Hello World!

Dev Diary #1
1/7/2021

Hello, everyone!  Thank you for hanging out with us!  It’s a new year, and with that, we’d like to kick off  our development diary series to keep you informed on who we are and the progress we’re making with Primest Evil.  In this first post, we’re going to start with an introduction to the company, our creative goals for the project, and some insight into its creative bones before we get into the details on the various aspects of development and progression over time.  This week, a general overview of things.

Pixel Constructor

Pixel Constructor is a company that focuses first on creativity and talent; we do not focus on gender, race, or sexual identity.  Dedication and creativity is what we consider of most value, and our team makeup demonstrates this: Pixel Constructor is made up of people from many different walks of life, and we look to them all to bring our games into reality. 

Founded in 2016, Pixel Constructor started out as a two-person outfit working on our previous project, Grumpy Witch.  Since then, a new team has been gathered to create Primest Evil, which is what we’re here to talk about today.

The Game

From the start, Primest Evil was intended to be a roguelike dungeon crawler.  Inspired initially by games like Ziggurat, Slasher’s Keep, and the classic first-person fantasy shooters Heretic and Hexen, the goal was to provide an entertaining experience with a novel, Saturday Morning visual look to it and mechanics that allowed for easy-to-pick-up fun.

A Manic Realm

Upon starting development, however, it was made clear that the game was going to need more; already having a strong design platform, we decided to take the Saturday Morning style and give it a story that reflects the fun of that visual style.  The story of the Prime Evil, their rise and fall (and rise again) came from a combination of cracked fairy tales, a love of absurdist humor and an even deeper love of 80s-era Skeletor (although good lord, does Hamill do a good one these days, too!)  Being a general smartass myself, admittedly, plays a good part of it as well. Providing the team with the general sketch of characters and story, they also added their own ideas to help give the game its current form to further develop characters which I originally created.  In short, it’s a group effort, and it’s turning into a snarky, hilarious affair!

The expertise of the art staff in 2d and 3d art – some have worked in games, others comics, even television animation – has allowed for the creation of fun characters with memorable designs, and a variety of unusual environments.  Some, like the Warrens or the Forgotten Palace, are the more often encountered dungeons or ancient, blasted castle grounds.  Others, like the Counting-House or the Great Inexplainable, are far more unusual areas that should prove a great experience to explore, stuffed with weird monsters and grumpy bois who are looking to do you in.  Which leads us to…

Tons of Guns Wands (And Staves, Rods, Etc.)

One of the big things we wanted to do with Primest Evil is provide the player a wide variety of procedurally-generated magical weapons with effects that would allow for a variety of play styles.  Primest Evil uses four major types of weapons, each with their own specific type of attack and gameplay features; we build on that with a variety of elemental effects, damage levels and mana consumption as well as additional effects that can be added via enchantments found in game.  Even at its earliest phase of development, this provides the player with lots of opportunities to smash the bad guys with lightning bolts, explosions, fireballs and mushroom clouds made of pure evil energy (to name a few).  The combination of elements puts the number of choices into million-plus territory. 

Magical Utility

Something else we wanted to do was to avoid having the only magic the player would deal with constrained to weapons alone.  Spells take the form of general utility effect, including shields, debuffs, platforms and other effects that allow the player to further tune their playstyle while overcoming obstacles and finding secrets that might otherwise be out of reach.  More on that later!

Boons, Sacrifices, and Works of Magic

As you work through the Tower, you’ll sometimes come across special rooms that will allow you to perform actions that will boost your capabilities even more!  Libraries contain spells to flesh out your collection and provide you with interesting (sometimes vital) lore about the creatures you meet and more advanced details on points of gameplay.  Shrines of B’Gokk allow you to give up weapons for effects equal to the power of your sacrifice that persist throughout your run, while Magical Workshops allow you to break down weapons into components to enhance other weapons in your arsenal or even construct new ones from scratch.  Still others might allow teleportation, or allow you to bank your spoils so that you don’t lose them upon dying in a run.  You never quite know WHAT you’ll find…

Chaircorpse of the Board

Finally, when you’ve defeated one of your past lieutenants, you’ll be able to press them into service once again as members of your Council of Evil.  While they’ll dislike you at first, carrying out favors for them in the form of quests during your next run will allow you to increase your standing with them.  Fail, though, or otherwise refuse, you might find yourself in even worsening straights – or at the barrel end of another revolt!

While this post is but a brief summary, over the coming weeks we will be detailing points of each one to give you a deeper understanding of the game, its mechanics, and our progress as we continue development and fleshing out our vision for you to ultimately enjoy.

— Michael

The Primest Evil Has Risen!

November 18, 2021

Hello, everyone! Michael here. We’d like to come out and share our project, PRIMEST EVIL. A first-person, 3D roguelike adventure, Primest Evil combines exploration, action, and simulation with a strong Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic and a whole lot of humor. This is what we have to say about the game so far:

Primest Evil is the story of the self-called Prime Evil, the biggest bad in their stretch of the fantasy world – a fantastically talented and powerful magician who, unfortunately, was too big a jerk to their own subordinates to be allowed to live. So they weren’t. Allowed to live, that is.

Evil never dies, however, and neither would the Prime. Having long ago mastered the secrets of necromancy, the once-living magician rises from a secret tomb as a lich! Undying and clothed with magical power, the Prime Evil now seeks to regain their stolen power, punish the disloyal, and lay waste to whatever empire their traitorous lieutenants have cobbled together in their wake, no matter how many times they must rise from the grave to do it.

Forget the Prime Evil, become the Prime-est Evil! Why do things halfway?

For those of us who had been following us a few years ago, a word about Grumpy Witch. Unfortunately, as projects sometimes do, after certain events we found ourselves having to shutter the project for a number of reasons - however, we would love to revitalize Emilia and bring her adventures back in the future.

For now, however, Primest Evil needs your help! Packed with fun, exploration, and a dragon’s hoard worth of sorcerous weapons and magical spells to employ against your enemies, we believe that Primest Evil will be a hugely enjoyable title that gamers of all ages will be able to enjoy. We hope you’ll support us as we move forward to bring this title to completion.

Forward, to Victory!

Michael Shean
President/Creative Director