How to Kill in a Demon’s Skin

I’m Dan and welcome to everyone. I’m Dan and together with the Ludus Future team we have created the game of my dreams entitled Demon Skin. It has been in development for a few years of hard work and challenges and now it’s finally available on Xbox! You should watch the trailer before reading about who you can kill, and what you can do.

Demon Skin is 3D platform game with RPG elements mainly focused on the melee combat. I was inspired by the movie Severance Blade of Darkness–although the game is 20 years old and just a few people remember it, I personally still find its melee combat system the best one.

What was the greatest disadvantage of Severance Blade of Darkness though – the difficulty curve wasn’t optimized at all. The game mechanics were brand new and quite difficult and the enemies were too aggressive – that’s wasn’t a game for casual players at all. People often simply couldn’t get how to play it. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time for such an approach. As for me, I’ve decided to create a game with a similar atmosphere but make it a platformer with a whole bunch of my own ideas.

In the game, Roy’s main character can adopt three different combat positions. He can change directions to target either the head, the torso, or the legs of an enemy. To avoid attacks, the player must switch positions quickly. With each new level, more powerful and spectacular combos are unlocked. While the player is playing, he should be constantly aware of his stamina. Roy attacks more slowly when he is exhausted.

We originally intended for the character in that situation to not be able to attack, just like it was with Severance Blade of Darkness, but that wasn’t met with the approval of our community.

We’ve also created a random system that allows additional attacks to be launched during the fight. The stance light will turn blue and you can choose to perform the attack. It won’t improve your damage, but it will buy you a few seconds to perform a super attack.

At this point, if the enemy’s health is less than 30 percent of its original value, then the player can finish the opponent off in a dramatic way. These mechanic is useful for casual players more interested in narrative and hardcore players alike, as they can perform sort of a ‘fatality’ without any special button combination.

With each new kill, the main character receives experience, which can be transformed into the points to upgrade basic stats – Health, Stamina and Attack. New weapon combinations are available as you progress through the game. By the way, the protagonist’s appearance also changes as the player progresses through the game and collects the crystal shards.

Roy has many weapons, including slashing weapons (axes and swords) as well blunt weapons (hammers). The slashing weapons deal 100% damage against the ‘fleshy’ enemies, but are 30% less effective than blunt weapons against other types of monsters. That’s why it would be wise to select a blunt weapon before dealing with insects, skeletons or golems so Roy could deal 100% of potential damage.

All weapons are divided into three categories – common, personalized and artifacts. Not only the quality of your weapon affects the stats but also the weapon combo damage –  e.g., while a personalized weapon deals three-to-five-times damage, the artifact one inflicts 10 to 15 times magic damage (though only if the special bar is full at the moment of attack. The bar slowly fills with each kill.

Demon skin enemies are certainly interesting. As I like to stay within the High Fantasy canon, you will find familiar enemies such as undeads, ghouls necromancers dwarves golems. It’s worth mentioning that they belong to different factions and sometimes fight each other – e.g. Derger (dwarf) is hostile towards undead or insects but he won’t fight golems as he makes them. Mantises also attack spiders when they first see them. This means that the player will have to decide how they want to react if they ever find themselves in a similar situation.

It’s basically everyone for yourself. If a player moves to the next area, they may find three dwarfs fighting with a giant mantis. Avoid rushing to the fight. Just wait for an outcome and decide whether to get involved or just pass by with the good old roll move without gaining any experience points, which won’t be a smart move because the number of enemies is limited on each level and they don’t respawn.

Each enemy is unique in their behavior. Zombies and skeletons, who are dead by now, just keep moving forward. They are more sneaky and choose to strike at the perfect moment. Dwarfs can drink a health potion while player is trying to avoid the possible attack, or the other way around they can knock the potion out of the player’s hands preventing the healing. If a player gets in sight of a humanoid enemy, the creature can take a combat stance, indicating that it won’t be a cakewalk for the player. A bug, however, may dig in the ground before attacking from the opposite side. This requires the player to be more thoughtful when it comes hostile encounters. It makes them less predictable and much more enjoyable.

No such thing as a bosses in the game, so to speak, as I believe that the definition ‘powerful character’ goes better with the gameplay of Demon Skin. As in most other games, the boss fight usually takes place at a specific point in the final level. Demon SkinThese powerful characters can appear anywhere in the story.

When playing Demon Skin you don’t just move from one checkpoint to another across the static location as with many other platform games. Let’s say, Roy, a player, is running in the ice cavern while the golem goesuges off the head from his friend. Later, the player discovers this head. This head is breakable, and there’s some loot in it.

Another example is when Roy was surrounded by Skeletons, a Treant like creature came out of the woods to confront the skeletons. It then helped Roy escape. The evil mage may have you believe Roy to be safe. However, he casts an evil spell which causes the snow avalanche. There are many similar situations that occur, adding a great deal of excitement to gameplay.

Anyway, it’s up to you to make any of such choices, choose tactics and defeat the evil. My goal was to provide you with the best experience possible. Demon Skin! It will be great to hear your comments and hope that you enjoy playing the game.

Demon Skin

ESDigital Games

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

Demon Skin – is a brutal hack’n’slash set in a rough dark fantasy world, which combines unique combat mechanics, RPG and fighting game elements, and even some platformer features. Each player is able to develop their own combat strategy by combining different weapons with stances.

Darkness has spread to the outermost corners of the Universe and is threatening the entire world. The only ones who can stop this threat are the members of the Order of Wanderers, whose superhuman powers make them divine. A Wanderer is witness to a sinister ceremony of restoring an ancient powerful artifact. As he tries to interrupt the ceremony, he becomes absorbed in the flow of energy from the artifact.

Wanderer wants to get back to his old appearance, but he must first find the artifact that was taken. He sets out to locate it and fights the demons along his way.

The following features are also available:

The sophisticated combat system.
Mastering different stances will help you parry lightning fast and deliver maximum damage to your enemies with stunning finishing moves. Keep an eye on the level of stamina and other indicators of the character’s physical condition – all these features directly affect the outcome of the battle.

A huge arsenal of weapons for fighting monsters
Each type of weapon is designed to be effective against only a specific type of enemy. You can destroy enemies even with your bare hands – it’s not as effective but still a lot of fun!

The darkest fantasy in the form of gloomy landscapes
The icy wastelands, deep dungeons and undead abodes are all there. The cruel, twisted world has its own life. But the creatures who inhabit it do not necessarily mean to harm you. Along the way you’ll meet not just enemies, but powerful allies as well!