KickStarter Monomyth - A first person action RPG/dungeon crawler - now available on Early Access

[SophosTheWise]

You never played Mirror's Edge?
Platforming in FP isn't near as bad as people make it out to be.

I hate platforming in any form, it's stupid, twitchy and unrealistic. I just don't play side-scrollers, so they don't bother me.
But I would argue that it is indeed worse in FP because you can't see your own body.

Yeah, seeing your own body is much better, as evidenced by Ultima VIII

 

[V_K]

Well, in patched U8 it is indeed better, if utterly pointless.

 

[RatTower]

Interestingly enough the jumping system in U9 seemed to be "inspired" by the patched version of U8, since the Avatar always just jumped where the cursor was, as long as it was close enough. It was just as pointless once you figured it out.
I wonder whether that was actually a remnant of the isometric version of the game. It would make sense.

Either way, I never really had problems with first person platforming as long as the controls were tight enough.
And that means no body-physics simulation shenanigans that slow down the character or add unexpected momentum.
Unfortunately, Arx (and to lesser extent DMoMM) did exactly that, so I can understand why people didn't like the platforms in the dwarven section.
Additionally the jumping itself just catapulted you forwards. At least sometimes. Sometimes you just jumped in place.

I can assure you, that Monomyth does this very, very differently. There is some momentum but it's way more predictable.
Movement speed is not entirely binary, but it's much easier to estimate your trajectory when you press the jump button.

 

[V_K]

Nah, my issues with platforming go at leas as far back as Battlespire, if not Super Mario. But I'm not saying you should scrap all the platforming sections, even if my fervor might suggest otherwise. Just make some alternative non-actiony paths, as is the spirit of UUW/Arx anyway.

 

[Invictus]

Btw this might sound kind of funny but given the inspiration from Ultima and Arx... is there going to be cooking?

 

[V_K]

is there going to be cooking meth?

(of course there will, it's even in the title)

 

[RatTower]

Btw this might sound kind of funny but given the inspiration from Ultima and Arx... is there going to be cooking?

There is. Cooking is the only interaction that doesn't work with the regular item combination system at the moment.
Instead you have to physically place the ingredients at a fire (like in Arx). It confuses the hell out of people, so I might automate the placement in case of a regular combination.

 

[Siveon]

I admit cooking was an absolute pain, and nothing would likely be funnier than watch me panic as I try to flop fish into the little stove next to the homeless dude.

It felt real, but also please dear god have a cook button.

 

[RatTower]

I admit cooking was an absolute pain, and nothing would likely be funnier than watch me panic as I try to flop fish into the little stove next to the homeless dude.

It felt real, but also please dear god have a cook button.

That probably didn't work cause that little stove isn't really for cooking :D
You need an open fireplace or a chimney with a grill.

Either way, I added the automatic placement yesterday. So now you can just "combine" the ingredient with the fireplace and it is placed there automatically. No more fiddling around.

 

[Paper]

Nah, my issues with platforming go at leas as far back as Battlespire, if not Super Mario. But I'm not saying you should scrap all the platforming sections, even if my fervor might suggest otherwise. Just make some alternative non-actiony paths, as is the spirit of UUW/Arx anyway.

your issue with platforming goes back to you being an absolute scrub in denial, git gud

 

[V_K]

Awww.
I'm amazed how much butthurt you can cause by just saying you don't like a retarded mechanic. I should do that more.

 

[Butter]

Platforming in older immersive sims had a tendency to be really clunky. There's no reason it has to be that way in a newer one though.

 

[Paper]

all im saying is that if you're bad you should lose, maybe you should practice instead of getting all defensive like a loser

 

[RatTower]

Largely back on track. Gonna focus on fixing things for the next patch now.
(Mostly completing the skill system and perhaps character creation depending on how much time i have)

 

[RatTower]

A few screenshots

 

[Invictus]

It is so beautiful Rattower... looks like the Ultima Underworld reboot I always dreamt of

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

A few screenshots

Everything you've shown and communicated so far about Monomyth is fucking awesome and I'll almost certainly be buying the game regardless. However, one thing I'm really a bit worried about is environments or, to be more precise, variety of environments. With the whole game taking place underground (as I understand it), you're wasting a lot of opportunities of atmospheric and moody locations that I'd miss sorely, like moonlit lake, enchanted forest, sunrise etc... please try and think of a way to implement as many of those (not only the ones I mentioned, there are countless others) as possible. Because your game is about exporation, and every exotic location players encounter will strengthen their will to explore further.

 

[karnak]

A few screenshots

Everything you've shown and communicated so far about Monomyth is fucking awesome and I'll almost certainly be buying the game regardless. However, one thing I'm really a bit worried about is environments or, to be more precise, variety of environments. With the whole game taking place underground (as I understand it), you're wasting a lot of opportunities of atmospheric and moody locations that I'd miss sorely, like moonlit lake, enchanted forest, sunrise etc... please try and think of a way to implement as many of those (not only the ones I mentioned, there are countless others) as possible. Because your game is about exporation, and every exotic location players encounter will strengthen their will to explore further.

I could be wrong, but I think the game's supposed to be set underground (apologies to the Dev if I'm mistaken). So I don't see many chances of very green jungles or extremely yellow deserts appearing.
Still - even if Monomyth's supposed to be centered around very dark, deep and scary abysses - RatTower could pleasantly surprise us and create some underground biomes (like the jungle with dinosaurs on Verne's Journey to the Canter of the Earth, etc). But it's his creation, so he last word. And what a mighty fine creation it's looking up to be!

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Yeah, there are certainly a lot of possibilities to realise variety underground, I just hope there will be enough of it. Because so far all we've seen are undeground mines and variations. All very nice looking, but not enough to really spark that sense of wonder and exploration that video games are capable of and that this game deserves.

 

[Invictus]

Maybe adding a few different cave environments; a mossy cave with an underground river or a crumbling ancient mausoleum would fit perfectly
One of my favorite moments in Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy is when Gandalf talks about the Kingdom of Moira and they enter a wide open space with these massive pillars and a celling so high... great stuff too

 

[baud]

Though as a solo dev, rattower has limited means/development time, so I wouldn't be surprised if we only got underground dungeons

 

[Krilmar]

Pretty sure he said there will be outside areas:
https://twitter.com/rattower/status/944671413289484288?s=20

 

[RatTower]

I still gotta fiddle around with different lighting scenarios, but yes there will be a few outside environments.

In the meantime I optimized my workflow for simple dungeon environments a bit (in other words, I got sick of aligning the hundredth modular hallway piece - even with grid snapping).
No replacement for hands-on level design but basic areas can be done very quickly with this:



It's like drawing a PnP map on graph paper except with multiple layers/levels.

In fact, it works so well, this might be me in a couple months:
https://youtu.be/xDyXSCd2Lp0?t=607

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

RatTower Very impressive! Keep it up. This game is shaping to be the game of the decade. The demo was very nice and promising.

EDIT: I wrote demo, but I meant alpha/beta (can't remember which it was I had the chance to play).

 

[Bad Sector]

In the meantime I optimized my workflow for simple dungeon environments a bit (in other words, I got sick of aligning the hundredth modular hallway piece - even with grid snapping).

Is there any sort of 3D tile-based mapping addon for UE4? I think something like the map editor in Neverwinter Nights 1 but with the ability to stack the tilemaps and add additional freeform objects would be perfectly fine for pretty much any indoor or mostly indoor environment.