Watch live-gameplay and learn how we bring events to life
Posted by Oleg
Watch us play!
We are excited to announce that this Monday we are going to stream some gameplay with Alexander Mishulin (Creative Director) and Chris Avellone (Narrative Designer). We are happy to show you the first several locations of our prototype version. We will play one of the early builds, so you can get a better impression of what to expect in the game.
We will go live on Monday,
10th of July at 9:00pm PDT / 4:00am GMT* / 6:00am CET* at
https://www.twitch.tv/owlcatgames.
*this means Tuesday, 11th of July in these time zones.
Can't make it to our live-stream? Don't worry! A recording will be available on our official YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo1yuqm85x6iyko4dKhZPiA.
And that's not all we have planned for you this Monday! Don't forget to be there for our Reddit-AMA (
reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/) we will have on Monday,
10th of July at 11:59am PDT / 6:59pm GMT / 8:59pm CET!
Bringing Events to Life
In a
previous update we talked about how we transition memorable events from the adventure path to our CRPG. This time we'd like to share with you how we handle events that are very vivid in the books, but not so easy to represent in the CRPG.
Note: This text describes one of the events you will encounter in
Pathfinder: Kingmaker. There are minor spoilers ahead.
There are two main types of interactions in the game aside from battle: dialogue and manipulating various objects. These interactions are usually further enhanced with elements like skill checks (try Disable Device on a locked chest) or small puzzle-like elements (figure out the sequence of a combination lock). But sometimes even combinations of these things are not enough to depict the event. When we were playing Pillars of Eternity a lot of us enjoyed their approach to special narrative events that were presented on scrolls, which didn't just contain text, but also used pictures. So it was natural that when we started discussing how we wanted to make events in Kingmaker come to life, we decided to take a similar route for some of them. And we wanted to take this approach even further.
Let us travel to the River Ford in South Narlmarches where gnomes are under attack by kobolds. Not only are they desperately trying to save their lives, but they also struggle to protect the cart of Jubilost Narthropple - leader of their expedition. Initially, you will come across several kobold squads, which will confront both the gnomes and your party. After you deal with the kobolds, a new challenge appears - saving the cart that is toppling into the water.
![[IMG]](https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/017/445/533/91123eddf15cc9e36028e48ece1b17d4_original.png?w=639&fit=max&v=1499699962&auto=format&lossless=true&s=1f7df33c8670de597b83e4afc47cbd68)
Interaction with the cart starts a new type of event, something we refer to as a "book event" in our game. You can try to help the gnomes right away, but it's not an easy task. While the gnomes are still holding the cart, you can explore the whole location to find items that can help. In this case you may discover a crowbar and a rope - or, being the resourceful adventurer that you are, perhaps you planned ahead and already thought to bring these valuable items along with you. Looking around the area you can also find ponies, which ran away from the cart. Your party may attempt to calm them with a skill check. All those actions will improve your chances to save the cart by decreasing the difficulty as well as providing new actions in the book event for the final check (for example by using the crowbar as a lever with a successful <Physique>/<Strength> check).
Your actions in battle can also have an impact on the event. While fighting the kobolds, you can make sure to protect the gnomes. Of course you could also just nuke the kobolds with area effects and take down a few gnomes along with them as collateral damage. However, each surviving gnome can lend their strength to your effort so save the cart, further decreasing the difficulty check, so you better think twice before blowing up some potential helpers!
![[IMG]](https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/017/445/558/dc2f3fbe16b58a9b4f07b240b8ebd0bf_original.png?w=639&fit=max&v=1499700087&auto=format&lossless=true&s=bac19629294c26f3bcec4d265f78fce9)
By offering you all these possibilities we're letting you handle this encounter the way you want. If one solution doesn't work for you, we're giving you other options. If, for instance, your party fails to calm down the ponies, you could still enhance Amiri's strength with magic and let her use the crowbar. Compensate for your weaknesses in some departments with your strengths in others.
When we conceptualized the UI for this element we wanted to represent such events with a book, where one side is devoted to pictures and the other to the text and choices of the player.
![[IMG]](https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/017/445/572/4278806af5730999676227212b6b4544_original.jpg?w=639&fit=max&v=1499700140&auto=format&q=92&s=8c0cb8f782bc00039759716b5f17cb0c)
But it took us a while to create a book we really liked. Take a look:
![[IMG]](https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/017/445/588/96b838783af844c34943efb6900b75ac_original.gif?w=639&fit=max&v=1499700197&auto=format&gif-q=50&q=92&s=d8099052ea7bf5b9c4fe9606e56229d7)
After experiments with the book itself we tried various iterations of the text and decoration within the book.
![[IMG]](https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/017/445/596/44ed9afac0318fe63669b3e01cec4a09_original.gif?w=639&fit=max&v=1499700235&auto=format&gif-q=50&q=92&s=e019358132bebda4cf1eecbc8884e258)
We are currently using this version, but work on a UI is never done and after more playtests and UX-tests this book could continue evolving.
![[IMG]](https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/017/445/625/fdf2c240ea4b90c4f1a7b1fd6a5940de_original.jpg?w=639&fit=max&v=1499700334&auto=format&q=92&s=b97d745539c5a89a213034b03dfacc30)
What do you think of our approach to book events? Have you come up with creative and unusual solutions to encounters in the adventure path? Let us know in the comments section!
Hail to the Kings!
Owlcats.
![[IMG]](https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/017/445/639/b4bc9f676cdf60ef1ab0238e4caaf649_original.png?w=639&fit=max&v=1499700370&auto=format&lossless=true&s=7e34f56ca40ef22f581461eb2d61de5c)
Click to expand...
