Indie Lurking II: A Madness

[oklabsoft]

There are a ton of devs with steam games on here. Maybe you wanna begin with Vault Dweller or MRY, they are pretty profilic posters. But there are many more. Check the posters I stalk, all of them are devs (many dead accounts though).

Thx!

 

[Siveon]

Just a quick FYI, I know for a fact steam games do not require DRM. Larian games are a famous example of "DRM-free" steam games.

http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

 

[ShaggyMoose]

I can't throw icons at your post, so just a plain "thanks for the useful link" instead.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

oklabsoft get in touch with @Dr. Dungeon

 

[ERYFKRAD]

oklabsoft get in touch with @Dr. Dungeon

I mean the guy who did the Madman and Ultizurk series.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

I seem to remember seeing the guy who made Dungeons of Chaos around here. That was added to Steam only in the last few months.

 

[oklabsoft]

Thanks all. It is apparently not possible to ask a simple question directly of anyone at steam support. I will try these leads.

 

[oklabsoft]

We got a few requests for early access release of L2 so we figured why not. It is quite stable and (still theoretically) playable through to end. We will finish up a few quick updates and go live with that on itch as early as this weekend.

 

[agris]

We got a few requests for early access release of L2 so we figured why not. It is quite stable and (still theoretically) playable through to end. We will finish up a few quick updates and go live with that on itch as early as this weekend.

I've seen many developers say, in regret of launching EA, that "you only get one opportunity to launch your game", i.e. the sales bump from initially offering to sell. If I were you, I would give this more thought than "eh, what the hell".

Maybe Infinitron has better meta-knowledge on this than me.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Yeah, with an RPG in particular I am usually not willing to dive in with no guarantee that I will actually be able to finish the game...

 

[oklabsoft]

I've seen many developers say, in regret of launching EA, that "you only get one opportunity to launch your game", i.e. the sales bump from initially offering to sell. If I were you, I would give this more thought than "eh, what the hell".

Thanks agris. I certainly appreciate this perspective. I'm not sure that I can bring myself to hope that Justin and I could ever make any serious money on this venture. I would love to find some success in that realm and I am hoping that the success grows (I plan on making games for a long time) but I am in a spot where it is equally important to me to get an email that says "Hey man, I really loved playing your game." I put my soul into Lurking II and I would love to hear that it had an impact on someone.

Yeah, with an RPG in particular I am usually not willing to dive in with no guarantee that I will actually be able to finish the game...

Yes, I definitely don't blame you there. But... we do need some feedback and testing on different systems and our resources are very limited. One thing I have become all too aware of is that no one plays or sees your game like you do and I need those opinions and experiences to try to hone Lurking II. So I figure anyone interested in jumping in at this point would be a great resource and anyone who wants to wait can do so. This might also help save me from the stress of a massive influx of problems and bugs at the get-go... which there won't be

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Have you considered a "private" beta test using forum members? That might be an opportunity to receive early feedback while limiting the impact of any potential negative reception due to early bugs.

 

[oklabsoft]

Have you considered a "private" beta test using forum members? That might be an opportunity to receive early feedback while limiting the impact of any potential negative reception due to early bugs.

That was actually what we tried first, an invitation to several who we knew had played Lurking I. But people are busy and I certainly don't begrudge them that. We figured only the most interested would be in for the early access anyway.

 

[oklabsoft]

 

[oklabsoft]

 

[oklabsoft]

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Nice look. Is it intended to be played full screen at 1080? Any kind of scaling? Otherwise it looks like things might get a bit "lego hell" at that resolution.

 

[oklabsoft]

Nice look. Is it intended to be played full screen at 1080? Any kind of scaling? Otherwise it looks like things might get a bit "lego hell" at that resolution.

Thanks. The game displays at 1280 x 720 and does not scale. The 'implied' resolution is lower due to pixel art style.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Sounds like windowed might be the way to go...

 

[EveryoneIsAWeebButMe]

I love the look of this. The big viewport opens a lot of doors for artistry that games like Ultima 4 couldn't really do due to hardware limitations.

What is this made in? Looks a lot like a engine I have on-and-off worked on built on top of MonoGame + SadConsole.

 

[oklabsoft]

I love the look of this. The big viewport opens a lot of doors for artistry that games like Ultima 4 couldn't really do due to hardware limitations.

What is this made in? Looks a lot like a engine I have on-and-off worked on built on top of MonoGame + SadConsole.

Thanks. It was actually coded in VB6 from the ground up with nothing third-party - as were the map editor util and other design utilities. I know it is archaic, but it IS an old-school game.

In the first screen shot, you can see the moon reflecting on the water (looks better in game anim). The moon cycles through its phases, rises in the east and sets in the west and its reflection will move across the water as the night thickens and dawn nears. When the moon is half or more illuminated, the night remains dim, but not completely dark (provided it is not raining or snowing). Tree shadows track with the sun based on the hour. The seasons cycle and the scenery and temperatures change to match. Time of day and latitude also impact temperatures, so it is colder in the far north and south. When it gets too cold, traveling without robes or a cloak equipped will lead to periodic freezing damage. Camping in sub-freezing weather will lead to freezing damage no matter what unless you sleep next to a fire. You can build one... not a problem as long as you grabbed some flint at your last trip to the chemist shoppe. Make sure your mage bought a pipe and some pipeweed at that chemist because nothing restores magic points in a pinch like a nice pipe of pipeweed. The best part is when things that you didn't even plan start to just work. For example, the other day I was sneaking up on some encamped orcs at night. The sentry won't see you coming as long as you aren't carrying a light and all party members have a sufficient burglar skill so as not to make a sound. It started raining... hard. Almost there and... a crack of thunder and flash of lightning... everything lights up for a second and sure enough my party was revealed by the lightning flash.

Very excited to have this game played. Really hope it is well received.

 

[EveryoneIsAWeebButMe]

That is unbelievable. Rendering and tiling etc. are a nightmare to set up without an existing framework, this is some serious chops you must have to knock that out in VB6.

Not sure how different they are to VB6 (literally before my time as a software engineer lol), but any plans to port the engine to VB.NET or even C#.NET? If you can get it running in .NET Core you could make ports to other platforms pretty easily.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Wow, VB6... Been a long time since I saw any kind of serious project in that language and never a game!

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Looks like I was too late to edit my message...

I guess this was the same for the first Lurking then? You just enhanced the engine/toolset for this game? If either of these ever get open sourced, I would love to see it.

Also, the way that objects overlay the frame in the screenshots is a nice touch.

 

[EveryoneIsAWeebButMe]

I guess this was the same for the first Lurking then? You just enhanced the engine/toolset for this game? If either of these ever get open sourced, I would love to see it.

Aye, ditto to this.

Would kill to root around in the source for this.

Would you be keen to post some screens of the development tools etc? I'm very interested in the workflows of people who have made their own engines, as I feel like the dev tools I have scratched together probably suck compared to what people who have been at it for a while have.