KickStarter INSOMNIA: The Ark - dieselpunk sci-fi action-RPG set on a decaying space station

[DalekFlay]

I'm really into the mood, music and graphics. Like others I am mostly worried about combat and how large in scope the game will be. Looking forward to updates and the campaign.

 

[Dieithrio]

Someone help them with the draft (taken from the old campaign last update, so I think I'm allowed to share): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1892480689/700452989?token=82ad6840

Chapters and seasons wtf not this again

PS: soundtrack is cool though

 

[DalekFlay]

Helping people from outside the US/UK speak and write English is my job. However since it's my job I can't do that shit for free, even if the game looks sexy. Ironic.

 

[Davaris]

Diesel Punk for the win.

 

[Trash]

That looks promising. I love stories about Ark ships.

Incidently, anyone got any good Ark stories to recommend?

 

[Davaris]

Guyduk Can you tell us more about the combat

Pure realtime, but we did try to make it relatively slow-paced and tactical.
.

With that viewpoint, use a mouse and keyboard and you will get further IMO. TB or RTwP.

Nice pitch. What kind of scope are you planning? Do you plan on using Kickstarter money to expand your team? What engine are you using?

Well, I'll be honest here. At this point, it would mainly depend on where the Kickstarter gets us. This has been our pet project for a long time, but it has arrived at the point where it either gets our full dedication, or it doesn't, and it basically either gets canned. That's a six man team we're talking about, plus software licensing, plus a lot of outsourced stuff(with the amount of funds a title like that will attract, it is highly unlikely that we'll get the opportunity to expand our team with some full-time members, though it'd be really nice).

Sounds drastic. If people walk because there's no money in it, then let them walk. If the dedicated team members are artists, your project will attract replacements. I saw one group in a similar position as yours is now, that gave up and they still regret that decision 10 years later.

If you fail to raise funds, I'd also suggest international team members. "Names" at least in the design department, seem to get people's attention in the West.

 

[Guyduk]

Guyduk Can you tell us more about the combat, dialogue and skill system? Is the combat purely real-time like we see in the video? Since it's level-less, are you using a skill point award/buy system in place of XP/levels?

Both, actually. You can raise your skill via use, and you can further invest in a skill by purchasing some additional skill points from your XP pool. This gives you a bit of leeway in how you develop your character.

Ok, I'll bite. It looks good and I like the ambient. Neat stuff. But judging by your video and pitch I still can't tell if it's an Action RPG that focuses mostly on combat or does it have other kinds of interaction? I mean is it an RPG or an ARPG?

It's an RPG. We have a fair amount of dialog and non-combat interactions planned - enough to have a solid part of Kickstarter money being diverted to hiring British and American writers to go over our dialogs and text and and do as much with it as they can.
We are competent when it comes to writing, but we want it to shine, not to mention the fact that translation has to be as good as possible.

As for the rest, as well the combat system:

Well, it's a not a Diablo with guns. Clunky as it looks, we actually have all the systems required for varied and more or less tactical combat in place.
Of course, that basically asking you to take things for granted, so here's a hypothetical scenario for you, paraphrased from the design doc:

You come upon a turret defending an important location.
From there this can go a few ways:

You can attempt to charge it head-on. This'll be tricky, because if you don't have a heavy enough armor(preferably the heavier, motorized kind),chances are, your character will end up dead real fast.

Even if your armor is good enough to withstand a 9mm burst, the turret itself is heavily armored, so conventional firearms won't do anything to it - at best you some chance of disabling optics if you're lucky.
You'd need some special weapons to do something about it. Grenade launcher or laser rifle will do, or you could use specialized ammunition if you've got any.

The problem with heavier armor, though, is that it limits your movement, slowing you down, and limiting your options, which might be fine if you're facing a lone turret, but in a firefight with multiple enemies you risk getting outflanked - never a good thing.

So, if heavy armor is not your thing, you can attempt to outflank the turret - it has a limited field of fire, and if you aren't encumbered, you can move fast enough and line up a few shots for its power supply.
Well, to do that, you'll have to move from cover to cover to line up a good shot.



There are two problems with that: first, the cover is hardly rock solid.
A wooden box won't protect you from much. A metal crate is better.
A concrete pillar is really nice, but cover is also destructible, and it will only protect you for so long - you'll have to move, you can't simply pop in and out and take potshots.

The fun part here is that cover placement is randomized a bit from playthrough to playthrough, so, chances are, you are not going to see the same solution to every firefight.

You can also grab a riot shield and make yourself a cover of your own, and use it to cross over - depending on the quality of the shield you may be able to pull it off safely...or not.

If direct approach is not you thing altogether, you can attempt to find a generator the turret is connected to and disable it. Chances are, though, that generator is powering a lot of other stuff too, so while the automatic defense systems are turned of, so are the lights.

Finally, if that turret is located in the older, neglected sections of the arc, you can attempt to stage a cave-in. That's risky stuff - you can easily get crushed under two tonnes of rusty metal, or close off a convenient access point to another area.

Now, all that sounds good in theory, but how much of that is actually in?
Everything is already coded, but we still need a do lot of art assets for destructible cover, so most likely you won't be seeing them in the first demo. Cover penetration is already in, though, and it works as intended.

 

[Scroo]

Hmmm, this sounds very interesting. Would be even better if it would have been turn based but well, I can live with that.
Will follow!

 

[Angthoron]

This certainly is looking interesting.

Are the "post-release chapters and seasons" still a thing?

 

[Davaris]

Actually I take that back about the combat. I watched another video and I'm warming up to it.

 

[Tzaero]

The approach to combat particularly reminds me of the Sui Generis kickstarter, except Scifi.

 

[StaticSpine]

I've been folllowing the game for some time.

Incline coming from Russia

Guyduk
Good luck bros! I believe in you!

 

[karfhud]

Looks great. I love the setting. I'm surprised it's running on Unity.

I'd love to read a more detailed story outline though. Also, did you guys actually plan out the quest design workflow? Branching dialogues and choice/consequence are often more difficult to implement than it may seem. And what's with the factions - are they already penned down? Will they interact, like in F:NV?

 

[WhiteGuts]

I don't think something can be both post-apocalyptic and dystopean at the same time.

Why not ? Dystopia is the opposite of Utopia. So I'd think "dystopean" is pretty appropriate for a post-apo setting.

 

[CyberWhale]

That looks promising. I love stories about Ark ships.

Incidently, anyone got any good Ark stories to recommend?

The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Incidently, anyone got any good Ark stories to recommend?

Aforementioned Alastair Reynlods' "Revelation Space" series is actually quite good.
And yeah, as for Gene Wolfe, I second that recommendation, great author, though his works are somewhat broader than just Space Ark Post-apocalypse.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Why not ? Dystopia is the opposite of Utopia. So I'd think "dystopean" is pretty appropriate for a post-apo setting.

I always felt that dystopias were utopias gone wrong, i.e. a world that for all intents and purposes should be the perfect place to live but effectively has become a fascist police state ruled by megacorps and godless communism. But the moment it all blows up, it stops being a dystopia and starts being post-apocalyptic.

 

[tuluse]

There is no requirement for post-apocolyptics to be bad. Everyone could theoretically get along with each other and help each other afterward.

 

[Guyduk]

This certainly is looking interesting.

Are the "post-release chapters and seasons" still a thing?

Yes, but that's a matter of post-release support, and they'll be developed separately. Right now we need to budget time accordingly, and get everything in.

I'm surprised it's running on Unity.

This is where I slapped myself on the forehead, and went over to look at my earlier posts. Guess that's what I get for posting on crunch time.

It's not Unity, it's actually, from the most common perspective, way worse. We're running a custom build of Ogre3D. It has a bit of reputation for being Unity's underused little brother, but we're happy with it.
Why? Because of all those physics-related combat features, dynamic lightning system, and the netcode we've built for coop mode.

This is actually why I wanted to split info updates into separate chunks - mostly for ease of management and to avoid blunders like that. Apologies for miscommunication.

 

[Angthoron]

This certainly is looking interesting.

Are the "post-release chapters and seasons" still a thing?

Yes, but that's a matter of post-release support, and they'll be developed separately. Right now we need to budget time accordingly, and get everything in.

Cool, thanks. You might want to avoid giving this so much spotlight in your next KS pitch - the "episodes" thing could scare off the unwary in a sense of "Ah, this is going to be like SiN episodes", or things of that nature. You could instead say that you plan extensive post-launch support and release of new content (presumably for free) for everybody that buys the game. Some simple re-wording. Best to just avoid "episodes" and "seasons" for now, in my personal opinion. Casuals could bite, but this doesn't seem aimed for the casuals, right?

 

[WhiteGuts]

There is no requirement for post-apocolyptics to be bad. Everyone could theoretically get along with each other and help each other afterward.

Maybe, but that would be boring ass post-apo, imo.

 

[agris]

Unless you play as an anti-hero who gets to royally fuck up utopia. That could be insane amounts of fun.

 

[sser]

Looks cool. I'm down with the Crusader-like gameplay, though kinda skeptical to see how it would do with an RPG setting.

 

[SwiftCrack]

Nice music, will you shoot for greenlight?

 

[Guyduk]

This certainly is looking interesting.

Are the "post-release chapters and seasons" still a thing?

Yes, but that's a matter of post-release support, and they'll be developed separately. Right now we need to budget time accordingly, and get everything in.

Cool, thanks. You might want to avoid giving this so much spotlight in your next KS pitch - the "episodes" thing could scare off the unwary in a sense of "Ah, this is going to be like SiN episodes", or things of that nature. You could instead say that you plan extensive post-launch support and release of new content (presumably for free) for everybody that buys the game

That's what we intend to do. Here's hoping that the pitch will be better this time around.

Casuals could bite, but this doesn't seem aimed for the casuals, right?

Well, if everything else fails, we can always follow the advice to make an FB game out of it.
I bet some people would bite if we include romanceable companions and stuff.

. . .