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Indie Malus - Diablo 1-inspired Gothic Horror Isometric Action RPG with Souls-Like Combat

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
2,735






Basic introduction on Steam:
ABOUT THIS GAME
Malus is a Action Role Playing Game with an emphasis on horror, combat and gameplay. The game is much slower paced than your typical ARPG.

In Malus, the world has been overrun by eternal darkness. Demons have won the Celestial War and taken over the world. Every corner of the land you will find evil lurking. Humanity is in the brink of extinction. You play as either a Male or Female, you wake up in the middle of a forest, not knowing how you got there, you scower the land in search answers.

Soon uncovering dark and horrific secrets about the land and also yourself.

Key Features:

Unique Combat System
Malus features a lock on mechanic, while in combat that allows you to maneuver around enemies effectively. You also have the ability to Block (if you have a shield equiped) and Dodge on command. Combat is slower and more tactical compared to other ARPGs
malus_blocking.gif


Realism
Your character keeps his weapon sheathed when not in combat, pulls an arrow out of the quiver when firing a bow and equips a lantern to light up dark areas. When there is no source of light, the area becomes almost pitch black. The goal is to create an immersive, believable atmospheric environment to allow players to engage in the story we wish to tell. We also try our best to minimize UI elements such as damage numbers and flashing enemies when hit.
malus_drawsword.gif



Loot and Item Diversities
Find rare and ancient weapons. Turn your character from a peasant to a menacing fighter. Defend yourself from the evergrowing horde of darkness
malus_items.gif


Attributes & Skills
Upgrade your character using an old favorite of the ARPG formula. Learn new spells and skills and use your new found abilities to crush the demonic horde.
malus_attributes.gif


Horror Elements
Immerse yourself in a creepy and horrifying world. Dark and mysterious dungeons scatter the land for you to explore
malus_dungeon.gif


This game will not include multiplayer (for now) It will instead be a single-player RPG game, The map will be Open World you can explore and do side quests and go wherever you want, there will be no invisible walls. You are only restricted by the strength of monsters in that particualr area.

More detailed introduction on indiegogo:
vixinr1hpwkhxnkteq2c.png




Unique Combat System
Malus features a soft lock-on mechanic, while in combat. This allows players to maneuver around enemies effectively. You also have the ability to Block (if you have a shield equiped) and Dodge on command. Combat is slower and more tactical compared to other ARPGs

Players can click on enemies or press TAB to target them. Once targeted, the player's character will automatically turn face that enemy, as long he is in a certain range. This does no limit your ability to move, you are free to click and move anywhere you want in this stance, However, your movement speed is slower due to being in combat stance and the character is now facing the enemy.

Players are also able to block damage by pressing the block key aslong as a shield is equiped, any attacks from the facing direction will be blocked, however, in this blocking stance, movement speed is heavily hindered. Future developments will include an ability to parry.

However as of the current alpha build, parrying is not yet implemented.

giphy.gif


Here is a demonstration of the combat system.


Unique Save System


Malus features a "bonfire" type savegame system, similar to any "Dark Souls" titles. If you've ever played any of those, you would know, there is a certain sense of thrill when exploring deep in a particular zone, knowing that when you die, you have to start from a bonfire that is ways away, and lose all of the souls points you accumulated.

This is the type of gameplay we want to instill into Malus.

giphy.gif


This game will feature a similar system where you rest at campfires to save you game, and if you die, you restart from that point and lose any loot that you have found prior to your death.

The loot will then be droped at your point of death, and you will have only 1 chance to collect it. If you die a second time while trying to collect your droped loot, you will lose it permanently

________________________________________________________________________________________

Realism


Malus aims to bring a sense of realism to the ARPG genre, what does this mean? take a look at the GIF below...

giphy.gif


Most ARPGs these days are just bloated with special effects and damage numbers, and everything just looks little too insane.

Malus will not be similar to those type of ARPG in this particular aspect. It is a more slower paced game. The point here is to focus more on immersive gameplay. There will still be loot drops and build diversities but it will focus more on engaging combat and gameplay.



In Malus your character does not constantly hold his/her weapon out 24/7.

You have to sheathe your weapon when not in combat.

giphy.gif


This is not just a gimmick.

Here are the diferences between the two stances. (Benefits highlighted in bold)

Sheathing a weapon allows you to:




    • Run faster
    • Regenerate HP and MP
    • Change Equipments
    • Receive higher damage from enemies
Drawing a weapon allows you to:




    • Target an enemy
    • Block damage (if you have a shield equiped)
    • Dodge
    • Receive lesser damage from enemies
    • Move slower
    • Cannot Change Equipments
Typicaly, ARPGs tend to have a magical light constantly shining on your character as a way to allow players to see in dark areas, this has become almost like a core indentiy of an ARPG

giphy.gif


In Malus, we implement a mechanic where the player is able to equip lanterns in order to light up the darkness. To give function and reasoning to having a spotlight on the character, In this case, its no longer magical nor a spotlight, but a light coming from something your character has equiped.

The idea is to create a horror-like feel when adventuring around the world, in caves light cast shadows off walls when turning corners, not knowing whats right around the corner.

giphy.gif


The way this system works is that the player has 2 different belt slots, player can then use these slots to equip a Lantern. Equiping a lantern DOES NOT effect what the player is able to hold in his/her hand in anyway.

Players are able to equip lantern on both slots, if they so choose. This will make the light even brighter.

At this stage of development, there is no negative effect to using lanterns, however, in future development, the lantern would function as way to repel small pesky monsters but at the same time attract large demonic creatures. So there will be a Risk vs Reward to having a lantern equiped.



________________________________________________________________________________________

Freeflow Classes


Malus will not feature any classes, however, it will have 4 different types of skill trees,

Melee, Ranged and Magical and Passive

It is up to the player to decide what weapons and skill he/or she decides to play with.

There are no restrictions as to what weapons you can use, however the weapon itself are limited to certain type of skills, (Bows would be obviously limited to ranged skills for example)

sn3gce2sno1ytdgo1oac.jpg


ATTRIBUTE RELATIONS
STRENGTH - Affects physical Damage
WISDOM - Affects magical Damage
AGILITY - Affects Attack Speed and Movement Speed
FORTITUDE - Affects HEALTH and Physical Defense
CONCENTRATION - Affects MANA Magical Defense



Here you can see a list of Atributes the player has. So this is rather typical formula, as I dont think this is an aspect of the ARPG formula that requires reinventing.

Some might argue agaisnt this however, for example Diablo 3, had the ability to manual "pump" attributes removed as was seemed by Blizzard as a redundancy (not entire certain if this was the reason)

But manually pumping Attributes is a fun and missed aspect of Diablo 1 and 2, it serves as learning curve for new players, gives them opportunity for trial and error and also adds to build diversities.

That is something seemingly lost in modern games, a steep learning curve.



Overall, you have 2 types of damage outputs and inputs (magical and physical) and different types of monsters, will deal different types of damages. The monsters will also have differnt defense types.

So the basic idea is to give all classes a way of outputing both physical and magical damage, For example a mage would have certain spells that deals physical damage aside from magical.

h4gfcl4lg5hlpp6rbg7q.jpg


As for items, there are 2 types of weapons Physical weapons and Magical weapons

As of now,

Physical weapons include




    • Swords
    • Axes
    • Bows
    • Spear (not yet implemented)
    • 2H Swords (not yet implemented)
Magical Weapons include:




    • Staffs
    • Wands (not yet implemented)
    • Orb (not yet implemented)
    • Tome (not yet implemented)
Each type of weapons deals damage respectively, however, there will be spells and passive skills to convert one type of damage to another.

NOTE: The current build of the game still requires alot of balancing in this aspect



________________________________________________________________________________________

Loot & Items

(THIS FEATURE IS STILL HEAVILY UNDER DEVELOPMENT)

The game will feature a variety of loot types such as "Basic" "Rare" "Legendary"

giphy.gif


However, as of right now. the current alpha build of the game very limited in item variety.

Our main focus is to balance out player and enemy statistics and damage relations before we start working on loot diversity.

We intend to slowly introduce new items through updates once the alpha is released. This would allow us to progressively balance out future items based on feedback of current ingame items.



We will post updates regarding this in future development

________________________________________________________________________________________

c7plyuu7qah60uvhvcwe.png




(THIS FEATURE IS STILL HEAVILY UNDER DEVELOPMENT)

In Malus, you are set in a post-apocalyptic, dark fantasy, enviroment. The the world has been overrun by eternal darkness. It is writen in ancient texts that there was a great war between Demons and Angels many years ago, and the Angels had lost, none of them survived.

The Demonic Elders have taken over the world. Every corner of the land you will find evil lurking. Humanity is in the brink of extinction.

You play as either a Male or Female, you wake up in the middle of a forest, not knowing how you got there, you scower the land in search answers, slaying beasts and demons along the way, through dark forests and dungeons...

snhk5nyhdyxybc0qcwmg.jpg


Soon uncovering dark and horrific secrets about the land and also yourself.



________________________________________________________________________________________

So overall, the idea is to create a "realistic" slow paced ARPG more focused on an engaging Story and Gameplay, rather than just loot drops.
________________________________________________________________________________________

eduvxmmhnbz6y50qkoxq.png




There is no team, yet.

Hi, my name is Rahman Abdul, and I am a solo indie developer, or atleast aspiring to be, I used to work as a Motion Graphics Artist, but had recently quit my job because I found that I wasnt able to excersice any creative ideas, being stuck in a corporate food chain. I have an education in Games Design & Development and Animation & 3D Arts. And I love video games.

This Game initially began as a fun little side project that I did during my free time, however it grew into something much more and I am learning along the way aswell.

Although I studied Games Design & Development in the past, I dont really consider myself a developer, atleast not yet, there is so much more I still need to learn. To be honest, the only reason I am starting this campaign is because I am running out funds. If given the choice, I would just stay in my basement all day working on this game alone on my own. But I cant do that because I need to eat, sleep and work.



As of now, I am working on this solo, However, my ambition for Malus will ultimately require me to hire more people on board. I plan on realising an early build of the game to steam early access REALLY soon (10 March 2020)


FAQ on indiegogo
How are you able to work on such a huge project, being only 1 person?
I utilize assets bought from the Unreal Asset Store. However, this is NOT AN ASSET FLIP. The reality is that alot of games out there uses bought assets, the reason you dont know is because they change and modify these assets to be completely unrecognizable from the original, The point of it all is to give devolpers a basis to work on. I do not simply copy paste, although, I plan on remodeling and texturing these assets to fit the game.
How much of the game is completed?
I would say about 20%? I have been mostly focusing on the core gamepaly mechanics and balancing (this is a very dificult task for me as it involves alot of damage calculations and mathematics) Once thats done, I can start working on story progression and map design. For now, only the first starting quest is playable.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
2,735
Recent update from October 5, 2021: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1254400/view/2901998026698563693


NEWS UPDATE

I have received a cease and desist order regarding the name Malus, apparently its owned by some night club in US
So I will be rebranding the game, changing the name entirely, that that would include all the art and trailers and stuff. Still deciding what to call it, any suggestions are welcomed, for now I'm calling it Project Noveria (Noveria is the name of the world in Malus)

So I have taken this opportunity to upscale the next update
Next patch will be entirely new build and will seem like a whole different game

One of the main concerns was that performance is quite bad on previous build
This will be addressed in the next build as previously, I used bought assets and most of them are unoptimized causing performance inconsistencies

This past year I have spent all my free time modeling, texturing rigging and animating my own assets which is why its taking so long, I will still using some bought assets as it makes things faster but keeping in mind optimizations

I am sorry for the long wait, life has not been easy, who could have foreseen this madness world we live in now in 2021. I'm trying to earn some money selling my own UE assets
I'm hoping one day I earn enough to not work full time anymore so I can focus on Malus
(also working full time was not part of the plan, I was forced to because I used to do freelance motions graphics for films in 2020 but the lockdowns royaly fked the media industry)

I will not give a date for when the update will be released as I do not want to make false promises

Here is a video of the new build showing some of the visual and AI changes please note everything you see is still WIP

 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,476
Location
Frostfell
Malus seems amazing TBH. Which spells are available yet? Wishlisted it and IDK if I will buy today or after more stuff are added.
 

Humbaba

Arcane
Joined
Aug 12, 2021
Messages
2,939
Location
SADAT HQ
Recent update from October 5, 2021: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1254400/view/2901998026698563693


NEWS UPDATE

I have received a cease and desist order regarding the name Malus, apparently its owned by some night club in US
So I will be rebranding the game, changing the name entirely, that that would include all the art and trailers and stuff. Still deciding what to call it, any suggestions are welcomed, for now I'm calling it Project Noveria (Noveria is the name of the world in Malus)

So I have taken this opportunity to upscale the next update
Next patch will be entirely new build and will seem like a whole different game

One of the main concerns was that performance is quite bad on previous build
This will be addressed in the next build as previously, I used bought assets and most of them are unoptimized causing performance inconsistencies

This past year I have spent all my free time modeling, texturing rigging and animating my own assets which is why its taking so long, I will still using some bought assets as it makes things faster but keeping in mind optimizations

I am sorry for the long wait, life has not been easy, who could have foreseen this madness world we live in now in 2021. I'm trying to earn some money selling my own UE assets
I'm hoping one day I earn enough to not work full time anymore so I can focus on Malus
(also working full time was not part of the plan, I was forced to because I used to do freelance motions graphics for films in 2020 but the lockdowns royaly fked the media industry)

I will not give a date for when the update will be released as I do not want to make false promises

Here is a video of the new build showing some of the visual and AI changes please note everything you see is still WIP



They should name it "Malo".

Don't see what's so Diablo 1 about it. "Diablo with Dark Souls combat" is just isometric Dark Souls.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
I don't have a problem with that. The game is what it advertizes itself as being, which is more than can be said of many other games that claim to be "soul like" despite sharing no similarity whatsoever except difficulty.

What triggers me is that interface lmao. So i guess this is the new trend in UI design now. Solasta has the same kind of design.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Solasta has the same kind of design.
Solasta's UI was designed by the same guy who did the UI for Endless Space 2, probably one of the best examples of that kind of "design"
main difference is that it fit in perfectly with endless space 2, the minimalist style is perfect for an information dense sci-fi 4X game.

There's definitely an issue with devs who think the UI isn't part of the game art but merely something sitting on top of the game. Also I think there's some overlap with game UIs trying to mimic UIs seen in hollywood movies when it should be the other way around. Game UIs are the ones that are actually being used, not just a visual effect prop.
 

Sunri

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 16, 2020
Messages
2,747
Location
Poland
alus aims to bring a sense of realism to the ARPG genre, what does this mean? take a look at the GIF below...

giphy.gif


so no fun allowed :M
 

just

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 6, 2019
Messages
1,297
is setting the game at night time enough to label it gothic horror? i say yes.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
What I want to know before I do anything and I mean ANYTHING is whether or not Darkozric will deem this a HARD PASS?
 

Darkozric

Arbiter
Edgy
Joined
Jun 3, 2018
Messages
1,651
What I want to know before I do anything and I mean ANYTHING is whether or not @Darkozric will deem this a HARD PASS?

I'd say it's a soft pass, Achilles: Legends Untold looks more interesting at first glance.
 

Peachcurl

Cipher
Joined
Jan 3, 2020
Messages
8,794
Location
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Mhm. Okay, some first impressions.

Major issues:
* Absolute priority for a game without frequent saves: Prevent the character from getting stuck in the environment
* Should ditch the harvesting/mining mechanic completely (or at least copy Gothic and make stuff like ore veins and other harvestable resources really really rare).

Minor issues
* Needs some work on music? At least seems that way.
* Descriptions for skills.
* World design. It's nice to step away from the hordes-of-monsters-everywhere-pew-pew-pew-lasers-pew! design. But you need something to fill the void. World feels a bit empty.

Overall, the game reminds me more of Sui Generis, only it's actually playable (Sorry, Sui-Generis-Bros. It is what it is.).
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
Why Soulslike combat when you could have Dragon's Dogmalike combat?
 

Peachcurl

Cipher
Joined
Jan 3, 2020
Messages
8,794
Location
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
More impressions.

* Some NPC approaches me with a quest, I'm supposed to accompany him to some cemetery. Of course, why not. Immediately after that, some random mob spawns a few feet away from us. Suspicious. My fine-tuned eradication skills are triggered within a few microseconds, and I annihilate the offending party with a single hit.
The NPC decides to make a show of effort, hits the corpse, then dies.
I think I just ruined a scripted scene. :(

* So, there's some loading screens between caves / dungeons and the open world. Also, monsters respawn after loading. Also, some monster spawns are immediately next to cave / dungeon entries. What could go wrong. Yes, of course the mobs can attack while loading. So can you. Hence, mash buttons randomly while loading, trying to avoid being murdered.

* The combat is pretty hard in some instances, which I like. You actually take the fights seriously. And you're usually fighting 1 creature, very rarely more than 3. Good.

* This works best when it is dark (at night, underground). Having some Minotaur rush you from the shadows is pretty dope.

* Daylight is less fun, also because of the rather empty looking world. Hope this gets a bit better. Maybe the promised weather effects will help.

* The first offensive spell you can pick seems broken (some kind of fire missiles, which don't seem to land anywhere?). The other spells seem to work though. The large ice nova is a prime candidate for cheesing the combat. Fortunately, the large cooldown puts a limit on that.
 

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