Old school Isometric RPG hardship

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Looks good! What's the intended scope of the demo? Will it just be a tech demo to test the various systems or will it have a story/quest to play through?

A tech demo would be not much of a worth while offering at this point.

There is a story quest/playthrough which is the beginning of the adventure, but that serves to test. Although the systems are there the character is preset and little scope for learning or levelling up. Not aimed at the general public.

For a public demo the map has entry/exit points for expansion; a village to trade, a larger wilderness area, expanded quest, more items, better combat balance, character creation, leveling up.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

I decided to get it done this week, and I even added some remaining stuff I was not planning on because I don't want to revisit. I just want to focus on getting the dev demo out, and then the public demo. So apart from a few bugs its really a end to end game from start, character creation, to running through the main quest.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Dropped the first dev demo. I think what stands out to me most is that my vision for the combat was based around lots of abilities and enemies. However with the small fighters 2 on 1, with just a sword theres no depth to that experience at all. As this is quite critical to the story to be underspec for much of the game I have to focus on how to make this work on a basic level as well.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

The trailer sits at a whopping 15 views, at so little interest TBH is not worth forking out 100 bucks for a Steam page, just for the sake of a bit of vanity.

So I updated the thumbnail picture, which may help.

Making videos, and especially trailers is not my stronkpoint so I will continue to make some more epic scenes, to have these as openers.

I am probably missing some explosions too.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Burzum should make the soundtrack.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

A short questionnaire.

Note:
-The character sprite is 96x96 px at full stretch with weapon.
-Area dimensions are typically 2048x2048 px or 4096x4096 px.
-Zoom is not fixed and can be adjusted dynamically, 1 would be max, 3 min.
-I need to settle on a world scale at some point, hence this question.

Which zoom level would you play at?
1.

2.

3.

 

[zapotec]

3!

 

[Feyd Rautha]

2!

But I love 1, it's much more immersive. It's like when you play Fallout 1&2 you always use the original resolution and not some zoomed out crap.

 

[Lord of Riva]

If the camera can, as you said, be adjusted dynamically I would utilize 3 for cinematic shots, the zoom level would look great when crossing that bridge hanging over nothing.

Level 1 could be used in conversation and i would play in 2.

 

[Tavernking]

3 Would be cool with huge large scale battles, but if you're not planning on that then 2 in my opinion.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

3 Would be cool with huge large scale battles, but if you're not planning on that then 2 in my opinion.

One thing I want is large scale battles, however, I don't want 200 soldiers following me when I trying sneak around or pick open a chest. Things get a bit out of hand.

That I guess means I would have a company of men (controlled by some sargent) that would only be deployed in certain areas (wilderness areas) where larger scale battles take place, and also in some castle siege type areas (no plans for seige just large battles in walled areas). Something like the older mount and blade.

Other things to change are the pace of battles with lots of units, turns have to happen very rapidly and maybe even concurrently.

My hope is that this will add to making the game more playable outside the main quest line. I am not planning much/any proc gen but I think wilderness areas to make battles to level up and gather resources keeps the game going for longer.

Money can be spent to buy spells, and rare items to add more power...to kill more, exponentially, repeat. Until bored.

 

[Modron]

2.75

 

[DaViLLaN]

Just stumbled upon this.....and definitely interested.


I may be willing to help out with $ for the steam key when you get closer to release.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Should handle 1000 unit battles without frame drop, but I can't think of why I would do such a thing, even 100 is too much.


Unless there is some genius at designing turn based combat who disagrees and can think of how such a system might work -
20v20 is probably with speed set to 8x is about as large a battle as you would want I think.

 

[Lady Error]

Something between 2 and 3 would be best for default zoom, I think.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

 

[Tavernking]

How about if non-player-controlled units all take their turns at the same time? They all register their moves one after another very quickly, but then all move at the same time. That would allow for 100 unit battles easily.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

How about if non-player-controlled units all take their turns at the same time? They all register their moves one after another very quickly, but then all move at the same time. That would allow for 100 unit battles easily.

For anything over 8 I suppose it could be a toggle option.
I expect it can be done, I would need to rewrite to have a simulation batch-animate batch approach, rather than the current single simulate-animate.

*Now that I think on it. Could look a little weird as units are visually doing stuff sequentially but its animated in parallel. Probably would just be better to have an instant presentation end state.*

Maybe an skip animation button that just puts everything in its end state?

 

[Lady Error]

Could look a little weird as units are visually doing stuff sequentially but its animated in parallel.

You can make the same types of units start moving at slightly different times, so that it looks more natural than the exact same movement on a lot of units. Just a fraction of a second difference in animations would solve this.

 

[Twiglard]

Wouldn't it look better if the cutout was fully axis-aligned? Right now it's slightly off-axis.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Wouldn't it look better if the cutout was fully axis-aligned? Right now it's slightly off-axis.

Some of the assets I made are in a slightly different projection due to reference material. I have standardized it now so all new assets will work, but I made quite a few with the old projection and they will be removed over time.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I've never seen this thread before. Kudos to you for keeping your dream alive. Your progress and commitment are inspiring and admirable. I'm in agreement that the view should be halfway between #2 and #3.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

I've never seen this thread before. Kudos to you for keeping your dream alive. Your progress and commitment are inspiring and admirable. I'm in agreement that the view should be halfway between #2 and #3.

Thank you. TavernKing suggested that I make a Steam page. I ought to.

I plan to do some more work on it this year.

Over this winter my son and I designed a couple table top games. I would like to base the combat off those systems that we come up with.

 

[tomphonse]

Awesome work The_Sloth_Sleeps , really cool to read this thread from page 1 till now.
How was it to deal with pathing and draw order when making a true 2D isometric?
I hear that's pretty tough in comparison to 3D isometric where both these things can be tackled pretty intuitively without any "hacks".
I saw you also got some verticality going on which is again impressive since many 90's cRPGs don't even bother lol.