Developer diaries

On the third anniversary of Shadow Fight 3, we decided to tell you about what happened on the project this year, how the team worked on the game and what difficulties we faced in the process. Read more about everything below.

What was the most exciting thing about development?

New features! We all work one way or another to create something new. Events and customization are examples of such tasks.

What were the difficulties this year and how they were solved?

We had to pay more attention to technical nuances in order to guarantee users the best gaming experience. We believe that technical quality should be our top priority. Over the past year, we've invested a lot of resources in technical improvements, and we're going to make it our tradition.

Did everything go as planned or did you have to change the direction?

It seems to us that there is no perfect plan. Of course, a lot of things did not go according to the planned scenario, but globally it did not change the direction. In general, it is quite difficult to change the direction during the development process, so we discuss the plans before starting the development.

What was the main focus of this year?

The main focus for us was (besides the technical quality) on new activities for the players - new events, story missions. We also introduced Сustomization that allows players to change the appearance of their equipment (dyes and skins).

Which event was the hardest to develop?

«Deep Color» event. We really wanted to visually show the work of Сustomization, so we came up with an event built around recolored characters, with a boss in a unique skin. We prepared for it for a long time, went through many different ideas, discussed for a long time, but we constantly did not like something. As a result, we came up with a concept that suited everyone, but it turned out to be too complicated in terms of technical implementation, and we had to simplify it. Nevertheless, we are very pleased with the final result. As we saw by the feedback, our players also liked the event.

What was the most interesting thing to work on when developing events?

The most interesting thing - bosses. A boss fight should not only be difficult and spectacular, but it should also reveal the boss as a character. For example, the final boss of the «Wheel of History» event, Ursus the Immortal. The Immortals are legendary warriors with the incredible power of Light and who ruled the Legion even before the shadow energy appeared in our world. To resist the shadow energy, Ursus uses the power of light, but he does not create light himself, does not command them, but only calls for his help. Therefore, after much discussion and debate, we came up with a mechanic where the boss says a phrase, after which, from somewhere behind the screen, beams of light are beating, trying to hit the player. To diversify the fight even more, we have made 3 such attacks, each of which is called by its own phrase. Thus, the battle with the boss is supported by a narrative - in front of us is a really strong and dangerous opponent, capable of summoning the mystical and formidable Light to his side with one word. Also, Ursus is pretty strong in close combat! But we did not forget about the gameplay either - attentive players could already at the beginning of the phrase understand what kind of attack awaits them and, accordingly, prepare for it.

What difficulties arose and what solution was found?

There were a lot of difficulties this year. For example, some players may remember the event of 2018, timed with the World Cup. Players were invited to take part in a small ball game 1 on 1 - there were gates on both sides of the arena, where they had to roll the ball with kicks. This year, we wanted to do something similar for the European Championship - it was planned to take an idea from an old event as a basis, but change and supplement the mechanics, diversify the rules and opponents, in general, take into account the mistakes of the past and correct them, providing a unique gaming experience. But a year made its corrections and after the championship was canceled, we had to cancel our event as well, without announcing it to the players.

Another difficulty arose with the upcoming event dedicated to the birthday of the game. For him, we invented a completely new functionality, a small mini-game that is not tied to the main gameplay. Since we hadn't done it before, initially nobody knew how it all had to work and whether it would work at all. So until the very last moment some questions came up that had to be solved quickly. The work on this event was very interesting, but also incredibly exhausting, despite the seeming simplicity of the idea. 

We hope that the players will appreciate our work. The possibility to do it will be available this week already!

Achievements, results and plans

We would like to share some statistics below - for 3 years, since the world release of the game, and the results for this year.

What was released and what else is planned?

During this year we’ve already released:

• 8 set bonuses.
• 7 new events + activity dedicated to the anniversary of the game.
• 6 unique skins.
• customization.
• Itu’s Plane and reworked Stability.
• archive chests.
• UX improvements.
• technical improvements and bug fixes.

And this is not a full list of what happened in the game this year!

We constantly read the players' feedback and seem to understand what else they would like to see in the game. Like our players, we love the world of Shadow Fight 3 and plan to add new activities - events, story missions and perhaps even new modes. Also, we are sure to introduce new types of weapons (the rarest and most powerful weapons in the game). We also plan to devote time to the social features - we are working on it, but the amount of work is large and we are not ready yet to say when clans, raids and etc will be available.

Thank you all for your support, dear players!