E.X.P.L.O.R.™: A New World - turn-based blobber 24 years in development

[CryptRat]

Story
When a starship operated by E.X.P.L.O.R., an elite group of space travelers, crash lands on a medieval world, it is up to the crew to discover the secrets of the world, repair their ship, meet a beautiful countess, and kill some things.
About
Developed as a "Love Letter" to the dungeon crawler RPGs of the 80s and 90s, Beem Media is proud to present E.X.P.L.O.R.™: A New world. Featuring classic RPG elements such as exploration, turn-based combat, quests, and narrative, the game is designed to give rise to nostalgic memories. Engineered with a modern feel, much of the tediousness of the games that it takes inspiration from is streamlined so that players can engage in beloved aspects of role-playing such as exploration, strategy, and a sense of wonder.
Features

• Classic dungeon crawler role playing experience.
  
• Party based exploration and combat.
  
• Modern 3D engine to create a feeling of really being there.
  
• Party member can be exchanged at any time to adapt to different play strategies.
  
• Numerous dungeons to explore, each with a unique feel and increasing challenge.
  
• Quests such as "Fetch Thing", "Kill Creature", and "Save Population From Extinction"!
  
• Turn-based combat inspires decisive strategy.
  
• Variety of weapons, armors, and trinkets keep combat fun and interesting.
  
• Over 25 different animated monsters to fight, each with unique behaviors.
  
• Over 30 spells to obliterate enemies with.
  
• Powerful artifacts and other treasures to find!
  
• Light-hearted narrative with fun, interesting, and uniquely illustrated NPCs.
  
• Straightforward Achievements add a sense of progression while delving into the dungeon.

 

[Fluent]

just saw this in the Upcoming RPGs thread. Looks great! I look forward to checking out the game. Thanks for posting it! <3

 

[Bester]

Sorry, but does this game feature transvestites? For what possible reason?

 

[luj1]

Horrible art and presentation. I doubt gameplay outshines it.

 

[Infinitron]

This is some weird shit. The guy making this has apparently been at it since 1997:
http://fun.beemsoft.net/
https://www.beemsoft.com/
https://www.blainemyers.com/

There are ZIP files of old demos from back then available for download, Grimoire beta style.

 

[Saerain]

They look like traced selfies of Millennial tourists.

 

[Jrpgfan]

The art is reminiscent of cheap porn flash games.

 

[CryptRat]

This is some weird shit. The guy making this has apparently been at it since 1997:
http://fun.beemsoft.net/
https://www.beemsoft.com/
https://www.blainemyers.com/

There are ZIP files of old demos from back then available for download, Grimoire beta style.

Thanks, that's cool and makes me actually interested in the game.

Portraits have these kitsch dev art feeling which is a weird fetish of mine, I wish monsters, items and the overall UI used some similar style so the game would look like some 90s shareware instead of this inconsistent mess.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Sorry, but does this game feature transvestites? For what possible reason?

More like Laura Dern.

 

[Zer0wing]

What's up with all those games stuck in development hell for 25+ years, this and UnReal world, dwarf fortress, et cetera, they only have their systemic depth paired with ASCII or 2d tiles at most/+paint.net drawings at best. Feature creep is hell of a drug, dear codexian ese?

 

[just]

What's up with all those games stuck in development hell for 25+ years, this and UnReal world, dwarf fortress, et cetera, they only have their systemic depth paired with ASCII or 2d tiles at most/+paint.net drawings at best. Feature creep is hell of a drug, dear codexian ese?

solo dev is hard work
you need 6 days off after 30min of work

 

[Bester]

What's up with all those games stuck in development hell for 25+ years, this and UnReal world, dwarf fortress, et cetera, they only have their systemic depth paired with ASCII or 2d tiles at most/+paint.net drawings at best. Feature creep is hell of a drug, dear codexian ese?

solo dev is hard work
you need 6 day off after 30min of work

Oh god, so true. I haven't touched my game since January. Feels like yesterday.

 

[CappenVarra]

Grimoire farts in your general direction

 

[mondblut]

What's up with all those games stuck in development hell for 25+ years, this and UnReal world, dwarf fortress, et cetera, they only have their systemic depth paired with ASCII or 2d tiles at most/+paint.net drawings at best. Feature creep is hell of a drug, dear codexian ese?

There is that thing called "hobby". If you are doing it for fun and don't have to "ship" it for a great "launch day", there is no reason NOT to tinker with it for the rest of your life.

Looks pretty horrid. If it took 25 years to achieve that, well...

 

[Sykar]

What's up with all those games stuck in development hell for 25+ years, this and UnReal world, dwarf fortress, et cetera, they only have their systemic depth paired with ASCII or 2d tiles at most/+paint.net drawings at best. Feature creep is hell of a drug, dear codexian ese?

There is that thing called "hobby". If you are doing it for fun and don't have to "ship" it for a great "launch day", there is no reason NOT to tinker with it for the rest of your life.

Looks pretty horrid. If it took 25 years to achieve that, well...

Imagine would he could achieve in 50!

 

[buffalo bill]

just saw this in the Upcoming RPGs thread. Looks great! I look forward to checking out the game. Thanks for posting it! <3

liking everything no matter how shit it is = decline

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Isn't the point of tracing things to make something better than you would on your own? Just putting black lines around a picture you found on the internet then using the fill tool a couple of times is peak laziness. Take the picture I use as an avatar, from Shadow of the Comet. Its traced from American treasure and actor Vincent Price. Now, instead of doing things poorly, they took the time to make it look nice...well...as nice as they could. Frankly, even just buying a few stock photographs and using them for portraits would be better than this mess.
Outside of that, for a game worked on and off for 25 years, there sure isn't a lot of content in it by the sound of things. But I must admit, I've never really counted how many monsters or spells are in a game I play.

 

[Contagium]

The bobbing motion while walking makes me want to vomit.

Other than that, still looks awful. This is NOT Cleveland Mark Blakemore's magnum opus.

 

[Sinatar]

That art style is... something.

 

[Tavernking]

This is some weird shit. The guy making this has apparently been at it since 1997:
http://fun.beemsoft.net/
https://www.beemsoft.com/
https://www.blainemyers.com/

There are ZIP files of old demos from back then available for download, Grimoire beta style.

I love stuff like this. Like Tortured Hearts which was made over ~20 years by one insane man. Nobody really cared about it being made, then it's released, RPGcodex talks about it for a week, then it's gone again into the abyss where it will forever remain

 

[Drowed]

I think there are different levels of insanity in a person who devotes decades of his life to a project like this. Some push so far that they overcome insanity and achieve brilliance, others end up buried in an eternal cycle of revising and changing details and never manage to produce anything noteworthy, or maybe they simply didn't have that ability in the first place.

Grimoire, shockingly for the non-believers, was in fact released. UnReal World and Dwarf Fortress technically are not finalized but, in a way, they are already "complete" experiences in their current form. Some would say that they have been for years - so you can't really say they are in the same category as these projects because of the open/modular nature of these games.

 

[Tavernking]

I think there are different levels of insanity in a person who devotes decades of his life to a project like this. Some push so far that they overcome insanity and achieve brilliance, others end up buried in an eternal cycle of revising and changing details and never manage to produce anything noteworthy, or maybe they simply didn't have that ability in the first place.

This hit me hard. I've been working on my game for 7 years now. Constantly revising it and remaking it. I'm convinced the current iteration of the game will be the final iteration, but I was convinced of that with all the previous ones too.

 

[V_K]

So how many microissues remaining?

 

[luj1]

I think there are different levels of insanity in a person who devotes decades of his life to a project like this. Some push so far that they overcome insanity and achieve brilliance, others end up buried in an eternal cycle of revising and changing details and never manage to produce anything noteworthy, or maybe they simply didn't have that ability in the first place.

This hit me hard. I've been working on my game for 7 years now. Constantly revising it and remaking it. I'm convinced the current iteration of the game will be the final iteration, but I was convinced of that with all the previous ones too.

there is a difference between Grimoire and Copper Dreams

 

[Contagium]

Coming June 11! Anyone ready for a day one purchase?!?