as they are what the player will be chasing to make themselves more powerful. They are also the source of the main game loop mechanics so they really have to be fun to use and exciting to acquire. The main goal was to create orthogonal weapon classes that could be swapped between to build combos. In the case of weapons, orthogonal design means that each weapon has its own unique job that it does really well and is the core of it’s moveset. The job that each weapon is created for should not overlap with the job of another weapon. For example the daggers are incredibly fast, so the moveset is based around quick flurries of attacks and the ability to dash around the battlefield. On the other hand the Hammer is for really hard hitting single attacks, so it’s moveset keeps the player rather stationary and the swings are slow to come out. Having a bunch of weapons designed like this allows for varied combat all on its own but what shines bright in Render is the ability to quickly switch between weapons. Using the daggers and hammer as an example, the player could quickly close the distance between themselves and an enemy and stun it with a flurry of attacks with the daggers, then while it’s stunned switch to the hammer and deliver a strong smash attack, dealing much more damage than either the hammer or daggers could do on their own. Having a variety of unique weapons and the ability to quickly switch between them creates real depth in the combat and allows players to find and create their own unique fighting style.
All of the weapons and abilities in the world are useless if you don’t have anything to fight against. Luckily there’s a bunch of new monsters that will push you to master all of your combat options. There are a total of seven basic enemy types and they were all created with the same orthogonal design mindset as the weapons. Each enemy is intended to push the player into behaving a certain way. For example the basic grunt enemies are easy to combo and juggle, allowing the player to try out new attack chains and feel powerful. Then there are the crawler enemies that extend sharp blades and slide along the ground towards the player, these are very hard to fight directly and force the player to jump over them. And thirdly there are the large and aggressive juggernauts that push the player to fight more defensively. While the other enemy types allow the player to set the pace of battles, the juggernauts demand to be the center of attention and control the flow of the fight. Having seven truly unique enemy types that all push the player to use different tactics allows for some really engaging and diverse combat scenarios to be created. It will be exciting to see all of the different ways everyone overcomes these challenges.
What’s more fun than exploring phantasmagorical worlds and slaying monsters? Doing it all with a friend. It’s incredibly exciting to confirm that Render will support full online coop so you’ll be able to play through the entire game and enjoy the action and 3D platforming with a buddy. Adding coop into Render was always an important goal. Games can be a great solo experience and there are countless single player games that are absolutely incredible. However, being able to play a game with a friend opens up a door to create special memories that simply can’t exist in a single player game. While playing coop you’ll be able to help each other navigate through levels and team up to build wild combos on your enemies. Render will be a fantastic game to play by yourself if that’s what you’re looking for but if you ever get stuck on a boss or can’t figure out a puzzle, you’ll be able to call for some backup.
So now we have monsters to fight, a bunch of tools to fight them with and the ability to fight alongside a friend. But combat is only one part of Render’s experience and not all of these tools were designed mainly for combat. Some like the grappling hook and charged dash were added to enhance the player’s mobility. Next up is going to be fleshing out the worlds that players will spend their time in and making some really fun spaces to play with all of the upgrades they collect.