Prelude to Darkness - anyone tried it?

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: interesting conversation

Short synopsis: I started working at Acclaim when I was 14 as one of the lead testers for the original Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam (and several more forgettable ones -- Krusty's Funhouse, Spiderman and the Sinister Six, etc.) I worked there till I was an assistant producer at 19.

You know a guy named Ian "Mudboy" Miller? He used to work QA for Acclaim also.

 

[Mike]

lighting

Well, the main reason I ask is because I've showed the game to a lot of people, and the first thing I hear from a lot of them is, "Wow, those graphics look old." or something similar. I don't mind the graphics much at all, but some people.. Well.. It's hard to get them to try something when there's been so much emphasis on Graphics = Quality.

I'm in complete agreement here. I've shown the game to people who say 'hey man, it looks like an eighties game'.

But I don't think that has to do with the low poly counts. I mean, check out black and white's character animation... it's actually very low poly for the villagers.

I think it has to do more with the lighting and lack of fancy transparency effects. Most games, black and white included, overuse transparency. Plus they have very strong lighting, including believable day night cycles and shadowing.

In contrast, prelude looks very flat in terms of lighting. I think it reminds me of an RPG like ultima 5... the older tile based stuff. Even the Legacy of Kain and 3-5 year old games have nicer looking lighting effects.

But I hear ya. It's an older look, and it turns some people off.

 

[Mike]

portraits

How do people feel about the portraits? Are there any particular favorites or, for that matter, particularly disliked?

I quite like the color portraits. They look... well... very different from the usual RPG thing (the bioware oil paintings of pretty women and handsome men). I like seeing a bit of ugliness or diversity. (there are a couple that I dislike... the guy with teh hood shadowing most of his face for instance, but in general they work well).

 

[thathmew]

inventory bugs, textures, art, etc...

Yes, I am seeing the inventory bug and it's now quashed for the patch, it's bad and I'm not sure really how it got _back_ in, I have fixed it before. Blarg.
Also Saint, I did find the problem with flame finger etc not affecting characters, it was just not quite extending as far as it should, so often not reaching them, that bug too has been squashed.
One texturing and art:
Some of the textures are generally easily upp'd in quality such as items, monsters, and architectural textures and it takes no coding to improve them generally, just art-time. Other things, like terrain and clothing are tougher and in general it's a trade-off between memory and quality. Like I said I do want to up the textures in a lot of areas eventually. In general regarding art we wanted to have a really varied look which takes a lot more textures which eats into memory quickly and means they have to be smaller, particularly when each person has there own unique textue assembled in game from the clothing textures. That being said, even with the couple years since we started development memory has expanded to the point where we can probably up quality a lot without impacting things poorly. Anyone out there is welcome to play around with anything in the textures directory and see what happens in game; the textures just have to be square powers of 2 in size and listed in textures.txt with the proper dimensions, playing around with clothing and such is tougher, but folks are welcome to try. <grin> Don't expect any help or support in such edditting activities though. Heh.
We do have a pretty primitive lighting system which I'd definitely like to improve, but that's under the heading of enhancements which is going after bugs and such (obviously) <grin> And I'd like to add more special effects and beef up the ones we have for spells and such. Again, enhancements.
Finally I think the greatest visual problem is some animation issues and smoothness making the game look a little worse and less proffessional than it should. But it will be a while if ever before those get ironned out.
blah, blah, blah, back to the patch,
-mat

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: lighting

I'm in complete agreement here. I've shown the game to people who say 'hey man, it looks like an eighties game'.

Yeah, statements like that make me cringe. Hell, I even sent an email to avault about their Best Shareware of 2002, bringing up that they left out three really good shareware CRPGs. The guy's reply was, "graphics matter", which I thought was total bunk. Basically, all the shareware games they listed were arcade games and puzzle games which don't have near the graphics content of a CRPG, nor the development time and issues.

You'd think modelling an entire geographical area like Prelude did would count for something, but I guess not.

I think it has to do more with the lighting and lack of fancy transparency effects. Most games, black and white included, overuse transparency. Plus they have very strong lighting, including believable day night cycles and shadowing.

In contrast, prelude looks very flat in terms of lighting. I think it reminds me of an RPG like ultima 5... the older tile based stuff. Even the Legacy of Kain and 3-5 year old games have nicer looking lighting effects.

I think lighting would help this game quite a bit, actually. Even though the terrain is "flowing" outside of town, it's nearly impossible to tell that there are slopes and things. I think lighting the terrain based on the angle of the sun would bring out the terrain depth some.

Yes, I am seeing the inventory bug and it's now quashed for the patch, it's bad and I'm not sure really how it got _back_ in, I have fixed it before. Blarg.

Got a back up C file in with the test build?

Also Saint, I did find the problem with flame finger etc not affecting characters, it was just not quite extending as far as it should, so often not reaching them, that bug too has been squashed.

Sweet. I might have to resurrect my old party with the acolyte in it then. I kept the save game for a reason. :D

Some of the textures are generally easily upp'd in quality such as items, monsters, and architectural textures and it takes no coding to improve them generally, just art-time. Other things, like terrain and clothing are tougher and in general it's a trade-off between memory and quality. Like I said I do want to up the textures in a lot of areas eventually. In general regarding art we wanted to have a really varied look which takes a lot more textures which eats into memory quickly and means they have to be smaller, particularly when each person has there own unique textue assembled in game from the clothing textures.

How much graphics memory does the game use now? 16MB?

We do have a pretty primitive lighting system which I'd definitely like to improve, but that's under the heading of enhancements which is going after bugs and such (obviously) <grin> And I'd like to add more special effects and beef up the ones we have for spells and such. Again, enhancements.

Agreed. Bugs first, beauty second.

Finally I think the greatest visual problem is some animation issues and smoothness making the game look a little worse and less proffessional than it should. But it will be a while if ever before those get ironned out.
blah, blah, blah, back to the patch,

One thing that might help, and should be easy to impliment, is making the models expand themselves based on strength and endurance. Depending on how the models are done, a scalar multiplier might work for giving them a little more beef. Right now, most everyone in The Valley has that Calista Flockheart thing going for them.

 

[CP]

Re: interesting conversation

You know a guy named Ian "Mudboy" Miller? He used to work QA for Acclaim also.

Mudboy Miller. Hmmm... not that I can recall. I'm still good friends with my old boss Tyrone Miller, but if anyone called him Mudboy they'd thoroughly regret it.

Ian was probably in QA. I was lucky enough to get out of QA early on and didn't know many of the guys after I left. A lot of them have done really well for themselves now though. I went to E3 last year and one of the guys who used to work for me produced one of those big Rockstar games.... I forget which one.


CP

 

[CP]

General announcement

I'm going to start sending out a weekly newsletter called 'Glimpse into the Darkness'. It's a short newsletter that, among other things discusses our latest progress, gaming tips, and featured quests.

We are still going to draw someone into the game as an NPC. In order to be drawn into the game just subsribe to Glimpse into the Darkness on our homepage, http://www.zero-sum.com.

Thanks.


CP

 

[Mike]

Re: interesting conversation

Short synopsis: I started working at Acclaim when I was 14 as one of the lead testers for the original Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam (and several more forgettable ones -- Krusty's Funhouse, Spiderman and the Sinister Six, etc.) I worked there till I was an assistant producer at 19.

Phew... Hope I didn't bore anyone, but there's my long answer to his short question.

No way.... you are THE CP from the Krusty's Funhouse team?

Seriously, this is good. It's interesting to hear how a company started up. Why don't you go into more detail about finding your team and getting the development process started. For instance, how did you get everyone on the same page with regards to the style/plot of prelude?

 

[Mike]

Re: lighting

Yeah, statements like that make me cringe. Hell, I even sent an email to avault about their Best Shareware of 2002, bringing up that they left out three really good shareware CRPGs. The guy's reply was, "graphics matter", which I thought was total bunk. Basically, all the shareware games they listed were arcade games and puzzle games which don't have near the graphics content of a CRPG, nor the development time and issues.

That's a shame. There are so many great games with substandard graphics. I still play XCOM, for instance. And origin's Autoduel (carwars conversion game done in 80's) is still a favourite. Both of those titles have pretty cruddy graphics, but boy are they ever engrossing.

And don't forget Pong.... keeps me up for hours.

 

[thathmew]

One thing that might help, and should be easy to impliment, is making the models expand themselves based on strength and endurance. Depending on how the models are done, a scalar multiplier might work for giving them a little more beef. Right now, most everyone in The Valley has that Calista Flockheart thing going for them.

Actually I did at one point had a whole scaling thing implemented based on strength and endurance settings, but it caused some severe problems with weapons and helmet linkages unfortunately, so was scrapped for the nonce. Eventually we'd like to get more body types in beyond the ones we have now, but we'd probably up the polygon counts on the current ones first. simple scaling may be something I return to, though eventually.

On lighting, it is actually directional, but it's pretty subtle unless you're in an area with hefty slopes, and there's not a lot of them in Kellen, but if you look carefully at the buildings and roofs you will see the angle change slightly as the day progress. I can play with it more, it's a question of balancing ambient vs. directional. I can probably switch it to a editable in-game value and let my artist decide what he thinks best, not to say that I have no art talent...I did major in fine arts and worked as a set designer and created animated shorts and have been commissionsed to do paintings for restaurants, etc... on the background tip there was a while that I liked to joke that my theatre work supported my programming habit. <grin>

-mat

 

[Mike]

One thing that might help, and should be easy to impliment, is making the models expand themselves based on strength and endurance. Depending on how the models are done, a scalar multiplier might work for giving them a little more beef. Right now, most everyone in The Valley has that Calista Flockheart thing going for them.

True. But there is a crop failure going on in the valley!

I did major in fine arts and worked as a set designer and created animated shorts and have been commissionsed to do paintings for restaurants, etc... on the background tip there was a while that I liked to joke that my theatre work supported my programming habit. <grin>

The game definitely looks as though the lead designer had an art background, and the theatre stuff makes sense with the focus on dialogues. I think it's probably a big big plus to have that background in theatre.

But does anyone on the team have an engineering or math background? If not I think we know where you need to hire. :wink:

 

[HanoverF]

I just started playing a little bit and gotten some minor bug. I talked to Antius before confronting Jactus' murderer, even though Antius lived the journal says he died, and he is awfully healthy looking for a ghost, The townsfolk all believe the journal tho (I guess no one ever visits him) so its blocked off another quest.

Also opening the help topics for Compass and Possible Item Weight Increase (under pickpocket I think) I crash to desktop every time.

 

[thathmew]

help bugs

thanks for catching the journal and help bugs. I'll fix 'em for the next patch.

-mat

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: lighting

Ian was probably in QA. I was lucky enough to get out of QA early on and didn't know many of the guys after I left. A lot of them have done really well for themselves now though. I went to E3 last year and one of the guys who used to work for me produced one of those big Rockstar games.... I forget which one.

He worked QA, yeah. He's at EA now, IIRC.

That's a shame. There are so many great games with substandard graphics. I still play XCOM, for instance. And origin's Autoduel (carwars conversion game done in 80's) is still a favourite. Both of those titles have pretty cruddy graphics, but boy are they ever engrossing.

And don't forget Pong.... keeps me up for hours.

I never got in to Autoduel, but Roadwar 2000 was fantastic. I still play Archon as well.

 

[Chadeo]

I know this thread is a bit old, and I already posted more comments in the 1.3 patch thread, but I wanted to say a few more things.

First I would also love to hear more about how the team got together, or other details about how an indy game design group gets going.

Second, I don't suppose you would mind giving general numbers about how many downloads you are getting? Like are only a couple of dozen people playing, or is it up in the hundreds/thousands?

I love how open you guys are to feedback. I thought a few comments on here were a bit harsh (I might turn up the heat if this was something a "pro" group did with a 75 person team and probably millions of dollars, but for a small group this is just amazing) and yet you all seemed to take it in stride. Heck the fact that you admit that some things are not the way they should be, or could be better is very refreshing.

I am trying hard not to be just a gushy fanboy, but I just want to make sure that you guys know how awesome it is for me to see this kind of work from a small team.

I will make sure and keep notes on the quests as I go through the game. I will probably go through the game in good guy mode first just because I never expect the evil way to work. If you really can be evil though, I look forward to trying it out.

Keep up the great work guys, I really hope this works out for you

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I know this thread is a bit old, and I already posted more comments in the 1.3 patch thread, but I wanted to say a few more things.

Which can be found right here for ease of other people finding it.

I am trying hard not to be just a gushy fanboy, but I just want to make sure that you guys know how awesome it is for me to see this kind of work from a small team.

I wonder if larger teams aren't part of the problem. If you look at Spiderweb Software, that's all done by one guy, and he's an excellent designer. He turned out two CRPGs this year, both were fantastic.

Zero-Sum is also a small team, and what's been done with Prelude to Darkness is quite amazing.

Then you look at the professionals, it took five years to make NWN.. And the single player for it wasn't good at all. IWD2 took 13 months for a dungeon crawler. PoR2 took three years, but they had to switch development teams and publishers several times.

Of course, there are exceptions, like Morrowind, that have some decent things about them.

I will make sure and keep notes on the quests as I go through the game. I will probably go through the game in good guy mode first just because I never expect the evil way to work. If you really can be evil though, I look forward to trying it out.

I agree with this. I like the option there. I've actually started turning a bit evil in the game.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I found a typo in Dej's dialogue. When he talks about the problems in Crossing East, he'll say, "Unfortunately, there's people like you ..." when refering to how you're solving the problems in the town. Given the context, isn't it, "Fortunately, there's people like you..."?

Also, is it possible to gain weapon skills without initially having them? I'm trying to get one of my party members I recruited to develop dagger skills, but haven't had any luck with this so far. I know armor skill will eventually develop, but I was wondering if weapon skills did as well.

 

[thathmew]

It's still great to be getting feedback from you guys. We're been fairly slow on the number of downloads so far, but we have been focusing more on improvements and fixes based on feedback from here and our boards and with the 1.3 patch are starting to try and spread the word a bit more.

Also, is it possible to gain weapon skills without initially having them? I'm trying to get one of my party members I recruited to develop dagger skills, but haven't had any luck with this so far.

Developping from scratch is a lot harder that starting with a skill, but it is possible (and I just confirmed it is working in 1.3 and isn't broken :wink: ), it takes somewhere around 20 uses depending on intelligence for each point of improvement below ten, it's actually faster from 10-20 and then starts to slow down again. There are trainers around the valley who can teach people new skills in some cases, but trainers are fairly rare and frequently quest related, although some just take cash. The quickest way to improve is generally to either use the skill until you get that first point or get trained and then spend the xp to get it to ten if you can.

On being "evil:" We did our best to provide the player with multiple solutions to many of the quests and when it made sense "evil" ones, although we were more focused on trying to create realistic situations and solutions than provide specifically good and evil paths. You don't by any means have to be a goody-two-shoes to "beat" Prelude There's some oportunities for _very_ evil acts occassionaly, and they usually have pretty significant consequences. There is a reputation system going on in the background and having a good or bad reputation affects some quests significantly and opens up ones that don't otherwise exist in some cases. Because of certain plot developments later in the game you will kind of be forced onto a slightly more "good" path or maybe striving for a "good" result is a better way of saying it, but you're pretty free to be fairly ruthless to get there. Kind of like in Fallout, in the end the goal is to defeat the evil of the master, and one could consider that a "good" goal, but the path taken to get there...
blah, blah, blah,
cheers,
-mat

 

[Chadeo]

I have been playing around with combat while I wait for my reg code.

You were not kidding about daggers going up fast. I have a 19 speed dagger wielder, and after about 10 or so encounters (rest, fight, repeat) he has a skill of 30. I have him dual wield daggers, and he gets 3 strong attacks a round. Some battles his dagger skill actually would go up twice.

Another party member uses a pike, and while it is slow, it sure does hurt when it hits. Still the skill has only gone up like 3 points in all those fights so speed really does play a big role in advancing your skills.

I just wanted to pop in and give my experience with a high dex high speed dagger wielder. So far it seems to work very well.

The fact that you can raise your skills both with exp and with use is fun. It almost seems like a waste to spend exp on combat skills though, and never spend it on dagger =)

Oh, and the game will lock up on me now and then. It seems to happen at fairly random times, but most often when I am switching between a window and the main screen. Like closing the help window, or closing a message window, stuff like that. I just upped the auto-save to 1 min and reload when it happens.