Game News Knights of the Chalice released on Steam

[Iluvcheezcake]

Wizard
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard

Lvl 3, so far so good

Will write a review and upvote a few others.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Still can't roll stats for the first character.
Need to clerics with at least 14 15 14 0 16 14

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Still can't roll stats for the first character.
Need to clerics with at least 14 15 14 0 16 14

You are aware that you can reroll one stat and also switch 2 stats?

 

[Rpguy]

Hey BlueSalamander , you wrote on the kickstarter page yesterday you intend to talk about the sprite system of KOTC2. Are you still going to?

 

[Mychkine]

buyed it again. Game deserves it, hope sales will get some traction.

 

[BlueSalamander]

Thanks a million for the great support, Dickie, felipepepe, Mustawd, Cyberwhale, Tacgnol and Mychkine!

you wrote on the kickstarter page yesterday you intend to talk about the sprite system of KOTC2. Are you still going to?

Yes, actually I did talk a bit about it yesterday in the other thread, let me reprint it here, please:

Concerning the sprites, I'm thinking that we could have a system allowing weapons (on both hands) and shields to be displayed on top of the creature. For this to work, I'll have to ask the artist to position the hands of every humanoid creature at the exact same pixel position.

Then the artist can draw the animation of each weapon and shield separately, with one version for the right hand and another for the left hand. Magic weapons like a Flaming Longsword or a Shocking Burst Greataxe can also be represented.

Then the game will automatically display the weapons and shields used by each humanoid creature. And we can still have other creatures that do not require drawing weapons on top.

One of the things I enjoyed in Neverwinter Nights 2 was to watch my party members hold powerful magic weapons as they move around.

Also, for weapons carrying enchantments such as Flaming, Acidic, Shocking, Frost or Draining, I should be able to draw some animated particles on top, to make the weapons more realistic.

Today, I did some work on testing the website update that I recently implemented in preparation for the Kickstarter. That part should be finished soon. Thank you for your continued interest in the game!

 

[Mustawd]

Is there a way to mod the art in this game? I tried accessing the images in my Steam folder, but it's all in DAT files that I'm unfamiliar with how to extract and edit properly without breaking the game.

 

[felipepepe]

Concerning the sprites, I'm thinking that we could have a system allowing weapons (on both hands) and shields to be displayed on top of the creature. For this to work, I'll have to ask the artist to position the hands of every humanoid creature at the exact same pixel position.

Then the artist can draw the animation of each weapon and shield separately, with one version for the right hand and another for the left hand. Magic weapons like a Flaming Longsword or a Shocking Burst Greataxe can also be represented.

Then the game will automatically display the weapons and shields used by each humanoid creature. And we can still have other creatures that do not require drawing weapons on top.

One of the things I enjoyed in Neverwinter Nights 2 was to watch my party members hold powerful magic weapons as they move around.

Also, for weapons carrying enchantments such as Flaming, Acidic, Shocking, Frost or Draining, I should be able to draw some animated particles on top, to make the weapons more realistic.

Tales of Maj'Eyal does that very well, every PC sprite has hands in the same place and powerful weapons have unique art & cool particle effects, it feels very rewarding to find and equip those.

But animating each one might be a bit too costly... I don't know what kind of production values you are aiming for, but I'm 100% ok with sprites just bumping on each other.

 

[Murk]

BB's style of "sprite doesn't move but an animation effect is shown over the sprite" works wonderfully as an easy inbetween of full-static and full-animation.

 

[Jinn]

Left a short positive review on steam today, bringing it up to 15 reviews at 100% positive. I'd urge everyone who grabbed a steam version to do the same, even if you don't normally drop a review. We need communities like ours to aid in bolstering the reception of games like these in any way we can.

 

[oneself]

I thought this is KOTC 2 or something. Got me for a second.

 

[Waterd]

My favorite Tactical combat puzzle of all time. For any newcomers, I think using resting spots multiple times/scribing scrolls/forging weapons/buying infinite healing scrolls breaks the game, but as long as you don't do that, it's the best at what it does.

I wished pierre did a mode where he would remove all that and reduce the shoppers with infinite scrolls from infinite to a reasonable number (like 10)

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

BlueSalamander
Is there a way to make the displayed area bigger, so you don't have to scroll so much during combat?

 

[Elzair]

No GOG version? Meh.

 

[BlueSalamander]

Is there a way to mod the art in this game? I tried accessing the images in my Steam folder, but it's all in DAT files that I'm unfamiliar with how to extract and edit properly without breaking the game.

Yes, you can mod the artwork. Just rename these DAT files into BMP and then you can open them. KotC 2 uses PNG files directly.

Tales of Maj'Eyal does that very well, every PC sprite has hands in the same place and powerful weapons have unique art & cool particle effects, it feels very rewarding to find and equip those.

True. Yesterday, I looked at the art of that game. So basically it uses non-animated sprites in size 64x64, plus weapons and clothing printed on top, always at the same position, which is easy to do since the sprite is not animated and does not exist in multiple directions.

I created an image to get an idea of how it might look like, either with HoMM 3 sprites (the Paladins) or the ' Tales ' kind of sprite (the snake). Please see below, feel free to comment?

The idea with HoMM 3 sprites is to go for sprites in size 64x128 (for humanoid creatures) and have three walk animation frames, which are also used as attack animation frames. Of course, bigger creatures will have sprites of larger size (up to 256x256).

With just three frames we could still have weapons printed on top. One problem is if we want to have the up / down directions too. Then it becomes a lot more work, particularly if I want weapons printed on top (or behind). Could be done with a good Kickstarter, I guess.

Another problem might come from Small-size creatures like Halflings, or Large-size creatures (Half-Giants), if the weapons have to be made smaller or bigger and displayed at different positions.

BB's style of "sprite doesn't move but an animation effect is shown over the sprite" works wonderfully as an easy inbetween of full-static and full-animation.

Thanks for the suggestion. Who's BB?

I wished pierre did a mode where he would remove all that

I hear you, that hard mode is pretty much KotC 2.

Is there a way to make the displayed area bigger, so you don't have to scroll so much during combat?

In windowed mode, you can switch to the ' 960x720 (b) ' mode, which does display more of the area as the resolution is higher. KotC 2 has a single resolution and the full-screen mode displays as much area as allowed by your screen.

No GOG version

Just wait a little bit longer please for the GOG version.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Thanks for the suggestion. Who's BB?

Battle Brothers.
Simple artstyle, simple (and fast) animations coupled with beefy sounds - makes up for a very satisfying combat feel.
Despite simplistic look I don't think I've seen anyone complain about battle brothers having primitive or unappealing artstyle. The game itself found quite a big success with mainstream crowds...

 

[BlueSalamander]

Thank you for the post, Pretty! Yes, if there aren't any animation frames, it's much simpler for the artist. And we can display the weapon(s) and special effects and have the sprite move towards the enemy, as in BB. Tokens already move towards the enemy when attacking, in KotC 2, and the weapon's icon is displayed at the top of the screen.

Well, maybe we'll go for something like Tales of Maj'Eyal for the maximum flexibility it offers in terms of the display of held weapons. I'll talk to the KotC 2 artist soon, see what he thinks.

 

[Jinn]

I think I prefer the HoMM3 sprites in that mockup, but they do tend to clash with the environment a bit. I would say whatever you end up choosing, make sure there is a cohesion of style between environments and the moving entities on them. Also, I find that Battle Brothers example posted by Pretty to be quite fitting with your goals here.

Hope you're getting some decent sales on steam, BlueSalamander!

 

[Mustawd]

Yes, you can mod the artwork. Just rename these DAT files into BMP and then you can open them. KotC 2 uses PNG files directly.

Oh Nice!



Soon.... *rubs hands gleefully*

Spoiler

 

[Waterd]

BB looks Awesome, definitly. My hopes aren't that high. Just that example by Salamander, I like a lot more than the tokens, jeez i hate the tokens, and the worst part is that I'm a HEAVY board game player. With that said I use miniatures in my board games (plastic, metal, cardboard, painted or not, i dont care).
Yes I loved how KOTC 1 looked so I'm not asking for 4k 3d graphics. But jeez, did i say I hate how the game looks with the tokens?

 

[BlueSalamander]

Thank you, these building and monster graphics look really nice, Mustawd. Yes, I hear you Waterd. The artist has told me he's going to draw a sample sprite, or several samples.

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

If you don't want to redo all the creature sprites, and want the ability to have the equipment sprites appear in different places for each creature, you can have some sort of 'offsets' values for each piece of equipment. That is, have something like a data file that specifies the x and y pixel offset values from the center (or however you set a sprite's render position) that you would like for each of the equipment sprites for each creature. Then, when rendering the creature sprite, simply look up these offset values, and render the equipment sprites accordingly.

 

[Elwro]

These pictures are looking great, Mustawd !

 

[Mustawd]

Thank you, these building and monster graphics look really nice, Mustawd

These pictures are looking great, Mustawd !

Hey guys, to clarify these are Tibia sprites (some are modified by fans and hence the “Before” and “After” screenshots) , which coincidentally use the same Ultima-style perspective.

It was/is a BR MMO that is still running AFAIK. So I’m sure felipepepe and Delterius are quite familiar with it. It’s also heavily infested with bots lol.

Anyhow, my plan is to mod KOTC or at least create a tileset for KOTC2 for fans of KOTC’s sprite perspective. And this would be accomplished using modified Tibia sprites (as KOTC’s sprite resolution is slightly different from Tibia’s by a handful of pixels).

Before that though, I think I’ll mod the font, as it’s giving me eye cancer.

Suggestions are welcome.

Right now these are the candidates:

Spoiler

 

[Delterius]

Hey guys, to clarify these are Tibia sprites (some are modified by fans and hence the “Before” and “After” screenshots) , which coincidentally use the same Ultima-style perspective.

It was/is a BR MMO that is still running AFAIK. So I’m sure felipepepe and Delterius are quite familiar with it. It’s also heavily infested with bots lol.

Anyhow, my plan is to mod KOTC or at least create a tileset for KOTC2 for fans of KOTC’s sprite perspective. And this would be accomplished using modified Tibia sprites (as KOTC’s sprite resolution is slightly different from Tibia’s by a handful of pixels).

Not quite: Tibia is a german MMO played in english (sometimes) but primarily by poles and BRs. And yes I'd play yer mod.

also the bots are gone now