Information Antharion, New Indie Turn-based RPG on Kickstarter

[CWagner]

I've been getting a number of comments about people not liking the big heads so I'd say there's a fairly decent chance that we'll switch to smaller ones. Luckily for us switching would take virtually no work on our part aside form the artist redrawing those tiny heads.

-- Antharion Team Leader

I am happy with that answer

 

[almondblight]

Personally, I don't mind the lack of a walking animation. I actually think it's preferable a lot of the time - exploration in Exile and ADOM were great because the lack of an animation meant that you could get through a map you had been through quickly. On the other hand, I couldn't finish Eschalon because the walking animation meant it took forever to get anywhere. I wouldn't mind normal heads, however.

 

[visions]

I don't mind the lack of walking animations either. The environments seem fine as well, it's just the characters that I don't really like.

 

[Excidium]

Personally, I don't mind the lack of a walking animation. I actually think it's preferable a lot of the time - exploration in Exile and ADOM were great because the lack of an animation meant that you could get through a map you had been through quickly. On the other hand, I couldn't finish Eschalon because the walking animation meant it took forever to get anywhere.

One thing has nothing to do with the other.

 

[Zed]

Personally, I don't mind the lack of a walking animation. I actually think it's preferable a lot of the time - exploration in Exile and ADOM were great because the lack of an animation meant that you could get through a map you had been through quickly. On the other hand, I couldn't finish Eschalon because the walking animation meant it took forever to get anywhere. I wouldn't mind normal heads, however.

When moving, for every x distance moved, alternate between two "walk animation" frames. It does not have to be synced or affect movement speed.

 

[Niektory]

rpg codex > putting the 'graphics' back in RPGs

Looks fine to me. Could be fun if combat is any good. Would be nice to see a video showing a complete encounter (or more). Any chance of that, ajrs84?

 

[mondblut]

No way I am touching that until they fix the heads.

 

[Niektory]

The five races are Human, Necrophil (the dark purple/demonic looking creatures), Elf, Orc, and Lynx (the cat-like one). Every race has a very different place in the game. Necrophils are self-replicating magically conjured beings. Orcs ruled the empire for thousands of years through brute force, but recently with advances in the understanding of magic, most Orcs were taken as slaves by the dominant races (humans ands elves). Lynx have a shiesty reputation and tend to live amongst themselves or alone.

 

[ajrs84]

rpg codex > putting the 'graphics' back in RPGs

Looks fine to me. Could be fun if combat is any good. Would be nice to see a video showing a complete encounter (or more). Any chance of that, ajrs84?

I couldn't really fit an entire encounter into the video since it would have killed the pacing of the whole thing (wanted to give it a trailery feel and length), though I would have liked to very much.

Antharion is a very hard-core traditional game and combat is its absolute heart and soul. If the combat system is weak then there's no game as far as I'm concerned. I'm trying to create the snappiest, crispiest turn-based feel possible and so far it's working out nicely. That's in large part why I've shyed away from implementing much animation, it slows things down and (in my opinion) affects core gameplay negatively. I've gotten a ton of mixed feedback in this regard and would be curious to find out how many of you would prefer minimal animation with a snappy feel to something more animated?

 

[visions]

Might wanna rename the Necrophil. I personally have zero problem with minimal animation.

What are your main inspirations combatwise and what do you consider as strong combat?

 

[Niektory]

rpg codex > putting the 'graphics' back in RPGs

Looks fine to me. Could be fun if combat is any good. Would be nice to see a video showing a complete encounter (or more). Any chance of that, ajrs84?

I couldn't really fit an entire encounter into the video since it would have killed the pacing of the whole thing (wanted to give it a trailery feel and length), though I would have liked to very much.

Sure, I didn't expect it in the introduction video. Just make another one and post it in an update.

Antharion is a very hard-core traditional game and combat is its absolute heart and soul. If the combat system is weak then there's no game as far as I'm concerned. I'm trying to create the snappiest, crispiest turn-based feel possible and so far it's working out nicely. That's in large part why I've shyed away from implementing much animation, it slows things down and (in my opinion) affects core gameplay negatively. I've gotten a ton of mixed feedback in this regard and would be curious to find out how many of you would prefer minimal animation with a snappy feel to something more animated?

I know what you mean, some games can really bore you with long animations. jRPGs come to mind... But it shouldn't be a problem if you make them play fast enough. This way you wouldn't need many frames either. Though personally I don't really mind if you go without them.

Oh, and make sure you add shadows for characters. Otherwise they look disconnected from the game world.

 

[Roguey]

Looks like a Spiderweb Software knock-off. Furthermore

Ari Rae-Silver, a student at Sagemont Middle School in Weston, has won a Florida Panthers promotional essay contest.

He received tickets to a hockey game and will be given a ride on the Zamboni ice cleaning machine during an intermission between periods.

Ari's essay was about the pride that Florida residents have for the Panthers hockey team.

``The Florida Panthers are truly the heart of Florida,'' he wrote.

Hockey is a dumb aggressive sport. I cannot, in good conscience, donate money to a hockey fan.

 

[ajrs84]

Just updated the Kickstarter with a lot more info about the game ...people were complaining about its bareness.

Shadows for the players are first on my list of things to add.

I'll definitely make some longer videos once I get a chance.

What are your main inspirations combatwise and what do you consider as strong combat?

Pool of Radiance, The early Ultimas, even the early spiderweb games (though I wouldn't exactly describe Antharion as a spiderweb knockoff). Not that they were the greatest implementations or anything, I just generally like the way combat flows in those games.

And just for the record, I never actually rode any zamboni.

 

[Roguey]

Wow I can't believe they actually lied to you. Way to crush a dream.

 

[Ion Prothon II]

Roguey - the major reason to not post any personal info on the Codex and to not associate a Codex account with anything. Ever. In any case.

 

[Hirato]

I'll definitely consider contributing if you'd in turn consider making a Linux build available, it looks pretty fun.
As you already have builds that run on OSX and Windows, this should take pitifully little effort beyond setting up a build environment.


Now, I'm curious how you intend to go about Shadows, I did notice the trailer showed a fireball travelling into a room and causing the pillars to cast dyanmic shadows against the walls and other things.
Will you be attempting to get something of equally high quality with the sprites? Or will you fall back to blobs with additional directional blob shadows for nearby shadow casting light sources? (ie How Arcanum did it)

I'm not too bothered by the aesthetics, but I do kind of agree that the heads would look better at around 80-90% of their current size.
A basic walking animation really wouldn't be amiss either, I'm down with minimal/rudimentary animation, but at the same time I do not want the sprites to be static at times I'd expect them to be rather animated.
Zed mentioned a relatively cheap and workable solution; Alternate between 2 walking frames after a suitable unit of time or movement, it doesn't need to be smooth.
It already looks like you guys are using sprite mirroring to cut down on the work anyway

 

[Zed]

"necrophil" sounds like an awesome race. guaranteed to be unique for this game.

 

[Mother Russia]

Hey guys, I'm the creator and lead developer of Antharion.

Thanks a lot for your feedback, it's all very much appreciated (yes, even the negative!). Antharion isn't a mainstream RPG, it's a niche game aimed at people like us, that's why your feedback is so important to me. And I'm always happy to answer questions that any of you may have.

Thanks,
Ari

Orphic Software

Hey there Ari,

Your game looks awesome. Honestly I cannot wait to play this puppy. I just checkout out your website (you should put the link to it in your sig) and enjoyed the info you have. Here is what I have to say:

-First, make the heads smaller
-While you say the game is stat heavy, there are far too many skills and spells. While I like big games, I don't want to play a 100+ hour game where I spam the same things over and over again. Maybe add in many more spells, especially cool and unique spells? Summoning for example, seems like it could be beefed up quite a bit. Maybe some necromancy spells?
-Add in more unique races. Say, Vampires. Everyone loves vamps, but hardly anyone incorporates this cool race into their games.
-Give fighters something to do apart from just smacking things the same way over and over. Jeff Vogel of Spidweb tackled this by giving fighters battle disciplines. D&D 4e handled this by giving fighters powers of their own (martial powers, no magic) I suggest you follow their example and give non magic using classes cool stuff to do.
-Add in Paladins (or Holy Knights if you will) Don't give them white magic, but give them unique Holy/Divine powers of their own (smite, holy beam, detect evil, holy fire, etc etc)
-Add in a Warrior-Mage type class. Lots of ppl like playing a powerful warrior who is also a powerful sorceror
-Maybe add in dark classes, like a warlock, Dark Knight, Blackguard, Death Knight, etc etc. Don't just slap on Black Magic onto them, but give them unique abilities of their own.
-If possible, add in walking animations at least, and running animations for out of combat so we can traverse maps quickly. Don't worry about adding combat animations, as that might be too time consuming/expensive. Especially if you take my advice about adding in Battle Discipline type abilities. Spell effects should be good though.
-Lastly, 100 dungeons seems like wayy to much, Maybe cut that down to 40-50 dungeons, but make them more handcrafted/memorable? A game is only fun if one can reach the end of it, but finish it wishing one could keep playing. That way one buys a sequel. Quitting a game midway out of boredom is not a good sign for a series.


Well, that's about it. Hopefully you can implement at least some of the above. It would really improve what appears to be an already great game!

 

[Oasis]

I vote minimal animations with a snappy feel. Seems perfect for this type of game, it's going to be the gameplay that draws you in, not the graphics. If the game is good, then big heads and minimal animations will just be part of it's charm I really like the look of this game, the part in the video where the wizard freezes those monsters in the graveyard... looks great to me.

 

[DaViLLaN]

Im in. Backed it. Now just tone down the heads my friend.

 

[almondblight]

When moving, for every x distance moved, alternate between two "walk animation" frames. It does not have to be synced or affect movement speed.

Go open ADOM, enter a location, and hit the left arrow and see how fast you move. Sure, you could try to sync an animation to that, but it's going to be a blur. If it's being done to be aesthetically pleasing (and what other reason is there for walking animations?), they're going to slow it down some. I can't think of any games with animations that has movement as fast as ADOM or Exile. Sure, KoTC and Fallout weren't bad, but they still weren't as fast.

 

[almondblight]

I've gotten a ton of mixed feedback in this regard and would be curious to find out how many of you would prefer minimal animation with a snappy feel to something more animated?

I prefer the minimal animation, but you'll probably get more sales with something more animated.

 

[Hirato]

Go load up Elona, move around in that.
You'll notice the sprite occasionally switches between 3 or so frames of a moving animation.
This is what Zed and I are suggesting.

As Excidium has already stated quite truthfully, "movement speed" and "walking animations" have nothing to do with each other.

 

[Palikka]

Why only 4 party members?

 

[FrancoTAU]

Looks good to me so far. I don't mind the walking animations and freakish heads. I'd like to see a little more in game combat and writing though before I pledge.

I also agree that a 100 dungeons seems a little too ambitious. I can't imagine that most of them would remain interesting after the first couple dozen considering the small dev team and their experience level.