Information Solenttar Canceled, New Kickstarter for Engine and Toolset Launched

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Bree Arts; IceBlink Engine; Kickstarter; Solenttar

You may remember Solenttar, a Kickstarter by an accomplished NWN modder for an oldschool top-down turn-based RPG toolset and engine plus the first adventure module developed in that engine, which we posted about earlier. Unfortunately, as you can see from its Kickstarter page, Solenttar was pretty far away from making its humble $4,000 goal and was canceled by the developer.

However, it has now been relaunched with an even humbler funding goal of $500 - and a more limited scope: now it's only about the engine + toolset + a short demo adventure module, not a full-fledged module. The engine will be free after release, but the toolset will cost $5 - which is also the minimum pledge:

IceBlink is a story, party and turn-based computer RPG Engine and Toolset. Easily create your own adventures to share with anyone.

IceBlink Engine Overview

This project will develop a Role Playing Game (RPG) 2D engine and toolset as well as a demo adventure game module created with the toolset. The game is inspired by a few of my favorite games; The Bard’s Tale, SSI Gold Box series games, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights (1 and 2). The intent is to create a game engine that results in a virtual table top, Pen and Paper type feel in a single player computer game. The game engine will be free once completed, but the toolset will initially only be available to backers of this Kickstarter project. The toolset will allow anyone to create their own adventures to share with the rest of us. Please help us complete this wonderful project. We really appreciate any support you have to offer. Thanks again!

After the project ends, will the IceBlink game engine and toolset be free to anyone?

I have received a few questions about the future cost of the game engine and the toolset for non-backers of this kickstarter project. Our intention is to have the game engine be free, but the toolset cost $5. So in the future, for those who did not get a chance to participate in the backing of this kickstarter project, they can still purchase the toolset for $5. When you make your adventure using the toolset, you will be able to distribute your adventure and the game engine to anyone for free to play, but the toolset must not be shared.​

If you like the idea of having a new toolset to develop top-down turn-based RPGs with, be sure to give the Kickstarter page a look.

UPD: As Infinitron correctly points out, the $500 goal has already been reached - but there are also stretch goals to meet (including the more fleshed out adventure module). So do consider pledging if you like what you see.

 

[Infinitron]

Well...he reached his goal.

 

[LeStryfe79]

 

[crafthack]

This could be cool, looks like it's just going to have icon-based characters without animations like gold box, so hopefully the toolset will allow you to import images and make your own monster icons etc

 

[mindx2]

I pledged $40 towards this as I love the whole idea/ implementation behind this. However, only $500?! That's a big drop from $4,000. Is the toolset basically done already?

 

[slowdive]

This could be cool, looks like it's just going to have icon-based characters without animations like gold box, so hopefully the toolset will allow you to import images and make your own monster icons etc

Yes, the characters and mosters are tokens/icons. The game is meant to have a Virtual Table Top feel like say Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, etc. (so not much animations like the Gold Box games were). You can import any image you want into the toolset (just drop them in a certain folder). After you create a monster, you click on a button to add the image for that creature. Token/icon images are 50x50 pixels and should be PNG or similar that have a transparency layer (alpha channel). I haven't tried, but GIFs with transparency should work as well so you could use those for continuous animations like fire, monster idle, NPC idle, etc. As far as character animations, it will be similar to the Gold Box games with a few animations (attack, dying, casting spell, projectiles, spell effects, etc.) For your party character images, you can change out the portraits and tokens at anytime during your game (click a button and choose a new one). you can use you very own custome tokens and portraits, just drop them in the appropriate folder to access them.

Here are a few examples of the types of maps and tokens you could use. I can't use these for legal reasons (just trying to be safe), but you could use them when you create and distribute your own adventures for free:

This map was made using Dundjinni by rivera

Here are some great tokens created by Devin Knight that could also be used in the toolset:

Thanks again, please stop by our kickstarter page and see what you think :D
-Jeremy

 

[crafthack]

Sounds (and looks) awesome

 

[slowdive]

I pledged $40 towards this as I love the whole idea/ implementation behind this. However, only $500?! That's a big drop from $4,000. Is the toolset basically done already?

We changed the job scope substantially by removing the Solenttar adventure module and reducing the number of classes to four. $1,000 for this level of job scope would probably be better, but we went with $500 hoping it would exceed that. We choose $500 because we thought that if it funds early, maybe some excitment may be generated and we would bring in around $1,000+. I didn't think it would it would fund so quickly, that is awesome...now for those stretch goals. At $2,000, all the functions in the game engine and toolset will be back to the original job scope ($4,000 would add back the Solenttar adventure module).

The current state of the game engine and toolset are far from being done. We have basic versions of most all of the systems in place such as conversation, scripting, combat, inventory, etc. They all need more improvements, functionality and polishing. Only two classes (mage and fighter) are currently implemented. Adding rogues is the next big one as we will need to adjust the engine to handle rogue specific skills (traps, stealth, etc.). We also need to add non-combat specific skills and checks in conversations and scripting for them. So there is a very basic version working, but there is still significant work to be done.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[oldmanpaco]

Gave $20. Hopefully this will get more traction this time.

 

[slowdive]

So that was an example of a map made in Dundjinni, but there are many options out there for making maps. Checkout this Kickstarter Project Update for some other options (some faster and some better looking than others):

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1719196889/solenttar-by-jeremy-slowdivefan/posts/344679

I will be adding this same project update to the IceBlink Engine page as well.

 

[Jaesun]

Really looking forward to this slowdive! Backed, and I just hope we reach those other stretch goals.

 

[bhlaab]

the toolset looks really restrictive unfortunately

 

[slowdive]

Bhlaab, In what way does it seem restrictive? The toolset is designed to be simple to use, but if you want to do really advanced stuff we have the scripting system which is very powerful. For example, as far as events per square, multiple events can be on the same square and they can be scripted to be random or based on conditionals (global or local variables). The current (could change as needed) order of events that fire upon entering a square are OnEnter script, Transition to other area, Trap, Conversation, Encounter and Container. With the OnEnter script for that square you could turn Encounters on and off, change the encounter to use for this square, even create a random encounter. You can use the OnEnter script to do all kinds of fun stuff. You can do just about anything with the scripting system (C# for scripting language). Please clarify if you could, and I will try my best to explain the features and constraints of the engine + toolset. Thanks again!

 

[Apexeon]

I am looking forward to attempting a top down style in my spare time which is spare from my other spare time in project Silkworm. I am also a backer . Rock on indies!

Some new tile sets rolling off the production line.

 

[slowdive]

Those look great Apexeon! Are you doing those in a 3d modeling software (max, blender,etc.)?

 

[Apexeon]

Those look great Apexeon! Are you doing those in a 3d modeling software (max, blender,etc.)?

Lightwave 11 all the way just like Babylon 5!!!

Here are some of my Babylon 5 inspired stuff from 13 years ago.
So mad they canned the Babylon 5 space sim game .
Someone Kickstart that !!! B5 the space sim I can dream.

 

[Volourn]

gOOD STUFF!

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Looks pretty cool. Money well spent, can't wait to see it done. slowdive, any plans for adding custom class functionality to the toolset at some point in the future?

 

[Hobo Elf]

Looks really cool and fun. Will back it when I get home from work today.

Edit: Is there / have you considered custom abilities and spells? Or are the class abilities pre-defined?

 

[Minttunator]

I pledged to Solenttar and I'm probably going to pledge to this as well, it looks great. Although, to be honest, I was more interested in the Solenttar module, as I probably won't be using the toolset much myself - either way, here's hoping you guys reach 4K this time!

 

[Piety]

This is just the sort of thing I like to see. Pledged.

 

[slowdive]

Harg Harfardarssen and Hobo Elf: In regards to custom classes, abilities, spells, etc. I have hopes to allow this. It would be no simple task as I would need to convert alot of "hard coded" functionalities into data driven functionalities. I have condsidered this in the past and wanted to do this, but it would require a significant amount of additional man hours. Not only would it take a number of hours to implement, it would also be a challenge to make it robust, flexible and hopefully bug free (but not impossible of course). I would like to consider this as the $4,000 stretch goal instead of the Solenttar adventure module. I wanted to make classes, skills, spells and even rulesets (this may be very tricky) be data driven so that I could create adventures with other settings such as modern, post-modern and sci-fi. I wanted to be able to create fantasy modules and a Star Frontiers adventure module (dralasites, yazirians, vrusks, etc.) with the same engine and toolset.

Minttuator: I am almost certain that upon the official release of the game, there will be a number of high quality short adventures for us to play from the backers that have Alpha and Beta access...That is the goal at least...have some great stuff to play for the big release party weekend!

Thanks Piety for the backing and support!

 

[EG]

Well, nice to see a reasonable response to the "Oh crap, we're not going to make it!" dilemma.

 

[TeknoBM]

Backing for TB and C#
What is the status for the adventures made with the engine ? will they be free ?

 

[slowdive]

Any adventure modules that you make with the toolset are free to share with anyone. You can distribute your module and the game engine to anyone for free (the toolset is not free, you get the toolset by backing the kickstarter project or for $5).

In the past I have contemplated the idea of opening a store front on our official web site (don't have a web site yet, looking into it) for module makers to sell their modules (for a couple of bucks or so) if they so choose. So there would be a free adventure modules section and a for sale modules section on the web site. This is different than NWN and DAO where you could not sell your adventure modules (only Atari backed premium modules and adventure packs were sold). This may be too challenging legally to implement, but we are hopeful and will look into it if the community of adventure module creators wanted it.

P.S. I may be missing the obvious, but what is TB?