Aletheia: Return of Odysseus - Greek mythology turn-based isometric RPG from Tavernking

[Infinitron]

Why is it that after 3000 years, the story of Odysseus continues to enchant audiences across cultures and time? The Odyssey is a timeless masterpiece, that’s why. Despite all the advancements in storytelling in modern television, books and games, most still fall short of the charm found in this ancient tale.

We here at Absent Dragon propose a simple idea. We want to make an RPG about the Odyssey that stays accurate to the original text itself. What does this mean? It means never contradicting the text, letting the player do everything Odysseus did in the text, and never attempting to upstage the text. The game will be meticulously researched to ensure it’s as faithful as possible not only to The Odyssey, but to Greek mythology as a whole.

Aletheia: Return of Odysseus is a new RPG that puts you in control of the legendary hero as he embarks on his journey home to Ithaca. Together with your help, we can bring to life a faithful depiction of Homer’s Greece!

Features:​

• The timeless tale of the Odyssey, staying true to the original text.
• Engaging Turn-Based Combat inspired by RPG classic Fallout 2.
• Detailed character creation. Determine your upbringing, racial background, skills and attributes.
• Reactive questing with multiple solutions, no hand-holding.
• Explore Homer's Greece through beautifully crafted isometric graphics.
• Manage your army as you encounter mythological creatures such as sirens, giants and nymphs.

What could truly set the ‘Aletheia' series apart could be a community that shares a passion for authentic mythology games. We hope that Return of Odysseus becomes an opportunity to explore and reflect on the rich world of Greek mythology in a new and engaging way. But why stop at just Greek mythology? We want to dive into the myths of other cultures, such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. By coming together, we can delve deeper into the rich stories and themes of these fascinating worlds, and help create authentic games about them. Join the Discord server if you're interested!

 

[Serus]

historically accurate mythology

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

historically accurate mythology

Most of popular history could be classified as such.

 

[MpuMngwana]

I wonder how they intend to combine "never contradicting the text" with stuff like multiple quest solutions. Best of luck with with the project anyhow.

 

[Darkozric]

codex cameos?

 

[Lord_Potato]

I wonder how they intend to combine "never contradicting the text" with stuff like multiple quest solutions. Best of luck with with the project anyhow.

And character creation with different upbringings and racial traits.

I can understand some freedom in the context of the story (for example killing the cyclops Polyphemus or letting him live and put a curse on your hero) but the absolute freedom of Fallouts does not seem realistic in the context of the Odyssey.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

The combat animations could need some work. That looks like when little kids play with action figures and have them "fight" each other.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Visually it looks like some of the later Jeff Vogel's games (tilesets) only with fewer animations (static characters). Wouldn't say it's particularly awe-inspiring, but maybe the writing and gameplay will make us forget about it.

 

[Infinitron]

The combat animations could need some work. That looks like when little kids play with action figures and have them "fight" each other.

At least they have legs!

 

[Feyd Rautha]

The combat animations could at least have been on par with the ones in the first Age of Empires.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Eh, sadly ,as someone literally living near there most of the time, I'm a graphics whore when It came to ancient Greek themed games, especially when it came to aesthetics.
I'm not accepting anything below Titan Quest, which released in 2006!

 

[Fedora Master]

At least its not pixel art I guess?

 

[Tyranicon]

I guess I'll be the first to wish a fellow 'dexer the best of luck. Premise is actually interesting.

Tavernking is this your secret project?

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Looks neat, wishlisted.

 

[luj1]

Looks like Nethergate a bit

Must it use this font though? Not that hard to make your own font in fact

 

[Cohesion]

Looks like Nethergate a bit

Must it use this font though? Not that hard to make your own font in fact

Have you tried to create a font? There are a lot of details to take care of and whatnot. It's not easy by any means. Research it, research typography, ligatures, spacing, kerning etc.

 

[luj1]

Or you can just load up any font in Adobe Illustrator and redraw the vectors? Much faster

 

[Tyranicon]

Google Fonts bros. It's 2024, nobody is paying for or creating their own fonts anymore. There's like a trillion different fonts for free.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

The concept of a game set in one of Homer's stories is interesting but I cannot see how one can make both a textually faithful work and free form RPG. The Odyssey, even with all of its twists and turns, is a linear story with a known definitive conclusion that does not lend itself to a RPG.

 

[Anthedon]

There better be a Homeric Greek version of this game.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Write me down in the list of codexers that can’t wrap their head around the idea of promoting player agency while being forced to stick to a predetermined outcome.

Also, FO2 isn’t a good metric for TB combat. It might be stylish, but the mechanics are shit.

Not that hard to make your own font in fact

lol, sure

There's like a trillion shit fonts for free.

ftfy. And they aren’t free, you’re paying with the time you spend digging through a pile of shit to find anything of worth. This point is only driven forward by your awful taste in fonts, as per your game’s logos.

 

[Tyranicon]

There's like a trillion shit fonts for free.

ftfy. And they aren’t free, you’re paying with the time you spend digging through a pile of shit to find anything of worth. This point is only driven forward by your awful taste in fonts, as per your game’s logos.

1. I don't know what your point is when you have to dig through the same pile of shit for paid fonts unless you hire some kind of typographer.

2. Which is also a pile of shit, since I hired both cheap and expensive logo artists, just to get the same mediocre logos I got.

I can't even imagine paying money for fonts. If your point is to basically just cheap shot me about shitty logos, then fair enough because they're not great. But I'm seriously considering just using Google Fonts for logos from now on anyways.

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

historically accurate mythology

Historically accurate in this case just meaning "no black people"

 

[AdolfSatan]

The point is not to offend you in particular, but rather to illustrate how skewed the perception that one can get a good result for cheap/free is. If you have money and know how to spend it (either on the fonts or a professional designer to do the legwork), you’ll save lots of working hours with one investment; you only need to make a good purchase once to get a font licensed for life, after all. But there isn’t good design for free, either you’re paying with money or you’ll be spending dozens of hours to reach a passable result.

Sorry to hear you wasted money on shitty designers, there are lots of mediocre artists parading as professionals and screwing clients for a quick buck. It’s a shame because they end up shunning people that would have been good customers from the entire industry altogether.

 

[Tyranicon]

But there isn’t good design for free, either you’re paying with money or you’ll be spending dozens of hours to reach a passable result.

I have to disagree with this, even though my opinion is clearly as someone who doesn't work in this field. But I have worked with graphic designers before in corpo jobs and on a corpo budget (which means they just spend money like it's not their own, because it isn't). And even they constantly use free fonts like Montserrat and Roboto, which I believe is in both Adobe Fonts and Google Fonts.

I would only splurge for something like Helvetica or whatever the "popular" fonts are these days, and you're right, $100-$200 bucks isn't exactly a lot for a font family and a lifetime license, but it's only really noticeable for real font connoisseurs, which the majority of the gaming audience is not. At this point, I'd settle for legible more than anything else -glares at Skald-.

Just my two cents for any other indiedev out there.