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Zaharia [Turn based indie RPG]

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
The problem with a King of Dragon Pass type game is buying all the art - they had a system where external freelance artists gave them the pencils, and the art director inked and coloured everything I believe. Art costs can mount up, but you don't need to pay tax on employees at least, and can pay a far lower (fair) wage to people in developing countries, so long as your main artist can unify everything together.
We can afford the 2d graphics because we work with a full time artist, fast an competent.

Of course, how well tactical combat will work in this engine is another question.
There won't be any tactical combat in that case.
I fear the day I'll have to brave Italian corporate law, but could you not set up as a partnership with contractors and avoid paying employees that way as well? Or do you prefer the security of a limited company in case you get sued by enraged fans?
Government changed, let's see what comes out with the new "job act" they're working on.
Kickstarter can seem so easy when someone with a lot of reputation, connections and hype does it.

Not going to give smartass advice now since another attempt is long way away, but do come around when the time comes and we will all help to dissect and disembowel your next opening pitch.
Stick to your guns now guys. The best in the field all had moments exactly like this and hey wouldnt have created masterpieces they eventually did if they didnt survive through it.
OwNathan
We're optimist, as soon as we have a clear idea of our budget (a few days), we'll be able to define the features of a smaller projects.
 

Wizfall

Cipher
Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
816
Too bad for Zaharia but it was too much for an unknown studio (and i absolutely agree with you for not asking for less than needed, it's a terrible behavior IMO)
However a KoDP game will be a day 1 pledge for me.
While KoDP story, arts, writing, C&C were very good, the game mechanics were much more complex than it looks and, to me, the biggest challenge for a KoDP "clone".
 

Copper

Savant
Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Messages
469
There is another problem with a KoDP style game, which you've probably thought of, but just to highlight it - the level of abstraction that KoDP can get away with will be tricky to match in a game with more focus on specific characters and people. It's not a huge deal if generic image X is used for your hero-questing fool, since this might be the first and last time you do anything with this particular character if they're a promising young noble who dies in the process.

But when it's specific characers in a more intimate story, the goalposts shift, and I think more people will take issue with the representation of their characters. Maybe not most people on the Codex, but I assume you want to appeal to a broader audience as well.

In this situation it's probably better to have the PCs off screen as much as possible - of course portraits/etc should be on the main page, but involving characters in the central action shown in the painted scene could be avoided, and the player's identification with the scene improved. You can probably show speciific parts of the character - hands picking up items, eyes looking through keyholes, etc, or characters who are wearing special costumes for ritual purposes or disguise could shake things up a bit.

The Eternity choose-your-own-adventure bits do this well, in most of what they've shown, by using the abstracting mechanic of a woodcut-style illustration and concentrating on the details - the object of interests, and the result. Suggestions would be to modify this approach but with more of a Persian manuscript or shadow-puppet feel (depending on how setting appropriate it is), which would allow you to show characters doing the actions the players are doing, but with the storytelling device acting as an implied unreliable narrator - the visuals represent the story of what the characters did, while the text component has more depth and subtlety, for instance describing the effects of different spells in specific circumstances, etc.

Doing this well can allow you to have your cake and eat it too, since you can include character customisation and a diversity of equipment, inventory etc. possibly with a paperdoll on one screen, where players can see their equipped items on their character, and then navigate via a map interface, for example, to specific locations/characters.
 

Essegi

Cipher
Joined
Nov 21, 2012
Messages
396
That's a lot interesting:
http://www.innervoid.net/web/?p=441
We are glad to announce that we are currently working on a new project!

Sadly we didn’t manage to find any investor interested in developing Zaharia with no multiplayer or free-to play features and we didn’t have enough funds to develop it on our own, so we decided to work on a lower budget project.

The new project, temporary called Project Frozen World, will be settled in a post-apocalyptic world where the remains of humanity are facing a new Ice Age. Project Frozen World will be a roleplaying experience in which the player will constantly struggle to survive, leading his/her party across a white wasteland.

1909139_642623065787655_1052569425_o1-e1400865073458.jpg


We won’t throw away all the work we did on Zaharia and working on Project Frozen World will allow us to develop various gameplay mechanics that we’ll be able to use in future games, we will also be able to use some of our time to further improve the setting of Zaharia, in order to create a better game in the future. We still hope to develop Zaharia and maybe Project Frozen World will be profitable enough to let us start again working on Zaharia.

1798604_643588592357769_6137328257252590160_n1-e1400865065527.jpg


What about Zaharia? Will we see it in the future?
We hope so, we worked a lot of time on Zaharia’s setting and we don’t want to trash everything. As soon as we will have enough funds to fully develop it, not an anonymous game, we will resume its development.

Why are you developing another game if you don’t have the funds to develop Zaharia?
Because it will cost us a tenth of Zaharia. That doesn’t mean that it will be a bad game or a extremely simple game, simply Project Frozen World has a completely different design and it will need fewer resources to get completed.

Will Project Frozen World be a RPG?
Yes. We love RPGs and we love how they let the player live a personal adventure, shaped by choices of any kind.

rifle21-e1400865055155.jpg


Will Project Frozen World be a survival sandbox game with just a couple of branching dialogues?
No. We are not working on a sandbox experience, we think that there are enough sandbox survival games on the market, we will explore the narrative dimension of survival in a post-apocalyptic world. This means that we will create a complex and satisfying survival gameplay, but our main focus will be the roleplaying and narrative experience. Project Frozen World will feature a lot of dialogues, it will let the player explore the world from a different perspective compared to a sandbox game, going beyond the mere gathering of food and resources.

Will you start a crowdfunding campaign for Project Frozen World?
We are not sure about that, we hope to fully develop the game with our own funds, but starting a Kickstarter campaign with a really low goal could help us expand the game, providing a better gameplay to the players.

How long will the development of Project Frozen World last?
It’s hard to precisely define the release date, now we only have a little prototype, but we won’t need more than a year to fully develop it.

More details about Project Frozen World will be revealed in the future, stay tuned!
Best wishes to Innervoid! And i like a lot post apo things!
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
Thank you for your support guys!

Sadly we had no other choice, we didn't want to create an anonymous, cheap Zaharia. And, most of all, we didn't want to create a MMORPG or a free-to-pay-to-win game. When we will be ready to share more details about the game I will open a new thread, with a detailed description of this new project.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2013
Messages
4,228
I am so happy to see You guys alive and kicking! Hope You will succeed! The idea of a post apocalyptic snow game is good, but I suggest to move the setting outside Europe/North America. Asia is good. South America even better. Africa- totally crazy but fun if done with a wit and humor.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,661
I hope you'll keep us updated here, OwNathan.
Sure, even if we suspend the development of zaharia for a smaller project, we want to develop a game with rpg features like dialogues and choices. I like this community, i found some of the best criticism here.


But it's easy explained why You have failed. Bad video, asking for to much. I actually knew the first day You started campaign that it will not end well. And do not suspend Zaharia. Demo is excellent. Wait some time. Improve pronunciation, make a good quality video, lower Your goal to 60 k $ , rest of the money can be acquired through Early Access, also remember that having backer shop open after the kickstarter can bring you some extra coins (PoE had acquired few hundred thousand dollars in a year). You can also publish Zaharia in a two parts.

Have You ever though about having a celebrity developer aiding Your project? Like MCA designing few quests or a area? (look how he helped FTL for free). Fargo supported Your project, he may lend You somebody for a week or two. Your project is interesting and original and I can see why some designer can be attracted to it.

Before starting Your second campaign return here and show us pitch video. Had You did it before, You would save some tears.
It's not that easy, my friend. I agree with you about video, and I agree the goal was high, but the costs are high too. Do you want to play the classic "good ideas bad results" game? I don't think you want to play a Zaharia with horrible graphics, poor choices and 15 hours of lenght, and we don't want to do such game. Now we're gonna try to find an investor, if we don't find any we'll develop a smaller game to let us fully develop Zaharia. In any case, we don't want to cancel Zaharia.

For a future KS campaign, we will use all the suggestions we received and it will surely have a more realistic goal, we only have to find investors.

OwNathan ,it would be nice if as smaller project you could do something similar to king of dragon pass . It requires 2D art , lot of dialogues , choices and consequences , things that you are obviously able to make . This will probably cost less than full 3D game with tactical combat. The goal of 120k$ was unnatainable for beginners , no shame into that.

I've been wanting a game like this for awhile and I'm surprised nobody else has given it a shake. It seems very simple to make what with the ease of development these days.
 

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
Ice Age post-apoc is a lot more interesting to me than nuke or zombie.

Only other game that has used it that I can think of is the badass Transarctica.
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
It's a neat 3d person adventure game where you play as a cute LongestJourneygirl with a backpack, you run around solve some stuff, collect coins and find and level up fairies who kick shit out of each other in a Quake 3 arena mode.
It has cool ending and cool opening theme and overall looks and sounds very nice. I remember liking it a lot just because of it's style and unlocking new fairy gens since they change their appearance.
 

Roqua

Prospernaut
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual In My Safe Space
Joined
Apr 28, 2004
Messages
4,130
Location
YES!
Whats going on with this game? Only information on ICY on their website. Was it cancelled?
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
As soon as we'll have the money we'll come back to it, to develop it with a proper budget.
 

likaq

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Messages
1,198
ITT 'AoD is worse than NWN2 in terms of camera control'
:hero:
 

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