The Project Evolves

As mentioned in my previous post, I had started working on a new project in December of 2015.  This new project (currently unnamed) uses many of the assets of "Lands of Adventure," and utilizes all the things I learned during the five different times I tried to build that game. 

After nearly a year of work, I am ready to start releasing screenshots and start talking about my intentions for the game.  Like LOA, I intend this to be a throwback old-school CRPG, reminiscent of the kind of games that were developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

This time around, I'm also providing a lot of my own artwork to the project (all walls, floors, grounds and skies were done by me).  This helps give the project a style that is consistent.

So, here are the screenshots.

First, the main town, shown here both in the daytime and at night:

When talking to an NPC in the game, players will see a screen like this:

Here's a look at one of the character screens:

Combat in the game is very similar to the way it appeared in the very early versions of LOA.  I choose that style because it was easier to deal with and it keeps everything in the same screen space.  I'm also including the victory page that is seen after the combat ends:

And finally, some random shots of the first dungeon in the game:

As always, any feedback is appreciated.

Fourth Time is a Charm

At this point in the project, I have rebuilt this game four times from scratch (not including the early versions I highlighted in the last post).  This will, I hope, be the last time.  It's no easy feat to scrap everything you've done and start over again...especially when you've done it multiple times.

This last time, it needed to be done.  And there were two reasons for that.

1)  REASON ONE: The Gold-Box Factor

The first reason was that the game had become something I didn't want to build.  While I appreciated the feedback I got from some folks on the Internet, their opinions swayed me away from the kind of game I wanted to build.  As I kept listening to them and doing what they suggested, I was getting pulled further and further away from my original vision.  After a while, I realized that I was an idiot to allow this, and I withdrew from the public for a while to quietly scrap everything and start over.

This game started as an homage to the SSI Gold-Box style games of the early 1990s.  Nobody is making games like that anymore.  You can find a ton of Bard's Tale and Wizardry knockoffs, but you don't find many games that try to copy the style of Pool of Radiance, and I think that's a shame.  That series of games was awesome.

So, I returned to that.  This screenshot (which is a work in progress, so keep that in mind) clearly shows a return to that form.  Anyone who has played those games will quickly see the same style and will notice that it also is closer to my original version of the game from two years ago (when this crazy ride started):

Work in progress screen.

The game now has step-based movement (free movement has been removed), allows for six characters (one thing that a lot of people have asked for) from a total of 12 classes and will hopefully have more tactical combat.


2) REASON TWO: Scaling Issues

The other reason why the project needed a reboot was that I had locked the game into one screen mode (1280x720) and had built around that.  Players would have no choice but to play in that screen mode.

After a while, I came to see how horrible an idea that was and realized that I was going to need to figure out how to scale things properly in order to allow players to play in any screen mode from 1024x768 (minimum) and up.   Now, the game should play in a variety of screen resolutions and scale properly.

For example, the above picture is in the 16:9 aspect ratio.  Here's the same screen in 4:3 at 1024x768 (the lowest possible resolution):

Same screen, different resolution.

You'll notice now that everything scales dynamically.  Folks playing in a 16:9 or 16:10 resolution will have more breathing space, but even folks playing at the lowest resolution will not feel cheated.  Fonts, buttons, etc...they all scale as required.  I test everything in multiple resolutions to insure that everything works.  It adds to the workload, but I think it's worth it.

Overall, I don't have a lot to show, since I'm rebuilding many of the things I've already shown off in the past.  But, I don't like to have nothing to show for my work, so here's a few more screenshots.

The first one shows how the game handles text and pictures when you encounter enemies or friendly folk.  As mentioned above, if you're familiar with the Gold-Box games, you won't see something here that you're not familiar with:

This is an old screenshot.  Notice how buttons aren't properly scaled yet (compared to the above screenshots).

Finally, I tend to always show how the character screens are evolving.  After attempting to use the Basic Fantasy RPG system and realizing that it wouldn't work out as I'd hoped (despite how close to the Gold-Box system it would be), I started working out the details on my own RPG system.  A lot of thought has gone into it.

This screen won't show you everything about it, but just know that I want it to be simple enough for anyone to play.  If you're looking for a game with deep character building options, you're not going to find it here.  This isn't that game.  This game will have tactical combat and exploration options, but characters will be pretty straightforward in the same way that they were in any of the Gold-Box titles this game is paying homage to.  That's just reality.

Anyway, here's a character screen:

This character screen isn't 100% working.  The scores aren't showing up right yet, and bonuses aren't calculated correctly either.

So, I hope some of you are still out there and haven't given up yet.  I don't plan on building this game for a fifth time.  This is it.  This is the final version.  I know what I want to build now, and I'm not going to let people steer me away from my goal.  If they don't like it, they are free not to play it.  It's not going to appeal to everyone, and I can live with that.  I'll just focus on making it the best game I can make, and I'll be happy if even one person likes it.

Until next time.

Home-Brew RPG

As it turns out, trying to shoehorn the Basic Fantasy RPG system into the game was a big mistake.  Sadly, it was the kind of mistake that I didn't discover until after I had already tried to do it.  So, count it toward the experience gained while creating this project.

I've rolled the project back to the point before I started to change things over (thank goodness I keep backups), and I'm pushing forward with my own home-brew RPG system, which is built specifically for the game and won't have anything in it that it doesn't need.  In the end, that was the best move.

In addition, there were some tricky parts to the OGL (Open Gaming License) that I didn't want to deal with.  Creating my own system will keep me from dealing with any of that.  For my own stable state of mind, I'm glad for that.

Mistakes have been made along the way...more than once, but the project continues.  Hopefully I'll reach the point where I can release a demo soon.