Incline WORLD'S GREATEST GENERIC RPG BLOBBER ENGINE : "VAULT OF TERROR"

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

One tool changed my mind and I have decided to finish VOT before SOA.

I tried a lot of different mapping tools for a blobber but wasn't happy with the way they looked with 2D monsters in combat. Then I found this editor and was really pleased with the way it looks with the static monsters in VOT.

Crocotile 3D by Alex Hanson-White (itch.io)

Very 8 bit with all the perks, lighting and ease of coding you get from 3D. Even found some Dungeonmaster style textures to use on the walls. Will put up some screenshots soon.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Watch this forum for screenshots coming soon.

 

[Bladderfish]

I await screenshots with baited breath. Which means I may develop breathing problems over the many years to see said screenshots, but I'll bait my breath anyway.

 

[Morblot]

Does this mean I can delete my save from when I won Grimoire?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Does this mean I can delete my save from when I won Grimoire?

Save it, give it to your grandkids to hold onto.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

50 Portraits male and female this time around, I only picked the wildest and most exotic for the game to convey the excitement of the original Grimoire all over again for a new generation.

Would you consider allowing players to upload portraits?

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I await screenshots with baited breath. Which means I may develop breathing problems over the many years to see said screenshots, but I'll bait my breath anyway.

Bated. “With bated breath” means you’re so excited about something that you’re having trouble breathing. “With baited breath” means that your breath is so foul you’re intending to use it as a trap or trick on someone unsuspecting.

 

[Netch]

Sounds very cool; I'm definitely looking forward to seeing screenshots. I hope Post-Atomic isn't put on the backburner for too long though, that game has me excited.

 

[Kaivokz]

UNITY+3D
WHAT SAY YOU CODEX?

Sounds very cool

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

Necromancers are now WARLOCKS
Clerics are now EMPIRICS
Metalsmiths now just plain SMITHS
Pirates now called CORSAIRS

Giants are now OGRES.
Saurians are now GOBLINS.

Elves are now FAIRIES.
Cows are now BURGERS.
All bears are now TOYS.

 

[Gargaune]

put out blobbers of all different genres on a monthly basis.

But... there's multiple Fridays in a month.

 

[Alter Sack]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

How long do you think will it take to port Grimoire to the new engine?

Will it be a lot of work?

The game has six slots for party characters, another two that can be reserved for the party's PET (!) and one slot for recruited NPCs like EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. You have to keep a slot open if you want to summon monsters in combat. You cannot dismiss your original party (investment in your characters from start to end) and the only party characters that can be dismissed are the pet and a recruited character.

Great, I always wanted my party to have a PET (or maybe two).

Spoiler

 

[Fluent]

Cleve, this is excellent news! Wow. I am very much looking forward to blobbers made with this engine, and the sheer possibility of many of them being made by others, too! You really hyped me here, this is going to be SWEET! Thanks for your efforts in this most important but often overlooked genre of RPGs: The Blobber!

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Cleve, this is excellent news! Wow. I am very much looking forward to blobbers made with this engine, and the sheer possibility of many of them being made by others, too! You really hyped me here, this is going to be SWEET! Thanks for your efforts in this most important but often overlooked genre of RPGs: The Blobber!

Your mind will reel when you see some of the genres I am going to fit into the blobber format, each with radically different themes and artistic design.

(Lovecraft themed game portraits are all already done and they are incredible)

(Vivisectionist and Innsmouth recruits below)

(Still collectiing Lovecraft themed monsters from asset store and elsewhere, only have about 5 right now which is not enough for a game but could pad this with gangsters, rats and common RPG creatures like slimes, etc.)

P.S. The character creation screen is standardized and is entirely data driven with no hardcoded values for ANYTHING. Even the abilities themselves in a particular RPG (Spellcasting, summoning, etc.) are all data driven from tables. So for example, adding a new ability is as simple as giving it a few categories, describing it's limitations and requirements, then its effect ... all in tables. This is all a result of finally figuring out exactly how Unity Scriptable Objects work and what they are capable of. Very powerful programming paradigm. It all came to me in about 40 seconds how to do it all after I drank three cups of bulletproof coffee with coconut oil.

 

[mondblut]

I await screenshots with baited breath.

These were the last words of Fentanyl Floyd.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Necromancers are now WARLOCKS
Clerics are now EMPIRICS
Metalsmiths now just plain SMITHS
Pirates now called CORSAIRS

Giants are now OGRES.
Saurians are now GOBLINS.

Elves are now FAIRIES.
Cows are now BURGERS.
All bears are now TOYS.

Fairies are now called SYLPHS
Durendil are now called SERAPHIM

... this is part of naturally trimming my IP down to a system which is unique or at least uniquely named and distinct so no butthurt companies can try to sue me for D&D infringements etc. etc. ... I believe if I turn this into my unique market niche as an indie, people will come sniffing for money at some point, so making certain I am not derived from Wizardry or from D&D or any other RPG design. FUDGE is open license with no restrictions and it kicks ass, I could not have gotten those logarithmic curves to work that well with ten years to tweak them.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

D&D owns pirates?!

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Cleve, this is excellent news! Wow. I am very much looking forward to blobbers made with this engine, and the sheer possibility of many of them being made by others, too! You really hyped me here, this is going to be SWEET! Thanks for your efforts in this most important but often overlooked genre of RPGs: The Blobber!

Guarantee you that you will not be disappointed in the final product! I also made sure usability was designed right from the start, no manual needed to play these games just jump in and wait to be prompted for your orders etc. so no more autistic crybabies on Steam whining about how hardz it iz. Eliminage Gothic is the way to go for mass marketing of blobbers for the flow of the UI, it is just the graphics and format that sucks.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

D&D owns pirates?!

... no but a Corsair is more of a specialized thief with more combat skillz as well as a pirate.

 

[Fluent]

Sounds great, man! Portraits look great, and I'm really looking forward to the more traditional RPG stuff, like a continuation of Grimoire and the like. I'm also up for any setting though, as long as it's a cool blobber! :D

It does sound great, though. I don't mind reading manuals but that functionality will definitely garner you some new fans (probably a LOT of them, honestly.) So everybody wins! Going to keep my eye on the thread for more updates. When a module is ready to go, do you mind if I do a Let's Play for it for my YouTube channel?

Also, I still have yet to play Grimoire. I know, I'm late, but it's on my short list of games to play next. I'm currently playing a Wizardry game, some vintage FRUA designs and Dark Sun, but once one of those wraps up it's Grimoire time. :D Anyway, keep up the excellent work, brother! You're going to be pleasing a lot of fans and finding new fans for your wonderful creations. Cheers! <3

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Does this mean I can delete my save from when I won Grimoire?

No. Every byte will map into the new system seamlessly with a little translation code and tables. Even the spells. It's a low priority for this game but a certainty for the next Grimoire installment and it will likely be patched on this one by then, too.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

How long do you think will it take to port Grimoire to the new engine?

Will it be a lot of work?
[/spoiler]

I've got enough of the prior rules converted over that you can already see in combats that the math (from FUDGE) results in superb performance over my original engine in C++. As your skillz and attributes increase, the bell curve bulges on the right side and everything becomes not evenly distributed but is more and more like to succeed every time at every action but even the highest skillz can fail once in a while or the toughest monster can still be hit even by a level one noob swinging a wet towel. Way better texture to the combat turns and it just "feels" right which many people have said about FUDGE & FATE. I've got a debug HUD running too, which is something that was desperately needed in Grimoire which I tried to insert with the cheat codez. I can actually interrupt a combat, bump up a skill by one FUDGE point then watch the battle progress with better results instantly. I should have built this substructure on day one for Grimoire but I was still learning.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I can't wait to upload my consciousness into a robot body to see its release.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

My plan, which I formed 30 years ago today, was to generate tons of good, fun blobbers in various genres with the most efficient tools ... then sit back and see which meets with the greatest response and is most enjoyed by players. This drives the decisions to do sequels and import your former party. So if the first Lovecraftian Mythos does well then players may have a real hunger to see a second and third and I may leave off the Horror/Superhero theme at just one game each.

This Grimoire prequel/reboot is designed to be exactly like one of the old D&D short campaigns - I am even working on a splash screen that makes it appear this is just another adventure in the Grimoire Roleplaying System. I am also channeling a sort of EYE OF THE BEHOLDER feel at the beginning.

NPCs are now very different from before and really focus on dialogue and interaction, many of them are not murderable and are there to advance the story. After a long time thinking about it I decided this was the best way to capture the graphic comic book/narrative design I wanted. Many people will be glad to hear I went to dialogue trees and am throwing out the full sentence typing.

This Grimoire adventure will be much smaller in scope, far less open world and is aimed at around 60 hours to complete. Hopefully it will be followed by many, many more. The better the tools, the faster I can crank them out. This game will be more akin to this in tabletop based roleplaying :

P.S. The thing that really got me excited this last weekend was getting the procedural generation tools working. Instead of editing a wall at a time on a four-wall cell for 25 years in Grimoire, I just specify 6 rooms with three exits and at least one chest with random treasure from this loot table. Then I add a few features and what used to take me three weeks to edit in Grimoire now takes me thirty seconds in this engine.

 

[Fluent]

Cleve, what you're doing here is monumental for me. I *wished* someone would make a continuous series of modules where u could import your party into each one, Gold Box style, and continue playing the next, slightly higher level adventure. I mentioned I'm playing FRUA and that's exactly what Ray Dyer's "The Realm" campaign does. I'm currently in The Southlands branch of it and finishing up Temple Of Elemental Evil (after finishing Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh and a couple shorter ones with the same party.) It's been a joy to play. Now knowing that you will be going this same route is just super exciting for me, especially with the games being blobbers. Like I said, can't wait!

I'll be doing a Grimoire LP too, for sure, probably sometime soon. Keep up the great work please!