KickStarter Monomyth - A first person action RPG/dungeon crawler - now in Open Backer Beta

[baud]

There's a new patch, which might or might be incoming

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Nice. I've been waiting for one before delving further -- don't want to get sick of the beginning by the time the debug overlay makes it into the game.

 

[luj1]

There's a new patch, which might or might be incoming

Thief much?

 

[HoboForEternity]

just need moss and rope arrow

 

[RatTower]

I added the water arrow to give stealth focused players an equivalent for the "Douse" spell (which I added alongside "Ignite").
Ammunition was already in so adding a different type was really just a small thing (might add more later).
I also worked over consumables that can be thrown and added a firebomb:



Torch states are persistent as well now. I just need to add one more tiiiiiny little comfortability feature, then create a build, then playtest, then polish whatever catches my eye and can be done fast, then create another build and upload it.
I'll post the full patch notes once the stuff is online.

Nice. I've been waiting for one before delving further -- don't want to get sick of the beginning by the time the debug overlay makes it into the game.

Currently the debug output is limited to the player position.
Perhaps I'll add an option to dump the full playerstate later.

 

[Sacibengala]

where's my key to support this beauty?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Currently the debug output is limited to the player position.
Perhaps I'll add an option to dump the full playerstate later.

That's more than enough to set things in motion.

 

[RatTower]

Patch is up:



Full patch notes:

• Water fountains: You can now draw water or drink from fountains. If it's a magic fountain, drinking from it either gives you health or mana, but only for the first sip. Then its just regular water until the magic replenishes.
  
• Crystal Flasks: Drawing magic water only works with crystal flasks - otherwise the magic escapes and you get regular water.
  
• Treasure: Gold and silver, gems and jewelry. I added lots and lots of treasure items to add some loot variety. You won't be seeing all of it in the alpha level since some of it is too precious for that part of the game.
  
• Stamina Management: Low stamina attacks now cause minimum damage instead of none.
  
• Respawn System: Reworked the respawn system. There are no more "enemy nests" that have to be cleared before enemies stop respawning. Respawn is now handled individually. Spawn points can still change state and spit out a different set of NPCs though (basically secondary encounters to mix things up a bit).
  
• Mantling: Pulling yourself up is now automated. Mantling checks should now be more generous.
  
• Mantling tutorial: I added another room to explain mantling - and then another room and another cave, but those are kinda unrelated to mantling. They are just connected to that first room.
  
• Torches: Adjusted torch light radius as well as the light's position so it doesn't clip into objects anymore. You can now douse a torch by clicking its icon in the character menu.
  
• Candles: Added candles as a new light source. They work like torches but with a smaller radius. Candles in the environment can be blown out.
  
• Keys: Made named keys more visible
  
• Quickslots: Consumable items go straight to one of the four quickslots after picking them up.
  
• Equipment: Armor and weapons are now immediately equipped if their respective slot is free.
  
• Momentum movement: I reworked movement into something with actual velocity and momentum. It should feel more natural now - hopefully not too floaty.
  
• New Spells: There are two new spells - Douse & Ignite. As the names already suggest, these let you douse and ignite torches and candles. This might draw an enemy's attention to the light source.
  
• Water Arrows: A new type of arrow was added. These arrows let you douse torches and candles from far away.
  
• Firebombs: A grenade-like, new item. Goes boom and does a good amount of damage. Also, it's pretty loud - handle with care.
  
• Search: To find all that pretty new loot, you can train your "Search" skill. This will sometimes give you an audible (and in rare cases even a visible) hint when you are near a secret. Finding the secret is still up to you though.
  
• Dragon's leaf: A rare item that sharpens its user's senses. It makes time go by slower, but once it wears off you will be extra exhausted.
  
• Stone of Return: A rare gem that lets you travel to the last shrine you visited.
  
• Documents: Mouse capture should now work correctly in reading mode. Also there is now a UI element for closing documents.
  
• Item distribution: Treasure should be much better distributed now. No more prominently placed boxes with nothing in them.
  
• Arcane Connection: The range of Telekinesis, Douse and Ignite now scales by the Arcane Connection skill.
  
• Archery: The Archery skill now influences draw speed.
  
• First Aid: Training first aid lets you assess an enemy's health. I haven't decided yet how inaccurate the assessment should be on lower skill levels. For now its your typical "wounded", "near death" etc. On higher levels you get the health bar again. (Sidenote: The skill is still shown as "Inactive" because it's main component isn't in the alpha yet).
  
• Combat: Breaking through defense does no longer make the attacker stagger. Also stamina locking does no longer stack.
  
• Enemies: Archers have better aim now and are generally faster and more deadly. Dead enemies do no longer have any collision. AI now takes more chances with blocking weak attacks. Enemy alertness should now decrease a bit faster

Other stuff:

• The character menu now shows a debug output for the player's position.
  
• Clicking on the [+] next to the Feedback/Bug Report button reveals the forms' link, which can be copied & pasted (some players had problems opening the URL via the buttons)
  
• At the end of the alpha level you will be shown the percentage of secrets you found.
  
• Added a twitter link in the menu.
  
• You should now be able to quit the inventory with the ESC key.
  
• Doors should now persist their lock state correctly
  
• Temporarily lowered weight of iron broad sword
  
• Temporarily deactivated refraction on water surfaces
  
• Key objects in the alpha level's main puzzle should now be more visible
  
• Item combinations are now based on a respective table (not important for user experience)

New invites going out as we speak. If you registered for the alpha and haven't gotten yours yet you can drop me a PM on here.

Best wishes,
RatTower

 

[The Wall]

This is Ultima Underworld 3 that needs to reach surface of gaming world, people will fall in love with it during first play! Are you considering any form of Kickstarter or Early Access for this game, can't fathom what would you do if you just had few more helping hands, chest full of Kit-Kats & no other job but this game. Your persona reminds me of what would young Warren Spector be doing with today's technology. Pushing the limit of possible

 

[Ysaye]

This is Ultima Underworld 3 that needs to reach surface of gaming world, people will fall in love with it during first play! Are you considering any form of Kickstarter or Early Access for this game, can't fathom what would you do if you just had few more helping hands, chest full of Kit-Kats & no other job but this game. Your persona reminds me of what would young Warren Spector be doing with today's technology. Pushing the limit of possible

Just don't copy him in later life, unless you want to be slammed as a con-artist for being part of "Indi-starting" Monomyth 5.......

 

[Mortmal]

This is Ultima Underworld 3 that needs to reach surface of gaming world, people will fall in love with it during first play! Are you considering any form of Kickstarter or Early Access for this game, can't fathom what would you do if you just had few more helping hands, chest full of Kit-Kats & no other job but this game. Your persona reminds me of what would young Warren Spector be doing with today's technology. Pushing the limit of possible

Arx fatalis was ultima underworld 3 clearly, this one may be 4 who knows, i cant wait to try it even early access.It cant be worse than underworld ascendant right ? Fabulous optimistic button if you disagree...

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Finally, my reports won't waste the dev's time trying to track down each misplaced asset. Looking forward to playing it again next week.

 

[RatTower]

This is Ultima Underworld 3 that needs to reach surface of gaming world, people will fall in love with it during first play! Are you considering any form of Kickstarter or Early Access for this game, can't fathom what would you do if you just had few more helping hands, chest full of Kit-Kats & no other job but this game. Your persona reminds me of what would young Warren Spector be doing with today's technology. Pushing the limit of possible

I'm planning a short kickstarter campaign some time after the alpha (which is supposed to lead up to a public demo).
I would like to use the money for polishing and paying a couple of people to do some audio work.

 

[Siveon]

I just beat the demo, I was never fast at these sorts of things (despite the relatively small layout I still got a little lost, how very Ultima Underworld/King's Field!) but I had an amazing time. Sure the combat was a little fiddly at first, but it also felt dangerous, as well as skill-based. Each enemy had patterns and ways to approach them, each trap was reasonable and most of the shortcuts I found were also as such.

I filled out the form that kept asking for possible parry's/extra moves to come from weapon investment in skills. As well as warn that people are likely not going to like the limited XP pool/save options/XP death penalty My only addition to that looking bat RatTower would be to add some sort of sound effect to warn the player that the poison mushrooms will go off.

Would kickstart to get into the credits. Oh! And allow for resolution options, I was stuck at 1080 for some reason, no FOV or FPS options either.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

Received my key yesterday night. Installed it and played a bit today. I have seen no bugs (unless we count the fact that sometimes upper arm is invisible at the shoulder when you move and hit at the same time). Looks pretty solid.

 

[TigerKnee]

How do I sign up for the alpha?

 

[SophosTheWise]

Of course, as soon as I get the alpha invite, my computer breaks

 

[Ysaye]

Probably need to rename this game Baldursmyth to get enough attention; with there be brain sucking creatures with tentacle heads? You could do it so that if they lock onto you, you lose control of the camera and then lose control of the movement and attack keys....

On a serious but vague note, will there be any outdoor areas in this game?

 

[RatTower]

Probably need to rename this game Baldursmyth to get enough attention; with there be brain sucking creatures with tentacle heads? You could do it so that if they lock onto you, you lose control of the camera and then lose control of the movement and attack keys....

On a serious but vague note, will there be any outdoor areas in this game?

There are some outside sections. Under/Overworld are roughly in the same relation as in KF2 (4:1 I'd say).

 

[RatTower]

Just letting you know real quick:

Isolation or not, I keep developing. I was super-duper prepared and I wont leave the house for a while

Either way, it's a bit slow, cause I gotta manage a couple things next to home office, but I'm still planning and creating the next areas (of course I'm also compiling a list of all the feedback I got in the last alpha batch).
I'm working pretty much in line with the feature-driven level design process described earlier in the thread.
I'm also trying a couple of things to get the current area down visually. Mostly, I work on a room-by-room-basis, with a more general idea in the back of my head (that was still a little bit of a problem in the alpha area).



I believe that in the end this one will be much more like UU. I'm also creating a couple "challenge" rooms.
I'm getting some inspiration here from AD&Ds Book of Lairs, respectively the Book of Challenges. Those are some pretty cool books.

Of course these things are more gameplay than immersion oriented (cause lets face it - there is no real reason to install a swinging blade.... ever). I still try to fit them in logically somehow, but as I mentioned much (much) earlier in the thread: Realism will always take the backseat compared to fun, entertaining designs.

Anyway: This is just a quick update. The only real danger for me is having a heart attack from the impending euro crash. But that's a completely different story.
For now I eat a lot a bean stew and do a lot of level design.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Realism will always take the backseat compared to fun, entertaining designs

thank you

 

[Sacibengala]

Thanks for your hardwork. I love the King's Field and Ultima Underworld franchise, so this will be epic for me!

 

[RatTower]

Still at it.

Working on "safe" areas (mostly doing level design lately).


At the same time I'm also adding more "unsafe" areas.



Funding situation will probably change in the near future.
Will think of something.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

 

[V_K]

At the same time I'm also adding more "unsafe" areas.

Please tell me it's optional. Pretty, pretty please! Or at least that it could be circumvented with a levitation spell. I hate platforming sections in first-person games, passionately.