Magic & Mercenaries: The Curse of Eternal Darkness

[anvi]

Looks miles better. Where did you get the gear icons?

Bought them.

Bad investment, they're ugly.

I should have just said YOU'RE UGLY. I still can.

 

[JarlFrank]

Looks miles better. Where did you get the gear icons?

Bought them.

Bad investment, they're ugly.

I should have just said YOU'RE UGLY. I still can.

Yeah but my face isn't an RPG interface element you have to look at during gameplay.

 

[anvi]

Thank god.

 

[ProphetSword]

any updates????

Lots of work going on. Not to worry.

 

[V_K]

Looks miles better. Where did you get the gear icons?

Bought them.

Bad investment, they're ugly.

I should have just said YOU'RE UGLY. I still can.

Yeah but my face isn't an RPG interface element you have to look at during gameplay.

Your girlfriend would disagree.

 

[The Avatar]

So, as a developer, I can spot these icons from a mile away. They are from one of the game dev Humble Bundles. It's not necessarily bad, but I wonder- do other people notice these icons used in other games?

 

[anvi]

You could probably just run a photoshop filter on all of them and maybe some hue tweaks and it would look different.

 

[ProphetSword]

So, as a developer, I can spot these icons from a mile away. They are from one of the game dev Humble Bundles. It's not necessarily bad, but I wonder- do other people notice these icons used in other games?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. I realized I was moving in the wrong direction and went back to a text-based system a few months ago.

As to your question, I often see assets I recognize in games in the wild. Doesn't bother me. Developers like me who have to make a game on a budget of essentially nothing have to use what they can get their hands on. I've tried to recruit some dedicated artists, but none would commit. When you don't have any artists, you work with what you have.

 

[anvi]

Do some gameplay.

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. I realized I was moving in the wrong direction and went back to a text-based system a few months ago.

I went through a similar process of switching to text-based item representation. I'm kind of wondering what actual advantages icons have over text, rather than looking pretty.

With text, I can quickly and easily know and distinguish between a Long Sword of Destruction and a Short Sword of Lightning. But, what if I've just got two pictures of swords? Is one a bastard sword, and the other a two-hand sword? Or maybe a rapier and a broad sword. Are they magic? What if your game has Diablo-like itemization? You've got to hover over or click every item to find out what they are, usually one at a time. Text lets you see everything at once. Text would also seem to allow developers to have a greater number of items. They can quickly and easily describe numerous items, with complete accuracy. With icons, you either have to create a new icon for every new item, or re-use a lot of assets, which ends up adding confusion for the player.

I guess icons are kind of their own language, and the icons themselves don't need any localization work. But, you still need to translate any text that goes with it, which you also have do with straight text. I suppose icons can also take up less space.

 

[ProphetSword]

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. I realized I was moving in the wrong direction and went back to a text-based system a few months ago.

I went through a similar process of switching to text-based item representation. I'm kind of wondering what actual advantages icons have over text, rather than looking pretty.

With text, I can quickly and easily know and distinguish between a Long Sword of Destruction and a Short Sword of Lightning. But, what if I've just got two pictures of swords? Is one a bastard sword, and the other a two-hand sword? Or maybe a rapier and a broad sword. Are they magic? What if your game has Diablo-like itemization? You've got to hover over or click every item to find out what they are, usually one at a time. Text lets you see everything at once. Text would also seem to allow developers to have a greater number of items. They can quickly and easily describe numerous items, with complete accuracy. With icons, you either have to create a new icon for every new item, or re-use a lot of assets, which ends up adding confusion for the player.

This is what I've found as well. And it is used for more than just inventory items. Some games use icons for magic spells and skills, which is fine if you only have a few. Once you have a lot of them, it can be a pain to remember what everything is supposed to be.

For example, I'm currently playing a CRPG that uses little icons for inventory management. Too bad I can never tell what anything is, though. I'm forever hovering over things because sometimes the potions look like other things, and I often can't tell which potion is which. I'm not sure this approach is necessarily superior to just using text.

 

[ProphetSword]

Do some gameplay.

 

[anvi]

Who drew the chick? Got any vids?

 

[dragonx1]

why is there only 1 race????

 

[Lady_Error]

Do some gameplay.

This is starting to look pretty awesome actually. I'd love to see some sort of stone or marble background like in Eye of the Beholder:

 

[ProphetSword]

why is there only 1 race????

You can choose to play whatever race you want in the game, providing they are all within the human species.

 

[ProphetSword]

This is starting to look pretty awesome actually. I'd love to see some sort of stone or marble background like in Eye of the Beholder:

I've actually tried multiple backgrounds over time, and have found that only a dark background works well. It may not be obvious in the small screenshots, but it's not solid black...it's actually a dark gray texture that has a stone-like quality. This closeup makes it stand out better (it's subtle, but it's obvious when you play in full screen):

 

[Volourn]

No dwarves no play. Fukkin' callin' games 'old skool' yet havin' no dwarves. FUKK THAT SHIT.

 

[anvi]

Dorfs must die.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Dorfs must die.

You got a real odd way of spelling elf.

 

[dragonx1]

make a playable demo already

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

We haven't seen an update on combat for a long time. What's up with your game (and the combat)?

 

[ProphetSword]

Combat hasn't changed since the last updates I posted. I've been working on story events, layouts and other things behind the scenes (like the skill system, for example). Creating content takes a long time, and I had the combat engine working as expected a long time ago.

When I say I'm creating content, you have to understand that this is a story based CRPG, just like the Gold-Box games were. There's nothing procedural about it. I'm not taking the easy way out and having the computer randomly generate the content (except for some areas where sometimes random combats might trigger, but even those combats are appropriate for the area). There are dialogues with choices, areas to explore, side quests, etc.

As a result, I probably won't circle back around to the combat engine until much, much later in the process.

 

[Tavernking]

How much of the game is done, give us a percentage estimate?

 

[ProphetSword]

Engine - 90% done
Story - 10% done

These are just a guess, based upon the amount of content I want to add, not necessarily what will end up in the game. In the end, the numbers are probably pointless, as I can't predict what challenges I will face in the future or how much extra content might develop.