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Indie Archaelund: RPG that combines 1st-person exploration with 3rd-person TB combat - now available on Early Access

iscalio

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Aug 12, 2019
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And finally: Why is the batrax caster in the artwork wearing clothing? All the batrax in Exiled Kingdoms were nude.
I found your design document that mentioned a batrax population claiming to be descendents from a certain adventurer. Apparently they have human DNA from the adventurer's dallying with Princess Elleira. That might explain their new-found level of civilization, in a weird fantasy-biology way.

I wonder if we will find Saint Hirge on Archaelund as a very old woman (since she was "lost at sea").
 

DavidBVal

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First of all, the whole skill system is still subject to review and testing. There's the possibility of heavy changes over anything I mention here.

It is evident that all skills depend on one or several traits (e.g. heavy weapons on Str, light weapons on Str+Dex, ranged weapons on Dex+Awa, "maps & charts" on Awa+Int, etc.). Now, based on the character sheet of one burly bodyguard named Harry_273, it appears that unarmed combat is solely based on dexterity, and not a combination of dexterity and strength. If this is so, why? Why would I need Str+Dex when wielding a knife, but no strength at all when boxing and wrestling?

Every skill depends on a primary and a secondary trait. On the secondary trait, bonus is halved. Martial Arts has Dex + Slf as traits. Str may not influence your ability to hit with martial arts, but it is still very influential to calculate damage and for other factors.

Harry_273 (did the previous 272 Harrys die, by the way?) has one rank in the skill Dodge. However, his total rank is "-". How does this work? And it seems as if Dodge is not influenced by his dexterity, whereas Armor Proficiency is. That appears counter-intuitive to me. I like it if there are two paths to dealing with incoming attacks in RPGs, one based on speed and reflexes (dodging attacks), and one based on blocking ("soaking" blows with armor and shields). I like it because it means that you don't have to be nimble and dexterous to be a efficient "tank". Seeing both Dodge and Armor skills on the character sheet, at first I thought that Archaelund was going that route. But in that case Dodge should be based on Dex, and Armor Proficiency on End (I guess) - which obviously is not how it works.

Dodge skill contributes to passive avoidance. Its effects will be fully explained when you hover over the avoidance value or the dodge skill. and yes, Avoidance is also affected by Dex and Awa, as well as by any unspent Action Points on your character (if he already acted that turn, which makes winning initiative very useful).

The reason why it shows as "-" is because this skill is never directly "checked", it just provides a bonus to passive avoidance. Maybe in future versions I'll find a way to display a bonus like other skills do. In fact the current build of the game already shows several changes over that "old" screenshot, in which many things still didn't work.

Besides avoidance (which is indeed "speed-based" and negates all damage) you have armor, which negates a portion of the damage you receive from hits.

Also: What is SLF? "Self"? If so, what does that mean?

Self-Control. How much the character's Mind rules the Body, the ability to push harder in pursuit of some goal, or draw upon the inner reserves of strength to overcome challenges.

And finally: Why is the batrax caster in the artwork wearing clothing? All the batrax in Exiled Kingdoms were nude. And why can I play goblins but not orcs?

Batrax wear clothes for the very same reasons we do. These Batrax intend to live permanently on the surface, not just to prey on it for a few hours, and clothing is a convenient protection from elements and other dangers, and provides social utility.

When will I be able to wishlist this on Steam ?

Hopefully in September-October I'll have a Steam product page set-up, including lots of details about the game.

While I'm here, why not a status update. For the last 3 weeks I've been focusing on combat. I've already implemented the different kind of attacks available for each weapon, its ranges and special bonuses. A dagger can only Stab, which has a very short range (no diagonals), while other weapons can swing, powerstrike, or even lunge (polearms). Some weapons have just one attack type available, but a shortsword can both swing and stab; combat skills will of course provide more attack types over the basic ones. All this stuff already works in the game and (more importantly), I've also figured out how to handle it UI-wise to offer all the information to the player and make it easy to handle.
 

Andhaira

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DavidBVal Just came upon this and wow, this looks amazing. I see many Realms of Arkania inspirations and was blown away when you said you haven't played those gems yet; this looks like the spiritual sequel we never got from the 1st person exploration and third person combat to the character sheet. I also see WFRP's Career system influences in the way characters are made and advance. This makes me want this even more. I hope you will find time to implement at least a few things that made RoA so unique and such amazing games: an overland map of travel (this can actually help you save a lot on resources and time), use of skills during adventuring mode, campsites and rules for hunting food, herbs, setting watch for the night, treating disease, etc. Also clothing of certain types can help make travel and adventuring easier (furs for cold places, blankets for the night to ward of diseases, etc)

A few questions:

-Any ideas of the magic system and number of spells?
-Any feats/talent/fighting styles for warriors equivalents to make character building/advancement more fun? Also helps give non mages something to look forward to.
-Will we generate our entire party from scratch from the get go? (please say yes)
-Whats the engine you are using, Unity? The 3D engine in the town you posted earlier looks uncomfortably like the horrible RoA remakes, so hopefully you will improve it (I know its a placeholder anyway)

So far it looks to be a day 1 purchase for me, I'll just have to resist downloading the early access so as not to ruin the experience of the full game ;)
 

DavidBVal

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-Any ideas of the magic system and number of spells?

There are two forms of magic.

The "Lesser Art", or spontaneous spells are cast instantaneously, much like other actions in combat (moving, attacking, etc). These spells use the character's stamina, which means they can be always cast on each combat until the spellcaster becomes too fatigued.

The "Greater Art" is a slot-based system of spells, which take 1-3 full rounds to cast and are far more powerful. They only replenish after a night's sleep. These are scarce and require careful management, but often can decide a combat. Much like that only "Sleep V" spell you could cast in AD&D...

The two Arts coexist, meaning a Wizard or War-Priest will likely cast mostly spontaneous magic, then a few times per day be able to spend the Greater Art slots. Some careers out thee have access to the Lesser Art only.

While I have some notes on specific spells, implementation hasn't started yet and it's too early to go on details about spell descriptions. But like with everything else in the game I'm going to be ambitious and try to make the mage-building and spell selection a true mini-game within the game.

-Any feats/talent/fighting styles for warriors equivalents to make character building/advancement more fun? Also helps give non mages something to look forward to.

It is essential that, even taking away magic from the system, combat is fun by itself. Yes, there are some skills out there like Battle Maneuvers, Dirty Fighting and others that will unlock special maneuvers and attacks. There will be different roles to enhance in a melee/ranged combatant, and builds can go different ways. The first choice you face is wether enhancing evasion or going for heavy armor, or a compromise between two. You can have pure damage dealers, or builds that focus on critical hits, poisons, etc.

In addition, you don't want to get hit in this game. There is no regeneration, no free-heals, except the automatic use of medicine skill after each battle to recover some of the lost health. Hit Points are not inflated; if your warrior has 45hp as a newbie, he may very well end the game around 110hp, which means every time you get a blow you may be limiting how deep you'll be able to get into the dungeon, before needing to spend potions or needing to risk a camp or return to town.

-Will we generate our entire party from scratch from the get go? (please say yes)

You generate 4 characters from scratch, then add up to two Companions and on ocassions other temporary NPCs can join your party.

-Whats the engine you are using, Unity? The 3D engine in the town you posted earlier looks uncomfortably like the horrible RoA remakes, so hopefully you will improve it (I know its a placeholder anyway)

Don't pay too much attention to how it looks now.

When is this releasing?

Well... when it's ready. Some of my goals are:

-Steam Page in October, featuring some gameplay video and documentation.
-Early Access between March and June 2020, with at least 20h of content, roughly a 20% of the game and character progression.
-Several years of updates adding content, adjustment and improvements, until everything is as it should be. Not before winter 2022 but I can keep adding stuff for a long time.

My absolute priority is that things are the way I want them to be, the project is funded and the only reason I'll make Early Access release is to get feedback and make the game better. It's a similar roadmap to the one I used for EK between 2014 and 2018.
 

V_K

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These spells use the character's stamina, which means they can be always cast on each combat until the spellcaster becomes too fatigued.
What about non-combat spells?
The "Greater Art" is a slot-based system of spells, which take 1-3 full rounds to cast and are far more powerful. They only replenish after a night's sleep. These are scarce and require careful management, but often can decide a combat. Much like that only "Sleep V" spell you could cast in AD&D...
Will those require reagents by any chance? ;)
There is no regeneration, no free-heals, except the automatic use of medicine skill after each battle to recover some of the lost health. Hit Points are not inflated; if your warrior has 45hp as a newbie, he may very well end the game around 110hp, which means every time you get a blow you may be limiting how deep you'll be able to get into the dungeon, before needing to spend potions or needing to risk a camp or return to town.
This sounds so much like TDE/RoA. You had to spend weeks in camping to regenrate all the HP, and healing potions were rare and expensive as fuck. :bounce:
 

DavidBVal

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Of course skills and spells will also be useful out of combat.

Reagents... not exactly but something of the sort. In a cRPG they are often a hassle and not worth it, I want to minimize inventory maintenance in the game.

But I already gave too many details, more in a couple months when the Steam "coming soon" page is up.
 

jewboy

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Progress on inventory management, containers, equipping items, etc.

GIP84eF.gif


Nothing groundbreaking, I know. But hey, it works!

Love that scene and I love the art style of the characters like the minatour and the frogman. You are lucky to have a gifted artist along for the ride. I find his work to be outstanding. May I ask what language you are coding in and what environment? Visual Studio in Windows? C++? Are you doing GPGPU / CUDA stuff? Are you using DirectX or Vulkan?

This looks absolutely amazing especially for only a two man team. The only problem for me is the quest-centric design. Please at least no fetch quests. Try to make each quest a short story instead of making it feel like a chore or task or favor. And consider the element of suspense in each story like mini-mysteries. This is just the sort of project I'd love to help with if I could. To be part of a small team like yours working on a game like this is what I would like to do eventually, but first I think I have to make my own game or at least some software to demonstrate what I can do.

Also if you are dice rolling maybe consider genuine randomness rather than pseudorandomness. I've been doing a lot of work with that recently if you have any questions about it. Most modern CPUS have a built in TRNG. So it's pretty trivial to implement it at least conditionally. A bit more complicated to support older CPUs but still quite doable.

I'd like to also suggest trying to support VR displays like the HTC Vive and the Oculus. A shame not to with such nice eye candy.
 

passerby

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Nov 16, 2016
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Opening a container should also automatically open inventory of the last selected character.

Looks pretty and polished, like RoA remeake done right.
 

DavidBVal

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Opening a container should also automatically open inventory of the last selected character.

Container window was improved about a month ago:

unknown.png


you can select which character is taking the stuff but I don't think opening the full inventory window is a good idea, it'd force the player to close an extra window every time a container is looted. Opening the inventory is one click/key away anyways.
 

DavidBVal

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Small detail of a work in progress by Nacho Corva

UAsO0wY.png


While he gets all the fun drawing battles, I have been coding video/audio settings. How is that fair?

There's also advances in the soundtrack. Part of it will feature live instruments. But it's still to early to show anything, probably in a month.
 

Kliwer

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I'm stunned by the number of anti-puzzles comments it this thread... Good puzzles make dungeon crawling and exploration so much better. They make main difference between shit blobber and good blobber. In cRPG it is good to support riddles with skill checks, yes, but good puzzle is good puzzle - a lot of fun. Good proportion between skill checks, dialogues, puzzles and battles is the single most important thing in cRPG design. Any dungeon without puzzles is just boring battle arena.

I dream about cRPG with good amount of puzzles more complex then switches/pressure plates/spinners. Emagine this: to enter to the treasury in abandoned temple you have to set
astrolabe in the right configuration. Marks on door tell you, thet right answer is planet configuration during the some holly day of the local god (to read this - one of your characters should pass the "secret language" skill check - in other case the player has to deducate this from pictograms). You are finding ("search" skill check) a sky atlas with planet configuration on different days... Only discoverign the old graffiti in another part of the temple will show you which day is the holly day of this god.
This is example from one of my PnP advenures. It was so cool to solve this, especially thanks to DM's printed materials (sky atlas, graffiti etc.). I hate that so few cRPGs take this approach.

To increas replayability it would be nice to design 2-3 variants of some riddles - script could choose randomly this or that variant after starting a new game. It would be a lot of work, I know, but with some simple riddles it should be possible (for example M&M:X would be much more interesting when chest riddles would be selected randomly from some pool).
 

ERYFKRAD

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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I don't mind puzzles, but I don't want them boiling down to mere pixel hunts.
But then it's not easy to have puzzles that are equally challenging to everyone.
 

PrettyDeadman

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Cant you just play the witness/obduction and copy some of the puzzles there?
 

DavidBVal

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What about romances? How many companions will be datable? Is the game pro-lgbt at least?

Well, I won't spoil. But to give you an idea, in Exiled Kingdoms...

You can impregnate an oversized frog.

And also blackmail a lady and ask for sex, but it backfires.

I might add similar situations, why not.
 

DavidBVal

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Some provisional blood splashes. Final game will get much better ones but hey, I hate to test stuff that doesn't bleed.

kkt9sJ9.gif


Lots of development progress too. Most "core" combat actions already working, including Guard , which enables "attacks of opportunity" affecting the normal turn flow, so I am happy to see it working fine. Stamina and Fatigue is implemented, and it's an essential mechanic in Archaelund. Many small issues are fixed, and some great new 2D art is being produced. Sound programming is also mostly done.

Despite all the advances I am not sure I'll have the Steam page ready in October, since it may force me to do things these weeks in the "wrong order". i.e., for a decent video I'd need to begin making more varied areas, rigging more diverse enemies, etc. I wasn't planning any of that until more fundamental things were done, but still it may be worth it to get visibility as soon as possible. We'll see.
 
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Jack Dandy

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Divinity: Original Sin 2
Ahh, finally the dumb name/avatar thing's gone away.
Anyway, still looks fantastic my man. Make a twitter!

Edit:
bCZ3piv.png
 
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barghwata

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"a non-inflationist, bounded system will ensure that every battle matters, and every opponent is scary. When your characters advance in levels, you'll gain new tactical options to defeat your enemies, not merely bloated and meaningless numeric stats."
This is great, more RPGs need this.
 

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