Fallout A Fallout 1/2 inspired isometric cRPG from New Blood Interactive

[Ismaul]

Honestly I see nothing wrong with Fallout's combat other than execution.

True. Which is a lot.

But still, this game looks good, sounds good, so I'm willing to see if it's good. Some people have been saying "Fallout already exists why this", and now we're complaining about it being different. Frankly, if it's fun and captures some Fallout vibes while being different enough to feel fresh and maintain interest, I'm good. Combat might be weirdly different at first glance, but like you said None, it's all about execution.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The issue with that kind of combat has always been that it removes the major tactical element of positioning. There have been attempts to add it back in(e.g., Wiz8 party formations), but it's not the same. Without positioning, the games slide much closer to pop-a-mole(in the truest sense) gameplay.

 

[Ismaul]

The issue with that kind of combat has always been that it removes the major tactical element of positioning. There have been attempts to add it back in(e.g., Wiz8 party formations), but it's not the same. Without positioning, the games slide much closer to pop-a-mole(in the truest sense) gameplay.

Good argument.

I'll admit I've rarely played a game with that type of combat. Closest is M&M6 and Anachronox, but I've never been much of a fan of blobbers or jRPGs. It also seems like there is no party in this game, but that's not an issue for me.

Still, a basic combat system doesn't make a game bad if the rest makes up for it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Still, a basic combat system doesn't make a game bad if the rest makes up for it.

But will it? The blatant copying of Fallout is already making me lean towards 'no'.
If I wanted to play Fallout, I could play Fallout. Or Fallout 2. Or Fallout 1.5. Or Fallout: Nevada. Or Fallout: Sonora. Or Olympus 2207. And so on.

The first thing that pops into my head when watching that short video is:
Why do they have a pip-boy UI?
The UI of Fallout was skeuomorphic, meant to represent the pip-boy on your arm. Does your character even have a knockoff pip-boy?
This is reminding me a lot of Encased, honestly. A game that suffered heavily from being a derivative product with no direction.

 

[Ismaul]

Why do they have a pip-boy UI?
The UI of Fallout was skeuomorphic, meant to represent the pip-boy on your arm. Does your character even have a knockoff pip-boy?

Now, you might be right that it'll be only a derivative game.

But as for the UI, most games had the bottom block for info and commands, even strategy games. They just plugged in their controls with aesthetics meant to represent the game. Fallout just gave an in-setting justification for the skin of the interface, which was likely post-hoc, decided after choosing to do a derivative bottom UI with a post-nuclear feel. Frankly it made no in-setting sense that your skills were accessed via the Pip-Boy. But it looked and felt good.

So I'm not too concerned about the UI here. Plus, you seemed to like ATOM, which also has a derivative UI, but less bulky. Also derivative gameplay, but it was good anyways.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

But as for the UI, most games had the bottom block for info and commands, even strategy games. They just plugged in their controls with aesthetics meant to represent the game. Fallout just gave an in-setting justification for the skin of the interface, which was likely post-hoc, decided after choosing to do a derivative bottom UI with a post-nuclear feel. Frankly it made no in-setting sense that your skills were accessed via the Pip-Boy. But it looked and felt good.

The pip-boy style UI is there in the earliest screenshots I'm aware of. I want to say Tim Cain has commented on this being a deliberate design choice, but I don't have any quotes on hand.
And I disagree that it resembles UIs of previous games, unless you can give some examples that predate Fallout. You could maybe draw a rough comparison between it and Diablo if you squint really hard... but Fallout's UI was already previewed to the public prior to Diablo releasing.

 

[Ismaul]

The pip-boy style UI is there in the earliest screenshots I'm aware of

Who disputes that?

Address the actual issues here: why is a similar UI skin bad if other games like ATOM with such a derivative UI are in your opinion good?

Why is the Pip-boy in-setting justification for the UI skin good if the way you interact with the UI makes little sense if considered as an object in the game world?

My view is that it's just a skin with an in-setting tie that fails at being a believable object but succeeds at being cool and creating a setting feel. Therefore divorcing the skin from the in-setting justification, i.e. the Pip-boy, isn't a big loss at all, as what's good about it is the aesthetics and usability.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The pip-boy style UI is there in the earliest screenshots I'm aware of

Who disputes that?

Address to actual issues here: why is a similar UI skin bad if other games like ATOM with such a derivative UI are in your opinion good?

Why is the Pip-boy in-setting justification for the UI skin good if the way you interact with the UI makes little sense if considered as an object in the game world?

My view is that it's just a skin with an in-setting tie that fails at being a believable object but succeeds at being cool and creating a setting feel. Therefore divorcing the skin from the in-setting justification, i.e. the Pip-boy, isn't a big loss at all, as what's good about it is the aesthetics and usability.

ATOM RPG UI doesn't look like the pipboy though?

Inspired by, yes. It also has a distinct slavjank design to it, and is very much their own.

Contrast that to what is shown in the video which is a blatant copy of Fallout nearly 1:1.
There's a difference between being inspired(which they claim), and blatantly copying something(which they're doing.)

 

[jackofshadows]

ATOM RPG UI looks distinct enough while the game itself as a whole is not, but rusty is apparantely too schizo to notice that.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Sure sure, it looks good and all, but can they get Fallout's character right? These guys so far have shown themselves capable of atmosphere and violence, but not much else that comprises "Fallout".

 

[Bad Sector]

This is a problem with the throwback/boomer trend in general, people seem to forget that a big part of what made 90s games so exciting was the creativity on display. "Our game is inspired by Heretic/Hexen!!!! Our game is inspired by Duke!!!" Alright great why don't you fucking make something fresh.

I think you are overestimating the creativity in 90s games, for every Hexen you had like 10 Witchhavens and 50 Pie in the Sky engine games. And i don't think Heretic is that great of an example as it is 99% a fantasy reskin of Doom - even modern GZDoom-based games tend to feel more "different" from the original Doom than Heretic did.

Also the entire point of these throwback games is to not make something fresh, is to make games that look and feel like their inspirations.

(and IMO for all the supposed Hexen inspired games there haven't been many that actually felt like being inspired by Hexen beyond a vague resemblance to the art style - if anything the games that i feel are the closest are Hedon and Hands of Necromancy, both of which have a different style, especially Hedon)

Besides what New Blood does seems to work - after all compare the discussions for Gloomwood and something like Neverlooted Dungeon, despite the latter having solid immersive sim mechanics.

 

[Lemming42]

My problem isn't with the mechanics being inspired/lifted from old games - I enjoyed ATOM and especially Age of Decadence which both similarly follow a lot of Fallout's lead, and I think a lot of the throwback shooters recreate the 90s FPS feeling perfectly - but rather the fact that this game, from what we've seen so far, seems to try to ape everything about Fallout in terms of aesthetics, interface, setting, etc.

Heretic might be mechanically near-identical to Doom, but it's got a sense of creativity in that it develops its own vaguely interesting setting with the Serpent Riders and all that. The weapons are visually and mechanically different from Doom's, as are the enemies. Raven seemed to go to great lengths to try and make the game feel distinct from Doom, despite being a Doom clone. A similar example that springs to mind is Gunman Chronicles, which is a Half-Life clone that tries incredibly hard (and with some success IMO) to set itself apart from Half-Life, despite being almost identical mechanically. Even something like Blake Stone tried to set itself apart from Wolfenstein 3D.

But this project deliberately invokes an existing game in its visuals, setting and style. The gun in the Twitter video is meant to resemble a gun from Fallout, the armour the enemies wear is meant to resemble the armour from Fallout, the interface is meant to resemble that of Fallout, even the font is taken from Fallout. I genuinely cannot wrap my head around anyone wanting to do this, to engage in the potentially time-consuming and tricky undertaking of making a game, only to make something that's largely comprised of the products of someone else's imagination 25 years ago.

You bring up Hedon and that's a good example of a throwback game that was highly successful at setting itself apart from the games it drew inspiration from - I wasn't a huge fan of Hedon for a few reasons, but it definitely manages to wear its Hexen inspiration on its sleeve while simultaneously building its own setting with its own aesthetic style, and is effective at creating an experience that feels unique from Hexen, even if the gameplay model of "go here and find the Dust of Fucking Shit to sprinkle on the Anvil of Piss halfway across the map" is very reminiscent of Hexen 2. If the developer of Hedon were to follow the approach of this Fallout-"inspired" game, then it'd be a game where you choose from three classes and then move through a world that looks exactly like that of Hexen, while picking up blue and green mana as ammo for weapons that are designed to look and feel exactly like Hexen's, spending the whole time looking at a HUD that's made to resemble Hexen's as closely as possible.

 

[Bad Sector]

The weapons are visually and mechanically different from Doom's, as are the enemies.

The weapons are very similar to Doom, they are not exactly the same, but e.g. your staff in Heretic is the fist in Doom, the wand is the pistol, the red glove (or whatever it is) is the shotgun, the electric gauntlets is the chainsaw, etc.

But this project deliberately invokes an existing game in its visuals, setting and style. The gun in the Twitter video is meant to resemble a gun from Fallout, the armour the enemies wear is meant to resemble the armour from Fallout, the interface is meant to resemble that of Fallout, even the font is taken from Fallout. I genuinely cannot wrap my head around anyone wanting to do this, to engage in the potentially time-consuming and tricky undertaking of making a game, only to make something that's largely comprised of the products of someone else's imagination 25 years ago.

Well, that is where "inspired from" comes from and people do like playing and making that sort of stuff - games like Alien Breed on the Amiga was basically Gauntlet with an Aliens skin and, talking about Aliens, fangames for existing franchises existed for decades considering that one of the first mods for Doom was Aliens.

So i don't see how it is hard to accept that some developers may want to make games similar to stuff they already like, this is something that many developers always did for a very very long time now - hell, even since the beginning of computer games, people were making games very similar to existing games all the time (as an example see the original Adventure game and all of its spinoffs and imitations).

 

[Lemming42]

The weapons are visually and mechanically different from Doom's, as are the enemies.

The weapons are very similar to Doom, they are not exactly the same, but e.g. your staff in Heretic is the fist in Doom, the wand is the pistol, the red glove (or whatever it is) is the shotgun, the electric gauntlets is the chainsaw, etc.

That's not really the case IMO*, but again, I don't mind games that lift mechanics from other games, and such a thing is obviously inevitable in this medium. It's not the mechanics or gameplay that concern me (and those are obviously different given the new combat system they're trying), what confuses me is why this new project is modelling itself stylistically deliberately on Fallout to the point where - by the devs' intent - you could look at a screenshot of it without context and actually think that it literally is a new Fallout game.

I wouldn't have a problem if they did something actually analagous to what Heretic is to Doom - essentially, making a new original game on the Fallout engine that used Fallout's own mechanics as a base but was a totally different game content-wise with a new setting, visual style, interface, etc. In fact, I'd be thrilled and hopeful that it heralded a wave of "boomer" cRPGs.

Well, that is where "inspired from" comes from and people do like playing and making that sort of stuff - games like Alien Breed on the Amiga was basically Gauntlet with an Aliens skin and, talking about Aliens, fangames for existing franchises existed for decades considering that one of the first mods for Doom was Aliens.

If they were making something intended as an actual Fallout fangame (in the vein of Resurrection or Nevada), I wouldn't be complaining. Just like I don't complain when Half-Life mods are set in Black Mesa, but I would be baffled if New Blood announced a new game called "Half-Life Inspired Project" about a man named Gary Freeman who uses a trademark red and silver crowbar to fend off deadly headlobsters while escaping the crumbling Black Mountain Research Facility.

So i don't see how it is hard to accept that some developers may want to make games similar to stuff they already like, this is something that many developers always did for a very very long time now - hell, even since the beginning of computer games, people were making games very similar to existing games all the time (as an example see the original Adventure game and all of its spinoffs and imitations).

Right, but there's inspiration and then there's whatever this is. Hedon is inspired by Hexen, but doesn't ape it. Age of Decadence is inspired by Fallout, but doesn't ape it. Fallout itself is inspired by Wasteland, but doesn't ape it. You could easily - and people have - make a "Fallout clone" that plays near-identically to Fallout without directly imitating all Fallout's aesthetic elements and visual design and interface (down to the exact same font, which I still can't get over). It could even be retrofuturistic and post-apocalyptic and obviously Fallout-inspired if that's what they want to make - Wasteland 2 and 3 (for all their problems) managed to do exactly that without ever coming across as a bad copy of Fallout. The whole point of this game's style is to nudge you in the ribs and say "remember Fallout? remember Fallout?". To which the answer is obviously "yes", but I don't want to be reminded of Fallout, I want them to show me something entirely new.

*putting this down here because it's tangential to the main conversation, but I always feel like Heretic's reputation as a straight-up Doom reskin is unfair - it's true that the gauntlets are a direct reskin of the chainsaw and the wand is very much the pistol, but the rest of the weapons don't really track onto Doom's, especially if you consider the Tome of Power alt fire modes (ie the Phoenix Staff turning from a rocket launcher into a flamethrower, and the shitty mace thing sending out giant bouncing spiked cannonballs).

 

[Bad Sector]

If they were making something intended as an actual Fallout fangame (in the vein of Resurrection or Nevada), I wouldn't be complaining.

I think that is the closest (or well, very close, it'd probably be the closest if it was post apocalyptic) they can do without infringing Bethesda's IP - this is a commercial project after all.

The whole point of this game's style is to nudge you in the ribs and say "remember Fallout? remember Fallout?". To which the answer is obviously "yes", but I don't want to be reminded of Fallout, I want them to show me something entirely new.

That's fair and TBH i was thinking the same before playing ATOM RPG (with the exception that i decided to play it anyway :-P), i just don't think it is surprising when developers want to make something that is very close to something they liked themselves - including being close thematically and stylistically. Again, it isn't something new, if anything that'd be the norm (remember how every fantasy game that came out after WoW was made looked a lot like WoW? While some were cynical clones, people loved that game and they wanted to make something similar to what they loved themselves).

 

[c u in da ballpit ashren]

The pip-boy style UI is there in the earliest screenshots I'm aware of

Who disputes that?

Address to actual issues here: why is a similar UI skin bad if other games like ATOM with such a derivative UI are in your opinion good?

Why is the Pip-boy in-setting justification for the UI skin good if the way you interact with the UI makes little sense if considered as an object in the game world?

My view is that it's just a skin with an in-setting tie that fails at being a believable object but succeeds at being cool and creating a setting feel. Therefore divorcing the skin from the in-setting justification, i.e. the Pip-boy, isn't a big loss at all, as what's good about it is the aesthetics and usability.

ATOM RPG UI doesn't look like the pipboy though?

Inspired by, yes. It also has a distinct slavjank design to it, and is very much their own.

Contrast that to what is shown in the video which is a blatant copy of Fallout nearly 1:1.
There's a difference between being inspired(which they claim), and blatantly copying something(which they're doing.)

Yo Rusty Trombone, do you recommend Atom? I fired it up a while back and was meaning to get back into it.

 

[The Wall]

Always check the developer before getting excited about video game. Actually, you don't even have to, artwork and gameplay today serves as direct window into developers character, passion, soul, skill even looks and nationality. This is made by gen x/millenial mid-west/south USA liberterian/soft republican white men, with more or less normal lvl of testosterone and IQ 110+

I don't have to check their website to see that. I just checked their website. Yup, was right. Don't expect anything revolutionary, but do expect a decent RPG

 

[undecaf]

This looks decently interesting.

I hope they manage to simulate cover somehow in the FPP combat scenarios.

E.g. randomized amount of usable and destructible ”cover-points” at randomized distances from the enemies and the player, that gets visualized once a character uses it - like a barrel appearing in front of an enemy that seeks for cover.

Something abstract to that effect.

 

[Bester]

Why the fuck is it literally just Fallout. I don't understand why a group of people would sit down and invest their time and effort in making something that already exists.

I want to make BG2 and Fallout one day. And the way I think is this: before doing something revolutionary, how about making a decent Fallout/BG-like RPG without any of the new shit for a change? Then if it sells, try innovation.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm glad the Fallout team at Interplay didn't decide to just make Wasteland again.

 

[Delphik]

I'm not the most pessimistic person but this is gonna be shit, I'm impressed by the art and everything but who's writing the story? and the gameplay "innovation" looks like shit.
All of this effort could have been used for a unique idea but we get nostalgia bait, very sad.

 

[Strig]

For fucks sake. This may be a dealbreaker for me.

 

[Bad Sector]

How does turn based JRPG combat differ mechanically from combat in Wizardry or any other dungeon crawler with first person turn based combat?

 

[Modron]

Depends on the JRPG in question, certainly the earliest JRPGs Final Fantasys and Dragon Quests just straight up lifted the phased based rounds combat system out of Wizardry, then there were ones with just pure turnbased combat, then there were the real time hybrid active turn based Final Fantasy games, then there were the Trails in the Sky games with each character having speed values determining rate at which they acted and grid movement around the battlefield positioning, et cetera.

That said I would not say what's happening here is pure Wizardry either since characters have action points (CP in this case as you can see in the combat ui mockup) and can carry out multiple attacks per round.

 

[Bad Sector]

This is why i mentioned "or any other dungeon crawler with first person turn based combat" and also was specific about turn-based JRPGs (so to ignore any JRPG without turn-based combat), there are lots of turn-based JRPGs with their own mechanics variations and lots of turn-based first person dungeon crawlers with their own mechanics variations but as far as i can tell if you only focus on how the combat plays, the overwhelming majority doesn't really have any substantial differentiating factor where you can clearly say that one is JRPG combat and the other is first person dungeon crawler combat.

So i can't see how someone who doesn't only care about superficialities but instead cares about the combat mechanics may have a different reaction to "first person turn based combat" and "turn based JRPG combat" when there is no further information about how the game plays.

(and TBH i do not see why turn-based JRPGs get to have a special combat category of their own - popularity aside, of course - when as far as combat goes there are several games that are not JRPGs and have similar turn-based combat, some - like Wizardry - even predating the majority of JRPGs -- note that i do get why something is labelled "JRPG" since that gives you an idea of what to expect, that is how genres work, it is the other way around that i do not agree with, nobody says that action games have "FPS combat" even though FPSs tend to be action games)