# Hack and Slash / RPG game input



## ShadowAMD (Sep 19, 2013)

A couple of guys and me have decided to make a game, the actual layout is top down (Torchlight / Diablo3) style, but at the moment that's where it ends. Myself I'm big into Baldur's Gate / Dragon Age and Diablo and I'm kinda thinking about mixing it up. More of the combat style of hack and slash but keeping the RPG elements flowing.

What do you think? Also what about leveling systems, loot etc.? What makes the game special for you. Also next year we'll need some Alpha testers, if you'd be so kind to volunteer you get the game for $0.00..

Just to show I'm not a guy with grand visions, here are some really early screen shots.

Users down for Alpha testing:

iRaiseTheDead
JPhoenix19
tripguitar
Osorio (Mac)
Texshred777
steinmetzify

Voice actors:

iRaiseTheDead
JPhoenix19
Texshred777
Osorio

I've only posted on this forum, it could be too much to deal with too many Alpha testers (around 20 - 30 will do it).. So thank you everyone.


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## iRaiseTheDead (Sep 19, 2013)

I LOVED Baldurs Gate. the one for PS2. it's hands down my favourite console RPG.

I've got a list of things that make rpgs special to me.

Boss fights (not just bosses, but HUGE bosses that actually take a bit of skill and technique to kill)

Weapon upgrades/glows/enchants - I love that stuff

Upgradeable skills/skilltrees

Upgradeable character stats (stamina, dexterity, strength, etc) Basically so no two characters could ever be the same!

Legendary weapons that either take a series of tasks or a super rare drop to obtain.

Multiplayer/Co-op!

I'd love to alpha!

so far I'm digging the graphics!


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## MFB (Sep 20, 2013)

iRaiseTheDead said:


> Legendary weapons that either take a series of tasks or a super rare drop to obtain.
> !



If all it takes is a series of tasks to get it, then is it really that "legendary"? I feel like it should be a chance thing like you overhear a conversation about it in a watering hole (a bar that fits into whatever style your game is) thus that NPC is the one who would give you a clue to start you on the quest to find it, and from there it's up to you to go hunting for it. Clues would be tough as it's a Legendary item so who knows it if stays in one place, but once you find the next one the clue for the next location or someone you need to talk to is also revealed so you're not totally in the dark. Something like THAT would be cool to do.

For bosses, maybe something like Dark Souls where you need to read the boss's attacks and know how to defend against them; and let them change up styles, not just one or two moves over and over. Go through three or four to begin with, then another three or four, and some final big moves that he uses while also pulling out those older eight.


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## JPhoenix19 (Sep 20, 2013)

For me, good RPG's of any kind are made great by a compelling story and good character development. Anyone can make a game with cool graphics and a sweet combat engine, but what really gets me sucked in and entertained is watching the story unfold and the characters interact.

Oh, and I'll alpha test, too.


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## Michael T (Sep 20, 2013)

iRaiseTheDead said:


> I LOVED Baldurs Gate. the one for PS2. it's hands down my favourite console RPG.
> 
> I've got a list of things that make rpgs special to me.
> 
> ...



All this PLUS a great story & character development. I enjoy a RPG where you love the characters, you feel a bond with them, get excited when they succeed, disappointed when they fail/die/ lose pets or family. Its all about the bond between the player & character and being able to relate in some aspect to what they are going thru.

Like all the great classic JRPGs


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 20, 2013)

Awesome feedback 

Really like the idea of a side quest overheard for legendary items, like in Diablo 1 with the anvil of fury..

Bosses will be tough and varied, upgradeable skill trees is a definite. I'm not sure if people agree but I'm not a fan of being restricted by class.. So your char can develop how you like dependent on stat's:

Armor will be swappable and so will items, keeping tight lipped as to why but even "Transformations".. 

Strength
Speed
Magic
Defense 
Charm

Spells, weapons etc. will be based upon attributes ..

Great characters and story is what route we are taking, only one thing I'm concerned with. We don't have the budget for more than a small amount of voice actors. So I'm wondering if 99% text is going to be detrimental?

Oh and a quick update, this projects been going on less than a month and were making great progress:


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## iRaiseTheDead (Sep 20, 2013)

Sweet man!  

I'll voice act ;D I can do a mean Morgan Freeman

What classes will there be?


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## tripguitar (Sep 20, 2013)

graphics look awesome!!

i have to agree that for an RPG, the story has to be interesting or it will feel like another loot & stat game to me.

some things i like about my favorite RPG's


the music! especially from games like chrono trigger and obviously final fantasy
unique skill/talent trees to customize your class to suit your playstyle. i really like when games put their spin on the talent/skill tree to make it their own. like when games copy the WoW talent tree formula... it just irritates me.
gear upgrades - and just as important - SEEING THE NEW GEAR ON MY TOON!!
co op would be great but i understand this is probably hard to do.
my favorite modern RPG would be demon souls/dark souls strictly because of the desolate and haunting vibe it has. so i guess environment and setting are important.
cut-scenes. i know people who hate them but i love a good cut-scene. it gets me into the story and compells me to play more. also ill be honest i usually dont read all the quest text so its nice when games put the main story in a cutscene so i dont miss out on it 
i'd love to alpha also if you're taking just anyone! also message me about voice overs/scoring. i own a studio


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 20, 2013)

iRaiseTheDead said:


> Sweet man!
> 
> I'll voice act ;D I can do a mean Morgan Freeman
> 
> What classes will there be?



Awesome, You sound like the perfect narrator...

Classes are standard for the moment, warrior, mage rogue.. Depends on how you level up your character.. The defining characteristic is what you can morph into, that's what makes things a little special.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 20, 2013)

tripguitar said:


> graphics look awesome!!
> 
> i have to agree that for an RPG, the story has to be interesting or it will feel like another loot & stat game to me.
> 
> ...



I'm so relieved to hear people are willing to do some voice acting.. All the above will be included and I want the game to be realistically dark, good atmosphere.

Even experimenting with Binaural audio to freak people out, I'll make a list of Alpha players and anyone willing to do some voice acting.. I'd be so thankful.

On multiplayer it will be an option but it's the last on my list to do, I bought a product called Photon and looked into the basics so far.


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## texshred777 (Sep 20, 2013)

Yeah, music is a big thing. Or lack thereof. That's one thing I think Dark Souls did really well. There is no music unless you're in a boss fight, which really adds to the atmosphere of loneliness and despair.


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## iRaiseTheDead (Sep 20, 2013)

I'm actually really stoked for this!


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## JPhoenix19 (Sep 21, 2013)

I'd love to do some voice acting!


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## MFB (Sep 21, 2013)

I'd say music only for big battles as someone said, and for the rest of it, strictly tones; like large, swelling chords and simple passages that kind of fade up from one speaker and out on the other, give it that sense that it's coming from all around you (at least if you have surround, if not it's still creepy as shit)


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## JPhoenix19 (Sep 21, 2013)

MFB said:


> I'd say music only for big battles as someone said, and for the rest of it, strictly tones; like large, swelling chords and simple passages that kind of fade up from one speaker and out on the other, give it that sense that it's coming from all around you (at least if you have surround, if not it's still creepy as shit)


 

Or dubstep...


...lots and lots of dubstep


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## Nyx Erebos (Sep 21, 2013)

JPhoenix19 said:


> Or dubstep...
> 
> 
> ...lots and lots of dubstep



With the voice of Morgan Freeman narrating the fall of a kingdom, "and the king was *dwub dwub* beheaded" 

To the OP, what's your background in game programming ? As a fellow game programmer (as a hobby for the moment) I'm curious 

I've never used unity but from what I read on their website, it tends to make the programming of the game view and game logic layers easier. So my advice (FWIW) is focus on building a solid game application layer if you're early in the dev, that way you'll master your game engine and you'll be able reuse it for future projects.

How many people do you have in your team ? Will they work full time on it ? Because having an alpha out in one year with that type of game seems really ambitious to me (unless you're going for a long alpha).

Beside technical considerations, a great story with interesting powers (rather than a lot of stats) is a must have for me. And you should have good music for the key moments and a good theme too (you know like Halo or Zelda ).

I don't know if I'll be free next year but I'd be glad to help with the alpha (I guess it's a pc game).

edit : I don't know if the application/logic/view architecture is that common in video games so here you go,
application layer : the base of the program with all the tools you need (thread manager, file I/O manager...)
logic layer : everything that make your game runs the way it runs (physics engine, event manager...)
view layer : it's the representation of an observer like the player or an AI (renderer, observer input manager...)


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 21, 2013)

Nyx Erebos said:


> With the voice of Morgan Freeman narrating the fall of a kingdom, "and the king was *dwub dwub* beheaded"
> 
> To the OP, what's your background in game programming ? As a fellow game programmer (as a hobby for the moment) I'm curious
> 
> ...



My background in games programming = 0, my background in programming is long and extensive.

I picked up Unity and C# in a matter of days, just referred to the syntax every now and again for Quaternion and Vectored Raycasting. I've dabbled in the past but nothing serious, I think all programming is the most difficult thing in the world if you've never done it and the easiest thing if you have for an extended period of time. I've now built a lot of tools for Unity to automate most of the processes like spawn point's, loot gen's, Gui's, Char controllers with gravity, Animations etc.

We actually built part of the original Alpha in Unreal, but the cost was way too much and the support way too low. Unity is no easier than any other engine we sampled (Bar very integrateable) , but has great community support and it doesn't cost the earth and moon, it's a one off $1500.00 fee per seat.. 

At the moment we are working at a rapid pace, but it might very well slow down. The actual build of the game is looking around 12 months in total, most of the issues is going to come from optimisation and bugs. The Draw calls are extensive and the bigger Scenes are eating memory, no issues as our dev PC's are I7 3770K's with 32GB RAM and 2X Radeon 7970's.. Our Mac is not far from either, when I tried it on a laptop it's epically slow. So It'll be half a year of bug's / optimisation and feature addition.. In total we are looking around 2 to 2 and half years to go from Alpha to Beta to Release. The main reason we have been able to move so quickly is most of the asset's have been bought from contractors and Vendor's, this save's an epic amount of time.

It will be released for Mac and PC .


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 21, 2013)

JPhoenix19 said:


> I'd love to do some voice acting!



Awesome, sounds great.


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## Osorio (Sep 21, 2013)

I volunteer for Mac testing, if you need anyone! I only have an old macbook pro laptop right now, but I'm getting either a mac mini or mac pro in a few months, so by the time the alpha hits I should be ready. MASSIVE Dragon Age and Diablo fan here.

About "Legendary Weapons": Tales of Xillia did a cool thing with this, where the weapons were monster that you had to defeat, but they existed in the world and you could run into them by accident. they just roamed about certain areas.
After you got the weapons, you had to "unlock" them by discovering their secrets (which actually amounted to an extra dungeon and a retarded hard boss battle).

As a general thing: I think it's really cool when a game implements some sort of NG+, specially RPGs. Because it allows you to experience the game in different ways without the grinding and some of the limitations of the first run.



> Great characters and story is what route we are taking, only one thing I'm concerned with. We don't have the budget for more than a small amount of voice actors. So I'm wondering if 99% text is going to be detrimental?



I don't think it would be detrimental, but it kinds of depend on your target audience. Most of today's more well known and liked RPGs were pretty much text only, because they are more than a decade old. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Having said that, I would volunteer for some voice acting as well, just keep in mind that I'm not american, so I have some accent (which may or may not be desirable).


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## Steinmetzify (Sep 21, 2013)

Loot! MAD SICK DANGEROUS amounts of loot. Everywhere. Nothing more boring to me than a dungeon crawl and you spend an hour and come up with 8 bucks. 

I dig the idea of epic legendary weapons quests too...skill tree is a must, as is having goals...weapons you can't use until this or that happens on your skill levels...boring when you can use a weapon that'll kill anything in the game from the jump. Much more satisfying to get slaughtered by a huge battle/boss and then lvl up, snag something cool and then go way back and hand him/them their asses. 

Tiny things that come and murder you until you get magic/weapons to take em out...hordes of spiders, etc...

It looks REALLY good, man. Lighting is good, textures are good. I'd give it a shot! Subscribed!


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## texshred777 (Sep 21, 2013)

I'm down to help out with VA.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 21, 2013)

Loving the feedback, keep it coming also updated the list.. Sorry if I miss someone, if I do let me know.


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## iRaiseTheDead (Sep 21, 2013)

Everytime I see someone like my post, I come and read EVERYTHING in this thread again and check the pictures. I just get more and more excited! I've been looking for a new RPG for a long time!


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## redstone (Sep 21, 2013)

A few advices to make a durable HnS.

The synergies between items and skills make the build, do not underrate that or you will fail. Any item affix should be a potential core of your build, whatever the character. What makes a character different from another is the way it reacts to those affixes.

Pretty much all HnSs fail their end-game because the last stages provide a purpose to farm them (items adapted to the difficulty, better drop rate..) which kills the challenge and makes the difficulty unbalancable.

Don't be afraid of drastic item sinks. For example, items with a very long durability, they're repaired when traded or sold, but their affixes are downgraded to the lower tiers. 

And never add fake end-games that make people farming for the sake of it.

I think D3 is a great current example of what not to do, except for the look and the flexibility of skills combinations.


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## texshred777 (Sep 21, 2013)

Another thing that occurred to me.

Don't make the player feel like a spectator, particularly during character interaction.

Give the player an opportunity to really play a character. I would say to really put emphasis on character interaction. Make charm/persuade/etc a skill, and worth taking. Give the player dialogue choices with personality. Something besides the three typical "asshole", "asskisser", and "ass backwards" responses. If your character is an asshole, have npcs resond to that demeanor as well. 

I say that with the understanding that you guys have limited resources. If you want to have voice acting, but can't resonably make a fully voice acted game(talking npc's here) have most of the interaction with the npc's be text based. So long as the dialogue opens up events, quests, etc all will be good.

Reputation
I think there should be some kind of flags or something that mark not only your character's actions, but the manner in which they interact. If your character is an asshole, but at the end of the day does the right thing-have npc's respond to you as such. I find it rewarding when my character's demeanor is acknowledged by the game. 

At the end of the day, decide what the priorities for the game are. Do not try to prioritize choice and character development for instance-then destroy that. 

To that last comment, Inb4 Mass Effect 3 derp derp.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 21, 2013)

iRaiseTheDead said:


> Everytime I see someone like my post, I come and read EVERYTHING in this thread again and check the pictures. I just get more and more excited! I've been looking for a new RPG for a long time!



, this is pretty much why I'm doing it really .. I love my RPG's and there's just not enough about. Dragon age 3 has been put back so I was sat twidleing thumbs.. The code is getting silly in some area's nearly 700 lines of code for a character controller 

UniRPG &bull; View topic - UniRPG Scripts


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## texshred777 (Sep 21, 2013)

Also, those screen shots look pretty good man. Keep that shit coming, I'm def up for alpha testing too.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 21, 2013)

texshred777 said:


> Another thing that occurred to me.
> 
> Don't make the player feel like a spectator, particularly during character interaction.
> 
> ...



I can't say too much, but the whole game is based upon what is a morality grey area.. The dialogue and everything else follow's suite, there's no right or wrong. But whichever way you turn, it's all on you ..

The NPC thing's a great idea, there is a neutral / hostile / etc. character base.. Making it very intricate could be too much for a small team. Bioware are the masters of this kind of stuff, but they have much more time and skill. But as always it's a good idea and I'll see what I can do, even if it's on a smaller scale than the likes of Baldur's gate.


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## texshred777 (Sep 21, 2013)

Oh, I know man. I can't help but throw shit out there, knowing you guys aren't Bioware and don't have 100+ people working on scripted events and dialogue triggers . Progress looks pretty good man even after a short bit.

Edit:
How are you liking Uni?


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 21, 2013)

texshred777 said:


> Oh, I know man. I can't help but throw shit out there, knowing you guys aren't Bioware and don't have 100+ people working on scripted events and dialogue triggers . Progress looks pretty good man even after a short bit.
> 
> Edit:
> How are you liking Uni?



Unity ain't bad compared to some engines, a lot of good community support and lot's of tools make indie games possible. Overall it's a great engine, has a few bugs but I'll take it and C# isn't too bad.. 

It is defo a professional game makers tool which cost's little.. (Compared to some others)..


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 22, 2013)

On a side note, we have ordered the oculus rift dev pack for Unity.. Will be very interesting integrating it with the game.


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## Nyx Erebos (Sep 23, 2013)

I disagree with "lots of text is ok", especially for a hack'n'slash. Imo you should put short cut-scenes regularly and narrating the action if you can't afford lots of voice actors.


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## Aevolve (Sep 23, 2013)

I've been really addicted to isometric RPGs (especially Torchlight 2) for the longest time.

If you need me to test I'd be more than happy to, or if you need any additional voice work. I have a decent microphone, and you can decide whether or not I may be useful. Just PM me if you're interested.

Looks great so far!


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 24, 2013)

Aevolve said:


> I've been really addicted to isometric RPGs (especially Torchlight 2) for the longest time.
> 
> If you need me to test I'd be more than happy to, or if you need any additional voice work. I have a decent microphone, and you can decide whether or not I may be useful. Just PM me if you're interested.
> 
> Looks great so far!



Of course, any help greatly appreciated.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 24, 2013)

Nyx Erebos said:


> I disagree with "lots of text is ok", especially for a hack'n'slash. Imo you should put short cut-scenes regularly and narrating the action if you can't afford lots of voice actors.



I'm unsure the original Diablo balanced it quite well I think, Dragon age in this sort of game may be a bit much. But at the end of the day this games a hybrid.. I'll see where it takes us and strip it back if there's too much.


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## Osorio (Sep 24, 2013)

Nyx Erebos said:


> I disagree with "lots of text is ok", especially for a hack'n'slash. Imo you should put short cut-scenes regularly and narrating the action if you can't afford lots of voice actors.



I somewhat disagree with this. Obviously, it wouldn't be a good idea to simply throw a wall of text at the player, but there are a lot of clever ways to do silent lore. The most interesting I have seen is to keep the information scarce and somewhat obtuse, a la Demon's Souls. This has the upside to allow for players to piece stuff together themselves, which is rare nowadays, and much appreciated, and also allows for people that don't care to simply GO. Obviously, for a decision-based, story heavy RPG, this may not be the best approach. But it pays to keep in mind for the more detailed, less plot immediate, lore. Also, SOME stuff that could be quite essential could be handle in this way and put major spins in the story, only for the people interested in it (also something Tales of Xillia did quite well. A lot of the exposition on the main villain comes from a rather obtuse and easily missable side quest).

The best thing (I believe) to do, considering this case, where there are people volunteering, and volunteering is probably the most important part (i.e. people will probably not do mountains of voice work), is to have lots of character reveal bits and pieces of plot at a "steady" pace. As someone who volunteered (and someone who would be able and wiling to put a considerable amount of time in the task), I'm looking forward to "play my part" in this thing. Definitely want to see how this will evolve.


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## thedonal (Sep 25, 2013)

How about 30 different story paths and 50 possible endings?  Not asking for much...

But it's nice to have game outcome affected by decisions- this is a gameplay evolution that has barely been touched and RPG's are perfect for this sort of thing. Also, much as I LOVE the first 2 Diablo games (just posted about the 3rd), it would be nice to stretch a little beyond the usual shooting and shopping affairs contained there.


Really though- I'd like to see loot drops that are proportional to the effort taken to earn them and also the thing that dropped them (ie epic armour being dropped by rats. How would they carry it. Their paws are too small!)

Oh- and how about skills that improve with use -a la Elder Scrolls or even Dungeon Master. 

I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops.

I'd be happy to supply some musical support- though, the competition here might be considerable...


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 25, 2013)

thedonal said:


> How about 30 different story paths and 50 possible endings?  Not asking for much...
> 
> But it's nice to have game outcome affected by decisions- this is a gameplay evolution that has barely been touched and RPG's are perfect for this sort of thing. Also, much as I LOVE the first 2 Diablo games (just posted about the 3rd), it would be nice to stretch a little beyond the usual shooting and shopping affairs contained there.
> 
> ...



There will be some decision based game logic, thing to do in this area is under promise and over deliver.. I don't want a small scale Mass Effect on my hands, also it takes a lot of time and care not to pigeon hole a follow up. Or wipe out choice in a second game, as I'm sure you want decisions no matter how small to actually matter.

As of the moment I'm bogged down in player interactions scripts and attack method's etc.. It's going to take a while  least fun bit of making a game.


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## thedonal (Sep 25, 2013)

ShadowAMD said:


> There will be some decision based game logic, thing to do in this area is under promise and over deliver.. I don't want a small scale Mass Effect on my hands, also it takes a lot of time and care not to pigeon hole a follow up. Or wipe out choice in a second game, as I'm sure you want decisions no matter how small to actually matter.
> 
> As of the moment I'm bogged down in player interactions scripts and attack method's etc.. It's going to take a while  least fun bit of making a game.


 
So even decisions on making the game have consequences on decisions in making the game! Or something. 

That all makes sense though. Maybe choices that make the journey harder or easier (multiple routes?)


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## Osorio (Sep 25, 2013)

Something just occurred to me: Is there a way to make enemies scalable? I mean, can the game be adaptive of the players build?

Let me put it this way: on old RPGs, you would play and at some point almost invariably get stuck because you didn't put enough points in THAT skill or whatever. Sure, in HnS that doesn't have the same impact, but some builds wreck others, and this has always been true. But my concern is not with class balance, exactly:
Can the game (which a certain difficulty setting) scale to the build of the player, whatever that build is, so that, for example, even if the player want to play a, let's say, Monk Sorcerer [you can have no staff and only cast defensive spells, only light armor (or whatever)] he has a chance to succeed without having to resort to overleveling?

(This is also where NG+ would be interesting. Specially if you can carry your level back but choose different classes).


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## straightshreddd (Sep 25, 2013)

I'd be down with testing, if it's cool with you. I haven't played Diablo or the other games you mentioned, but I dig hacknslash rpgs and rpgs in general.

One thing I love in a rpg is customization and leveling up(speed, strength, etc). 

A large arsenal of weapons to choose from is a must. In towns and villages, have little blacksmiths who can upgrade weapons for money or quests. Each town's blacksmith could offer a different type of upgrade and aesthetic to the weapon.

Also, Guilds and Clans with a reputation system would be sick. 

Also, if possible, free range of movement regarding attacks. Example: If on pc, an action key is pressed for melee attacks and the mouse is moved to attack in different directions. Although, this would probably be a concept better suited for a controller.

If not, horizontal and vertical strikes would suffice. With sick specials that are earned as you level up.


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## tripguitar (Sep 25, 2013)

shadow - just wanted to throw out that my primary computer is a macbook pro, but it has windows on it too so... basically i'll alpha for whichever you prefer!! i just want to play it!


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## redstone (Sep 25, 2013)

@osorio

Some builds wreck others when the design sucks. It's not that hard to balance all builds if the designer thinks the skill effects at the very end. First designing the hardest mobs in their environment, then the item attributes, then thinking how the chars can react to them, then designing the skills depending on which item attributes one might focus on to achieve a specific amount of power. If you start with the skills, you're lost.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 25, 2013)

Osorio said:


> Something just occurred to me: Is there a way to make enemies scalable? I mean, can the game be adaptive of the players build?
> 
> Let me put it this way: on old RPGs, you would play and at some point almost invariably get stuck because you didn't put enough points in THAT skill or whatever. Sure, in HnS that doesn't have the same impact, but some builds wreck others, and this has always been true. But my concern is not with class balance, exactly:
> Can the game (which a certain difficulty setting) scale to the build of the player, whatever that build is, so that, for example, even if the player want to play a, let's say, Monk Sorcerer [you can have no staff and only cast defensive spells, only light armor (or whatever)] he has a chance to succeed without having to resort to overleveling?
> ...



That's what the alpha guys are for , obviously it's in my interest to get it right out of the door. Classes will have strength's and weaknesses, but nothing game breaking. I too hate having to spend 30 hours of a game just hacking away to move onto the next cut scene.

I'm thinking hard about skill tree's, no point spending all the time and money creating particle systems if nobody ever uses half the skill set. Also there will be a transform boosting power for a set amount of time, to be used sparingly as such. 

I do want the game to air on the side of challenging, so encounters in some area's will be much more difficult than others but you should be able to explore other area's / storylines to progress whilst your training..

I can't account for the type of person who may train 100 Strength an 1 Defence / Vitality and wonder why they die all the time .


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## icos211 (Sep 25, 2013)

I would definitely be in for testing, though I am on a mac. Macs are in serious need of more games available, and I love RPGs. I have an SM57 and can record audio, and would be willing to do voice acting.

As for RPG related things, LORE! That is the biggest thing that I love in an RPG. The greatest game that I have ever played has been The Witcher and The Witcher 2, and it is because of the way they handle lore and character development. When you say "moral grey area" and "based on player's choice", this is the game series you really need to be paying attention to, as they have done it with utmost perfection. As for lore, I love they way that, especially in the upcoming Witcher 3, when you go out to do something, you have to read about it, gather information, almost do research. Sure, you can just jump in and hack and frenzy on everything, but if you just take the time to go and look into the subject, you can formulate a strategy that will serve you so much better. The way that you have to play The Witcher 2, taking that time to understand the events happening around you, what you are about to be up against, then going and setting up your strategy before the battle, that is what makes it truly a great game for adults. I'm not saying make a Witcher game, but there are many elements within the way that it must be played that can bring a game onto a whole other level.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 26, 2013)

icos211 said:


> I would definitely be in for testing, though I am on a mac. Macs are in serious need of more games available, and I love RPGs. I have an SM57 and can record audio, and would be willing to do voice acting.
> 
> As for RPG related things, LORE! That is the biggest thing that I love in an RPG. The greatest game that I have ever played has been The Witcher and The Witcher 2, and it is because of the way they handle lore and character development. When you say "moral grey area" and "based on player's choice", this is the game series you really need to be paying attention to, as they have done it with utmost perfection. As for lore, I love they way that, especially in the upcoming Witcher 3, when you go out to do something, you have to read about it, gather information, almost do research. Sure, you can just jump in and hack and frenzy on everything, but if you just take the time to go and look into the subject, you can formulate a strategy that will serve you so much better. The way that you have to play The Witcher 2, taking that time to understand the events happening around you, what you are about to be up against, then going and setting up your strategy before the battle, that is what makes it truly a great game for adults. I'm not saying make a Witcher game, but there are many elements within the way that it must be played that can bring a game onto a whole other level.



I've played the Witcher 1 and 2 many times, I'm an avid fan of all decent RPG games from Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu) to Mass Effect / Baldur's gate / Icewind dale / Early Final Fantasy games / Elder scrolls series and many many more.

I'm an RPG nut, but games are a personal reaction. Hopefully by enjoying highlights of all the other games I've played I know which direction to take mine. 

If you are alluding to "Don't make it PG13 friendly for the sake of sales" I agree 100%, I wouldn't want to make it family friendly at the cost of gameplay. The Witcher is a prime example of how to do it, cast off the shackles and make what you want. I expected Diablo 3 to continue being the dark, gritty atmosphere with deep seated psychological issues (think Arch Bishop Lazarus), playing your role as a lone wanderer in despair to defeat all evil. I were surprised by the outcome we enjoy the game and have been an avid player, albeit I've learnt some important lessons from D3.

P.S I've added you to the MAC list.


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## Chiba666 (Sep 26, 2013)

Haivng read the above comments and had a bit of a think I agree that a good story line is essential as well as any back story about the setting that you can get in. Something to drag you in so that you not only care about the character but that you believe in the world the character inhabits.

I also love a good line in Randomness, anything from a random attack by mugger/monsters/local Police to random finds. Something that will never happen in the same place.

What about weapon/armour durability as lets be honest we all know swords chip and break and armour can get knackered. Or the more realistic event of your sword or axe getting stuck in the enemy and you having to use a secondary weapon.

One thing that i love but bugs me is a having a character that seems to have an armoury at his disposal instead of the reality of say sword, dagger, knife, shield unless dual weilding and maybe a bow.

Even down to a % chance of any magic used to go lsightly wroing and inflict the caster instead o fthe intended targets.

Also happy to help where ever, anything from testing through to helping write dialogue for character interation. I will give anything a bash.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 28, 2013)

Quick update, character NPC interaction should be done by the end of next week, in our spare time we've been working on the sound's / music and effects. Were at about 9 scenes (Or levels).. 9 down 41 to go..

https://soundcloud.com/theshadowkind/fallen-spirit-soundtrack


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## tacotiklah (Sep 30, 2013)

Pics look great to me! I'll alpha test if you need it.


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## The Reverend (Sep 30, 2013)

I can do a huge range of voices, have a great recording setup, and am a huge fan of RPGs. I can also do a sort of mature, noble female voice really well. I also do scoring as a personal hobby. I can do traditional sort of orchestral scores, in that big, percussive Hans Zimmer style, but I love doing more innovative things. 

Let me know if you need my help. If you'll remember from your mixing forum thread, I'm really good at brainstorming and problem-solving, so if you need help with mechanics, storylines, dialogue, or anything else not related to the nuts and bolts of programming, I'm your guy.


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## ShadowAMD (Sep 30, 2013)

The Reverend said:


> I can do a huge range of voices, have a great recording setup, and am a huge fan of RPGs. I can also do a sort of mature, noble female voice really well. I also do scoring as a personal hobby. I can do traditional sort of orchestral scores, in that big, percussive Hans Zimmer style, but I love doing more innovative things.
> 
> Let me know if you need my help. If you'll remember from your mixing forum thread, I'm really good at brainstorming and problem-solving, so if you need help with mechanics, storylines, dialogue, or anything else not related to the nuts and bolts of programming, I'm your guy.



Rev, your always a legend. Of course I'll have your assistance thanks ..


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## The Reverend (Sep 30, 2013)

ShadowAMD said:


> Rev, your always a legend. Of course I'll have your assistance thanks ..



Send me a message if you need anything. I'm always looking for creative ways to keep myself busy.


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 4, 2013)

Quick update:

Physics and character controller made as shown below (posted a pic as well, youtube vid's don't do it justice)



We started working on the menu items:



NPC interaction works (Kinda )

Things are looking good.


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## Nyx Erebos (Oct 5, 2013)

Looks good  can't wait to see some fight. Can you zoom in to see the action closer ?

I've never touched Unity so I'm curious, how much do you need to write yourself ? And are there community plug-ins to make creating games easier ?


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 5, 2013)

Nyx Erebos said:


> Looks good  can't wait to see some fight. Can you zoom in to see the action closer ?
> 
> I've never touched Unity so I'm curious, how much do you need to write yourself ? And are there community plug-ins to make creating games easier ?



Zooms a good point, do you think the camera should be closer to the player? The issue comes down to the town meshes, there's a couple of instances on the videos where the camera goes right through the building so I've had to restrict it.. Don't mind making the camera closer though.

In regards to coding a lot, I'll show you an example of a piece of code and all it does is select one player and add references a pre-made particle system, the selection and interaction system will include thousands of NPC's and characters. The example is far from finished and the database and character controller is approaching 10,000 lines of code.

There are plugins, but they don't have the flexibility you need if your going to try and make a competing product.. Some of the visual scripting tools are more confusing than the code.. Some plugs like Igui for buttons and inventory screens is a god send. Unity cost's $1500,00 and is easier to use than the likes of unreal (which cost's a fortune) and cryengine, but I must admit unreal engine 4 SDK has some awesome graphics.. But I've not tried the new AA system in Unity Pro yet so the boat's still out about graphics:

No matter which engine you choose, it's a slow process. The best thing about Unity is the community and resources available..

public class OnSelectGui : MonoBehaviour {

public bool maleDemonKnight;
public bool femaleDemonKnight;
public bool created;
public bool created2;
public Transform selected;
RaycastHit hit;

// Use this for initialization
void Start () {


}
// Update is called once per frame

void Update () {

var MagicClone = GameObject.Find("Magic1(Clone)");
var MagicClone3 = GameObject.Find("Magic3(Clone)");
var Magic1 = GameObject.Find("Magic1");	
var Magic3 = GameObject.Find ("Magic3");
var darkKnight = GameObject.Find("Dark Knight");	
var femDarkKnight = GameObject.Find ("DarkFemale");
GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("Player");
Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);	

if (Input.GetMouseButton(0)){
if (Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit, 100)){	
if (hit.collider.gameObject.CompareTag("Player")){
selected = hit.transform;
}
if (hit.collider.gameObject.name == "Dark Knight"){
if (!created){
Instantiate(Magic1, new Vector3 (9.4f,0,2.3f), Quaternion.identity);
created = true;} }
else if (hit.collider.gameObject.name == "DarkFemale"){
if (!created2){
Instantiate(Magic3, new Vector3 (10.7f,0,2.2f), Quaternion.identity);
Debug.Log("MakeFem");
created2 = true;}
}
}
if (hit.collider.gameObject.name == "DarkFemale"){
Destroy(MagicClone,1.0f);
created = false; 
}
if (hit.collider.gameObject.name == "Dark Knight"){
Destroy(MagicClone3,1.0f);
created2 = false;	
{

}	}

}
}
}


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## Nyx Erebos (Oct 5, 2013)

The syntax is great, it's easy to understand. From what you said I guess it detects if you selected either a dark knight or a dark female and then launches the appropriate effect for one second.

About the camera I like the idea of being able to zoom in and out. You could cast a ray from the camera to the player and if there's a building in the way, make it transparent.


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 5, 2013)

Nyx Erebos said:


> The syntax is great, it's easy to understand. From what you said I guess it detects if you selected either a dark knight or a dark female and then launches the appropriate effect for one second.
> 
> About the camera I like the idea of being able to zoom in and out. You could cast a ray from the camera to the player and if there's a building in the way, make it transparent.



In a nutshell yeah , I like to keep the code easy to read and I usually split it up after 200 lines into a new document, also to make it easier I commit the cardinal sin of Public Statics to reference code between docs.. I'm still unsure as to the problem with pub stats if there's no issues caused by it?

Unreal is C++ and much harder.. 

Zoom on raycast hmmm? That's an interesting concept that I will seriously look into.

By the way I've modified the above example to show what the script does.


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 12, 2013)

Decided to bring it to a more dragon age style camera and input system, the issue is with top down.. Not only is the camera problematic in area's, all the lovely time consuming asset's hardly get a look in, so it's a waste really and not worth the effort trying to fix it..


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## MFB (Oct 12, 2013)

Why did you guys go top down vs. over the shoulder? You could still do an over-the-shoulder from like a 3/4 view behind the player so you still get to see the work but have a still traditional camera angle.

Might be worth doing? Unless that's what you mean by "DA style camera"


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 12, 2013)

MFB said:


> Why did you guys go top down vs. over the shoulder? You could still do an over-the-shoulder from like a 3/4 view behind the player so you still get to see the work but have a still traditional camera angle.
> 
> Might be worth doing? Unless that's what you mean by "DA style camera"



Reason why is originally we planned to keep to a rigid top down hack and slash formula, then as the dialogue / artwork / CGI / character design grew it's organically grown into it's own kind of style based on all the games we love. Which for me personally being the lead on the project is a good thing, the amount of time and money stacking into this project is more than buying a high end executive saloon.. So we agreed it's a good idea to take advantage of what we have.

But yes, the over the shoulder, slightly behind from the character view is what were approaching towards.. A re-design of the character controllers and camera is needed, but the game looks so much better.


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## iRaiseTheDead (Oct 12, 2013)

Hell yes!


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 15, 2013)

We have moved the system over, new camera / controls and new shader system now using DX11.. The DX11 system looks awesome, but comes the downside.. It's causing our dev PC's with 7900GT graphics cards fan to kick in and we have over 4000 draw calls, that's pretty CPU intensive.. So errm, I'll post a vid once all that's fixed.


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## MFB (Oct 15, 2013)

Are you guys using Mecanim? My game programming class started getting us used to it so that's part of the reason I'm keeping a close eye on this is to get myself more familiar with breaking down JS on my own; as well as it being awesome to see stuff built from ground up by NON-gamer field people


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 15, 2013)

MFB said:


> Are you guys using Mecanim? My game programming class started getting us used to it so that's part of the reason I'm keeping a close eye on this is to get myself more familiar with breaking down JS on my own; as well as it being awesome to see stuff built from ground up by NON-gamer field people



We was until it kept causing issues, some boolean set transitional states wouldn't work. We had issues with Layer masks, in the end it was just easier to set animation.crossfade("Run"); for example on something event based.

So we are using the legacy system for now, hopefully in the future it'll stop being so buggy.


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 16, 2013)

I need a couple of volunteers to test out a scene, it's not finished by far but we need to get a feel for how it runs on some different systems. There's a bit of a concern in some area's it's too graphically resource intensive.


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 20, 2013)

Sorted the performance issues out, a quick vid of the remake:


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## Volteau (Oct 20, 2013)

How the hell did I not see this thread? I'm a HUGEEEEEE Baldur's Gate fan! So much so that I base all of my D&D campaigns in the Forgotten Realms. I'm also a huge isometric RPG fan. I recently replayed through Divine Divinity and man, I miss these types of games. I'm really stoked for your project, and could alpha test and I'm down for voice acting. Good thing about this forum is that almost everyone has a recording device of some sort, so getting people to voice act (apart from the actual talent needed, of course) wont be such a hard thing to find.

A few things I look for in the RPGs I play (and some things that I have yet to find):

1) Deep character customization. 

a) Appearance: Most of us can spend hours creating that perfect character to which we will feel connected to on a representational level. I believe it's important to allow a fair amount of customization from the shape of the face to a good amount of hairstyles/facial hair styles to scars/tattoos. I've stopped playing so many games just because of the limiting options in the character creator (I know BG only let's you choose between female and male and the color of your starting clothes, but yeah, that was almost 20 years ago).

b) Skills: Once the body has been fleshed out (get it?), it's time to fill it up with content. Developing a large and intuitive skill tree is key to furthering the uniqueness of your character. When I say large I don't mean filling it up with useless skills (though useless for some is more immersion for others). By large I mean you can have an Archetypical Skill like Thievery that would then branch out into Stealth/Silent Movement/Lock Picking/Climbing/Pick-Pocketing/Perception (having a larger range of sight, though this could also be applied to ranger type characters))/Trap Finding, etc. I mainly say this in reaction to the 4th edition of D&D where the thief skills were wrapped up into one single skill called Thievery, completely destroying the possibility of further specializing your thief as a master trap finder/master pick pocket and so on. This also means that all thieves will probably be the same, instead of having one that is really good at opening chests and another one that's an expert on reconnaissance missions (master of the stealth skill). Intuitive in the sense that it doesn't require a lot of reading to understand what a skill does. You see the name and you can immediately intuit what it does. 

c) Personality: This all depends on whether or not you are set on having your character be a hero who actually talks a la Baldur's Gate, or be the silent hero of most JRPGs. I personally prefer the talking hero. I would constantly read/act out loud the conversations I would have with NPCs in Baldur's Gate and the other games like it, and it just added to that immersion factor. Of course, if you feel like you want to voice act the hero, then that's be a bit harder as you'd need to find a VERY good voice actor, otherwise it'll probably end up sounding like the voice acting in the Gothic Series or in Divinity 2.

d) Variety of things to put on that would increase/decrease an NPCs disposition towards you. By this I don't mean JUST the armor you use to go out into the world and kill things. Say you go into a classy town like Waterdeep in Forgotten Realms (obviously this isn't D&D, but this is just to better draw out what I mean); the wealthier you look the higher the people's disposition for dealing with you will be, resulting in store discounts and giving you access to items otherwise hidden to the unfashionable. The way you dress would also address things like people's openness when sharing gossip with you. Perhaps if you are dressed in super fancy clothes and begin a conversation with someone, ask them about the locals and their riches, they will blurt out the location of a house "supposedly" storing a chest full of gold. This "spilling of information" will be based on the "gut feeling" that they can trust you (thanks to the disposition enhanced by your clothing). 

d2) Same applies to armors. Your intimidation skill, for example, will be enhanced by how bad-ass your armor looks.

e) Attributes. Divine Divinity got the attributes, and the comments attached to each one as you level it up, just perfect! http://www.nastyprisms.com/temp/cac...ne-Divinity/Update 66/19-DD050A-Jer_lvl25.jpg

I got a lot more ideas that I will be posting in the next few days if you don't mind, but for now just now that I am up for alpha testing and voice acting


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 21, 2013)

Volteau said:


> A few things I look for in the RPGs I play (and some things that I have yet to find):
> 
> 1) Deep character customization.
> 
> a) Appearance: Most of us can spend hours creating that perfect character to which we will feel connected to on a representational level. I believe it's important to allow a fair amount of customization from the shape of the face to a good amount of hairstyles/facial hair styles to scars/tattoos. I've stopped playing so many games just because of the limiting options in the character creator (I know BG only let's you choose between female and male and the color of your starting clothes, but yeah, that was almost 20 years ago).



A character build system is something we have thought about, I'll be upfront it comes down to this. We have basic rigging and animation tools via a platform called Shade3D, ideally to make what your after we need a program called 3DSMAX or an alternative which cost's an additional $3000 - $5000. Whilst I'm sure we can bodge one out of an instantiate system, if we do anything it needs to be done right. So at the moment it's a maybe, if we could find more funding or a cheaper / better way of doing it then a definite yes. 



> b) Skills: Once the body has been fleshed out (get it?), it's time to fill it up with content. Developing a large and intuitive skill tree is key to furthering the uniqueness of your character. When I say large I don't mean filling it up with useless skills (though useless for some is more immersion for others). By large I mean you can have an Archetypical Skill like Thievery that would then branch out into Stealth/Silent Movement/Lock Picking/Climbing/Pick-Pocketing/Perception (having a larger range of sight, though this could also be applied to ranger type characters))/Trap Finding, etc. I mainly say this in reaction to the 4th edition of D&D where the thief skills were wrapped up into one single skill called Thievery, completely destroying the possibility of further specializing your thief as a master trap finder/master pick pocket and so on. This also means that all thieves will probably be the same, instead of having one that is really good at opening chests and another one that's an expert on reconnaissance missions (master of the stealth skill). Intuitive in the sense that it doesn't require a lot of reading to understand what a skill does. You see the name and you can immediately intuit what it does.



There will be an extensive skill tree, I think for an RPG style game it's a must. A lot of cool particle systems.. The game doesn't lock you into class, the player select's what they believe is important to them. Also very much agree, there's no point in having a 10 page manual per skill, it does need to be intuitive. 



> c) Personality: This all depends on whether or not you are set on having your character be a hero who actually talks a la Baldur's Gate, or be the silent hero of most JRPGs. I personally prefer the talking hero. I would constantly read/act out loud the conversations I would have with NPCs in Baldur's Gate and the other games like it, and it just added to that immersion factor. Of course, if you feel like you want to voice act the hero, then that's be a bit harder as you'd need to find a VERY good voice actor, otherwise it'll probably end up sounding like the voice acting in the Gothic Series or in Divinity 2.



You bring up a seriously good point here, do we have a silent protagonist? Or do we go the route of Dragon Age 2? The voice we choose is very important in that remark, it can either end up Mass Effect which is well received or Dragon age which was a little hit or miss.



> d) Variety of things to put on that would increase/decrease an NPCs disposition towards you. By this I don't mean JUST the armor you use to go out into the world and kill things. Say you go into a classy town like Waterdeep in Forgotten Realms (obviously this isn't D&D, but this is just to better draw out what I mean); the wealthier you look the higher the people's disposition for dealing with you will be, resulting in store discounts and giving you access to items otherwise hidden to the unfashionable. The way you dress would also address things like people's openness when sharing gossip with you. Perhaps if you are dressed in super fancy clothes and begin a conversation with someone, ask them about the locals and their riches, they will blurt out the location of a house "supposedly" storing a chest full of gold. This "spilling of information" will be based on the "gut feeling" that they can trust you (thanks to the disposition enhanced by your clothing).



There will be a reputation system, it'll be based on social standing. The world is quite grim, everyone fights to survive whether they want to or not, so the most trusted (or renowned) players in the shadow universe unlocks extra features.



> d2) Same applies to armors. Your intimidation skill, for example, will be enhanced by how bad-ass your armor looks.
> 
> e) Attributes. Divine Divinity got the attributes, and the comments attached to each one as you level it up, just perfect! http://www.nastyprisms.com/temp/cac...ne-Divinity/Update 66/19-DD050A-Jer_lvl25.jpg



That's a good thought, but the system is dictated by exactly how badass you actually are. 



> I got a lot more ideas that I will be posting in the next few days if you don't mind, but for now just now that I am up for alpha testing and voice acting



Looking forward to it and appreciate your help.


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## Nyx Erebos (Oct 24, 2013)

ShadowAMD said:


> Sorted the performance issues out



I'm fascinated by optimization, how did you improve the perfs ?


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 24, 2013)

Nyx Erebos said:


> I'm fascinated by optimization, how did you improve the perfs ?



Mainly down to Occlusion Culling, it's not flawless yet but it's greatly helped. Shadowcasting, setting the fixed time in classes to a sensible rate helps script compilation per cycle. We are re-designing the Shader system for eyecandy and performance.

Also trying to find the best way of doing AA.. FXAA has performance gains, but it's not the best.. SMAA is the one to go for, but AFAIK unity doesn't support it.. Finally deferred rendering uses post shaders.. !!

One thing, it will be using DX10 / DX11.. I doubt there's a reason not to unless a machine is older than what 7 years old? It'll not run on WIN XP though but I can't see it being a massive issue to be fair.


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## Konfyouzd (Oct 24, 2013)

I'm down for testing!

Voices--maybe depending on what you'd need.


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## icos211 (Oct 24, 2013)

ShadowAMD said:


> Sorted the performance issues out, a quick vid of the remake:




I aprove of everything I'm seeing here. I like the sky design.


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 24, 2013)

Konfyouzd said:


> I'm down for testing!
> 
> Voices--maybe depending on what you'd need.



Of course, thanks for the help .


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 24, 2013)

icos211 said:


> I aprove of everything I'm seeing here. I like the sky design.



Appreciate the kind words, we have the AI set up for a couple of characters.. Nice and unnerving when a blood soaked demon is chasing you through the wilderness. The AI automatically calculates the best path through the scene, so you can think you've got away then out pops a demon ..


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## MFB (Oct 24, 2013)

I'm willing to also do voice acting, ONLY if I can be the voice of the local pub "drunk" who tells wild, unconfirmed rumors.

Method acting at no extra charge!


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## beneharris (Oct 26, 2013)

This is looking pretty neat. 

While I would be less than helpful on the technical side of things, I've played more than my fair share of these, so I'd be willing to help out if more testers are needed.


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## ShadowAMD (Oct 27, 2013)

Thanks everyone for your input, it's means so much to us.. Were off to go work like busy beavers and we'll update once every week or so ..

When the voice acting arises, I'll PM you.


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## iRaiseTheDead (Oct 28, 2013)

Can't wait to do some voices! ;D


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## Osorio (Oct 31, 2013)

Psyched for VA as well. Should be a really cool experience. /o/


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## Osorio (Nov 5, 2013)

Hey, Shadow... Have you played Dragon's Dogma? Going for the Hack And Slash RPG angle, that would be a good game to analyze on what could go right and wrong, some mechanics that work or don't... A lot of stuff very good and very wrong in that game. Could be a nice case study for your team if you haven't already done it.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 6, 2013)

Osorio said:


> Hey, Shadow... Have you played Dragon's Dogma? Going for the Hack And Slash RPG angle, that would be a good game to analyze on what could go right and wrong, some mechanics that work or don't... A lot of stuff very good and very wrong in that game. Could be a nice case study for your team if you haven't already done it.



I've not no, but now I'm intrigued ..

I'll have a look, although what we are doing isn't exactly textbook hack and slash..


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## Osorio (Nov 6, 2013)

Dragon's Dogma is by the Devil May Cry lead, if I'm not mistaken. 

It is a pretty standard RPG setting with a very cool combat on the veins of action games, but also with stats and elemental properties and etc. There are some really smart... subtle... things about it... Like with the rogue, you can hit Square a gazilion times for the standard knife combo. If the daggers are enchanted, it deals elemental damage. With an ability upgrade, you can delay a button press and make the character kick instead of use the knife. This makes for a stronger base damage attack but it is also not elemental. It has a higher chance to stagger but has less effect on armored foes. (For example). 

There are various nice little touches like that which make the combat system very deep and rewarding. Definitely try to check it out, or at least read some reviews on it to say what people liked and didn't about it. As I said, could be a nice case study.


----------



## Dayviewer (Nov 6, 2013)

ShadowAMD said:


> Sorted the performance issues out, a quick vid of the remake:



Some good stuff going on there!

Looking at the level design, particulary the color palette and the assets you are using you will definitely need to branch out though!
I know it's still work in progress but I still like to give some suggestions if I may 

Try adding some more different colours to the architecture, maybe some highly saturated colored edges here and there, it might be weird doing that now since you are used to this palette but just try adding a few things in there and experiment with it.
You could also try giving some more contrast to the current set of textures, right now they feel really bland. Adding some nice shadows to the scene will help as well.

It's also very obvious that building blocks are used, which are an absolute must but can be very dangerous for art fatique to set in, try using variations on existing blocks and things like decals to break up all the tiling.

Anyway keep it up! it's allways cool to see people building their own game in their free time  what engine is this in? (sorry if it's already mentioned I skimmed through the thread)
For me it's my job so I never have the energy to start more projects in my spare time.


----------



## ShadowAMD (Nov 6, 2013)

Dayviewer said:


> Some good stuff going on there!
> 
> Looking at the level design, particulary the color palette and the assets you are using you will definitely need to branch out though!
> I know it's still work in progress but I still like to give some suggestions if I may
> ...



I'll agree with that, attention to detail.. Adding bit's of snow, small extra parts to textures etc.. It's very time consuming , We've just got round to making shiny armour lol .

This is Unity Pro, I'm intrigued as to what you have been working on? Any more suggestions are welcome.


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## Dayviewer (Nov 6, 2013)

Yea it sure is!  looking forward to see later updates.
Well I work here as an artist: Momonga Pinball Adventures | Paladin Studios 
And we're currently working on something unnanounced which I can't say anything about I'm afraid 

Well I gave the only advice I could come up with for now but maybe I have more later haha, but since you have Unity Pro I do suggest you quickly enable shadows on atleast your Directional Light since that will change everything immensely in feel, maybe add some fog as well. 
Lighting can also help breaking up tiling, here's a great article about using modular assets by the way: Gamasutra: Joel Burgess's Blog - Skyrim's Modular Approach to Level Design 
Written by a dev from Bethesda so that's allways good!


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 6, 2013)

Dayviewer said:


> Yea it sure is!  looking forward to see later updates.
> Well I work here as an artist: Momonga Pinball Adventures | Paladin Studios
> And we're currently working on something unnanounced which I can't say anything about I'm afraid
> 
> ...



The issue for us is not graphics, that upload is relatively stale now.. But performance with all these graphics, we batch, gpu skin, occlusion cull but our games are large and intricate and the draw calls in area's are taking up 7000+ and nearly 1GB of VRAM.


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## Dayviewer (Nov 7, 2013)

Ah I see yea, 7000? shit man  
Well I can't give any advice on that stuff I'm afraid I'm just an artist heh 
Good luck though!


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## exarchangel (Nov 7, 2013)

dude thats incredible! I'd love to alpha test for you and even voice act if you need it!

Been playing various games like this for more than 10 years, it'd be great to finally be a part of one


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 8, 2013)

Might as well let the cat out the bag as it'll be pasted all over the demo and the cut scenes, simple premise for the beginning of the game. The land is low on food and supplies, some parts are becoming a baron wasteland at a rapid pace.. A group of magi decide to sacrifice themselves in order to bring new life to the land, it works to a certain extent. But it also summons another race of beings... Then not long after a war ensues (As to why, when, how will be outside of the demo's remit). Also note this is just a very small part of the actual main story line.

The race summoned are small in number, but advanced and powerful. 

So after setting that portion up, I've come into a large amount of Sci-Fi asset's and buildings etc.. So I could break the standard Medieval castle type game and have the other race in a completely different standing, situation and scenario. We are 400 years on since the original event's so it's very likely there settlement's will have had time to build and create. No gun's, no FPS nothing of that sort.. But it would be interesting to have a complete contrast in the game, really start mixing things up from the norm.

What do you think?


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## Osorio (Nov 9, 2013)

Sorry to have left you hanging for a while, I was trying to wrap my head around what you are suggesting.

Are you familiar with the JRPG franchise Star Ocean? Plotline specifics aside, what you are pursuing sounds a lot like what happens in most if not all Star Ocean games (I haven't played 2). For all it's worth, it definitely works. It is common place in SO to be fighting goblins in a forest one minute, then someone mentions spaceship and you are off to another planet fighting soldiers in very high tech bridges in the middle of a metropolis with flying cars.
I don't know if that whole scenario of "it has been done before" puts you off of the idea, but this particular scenario is something that I definitely dig (it was the hugest of mind....s in SO3, the first I played, where - spoilers- mid way through the game you discover that your medieval universe is only a game being played by people in another dimension or something of that effect, you then go to the other dimension and have several options regarding what to do with your game life. It was so absurdly out of nowhere that 10 years after I played it I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing, but it was AMZING at the time).

There is also the fact that as much as I generally enjoy the gameplay, Star Ocean storyline is generally pretty shitty (as outlined above). So, if you can 1UP the writing, there is definitely a lot of room for success.

Tales of Xillia is another JRPG that comes to mind that does something similar, but much better written and VERY end game, so it is not really a base of the gameplay as what you are suggesting. Might also be worth a look.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 9, 2013)

Osorio said:


> Sorry to have left you hanging for a while, I was trying to wrap my head around what you are suggesting.
> 
> Are you familiar with the JRPG franchise Star Ocean? Plotline specifics aside, what you are pursuing sounds a lot like what happens in most if not all Star Ocean games (I haven't played 2). For all it's worth, it definitely works. It is common place in SO to be fighting goblins in a forest one minute, then someone mentions spaceship and you are off to another planet fighting soldiers in very high tech bridges in the middle of a metropolis with flying cars.
> I don't know if that whole scenario of "it has been done before" puts you off of the idea, but this particular scenario is something that I definitely dig (it was the hugest of mind....s in SO3, the first I played, where - spoilers- mid way through the game you discover that your medieval universe is only a game being played by people in another dimension or something of that effect, you then go to the other dimension and have several options regarding what to do with your game life. It was so absurdly out of nowhere that 10 years after I played it I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing, but it was AMZING at the time).
> ...



I have played star ocean, I've never got through one though 

I'm a massive nut of all RPG's, I mean from FF 6 - 13, Lost Odyssey, Seiken Densetsu (Secret of Mana), Skryim, DA, Nier, Baldur's Gate, Chrono Trigger, The Witcher Series, Mass Effect, Fallout.

It doesn't put me off the idea TBH, thanks for the feedback.. It gives me more scope to work with.


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 10, 2013)

By the way, we have moved to CryEngine.. Whilst it's much more difficult to initially use the trade off is more than worth it..


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## iRaiseTheDead (Nov 14, 2013)

Can we have some more picture updates? x)


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 15, 2013)

iRaiseTheDead said:


> Can we have some more picture updates? x)



I shall get some up on Sunday .


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 17, 2013)

Ok, not too much to show this week as we spent a lot of time importing and migrating over to the new engine.

A couple of screenshot's, we are happy with how things are going with CryEngine so far .


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## iRaiseTheDead (Nov 17, 2013)

ShadowAMD said:


> Ok, not too much to show this week as we spent a lot of time importing and migrating over to the new engine.
> 
> A couple of screenshot's, we are happy with how things are going with CryEngine so far .



I have a soft spot for rain in games :'D and storms of course +1,000,000


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 17, 2013)

iRaiseTheDead said:


> I have a soft spot for rain in games :'D and storms of course +1,000,000



I'll see what I can do , good thing is.. It really does look like that, if not better in game.


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## iRaiseTheDead (Nov 17, 2013)

ShadowAMD said:


> I'll see what I can do , good thing is.. It really does look like that, if not better in game.



Awesome :'D I can't wait to see it for myself!


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## ShadowAMD (Nov 24, 2013)

Okey dokey, I might turn this into a bi-monthly update so I have more to show ..

We have started rigging characters, have most of the stuff in the engine and are working on detailing the first city.. As shown in pics below..


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 1, 2013)

Extremely boring update this week  split into two parts:

1) We do need some level testers and we are setting up a forum, then a website sooner or later. Level testers get a free copy of the completed game and expansion packs.. (Also it doesn't take up much time when a new level comes out)..

2) Been in multiple meetings about funding, with the team so small at the moment (Only two doing 40 hours at work and 30 hours on the game a week) it'll take six years there abouts to finish it. So more members and money needed, our original budget of $75K isn't going to cut it. Sure it's my choice to make the game and my choice to move to an engine which requires more funds, but it's all about releasing the best quality product for people to enjoy.


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## The Reverend (Dec 1, 2013)

Have you considered crowdfunding? I know that you've put quite a fair bit of money into this project already, and if you need more team members, you've got to have more cash.


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 1, 2013)

The Reverend said:


> Have you considered crowdfunding? I know that you've put quite a fair bit of money into this project already, and if you need more team members, you've got to have more cash.



Very true Rev, the issue in my mind with doing that this early on is I want to make sure (unless an asteroid hit's the planet, or aliens invade) that I can get the game our there with no complications. When we get half or 3/4 of the way through the game then yes crowdfunding will be needed no doubt, at this stage I'll be 99.9% positive the game will get released.

Also I don't want to promote a gimmick as such, it will literally be people pre-ordering the game or a special edition and maybe they get credit's added to the game. We can't also solely rely on crowdfunding as I recon we will need to raise in total around $125K more, which I will partially fund on top of what we already have.


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## Osorio (Dec 2, 2013)

I'll be getting myself one of them new mac mini's this month (i7, 16gb, but no video card). If that is horsepower enough to test the levels (and you are planning on releasing a mac version that soon) I would be glad to help you out. But I will probably only be able to start playing after christmas, so it may take a while for me to get results.


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 2, 2013)

Osorio said:


> I'll be getting myself one of them new mac mini's this month (i7, 16gb, but no video card). If that is horsepower enough to test the levels (and you are planning on releasing a mac version that soon) I would be glad to help you out. But I will probably only be able to start playing after christmas, so it may take a while for me to get results.



Try it on anything you have , be interesting to see how CryEngine makes machines.. Err well Cry ..

By the time of release tech will have moved on, the 6850 in our lowest spec machine will be 5 / 6 years old?

Our main machines are running R9 270X's so nothing to write home about.


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## Osorio (Dec 4, 2013)

I have no idea how that thing will run games... I'm thinking of buying up Borderlands 2 on Steam for Mac (when it hits sales) to see how it handles a modern game and have some sort of parameters to go buy. 

Supposedly, the Intel HD Graphics 4000 has a really good performance for a non-dedicated chip, but I'm not hoping for too much out of it... Will also try to do some PS2 emulation, since my PS2 has been properly bagged for a while now and I still need to get through Xenosaga 3... 
Anyway, I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worse? The machine is to be a music-production station and for that I know it will be solid.

At any rate: I'll be glad to test your stuff when you have a build available, count me in. Even if in the end, all I can do is say: "yeah, it doesn't run at all. sorry, pal"


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## Nyx Erebos (Dec 5, 2013)

Osorio said:


> Will also try to do some PS2 emulation, since my PS2 has been properly bagged for a while now and I still need to get through Xenosaga 3...



If your laptop has no dedicated gpu, ps2 emulation will be impossible I'm afraid. I'm playing Odin Sphere on my laptop which has an ati HD7970M and it's laggy on the bosses (might be cpu bottleneck though).

Good luck ShadowAMD, it takes some courage to make a game. Btw are you hiring programmers ?


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 5, 2013)

Nyx Erebos said:


> If your laptop has no dedicated gpu, ps2 emulation will be impossible I'm afraid. I'm playing Odin Sphere on my laptop which has an ati HD7970M and it's laggy on the bosses (might be cpu bottleneck though).
> 
> Good luck ShadowAMD, it takes some courage to make a game. Btw are you hiring programmers ?



You know what, I'm always on the lookout.. Send me a PM and I'll discuss it with you.


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## Osorio (Dec 6, 2013)

Nyx Erebos said:


> If your laptop has no dedicated gpu, ps2 emulation will be impossible I'm afraid. I'm playing Odin Sphere on my laptop which has an ati HD7970M and it's laggy on the bosses (might be cpu bottleneck though).



This is totally off-topic, but just to set the record straight, I'm not talking about the laptop. My laptop is 6 years old and is a Dual Core with no GPU. I have no hopes of it running anything decent. Actually, "Super Meat Boy" and many other NOT graphically challenging games (like Braid and Bastion) don't really run on it (at least not without some serious frame-rate issues).

I was referring to the new machine. It doesn't have a GPU as well, but the Intel 4000 supposedly does a decent job at graphics (and the CPU and memory are really great), so maybe I can do some PS2 stuff. Perhaps without the fancy graphic updates that make stuff look better than the PS3 remasters, but still run a smooth game.

Also: YES. Odin Sphere. That game is fantastic. It flat out broke my PS2 back in the day. So much disc-reading... Still fantastic. I loved every second of it.


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 7, 2013)

Osorio said:


> This is totally off-topic, but just to set the record straight, I'm not talking about the laptop. My laptop is 6 years old and is a Dual Core with no GPU. I have no hopes of it running anything decent. Actually, "Super Meat Boy" and many other NOT graphically challenging games (like Braid and Bastion) don't really run on it (at least not without some serious frame-rate issues).
> 
> I was referring to the new machine. It doesn't have a GPU as well, but the Intel 4000 supposedly does a decent job at graphics (and the CPU and memory are really great), so maybe I can do some PS2 stuff. Perhaps without the fancy graphic updates that make stuff look better than the PS3 remasters, but still run a smooth game.
> 
> Also: YES. Odin Sphere. That game is fantastic. It flat out broke my PS2 back in the day. So much disc-reading... Still fantastic. I loved every second of it.



On high spec, I'm getting around 40 FPS on a radeon 6850 with I7 3770.. I get 75 with a radeon R9 270X and I7...

So yes, CryEngine indeed.


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## Nyx Erebos (Dec 8, 2013)

Osorio said:


> I was referring to the new machine. It doesn't have a GPU as well, but the Intel 4000 supposedly does a decent job at graphics (and the CPU and memory are really great), so maybe I can do some PS2 stuff. Perhaps without the fancy graphic updates that make stuff look better than the PS3 remasters, but still run a smooth game.
> 
> Also: YES. Odin Sphere. That game is fantastic. It flat out broke my PS2 back in the day. So much disc-reading... Still fantastic. I loved every second of it.



Yes I meant the machine with the intel 4000. It depends on the resolution you want to play your games with but in 1920x1080 I'm pretty sure it will not run smoothely. And when you play an emulated game in a resolution inferior to your screen resolution it's really ugly (at least in my experience with Dreamcast and PS2 emulation).

Yes Odin Sphere is pretty good, at first I thought that the gameplay was really limited but now with the in fight harvesting and and use of alchemy to survive in hard, I like the challenge.


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 14, 2013)

Were back making ton's of progress, a little sneaky teaser here!.


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 18, 2013)

Ok guys and gals, the main scene is done it's getting to the point where I'll need the voice actors in to do some talking for the intro / first missions.. I'll be scripting some stuff up over Xmas whilst eating the turkey, so beginning of the new year (as I understand it's a busy time of the year).. That's the time to move forward and get this rolling, practice them awesome voices..

Final message, I wish everyone a happy holidays and a great new year. Let's make 2014 one hell of a year to remember!..

I'll catch up with you all then ..


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## ShadowAMD (Dec 21, 2013)

Just a couple more pic's before the end of the year..

View attachment 36941


View attachment 36942


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## MFB (Dec 22, 2013)

This is looking awesome dude, I really look forward to the final game


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## ShadowAMD (Jan 30, 2014)

Well it's been a while since any update.. That's because we have been working hard to improve.. Well everything really 

Latest screens:


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## Nyx Erebos (Jan 30, 2014)

Awesome concept art. Just curious, do you have everything done storywise ?


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## MFB (Jan 30, 2014)

Hnnnngghhhh

I want this. All the textures look awesome bro.


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## ShadowAMD (Jan 30, 2014)

@ Nyx Thanks, yeah there's a big storyline and several sub-plots.. The first picture is concept art the other two are actually from the game.

@ MFB Thank you ..

We just have one last piece of tech to deal with now and that's the ocean, the one that comes with the engine is a little ugly. Then after that, it literally is about getting a playable demo together, we have a particle set and some enemies..

So back to it .


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## MFB (Jan 30, 2014)

I take it you guys are using the Unity Pro water effects, or did you do it in 3DS Max?


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## ShadowAMD (Jan 30, 2014)

MFB said:


> I take it you guys are using the Unity Pro water effects, or did you do it in 3DS Max?



As a test bed Unity's, but water is made from shaders and UV maps..

We have an Nvidia water tech were going to use..


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## TylerEstes (Feb 1, 2014)

I'd be happy to do some beta testing


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## ShadowAMD (Feb 3, 2014)

TylerEstes said:


> I'd be happy to do some beta testing



Of course.


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## Repner (Feb 5, 2014)

This looks really cool!


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## ShadowAMD (Feb 6, 2014)

Repner said:


> This looks really cool!



Thanks Repner


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## Repner (Feb 7, 2014)

ShadowAMD said:


> Thanks Repner


I would love to do some beta testing, but right now my PC is really in need of an upgrade, so not sure if it would run anything too modern.


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## cwhitey2 (Feb 7, 2014)

Didnt know this was here. I'm now following!


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## ShadowAMD (Feb 9, 2014)

cwhitey2 said:


> Didnt know this was here. I'm now following!



That's great thank you .


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## ShadowAMD (Feb 11, 2014)

Ok I think I'm done messing around with the graphics and it's time to start hitting the ground running with the gameplay.

Attached is a piccie.. We are now on facebook also: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fallen-Spirit/1413716762198539


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## MFB (Feb 11, 2014)

I hate to say something this late in the game, but the icon in the top left makes me immediately think of Spike from Gremlins.







Not to harsh the vibe, just figured it might be worth noting now in case you guys find that to be an issue


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## ShadowAMD (Feb 14, 2014)

MFB said:


> I hate to say something this late in the game, but the icon in the top left makes me immediately think of Spike from Gremlins.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Well that's the beauty of pre-alpha work, bar some of the technology everything is replaceable.


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## Fretless (Feb 15, 2014)

Dang dude, that's lookin pretty epic! I can't wait to play it! Any eta on a playable alpha? I love running into walls x)


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## ShadowAMD (Feb 16, 2014)

Fretless said:


> Dang dude, that's lookin pretty epic! I can't wait to play it! Any eta on a playable alpha? I love running into walls x)



A couple of months away hopefully, it might be a bit messy but there's no point hanging back getting feedback near the end.


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## ShadowAMD (Mar 1, 2014)

Tweak, Tweak, Tweak 

I think we are done with tweaking with the GFX now, but obviously we want to release the best we can with what we have. Looking back on the first page from where I started, to where we are now it's been a long road but worth every second.

So here's the latest scenes


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## Nyx Erebos (Mar 3, 2014)

Wow looking mighty fine. IIRC you went with the cryengine, are the perf good ? Because the level of detail in that last pic is awesome.


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## ShadowAMD (Mar 3, 2014)

Nyx Erebos said:


> Wow looking mighty fine. IIRC you went with the cryengine, are the perf good ? Because the level of detail in that last pic is awesome.



It took a strange turn, after some licensing confusion with CryEngine. We built our own partial engine and ported the technology over to Unity.

Some of the advanced features are DX11 compatible only, but the game should still run well on Mac too.

It was much more work than we anticipated or wanted, so it set us back a couple of months. In the end the actual game building, not the techy stuff is far easier in Unity anyway so we should be able to claw back the time in other areas. (Hopefully )

Also I'm removing the gremlin, just for you ..


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## ShadowAMD (Apr 3, 2014)

So, I have a couple of questions. At the moment the game is quite linear BUT! I have full access to world machine and also soon (August time).. I'll have access to some of the latest and greatest tech like Geomerics Enlighten  (*Schwing*)..

Would it be worth keeping it in development longer and expanding the game into something like a 3 - 4 Km map? Making it less linear? This obviously increases development time. Even though we are a small team, I've worked with other developers making MMO's (Look at Lifeless the zombie MMO) and I think it would be do-able to keep the quality up and expand the game.

Also what do you think about doing away with random drops and making armor and weapon upgrades (Bar stock you can buy from shops) mission based?

Let me know what you think.


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## Xaios (Apr 3, 2014)

If your budget can support a longer development cycle in order to create a higher quality experience, I'd say go for it. However, don't stretch yourself thin, quality is always better than quantity if you're forced to choose.

As far as weapons go, there's no reason you can't use both random drops and mission-based rewards. Your random drops can be your typical "Sharp Sword of Damage Dealing" random-generated deal, while mission rewards can be actual legendary lore-based weapons/armor with stories attached.

I can't believe I never saw this thread until now. Quite impressed with the progress in the past few months, the graphical quality has certainly increased dramatically.

Some suggestions:

1) Less brown/earthtones. I know it's the overriding color choice for this kind of game, and it certainly helps create the classical atmosphere for a game like this, but you really should try to inject some color. Nothing overly dramatic or garrish, but something that would make it feel like the world is lived in. If you ever watched Firefly, you probably noticed the flower paintings along the edges of the kitchen cabinets in the galley. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about, small details that help fill the world.

2) I like the premise of the game, what with otherworldly beings having been summoned accidentally through a sacrificial ritual. If you can manage it, try adding a stage that would demonstrate just how alien these guys really are. I kind of laughed when I saw you were moving to CryEngine because Crysis was the game I was thinking of when I imagine this. There's a stage in the original Crysis which serves as a bridge between the first and second halves of the game. You move from lush jungle environs into a zero-gravity alien space ship. Something like that, which temporarily alters the look of the game dramatically, would be an effective way of showing how different these otherworldly creatures are.

I'd be interested in doing some testing for you if you'd like. My system is relatively mid-range nowadays. Intel i5 2550 processor, Radeon 6950HD graphics card, 16GB RAM.


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## Nyx Erebos (Apr 3, 2014)

Just my opinion as a gamer, I played a bit of Oblivion and never understood why people liked it. It was big but big and dull so my take on open world vs corridor, is to only put places where it's interesting to go (like really interesting, not some random cave with a fake quest where you have to kill a big spider).

An example of that is the very good divinty 2 ego draconis, the world looks big but in fact it's a big corridor with lots of branching in the map towards (most of the time) great side quests.

About the loot I'm not a loot guy so I'd say focus on making an even better gameplay.


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## Xaios (Apr 3, 2014)

I actually didn't like Oblivion either. On the flipside though, I loved Skyrim.


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## ShadowAMD (Apr 3, 2014)

@ Xaios, sure the earthtones are only a small part of it really. There's a huge futuristic zone to come / castles etc. 

Plus yes I didn't like oblivion and loved Skyrim. Really appreciate you offering to test.

@ Nyx I see your point and I agree plus as Xaios said, I'm not sure how much it would stunt development and cut into funds. I might just go hybrid.. Semi sized maps with exploration and good scenery but not enough to cause a headache or boredom.


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## ShadowAMD (Apr 20, 2014)

On a side note, I was messing around with the recently released Unreal 4 engine.. I'll update with a screenshot shortly.


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## Xaios (Apr 21, 2014)

First pic is cool. Second pic suffers from what I call "The Shinies," a condition that I coined when Oblivion came out in which surfaces that are meant to be rugged yet reflective end up looking like they're covered in Saran Wrap.


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## MFB (Apr 21, 2014)

Xaios said:


> First pic is cool. Second pic suffers from what I call "The Shinies," a condition that I coined when Oblivion came out in which surfaces that are meant to be rugged yet reflective end up looking like they're covered in Saran Wrap.



IF they're supposed to be a wet/underground-and-dank cavern, then it makes sense because the moisture would have those intense highlights and over-all reflectivity; but if not, then yeah it definitely needs to have that bumped down and the softness of the shadows bumped up.


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## beneharris (Apr 21, 2014)

Xaios said:


> First pic is cool. Second pic suffers from what I call "The Shinies," a condition that I coined when Oblivion came out in which surfaces that are meant to be rugged yet reflective end up looking like they're covered in Saran Wrap.



for some reason, I really love that look.


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## ShadowAMD (Apr 22, 2014)

Yeah it is supposed to be dark and dank, it's just getting used to UE4 and making everything look a bit more natural.

We are playing with the PBR (Physically based) pipeline and also looking at all the next gen (or current gen) features.. The only thing that's a kicker for UE4, the game when running looks great but the min specs would be a GTX 470 or Radeon HD 7850.. It would be nice to compete with the Witcher 3 and DA3, although I'm still not counting my chickens on that one.

I gather since the game release is set for 2016 (Not the demo that will be coming much earlier). Technology will have moved on and these will be budget cards by then.

Added update pic after some post processing in the engine ..


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## ShadowAMD (May 20, 2014)

Wow long time no input, we are still working hard on everything.. Here are some pictures


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## MFB (May 20, 2014)




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## ShadowAMD (May 21, 2014)

MFB said:


>



Thanks MFB, getting there. Our Engine is due for upgrade soon as well, so some fancy lighting tech etc. is on its way. For now we are just focusing on putting everything together.


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## MFB (May 21, 2014)

Coincidentally, one of my classes just moved into Team Production for a large-ish scale game as well, but we're not doing anything nearly as detailed as this  Lots of dis-proportionate art in a sci-fi junkyard. It'll be interesting to see how everything works together as a cohesive game since so far everything we do in school is just individual assignments.

Did you guys run into anything like that where the art wasn't totally fitting together or since it's a small team (I assume) you guys all immediately knew what you wanted to do and stuck with it?


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## ShadowAMD (May 21, 2014)

MFB said:


> Coincidentally, one of my classes just moved into Team Production for a large-ish scale game as well, but we're not doing anything nearly as detailed as this  Lots of dis-proportionate art in a sci-fi junkyard. It'll be interesting to see how everything works together as a cohesive game since so far everything we do in school is just individual assignments.
> 
> Did you guys run into anything like that where the art wasn't totally fitting together or since it's a small team (I assume) you guys all immediately knew what you wanted to do and stuck with it?



Oh definitely, we have 28,000 meshes which take about 2 - 50 hours a piece to make dependant on what they are. Some of them you put together and say hey wait! This doesn't look right, or you'll buy some due to time restraints and you end up spending more time modifying them to look right than making assets yourself .


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## danpluso (Jun 18, 2014)

Hey, I am a 3rd year computer science student. I would love to be a tester. PM me if you are wanting more testers  Game looks great.


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## tacotiklah (Jun 18, 2014)

My offer to test still stands if you'll have me.


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## ShadowAMD (Jun 21, 2014)

Sorry everyone, been really busy and not checked on this thread in a while. Sure thing, I'm currently waiting on Unity 5.0 to get the main portion of the world built and then I'll be getting testers voice actors involved.

At this moment I've not a clue when that will be, they sure are taking their sweet time. Something got messed up with the links of the other pics, so I'll put them back up here in this post:


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