KickStarter Code of the Savage - Ultima 6/7-inspired RPG

[Infinitron]

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2106227726/code-of-the-savage-rpg
Steam Greenlight: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=898285329

https://www.codeofthesavage.com

Spoiler

https://eman333.itch.io/code-of-the-savage-rpg

Introduction
Code of the Savage is a tale of vengeance and survival. After escaping a slave ship, you have found yourself in chains and washed ashore on the island Kingdom of Daneth. You must find your way in a brutal and unforgiving world where nothing is black and white.

Deep and disturbing quandaries underpin the driving force of the game.

Code of the Savage is a no-holds-barred classic western style RPG. Inspired by the greats from the 80-90’s with a modern flair. There is a strong emphasis on player freedom through social and moral interactions… Will you choose to fire bomb the brothel, the church… Or both? Will you do it for money, glory or just because?

I think a problem with many of today's RPGs is that they expect you to know and care about their lore and backstory before you even take your first steps. In Code of the Savage, you and the main character are totally new to Daneth. So I don't want you to know the lore and backstory straight away. I want you to discover these things on your own terms as you play the game and interact with its inhabitants.

I wanted to create a role playing game that brought me back to my gamer days as a child on the C64 and MS-DOS PC. There is just something lacking in today's RPG's that I miss. Tired of micro-transactions, and randomly generated worlds; I am creating a world that is hand crafted with purpose. Essentially, I am creating the game that I want to play.

I believe one of the most important aspects of an RPG is the characters you meet in the game. I have therefore placed a great emphasis on NPC interaction. Each NPC in Code of The Savage has their own story, their own character portrait and a daily schedule. They will, go about their daily lives, going to work, eating and sleeping.

Level up your character and adventure forth to discover the treasures, history, and people of Daneth.

Visit the official website to sign up to the mailing list - www.codeofthesavage.com

Press kit - www.codeofthesavage.com/press

Features

• Open world - A large open, seamless, non-linear, hand-crafted world for you to explore. Including day and night cycles, and weather.
• Exploration - Discover towns, cities, hidden caves and dungeons. Unravel the rich lore of Daneth.
• NPCs with depth - Meet a rich cast of NPCs with a dynamic branching conversation system. NPCs remember your name and react differently depending on the situation.
• Dark themes - I don't hold back on what some may consider offensive content. If you're easily offended, Code of The Savage is probably not for you... This is not a "slay the dragon" and "save the princess" RPG.
• Player freedom - There are various ways to progress through the game, with no right or wrong answers. Morality in Code of The Savage is not black and white. You decide what's right, and you decide what's wrong.
• Adventure - Battle giants, undead and other creatures, hunt to gather resources, or go on a murderous rampage, the choice is yours.
  
• Combat - Fast-paced dynamic combat system which is a mix between turn based and real time. Combat encounters happen in real time, without loading to a separate combat screen.
• Inventory - An intuitive and easy to use inventory system. Any equipment and armour the player is wearing shows on their avatar.
  
• Controls - Smooth grid-based movement. Easy and intuitive mouse and keyboard controls.
• Fun - A familiar old school RPG game mechanic. Cast spells, hack, slash, level up, upgrade gear and kick ass!

 

[epeli]

Looks interesting, but makes me wonder what the "modern accessibility" part is all about. The mouse-driven UI seems a bit dated and clunky. Since the combat is real-time action, keyboard movement would work better than having both movement and attacking as cursor modes. Particularly so for ranged kiting where you want to simultaneously attack in one direction and and move in the other. There's also lots of unnecessary dragging & dropping in all item interactions, but that might just be the dev avoiding shortcuts on purpose to make his actions easier to follow on the video.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Finally, another game for those who couldn't get enough of Ultima VII's combat!
Looks interesting to be honest, although there's not very much to go on in terms of what the game will do to distinguish itself. It's hard to spend money on a project that's only good if the writing and/or exploration is good, and all the dev can really do at this stage is say "yeah, it'll be great, trust me guys!" Still, the entry point is cheap at AU$10, and he's said all the right things so far (apart from "real time combat"). I'll be keeping an eye on this.

 

[YanBG]

I've tested a very early version and it's a pretty game. The NPC icons that he made are fantastic!

Looks interesting, but makes me wonder what the "modern accessibility" part is all about. The mouse-driven UI seems a bit dated and clunky. Since the combat is real-time action, keyboard movement would work better than having both movement and attacking as cursor modes. Particularly so for ranged kiting where you want to simultaneously attack in one direction and and move in the other. There's also lots of unnecessary dragging & dropping in all item interactions, but that might just be the dev avoiding shortcuts on purpose to make his actions easier to follow on the video.

Linked that topic to the dev, so he might be able to answer you.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

If Lord British is on board, then so am I!

 

[Strange Fellow]

And John Romero and Neal Hallford!
I hope more celebs back this at the personal portrait tier, so I can have a full party of game designers in games that allow custom portraits

 

[Citizen]

I hope more celebs back this at the personal portrait tier, so I can have a full party of game designers in games that allow custom portraits

 

[ItsChon]

Looks interesting actually, I'll definitely be following this project. The art style is simplistic but nice, and it's something I can definitely get behind.

 

[Geoff Jones]

Looks interesting, but makes me wonder what the "modern accessibility" part is all about. The mouse-driven UI seems a bit dated and clunky. Since the combat is real-time action, keyboard movement would work better than having both movement and attacking as cursor modes. Particularly so for ranged kiting where you want to simultaneously attack in one direction and and move in the other. There's also lots of unnecessary dragging & dropping in all item interactions, but that might just be the dev avoiding shortcuts on purpose to make his actions easier to follow on the video.

Thanks epeli for the feedback.
I'm Geoff, the developer.

You can actually use the KB or the Mouse for movement, either WASD or arrow keys. so kiting is defiantly a thing. I've just been using the mouse so much during the development that I'm kinda too used to it You can also attack using a key.

 

[Geoff Jones]

Finally, another game for those who couldn't get enough of Ultima VII's combat!
Looks interesting to be honest, although there's not very much to go on in terms of what the game will do to distinguish itself. It's hard to spend money on a project that's only good if the writing and/or exploration is good, and all the dev can really do at this stage is say "yeah, it'll be great, trust me guys!" Still, the entry point is cheap at AU$10, and he's said all the right things so far (apart from "real time combat"). I'll be keeping an eye on this.

I'm hoping people will take a chance on me. I've been working hard on the NPC dialogue and mini stories that the player encounters in the game. I'd prefer to leave it up to the player to discover these things, but I also understand that it's just my word on that. A quick example is of a priest who is wrestling with cognitive dissonance, and rails against the local brothel, calling them a "den of sluts and whores", and then later finding out from one of the prostitutes that she has been regularly servicing him in secret. I'm peppering the game with situations and characters that I hope people will remember.

 

[Strange Fellow]

A quick example is of a priest who is wrestling with cognitive dissonance, and rails against the local brothel, calling them a "den of sluts and whores", and then later finding out from one of the prostitutes that she has been regularly servicing him in secret.

Realistic. Topical. I like it!

 

[LootSeeker]

At this point I'm just trying to figure out which pledge tier I'm going to choose to back this game. Also glad movement and attack can be done with KB instead of mouse. I wouldn't mind hearing more about the game's dark themes. Is it more about what we will choose to do in Daneth, given the amount of freedom the game gives, or is it more about things we will encounter in Daneth (for example, some crazy-ass cannibal tribe abducting people and wearing their skin), or perhaps a little of both?

 

[aweigh]

can i stalk and harass people and pretend to be by obtaining their private information thru forum accounts and then e-LARP multiple personas? not a true ultima unless you can.

 

[Siveon]

Okay but can you cook bread

 

[Geoff Jones]

At this point I'm just trying to figure out which pledge tier I'm going to choose to back this game. Also glad movement and attack can be done with KB instead of mouse. I wouldn't mind hearing more about the game's dark themes. Is it more about what we will choose to do in Daneth, given the amount of freedom the game gives, or is it more about things we will encounter in Daneth (for example, some crazy-ass cannibal tribe abducting people and wearing their skin), or perhaps a little of both?

Without giving too much away; It is a little bit of both, yes. The game deals with child abuse, torture (or enhanced interrogation) and rape. I have to be careful about how I approach those topics... The player doesn't commit any of those acts himself, but may need to decide what he is going to do when he encounters situations involving them.
Stumble across a small house in the middle of nowhere A father living with his daughter. You suspect a father is abusing his daughter... Do you kill the father, leaving the girl to fend for herself? are your suspicions even true? What would you do in that situation (rhetorical question). Lot's of things like this.
And thank you for considering backing, I really appreciate it.

 

[Geoff Jones]

Okay but can you cook bread

That IS actually something I am considering.. but its a low priority... Good old Ultima 7.

can i stalk and harass people and pretend to be by obtaining their private information thru forum accounts and then e-LARP multiple personas? not a true ultima unless you can.

I'll look into implementing that...

 

[Bester]

You suspect a father is abusing his daughter... Do you kill the father, leaving the girl to fend for herself?

Can you tickle her pussy cat yourself and then be off on your grand adventure?

 

[Tigranes]

I like how the very first screenshot of a deserty area says "CoTS features a number of different biomes.", immediately followed by another deserty area screenshot.

The stretch goals are uninspiring, and the mere $5k jump to 'port to mobile devices' is a bit of a joke, but this sadly is a feature of 99% of KS.

In general it looks interesting. I think the difficulty is that if you want to say the truly distinguishing/amazing part of your game is the writing and quests, and it's based on the player discovering stuff organically instead of a loredump (something everybody at the Codex would love, by the way), that's the kind of stuff that's really hard to show on screenshots or a feature summary. So as a prospective funder all I know is that the guy seems to have his heart in the right place, but it could be anything from a thoroughly colourless old school RPG knockoff, to something that really has a bit of the Ultima magic.

Geoff Jones While developing Age of Decadence, Iron Tower would regularly post a detailed walk-through of a particularly important dialogue or even a partial slice of a quest resolution. That allowed us to see the quality & style of the dialogue in practice, and also hear specific detail about what kind of nonlinearity we could expect in quest resolution. This would normally be stuff that's too dense for a KS pitch or media coverage, but that's what would get Codexers to reach for their wallets if convinced.

 

[Haba]

Without giving too much away; It is a little bit of both, yes. The game deals with child abuse, torture (or enhanced interrogation) and rape. I have to be careful about how I approach those topics... The player doesn't commit any of those acts himself, but may need to decide what he is going to do when he encounters situations involving them.
Stumble across a small house in the middle of nowhere A father living with his daughter. You suspect a father is abusing his daughter... Do you kill the father, leaving the girl to fend for herself? are your suspicions even true? What would you do in that situation (rhetorical question). Lot's of things like this.
And thank you for considering backing, I really appreciate it.

Since my play-through of Inquisitor is freshly in mind, one thing that was really cool as the fact that NPCs would lie to you to further their own goals.
- A rogue band's lieutenant sets you on a quest to kill the leader so he can take his place.
- A female heretic gives false testimony towards her husband

Even better when the lies are not obvious and easily dispelled, but rather something you'll only uncover if you work on it a lot.

So not only you have to consider the consequences of your actions, but also the motivations of characters that try to push you into making the choices in the first place.

 

[epeli]

You can actually use the KB or the Mouse for movement, either WASD or arrow keys. so kiting is defiantly a thing. I've just been using the mouse so much during the development that I'm kinda too used to it You can also attack using a key.

Sweet, that adresses my concerns about basic playability. For a moment there I was afraid you might have some kinky control scheme preferences without offering a decent set of options to players. Will combat be mostly a hack'n'slash affair or have you planned anything special (in AI, combat actions other than move/attack, encounter design or otherwise) to give it a more tactical angle?

Was about to ask what engine you're using if any, but it looks like you're programming your own instead of relying on existing engines/frameworks. That's always worthy of respect, a sign of dedicated craftsmanship. The quality of graphic assets seems reasonable for a one-man project and artstyle is fitting for a game inspired by the golden era classics. The PC sprite looks bad to me, but I can see where the style is coming from and how it makes displaying all the different gear pieces easy. All in all everything that's easy to judge from the kickstarter info seems good. It's all up to quality of the content you create - the world, the stories and characters. Best of luck with your kickstarter, at this rate you'll reach the modest basic funding goal easily.

 

[Geoff Jones]

Can you tickle her pussy cat yourself and then be off on your grand adventure?

No, but you can kill them both, and loot their meager possessions.

I like how the very first screenshot of a deserty area says "CoTS features a number of different biomes.", immediately followed by another deserty area screenshot.
The stretch goals are uninspiring, and the mere $5k jump to 'port to mobile devices' is a bit of a joke, but this sadly is a feature of 99% of KS.
In general it looks interesting. I think the difficulty is that if you want to say the truly distinguishing/amazing part of your game is the writing and quests, and it's based on the player discovering stuff organically instead of a loredump (something everybody at the Codex would love, by the way), that's the kind of stuff that's really hard to show on screenshots or a feature summary. So as a prospective funder all I know is that the guy seems to have his heart in the right place, but it could be anything from a thoroughly colourless old school RPG knockoff, to something that really has a bit of the Ultima magic.
While developing Age of Decadence, Iron Tower would regularly post a detailed walk-through of a particularly important dialogue or even a partial slice of a quest resolution. That allowed us to see the quality & style of the dialogue in practice, and also hear specific detail about what kind of nonlinearity we could expect in quest resolution. This would normally be stuff that's too dense for a KS pitch or media coverage, but that's what would get Codexers to reach for their wallets if convinced.

My thinking with the mobile device, is that if it got to that level (which seems doubtful), then it would be a good indicator that porting it to mobile would be worth the effort. Maybe I'm totally wrong about that. I'm working out the best way to go about things. And yes, lore dumping is something that really turns me off. Its part of the reason that I wanted the player to start on a world he is not familiar with... Re: Age of Decadence; That's some good advice. Consider that something I will do in the coming weeks. Did he post this as a video or a script?

Sweet, that adresses my concerns about basic playability. For a moment there I was afraid you might have some kinky control scheme preferences without offering a decent set of options to players. Will combat be mostly a hack'n'slash affair or have you planned anything special (in AI, combat actions other than move/attack, encounter design or otherwise) to give it a more tactical angle?
Was about to ask what engine you're using if any, but it looks like you're programming your own instead of relying on existing engines/frameworks. That's always worthy of respect, a sign of dedicated craftsmanship. The quality of graphic assets seems reasonable for a one-man project and artstyle is fitting for a game inspired by the golden era classics. The PC sprite looks bad to me, but I can see where the style is coming from and how it makes displaying all the different gear pieces easy. All in all everything that's easy to judge from the kickstarter info seems good. It's all up to quality of the content you create - the world, the stories and characters. Best of luck with your kickstarter, at this rate you'll reach the modest basic funding goal easily.

I'm using GMS2, so I cant accept that compliment. I probably shouldn't have used the word "engine" on the KS page... My bad, sorry about that. What I meant was basically the core mechanics of the game... Ill change the wording on the page. I too have a lot of respect for people who are able to craft it from scratch.
After lots of feedback about the character sprites, I'm definitely going to rework them. To what extent, I'm not sure yet. It will be some work though. The player sprite was actually the very first sprite I made for the game, I'm sure I can do better. Thanks for the feedback, and Ill keep everyone updated about how this progresses.

Since my play-through of Inquisitor is freshly in mind, one thing that was really cool as the fact that NPCs would lie to you to further their own goals.
- A rogue band's lieutenant sets you on a quest to kill the leader so he can take his place.
- A female heretic gives false testimony towards her husband
Even better when the lies are not obvious and easily dispelled, but rather something you'll only uncover if you work on it a lot.
So not only you have to consider the consequences of your actions, but also the motivations of characters that try to push you into making the choices in the first place.

This is definitely something I have in mind while writing the dialogue. I get bored when the "prophecy" always comes true.

 

[Infinitron]

Re: Age of Decadence; That's some good advice. Consider that something I will do in the coming weeks. Did he post this as a video or a script?

Here's an example: http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,3210.0.html

 

[Bester]

No, but you can kill them both, and loot their meager possessions.

You could get a lot of media attention just by adding the option that I would've gone for.

Consider the implications. Your game could go viral.

 

[ArchAngel]

A quick example is of a priest who is wrestling with cognitive dissonance, and rails against the local brothel, calling them a "den of sluts and whores", and then later finding out from one of the prostitutes that she has been regularly servicing him in secret.

Realistic. Topical. I like it!

Not really realistic. If it was a local brother full of little boys than it would be realistic.

 

[ArchAngel]

You suspect a father is abusing his daughter... Do you kill the father, leaving the girl to fend for herself?

Can you tickle her pussy cat yourself and then be off on your grand adventure?

More like you present yourself as 'Om Hnks and offer to buy his daughter's charms for a while. Then you go on your way.