Momentum - turn-based tactical RPG set in Vietnam War - CANCELLED

[AwesomeButton]

AwesomeButton Thank you, we are indeed going a lot of research to make sure the game is immersive and feels authentic. For the people interested in the conflict I highly recommend the book Shooting at the Moon, which is unfortunately not available digitally (I bought 3 copies for the team).

It is nice to see that you appreciate the topic. Our team worked on Kingdom Come Deliverance before, we like historical themes, but it is definitely a challenge. A lot of people would like us to work on more fantasy topics. So every time someone expresses their support it is very meaningful for us.

We would be happy to answer questions about the project, however, since we are in the middle of negotiations with Publishers and Investors to fund the development of the next milestones, it would be more interesting to have the interview once this phase is over.

Didn't know about you being ex-Warhorse devs, so much the better

I'm not an expert on this subject, but I've read "A great place to have a war" so I'm fairly familiar with the tragic story of how Laos ended up.

Your talks will give me more time to brush up on Jagged Alliance 2 which has been a long time coming I just hope your publisher doesn't take over your PR and blacklists the Codex (it has happened in the past).

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

What an interesting setting. I know absolutely nothing about the conflict in Laos. All of the schools that I've attended (including university) have been rather sparse on the details of foreign policy and conflict in Southeast Asia around the time of the Vietnam War.

 

[Grandlion1981]

Some images of the game.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

this looks awesome

 

[AwesomeButton]

What an interesting setting. I know absolutely nothing about the conflict in Laos. All of the schools that I've attended (including university) have been rather sparse on the details of foreign policy and conflict in Southeast Asia around the time of the Vietnam War.

Location:DFW, Texas


Bill Lair was from Texas

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Do you get to kill communists?

 

[laclongquan]

Too early for modern history setting in game. You need at least 70 years between event (aka people of that period died off) before you can make a game commercially.

Know why people dont make games about Hitler-like figure? Too early. Not just the Jews dont like it, even the Germans dont like it.

Know why game made on Korean-like setting very obscure? Aka Ring of Red? People dont like it.
(Sure, RoR is about Japan. but its setting is really like Korean contemporary, so that's the reason why Korean gamers dont like it, and Chinese ambivalent about it)

Know why a lot of games about WW2 and 1 sell successfully? You guess it: it's been long enough.

Silent Storm series is pretty well done financially, but Hammer & Sickle sell really floppy. That was because the previous made about WW2 but the latter about Cold War.

It's a thing in game development and game business~

 

[the mole]

Any tactical game that relies on the existence of cover to have your units crouch or hunker down is an automatic fail lol.

cover is the most important thing in a real firefight though, the fact that old fallout games dont have a cover system, is damning, they lack depth

the ideal rpg would incorporate the complex cover system of xcom, the varied methods of combat like underrail, the roleplaying of planescape torment, or fallout, and the difficulty of something inbetween

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Know why people dont make games about Hitler-like figure? Too early. Not just the Jews dont like it, even the Germans dont like it

And yet we got Castle Wolfenstein

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

the complex cover system of xcom

 

[the mole]

the complex cover system of xcom

ok take out complex, it's far more complex than anything done before it, it accounts for height and the amount of your body showing along with range, so in this case it's more complex than any rpg that I know of

oh and it has destructible walls, so it is the most complex cover system in rpgs, stay mad

 

[JarlFrank]

Too early for modern history setting in game. You need at least 70 years between event (aka people of that period died off) before you can make a game commercially.

Know why people dont make games about Hitler-like figure? Too early. Not just the Jews dont like it, even the Germans dont like it.

[...]

Know why a lot of games about WW2 and 1 sell successfully? You guess it: it's been long enough.

I see a flaw in your logic.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Silent Storm series is pretty well done financially, but Hammer & Sickle sell really floppy

Hammer and sickle had problems other than the Cold War setting.

 

[laclongquan]

Silent Storm series is pretty well done financially, but Hammer & Sickle sell really floppy

Hammer and sickle had problems other than the Cold War setting.

Oh the Cold War setting is bad enough, commercial-wise, but their russian sin is to set the main point of view on an USSR one. The red communist theme, while very funny in a way, probabbly not strike a chord in western audience, aka payable customers.

The parents and grandparents of gamers used to be scared shitless of the red machines of war from the50s to 80s, so that's a big childhood mental trauma.

 

[udm]

Any tactical game that relies on the existence of cover to have your units crouch or hunker down is an automatic fail lol.

cover is the most important thing in a real firefight though, the fact that old fallout games dont have a cover system, is damning, they lack depth

the ideal rpg would incorporate the complex cover system of xcom, the varied methods of combat like underrail, the roleplaying of planescape torment, or fallout, and the difficulty of something inbetween

Nobody's saying terrain blocking the enemy's LOS to you is unimportant. To clarify, by "cover", I mean it as an inconsistent gameplay mechanic that dictates your character to be literally next to it to an obstacle receive a proportionate amount of evasion bonus. In that, requiring cover for your character to hunker down is just lame. Silent Storm did the whole "cover" thing best by using sensible JA2 mechanics with 3D terrain to simulate ballistics.

 

[the mole]

Any tactical game that relies on the existence of cover to have your units crouch or hunker down is an automatic fail lol.

cover is the most important thing in a real firefight though, the fact that old fallout games dont have a cover system, is damning, they lack depth

the ideal rpg would incorporate the complex cover system of xcom, the varied methods of combat like underrail, the roleplaying of planescape torment, or fallout, and the difficulty of something inbetween

Nobody's saying terrain blocking the enemy's LOS to you is unimportant. To clarify, by "cover", I mean it as an inconsistent gameplay mechanic that dictates your character to be literally next to it to an obstacle receive a proportionate amount of evasion bonus. In that, requiring cover for your character to hunker down is just lame. Silent Storm did the whole "cover" thing best by using sensible JA2 mechanics with 3D terrain to simulate ballistics.

normally terrain will block your view even when it shouldnt in reality, I think you should get an evasion bonus for being next to a chest high wall, youre harder to hit, it adds depth to the game instead of oh i'm going to max my character and just stand infront of everyone and blast them, the game can be made harder and more complex based on it because you arent just relying on combat stats, but also positioning modifiers, if you've ever played xcom you see how much more complex the encounters can be

 

[JarlFrank]

If you just simulate the 3D terrain with properly sized hitboxes (not a big problem nowadays) and proper ballistics (also not a big problem nowadays), you have a perfect version of cover without requiring artificial bonuses and maluses. Silent Storm showed how it's done.

And you can easily modify chance to hit based on percentage of enemy body in view/covered so crouching behind a wall with only your head sticking out gives a -80% chance to hit to enemies because 80% of your body is behind cover.

It's much more realistic, tactical, and nuanced than simply giving +25% bonus for standing next to a cover object.

 

[AwesomeButton]

If you just simulate the 3D terrain with properly sized hitboxes (not a big problem nowadays) and proper ballistics (also not a big problem nowadays), you have a perfect version of cover without requiring artificial bonuses and maluses. Silent Storm showed how it's done.

And you can easily modify chance to hit based on percentage of enemy body in view/covered so crouching behind a wall with only your head sticking out gives a -80% chance to hit to enemies because 80% of your body is behind cover.

It's much more realistic, tactical, and nuanced than simply giving +25% bonus for standing next to a cover object.

Nah. All that is true, provided that the player is willing to perfectly click and position his units every time. I see this becoming an annoyance very quickly. Cover shouldn't function in such a simulationist way.

It's the same regarding proper ballistics. Do you mean to suggest that combat can be taking place at distances big enough to make external ballistics matter?

 

[JarlFrank]

provided that the player is willing to perfectly click and position his units every time

Good tooltips and indicators can help with that.

 

[udm]

normally terrain will block your view even when it shouldnt in reality, I think you should get an evasion bonus for being next to a chest high wall, youre harder to hit, it adds depth to the game instead of oh i'm going to max my character and just stand infront of everyone and blast them, the game can be made harder and more complex based on it because you arent just relying on combat stats, but also positioning modifiers, if you've ever played xcom you see how much more complex the encounters can be

Sure, I fully agree with what you're saying. However, games like nusexcum don't agree. You get jack evasion bonus the moment you are ONE square away from cover, even if the enemy doesn't have full LOS.

Some games that use this new age cover system have actually executed it well, e.g. Timeslip's Vigilantes, where just having intervening obstacles reduces the enemy's CTH regardless of how close you are to it. Yet, there are still many games out there like Wasteland 2, Shadowrun and XCOM that don't actually account for intervening obstacles, and people don't point this out enough. It's a regression of tactical games, and frankly frustrating that many developers still can't get it right.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From discord:

Grandlion1981Today at 8:27 AM
Right now we are testing with actions and multi-kill, instead of only firing on enemies one by one, you can for instance place a cone of fire so if 3 enemies rush your position you might be able to kill them as they run toward you in one action
We will not us AP/TU as for us it is un outdated system, we don’t want the player to do math while playing. We want to allow a faster gameplay, for the player and also for the enemy.

 

[Grandlion1981]

This is a video of a few features we are prototyping.
- Cone of fires in overwatch (Will include also the direction where people are aiming).
- Squad movements, the enemy units move in groups instead of one by one.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

https://youtu.be/srI7voHyGQQ

PS: It is not perfect yet, it is just a prototype.
PPS: The game is going to be more a Tactical RPG than an RPG.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

a Tactical RPG than an RPG.

Okay but will it have character customization

 

[Grandlion1981]

a Tactical RPG than an RPG.

Okay but will it have character customization

At least to a Nu-XCOM level (most likely we will have more details about the gears and equipment the soldiers can carry).

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Will there be suppression or other morale related mechanics?
Can you do levels with hills and such with your current tech?

One thing that Jagged Alliance: Rage got relatively right was having some serious height differences on maps; even if it had occasional tree house.
Most of what that game got wrong was taking name Jagged Alliance.