Vapourware Lays of Evenheart - Vapourware

[Tavernking]

Inventory sneak-peek. You can chew cocaine plant leaves in the next demo if that’s your thing.

Infact, here are all of the ‘drugs’ I’m planning. Of course there will be potions too, but they will be insanely rare and expensive, for example: the average farmer will make 146 coins annually, but an elixir of health costs 50,000 coins, and heals only one health state! Clerics can heal you for a few thousand, and will allow you to take out a loan if you can’t afford their services. But I will leave the details for the proper dev diaries that will begin next year.

 

[Tavernking]

I love the adventure engine. This is everything in the game not related to the combat engine. This is like crack cocaine for me. I can easily spend 10, sometimes 13 hours a day coding this out. It’s a blast. I love seeing my game, my world, come to life!

The world is beautiful. The seasons, they change!



Winter is an interesting time. Some underground ruins get covered with too much snow for you to enter. Lakes that once presented an obstacle freeze over, allowing your party to cross them. Bandit camps disappear during the winter and usually change locations when they come back.

There are barrows to explore, shrines to ancient gods, trading posts, woodcutting camps, mines, villages, and many more. Your spawn location depends on your race. If you’re playing as a human you’ll start in the middle of the map. Travelling south from here means you’ll find more civilisation - towns and cities are skewed towards the southern part of the map. But travelling north means more ancient ruins and wilderness.

The theme of the game is tied to this quote: ‘You cannot swim for new horizons, until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.’ Sure you can travel south and live out your life in a cozy town. But if you want to make something of yourself and become a legend… travel north and live a life of adventure. You’ll almost certainly die. But if you survive, the world is yours.

 

[Ularis Badler]

I love the adventure engine. This is everything in the game not related to the combat engine. This is like crack cocaine for me. I can easily spend 10, sometimes 13 hours a day coding this out. It’s a blast. I love seeing my game, my world, come to life!

The world is beautiful. The seasons, they change!



Winter is an interesting time. Some underground ruins get covered with too much snow for you to enter. Lakes that once presented an obstacle freeze over, allowing your party to cross them. Bandit camps disappear during the winter and usually change locations when they come back.
.

These are pretty cool and interesting mechanics. How many turns are needed to cycle through a season?

 

[Tavernking]

These are pretty cool and interesting mechanics. How many turns are needed to cycle through a season?

There will be a good old 365 day calendar. The adventure engine isn't turn-based. It'll be easier for me to show later rather than explain now

 

[Norfleet]

That 1% chance of dying seems awfully high. Eating a raw coca leaf pretty much never kills you, that's why the natives chew on it. If one in every 100 chews killed you, they'd all be dead.

 

[Ularis Badler]

These are pretty cool and interesting mechanics. How many turns are needed to cycle through a season?

There will be a good old 365 day calendar. The adventure engine isn't turn-based. It'll be easier for me to show later rather than explain now

I see. But I wonder, how long does it take (RL time) to complete a year?

Keep up the good work!

 

[Tavernking]

These are pretty cool and interesting mechanics. How many turns are needed to cycle through a season?

There will be a good old 365 day calendar. The adventure engine isn't turn-based. It'll be easier for me to show later rather than explain now

I see. But I wonder, how long does it take (RL time) to complete a year?

Keep up the good work!

If you're working a job, a year could pass in a few RL seconds. Depends on how many random job events you get and whether any of them lead to combat.
If you're travelling around in the wilderness non-stop for a year - 3 hours for a year to pass. 30 RL seconds per day.
But even if you want to avoid getting a job and take on the life of an adventurer instead, you'll need to spend time raising your family (your absence will punish your future heirs), healing from your wounds, training your skills, etc.

This is all already coded into the game btw, I'm waiting for the adventure demo to show it off.

 

[Tavernking]

That 1% chance of dying seems awfully high. Eating a raw coca leaf pretty much never kills you, that's why the natives chew on it. If one in every 100 chews killed you, they'd all be dead.

Noted, will fix.

 

[Tavernking]

How do you guys feel about this forest scene? I'm creating some mockups before I program the random forest battle map generation.

Bonus: Have some magic missiles

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Show spiders.

 

[Saerain]

That 1% chance of dying seems awfully high. Eating a raw coca leaf pretty much never kills you, that's why the natives chew on it. If one in every 100 chews killed you, they'd all be dead.

Makes me think the code is such that 1% is the lowest chance for anything. But even if that's true, an easy workaround should be to do multiple rolls.

 

[Tyranicon]

Show spiders.

Why do you hate Drow? They'll probably suck generic giant spider dick for free.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Why do you hate Drow?

They're phony simps. Act like they're all about it, you don't see spider merchants or spider knights in their gay ass little S&M cities now do you?

Ettercaps are the only real niggaz. They help set traps and they uglier than me so you know I can work my game on those surface honeys.

 

[Tyranicon]

Why do you hate Drow?

They're phony simps. Act like they're all about it, you don't see spider merchants or spider knights in their gay ass little S&M cities now do you?

Ettercaps are the only real niggaz. They help set traps and they uglier than me so you know I can work my game on those surface honeys.

I applaud you for your commitment to a forum handle.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I applaud you for your commitment to a forum handle.

smokes cigarette, confused

Forum handle?

 

[AdolfSatan]

Looks pretty dope. Will those objects affect line of sight? Will we be able to set shit on fire on the battlefield (to create chokepoints, etc.)?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

smokes cigarette, confused

Forum handle?

???

Spoiler

What do you think of the Spider Riders?

This one slipped under my radar. I need to look closer at the general rpg section. Hex overland and grid combat. Nice!

 

[Norfleet]

That's not actually how a spider would smoke a cigarette. Spiders do not inhale through their mouths, their mouth doesn't connect to their lungs. Spiders breathe through one or more holes on their undersides, varying depending on the type of a spider. A giant one would almost certainly need more for airflow. Thus a spider would smoke a cigarette by just leaving it underneath them. They would not actually be able to inhale through the cigarette, so they would just set the entire thing on fire.

 

[anvi]

Is this gonna be better than KOTC and is it gonna be done before 2025?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yep, those "spiders" are mocking actual smokers except the mutant ones. I mean those toon ones defy reality.

 

[Tavernking]

Is this gonna be better than KOTC and is it gonna be done before 2025?

The AI and combat mechanics will be nowhere near as good. Yeah, the game will be released by then.

Looks pretty dope. Will those objects affect line of sight? Will we be able to set shit on fire on the battlefield (to create chokepoints, etc.)?

I'm not doing line of sight, maybe in a sequel.

It's funny you asked about fire, that's what I'm currently working on. Yes you can create fire as a chokepoint (the AI won't walk through fire). But I want the fire to spread over the map, so you may regret using it in forests where there's tons of flammable stuff.
Related, work in progress:

 

[gurugeorge]

Is this gonna be better than KOTC and is it gonna be done before 2025?

The AI and combat mechanics will be nowhere near as good. Yeah, the game will be released by then.

Looks pretty dope. Will those objects affect line of sight? Will we be able to set shit on fire on the battlefield (to create chokepoints, etc.)?

I'm not doing line of sight, maybe in a sequel.

It's funny you asked about fire, that's what I'm currently working on. Yes you can create fire as a chokepoint (the AI won't walk through fire). But I want the fire to spread over the map, so you may regret using it in forests where there's tons of flammable stuff.
Related, work in progress:

If I may say something - the way the squares don't join up properly (like badly laid kitchen tiles) is quite disturbing visually. The little characters and fx are nice though

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

That's not actually how a spider would smoke a cigarette. Spiders do not inhale through their mouths, their mouth doesn't connect to their lungs. Spiders breathe through one or more holes on their undersides, varying depending on the type of a spider. A giant one would almost certainly need more for airflow. Thus a spider would smoke a cigarette by just leaving it underneath them. They would not actually be able to inhale through the cigarette, so they would just set the entire thing on fire.

smokes cigarette... through mouth

Heh, amateurs.

 

[Norfleet]

If I may say something - the way the squares don't join up properly (like badly laid kitchen tiles) is quite disturbing visually. The little characters and fx are nice though

You sure that's not just an aliasing artifact caused by bad AA?

 

[Tavernking]

The public alpha is coming in early 2022. It’ll only be available for two weeks, sign up here if you want a reminder!

What will be in the alpha?

• Character creation
• Basic combat system
• Early crude tutorial storyline
  • this is just a few minutes long, as the game is all about the world not revolving around you and how you’re just a guest in these harsh lands. Also, the tutorial isn’t ‘safe’, you’re just as likely to end up as an ogre’s next meal in the tutorial as you are in the real game.
• Recruit party members.
• Wander around looking for fights and exploring the land, discovering new villages and towns along the way.
• Get a job, find a wife, and raise a family.

What won’t be in the alpha?

• Magic
  • implementing spells and their visual effects will take a lot of time, I’m leaving most of that work for a later version
• Special enemy types
  • bandits, kobolds, goblins and orcs are easy to program and can inherit the same AI. Dragons, zombies, giant spiders etc require more individual attention and time.
• Playable females and other races
  • creating a new race/gender combo is a lot more work than just making some graphics and changing some numbers. Your race and gender fundamentally change the way the game is played.
• Quests
• Business and homestead management
• Playing as your children after your death
• Destructible (burnable) battlefields
• A bunch of areas on the overworld map
  • numerous types of dungeons, places to work, elven and dwarven settlements, wizard paladin and cleric academies, and many more interesting features
• Much more

I can’t stress enough how this isn’t promotional, but purely for accumulating desperately needed feedback to build the game with. I’m doing a lot of weird things in my game and that means there’s a ton of risk. As much of a hobby project as this is, I’d still like to make back the cost of developing the game, which means selling a few hundred copies at least.

So the development plan is as follows:

• Public alpha, free, get feedback on the game’s core systems, available for 2 weeks
  • launch discord server, steam store page, trailer all around this time too. Start marketing like a madman.
• Private beta, $15, get feedback, a proper ‘early access’ experience, available for the months leading up to the Steam release
• Steam release, $15