Weapon Lullabies

Not a very crazy week. Well, a little crazy since I decided I wanted each weapon to have an even more distinct identity. I felt that the choice between weapons didn’t have enough impact, then I thought about what made weapons special or unique in other games (particularly games in the same genre).

In Elden Ring, a weapon has an Ash of War (Weapon Art or Skill in Dark Souls 3). In Lies of P, they are called Fable Arts. Essentially, they are special abilities tied to the weapon itself. I was hesitant to add this at first because that meant I would have to add a new skill for each weapon. After some thought, I knew it would be worth the work.

In Memoirium, all the spells are called “Lullabies,” so that’s what I’ll be calling them going forward. Before I started adding the Weapon Skills, I had to think about whether their activation was different than a Lullaby. I thought about using two inputs, so attacking while guarding would activate the Weapon Skill (I believe that’s how it is in Lies of P). But then I scrapped that plan; none of the actions in Memoirium required holding two inputs at once, and I didn’t like how it felt.

I then saw my easiest way of integrating it was turning the Weapon Skill into a Lullaby. The only downside is that since it is part of their Lullaby loadout, they will have to manually select it rather than it being instantly available to use. I also don’t show exactly what the Weapon’s Lullaby is on the loadout so the player will have to discover its traits on their own. The added mystery and need for discovery are something I love to have in games.

With so many new Lullabies added in such a short amount of time, I am worried about balance, but then again, breaking a game is where a lot of fun comes from. So I’m not too worried about people abusing the strongest weapons or skills. For me, that’s part of the game, being able to discover which build works best for your playstyle.

My next goal is to do a full playthrough of the game myself and tweak all the balancing manually. It should be fun to finally do it all from start to finish.