Vapourware Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen - Chaos Chronicles reborn and dead again

[Darth Roxor]

top down something something rpg

sources of inspiration:

wizardry, roa, bard's tale

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.realms-beyond.com/sound-design-2/

Sound Design #2: Attentive music matters
January 3, 2018

On the technical side, modern computer game development, especially in the field of roleplaying games, it appears, is very heavily focused on the visual presentation. Eye candy sells, there can be no doubt. Many will argue that music and the sound design are somehow important, too, but for the most part, it is the graphics that draw players in.

Back in the early days of computer games, computer RPGs never really considered graphics as their key focus. A large part of the reason was that hardware limitations kept things in check and so, game designers turned to music and sound effects to create the proper atmosphere. Nowadays, we have come to think that a bunch of hyperrealistic graphics with some epic music underneath make for great atmosphere, but you really couldn’t be more wrong.

Music offers very subliminal ways to manipulate the player’s mood. Especially in computer games it can affect the mood in so many different ways. And that’s the reason why we care not only about adequate graphics but also about precisely-tailored music (and sound effects, as you already know). To achieve this goal, we pay a lot of attention to the creation of the music for Realms Beyond.

We are currently working on the different combat themes. To achieve a dense atmosphere, we decided that we needed not only one but several separate themes. The driving force behind this decision was that e felt it was important to underscore different types of combat situations with different types of music. A small skirmish has a very different feel than an epic battle and the music needs to reflect that appropriately.

But it goes beyond that. Skeletons, for example, are very different from human knights. Not only do they look different or fight differently, no, they also have to have a different sound design. It is our job to create different types of atmospheres for different kinds of encounters because after meeting the skeletons, an encounter with goblins or a diabolic demon should also have a different sonic quality.

By the time it is all said and done, every type of enemy will have it’s own rhythm, harmony or motif and, perhaps, even it’s own signature instrumentation. This will be in addition to the original Realms Beyond instrument setup, consisting of a string sextet, some large o-Daiko Drums and several other instruments that have very unique sound qualities to fit in with the dark and gloomy mood of our game.

But I get it, talk is cheap. You want to hear something. Alright. Let’s take a look at the Undead. If you get tangled up in combat with these guys, aside from the standard string sextet, you will also hear a scary-sounding Indian dilruba, along with the sounds of anklungs, which always remind me of rattling bones.

To illustrate this, here are three sound samples for you to listen to. Each one represents a different type of enemy. But please keep in mind, we have slightly reduced the quality of these MP3s to conserve bandwidth here on the web. In the final game, you will be able to enjoy music and sound effects in much higher quality, of course. I should also point out that music is still a work in progress and that what you hear is not a final piece of the game.





Music by Bastian Kieslinger.

 

[Infinitron]

It's been posted now.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I like your ideas about music, but I don't particularly like your music. Shame.

 

[Sinatar]

Some day a western developer is going to release an RPG with music that isn't bland generic orchestral pap.

I'm not into JRPG's much, but at least they put some creativity into their tunes.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Agree with Sinatar and Bester!
However, I do like the idea they have, with different combat themes for different situations.

I'd also like to add that only the Crusader Combat sounds like, well, a combat theme.

Also, try to make music a bit more catchy! I think that's always a good hint for composers.

 

[Mustawd]

If I win the powerball I will give this project 1 million dollars. Dream game ftw (TB, 3.5 based, full party creation isometric, MODULE CREATION!!!!). Ok last post till I get GD access. Bai.

 

[Infinitron]

Another blobber inspiration for this non-blobber: https://www.realms-beyond.com/source-inspiration-bards-tale/

Source of Inspiration #4: The Bard’s Tale
January 17, 2018

When The Bard’s Tale by Michael Cranford was first released, it foreshadowed a feature that would become standard in games today—an intro. In the case of The Bard’s Tale, it was an animated title screen that was reminiscent of a cartoon, showing a bard playing a song.

Naturally, the lyrics of the song appeared as text only on the screen but this was pretty impressive stuff in 1987 on the C64! The bard would stop playing to take a sip from his mug once in a while. One of the listeners sitting next to him would imagine the adventurous scenes portrayed in his odes, appearing and disappearing in graphics bubbles above his head.

One of the interesting and often overlooked things about The Bard’s Tale is that its character system was actually pretty similar to that of D&D. So in many ways, it probably served as an inspiration for the SSI Gold Box games, considering that the games play similarly.

The innovation that Pool of Radiance added, though, was the combat screen. The Bard’s Tale still had its combat still fought out in a text form, via a list of the monsters versus a list of your party members. The individual combat events as characters and monsters took stabs at each other were displayed as a log-style scrolling text in a window on the screen. There was no moving around, no graphics—just an exchange text blows.



The Bard’s Tale also had no map screen, so, like in the Wizardry games, you had to make your own maps if you didn’t want to get lost—or persuade someone else at school to let you copy his. A funny note: More than 30 years later, Brian Fargo’s inXile entertainment is creating the fourth part of The Bard’s Tale and the question of automapping pops up again.

What made the game stand out in our memory was the actual bard class in the game—the bard’s songs were essential to solving some of the puzzles in the game. And playing any song would actually play a little tune in the game. Most of the songs represented what we call buffs today, such as the one song that would reduce the armor class, and so forth. A small icon appeared next to the image of the person or the affected enemy as an indicator of the respective effect. It was pretty cool.

In addition to these songs, The Bard’s Tale also had an intriguing magic system that actually involved the player directly. Unlike in modern games where you simply select a spell without any actual intellectual input from the player, in The Bard’s Tale you had to enter a four-letter code combination to cast a spell. This meant you had to memorize the actual spell codes, such as D-E-S-T for the Death Strike. This was cool. It required the player to think and to get involved. Imagine playing easy-peasy Skyrim and you’d actually have to memorize and enter the shouts… I am telling you, once you had all the spells in the game safely stowed in your brain, you actually began to feel like a real wizard! Expecto Patronum! Take that, Harry Potter!

So which part of all of this served as an inspiration for us? We wanted to make sure Realms Beyond would contain a character class or a particular skill set that is actually necessary to solve a puzzle… or two… or even more. Not only do we think it is a nice game feature, but it will also help to have a wider spread of characters in your party, and ensure that players put together their character parties not entirely with combat in mind.

We sometimes forget, but The Bard’s Tale contained quite a few interesting puzzles that you had to figure out in order to advance. It wasn’t your typical run-of-the-mill stuff all the time. Any kind of information you uncovered could be important. As a result, players were also heavy note-takers, and not a word was lost on the player.

The game featured five dungeons and they sort of built upon each other. In order to succeed and advance through a dungeon, you had to have finished the previous one because you needed information or a specific item that was found there. It also contained something that has been entirely eradicated from modern games—dead ends. That’s right. The game featured areas were you simply had to accept the fact that you would not be able to defeat this nasty Soul Sucker and that you’d better back off. And in case you didn’t back up your character disc, you’d better remember not to mess with him the next time you came around. Unfortunately for the Soul Sucker, however, backtracking is also a key feature in the game, and getting back to that SOB was a really satisfying memory…

 

[AbounI]

an interesting question has been raised on their forum : mapping as a skill
https://www.realms-beyond.com/forum/index.php?topic=72.msg176#new

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.realms-beyond.com/designing-open-world-roleplaying/

World Building #2: Where do you start designing an open world roleplaying game?
January 25, 2018

Up to this point, most of our blog posts have covered sources of influence and inspiration and some general game mechanics. What we have not covered at all so far, is the world of Realms Beyond. That’s where I come in…

Some of you may know me as “Dragon” in our forums and I am the Creative Director of Realms Beyond, which means, I am overseeing the creation of the content that you will eventually play in the game.

I do have a background in game design and I’ve worked on numerous roleplaying games before, in a variety of capacities, and when I joined the Ceres Team some time ago, the first order of business was the general world design.

While we’re using assets and code from the never-released Chaos Chronicles project, we decided early on to create the actual content for Realms Beyond from scratch. But where do you start designing an open world roleplaying game?

Aside from re-familiarizing myself with the D&D rules of version 3.5 and looking through all the already-created assets and materials, I had a completely clean slate. Peter (aka HobGoblin42), our project director and lead programmer, had only one guideline for me: create a believable world, rich in detail, that appeals to fans of classic fantasy games and literature.

For a game designer and writer, that is a lot of leeway—much more than you will usually find. So I sat down and brainstormed a number of ideas. While being an open world, the game would ultimately have to have some kind of main storyline, regardless of the player’s participation in it. Some overarching events have to happen in the world to keep the whole thing moving. With that in mind, I fleshed out a first basic storyline.

This may sound pretty straight-forward, but in reality, it means that I took a ton of notes, wrote a lot of text and revised it again and again to accommodate new ideas and changes. Just when I thought I had it all fitting together nicely, another idea popped into my head, making me rethink my premise, my second act or my solution. It happened a number of times, which is normal for the way I work, until I got to the point where I felt I had exhausted my “What if?” pool.

With plot points, locations, characters and events listed in bullet points, I then went to work to flesh it out in writing and I created a document that was a couple of thousand words long, essentially running through the plot, explaining what happens in chronological order and filling in the necessary background to follow and understand the developments, all the way to the end.



This narrative is not as clean as you might expect because after virtually every other paragraph I had to intersperse Editor’s Notes to explain what was going on, why things happened, why characters behaved a certain way, why a turn of events was relevant, and so on. But in the end, it painted the picture of a story that unfolds in the world we are trying to build. Events of such proportions that they affect everyone in the world, including the player.

We bounced the plot outline around a few times to iron out some wrinkles and to add in some additional comments and ideas that surfaced while we were discussing the narrative. A few weeks later, we had an outline that we both liked and felt comfortable enough with to use it as the basic premise for Realms Beyond. It became our Foundation.

And then it was time to actually design the world…

World building is such a huge topic that I won’t be able to cover it in any kind of detail in one post alone, so it will become a fixture in our blog updates, as I will cover some of the countless aspects that go into this subject. Hopefully, you’ll find it enjoyable, to see how a world is conceived and what the glue is that will hold it all together.



Even though I have been working on a great many roleplaying games, most of those games either relied on an existing, typically licensed, universe, or the scope of the game was such that actual world building was not required. Therefore, large-scale world building has never been anything I really had to do before. That’s what made it enticing. That’s what made it intimidating. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it is that you can only truly learn anything by doing and that you can learn anything if you take it one step at a time.

The first thing that was necessary to begin any kind of world design was to determine what kind of game we wanted to make. What kind of feel did we want? It’s the difference between, say, “The Lord of the Rings” and “Dragon Age,” just to give you two very different flairs of fantasy.

It also required us to answer the question of what kind of cultures we wanted in the game. Once again, it’s the difference between “The Lord of the Rings” and, say, “Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant.”

What kind of geography did we want in the game? A general nordic feel like “Skyrim,” for example, or something more traditional like, you guessed it, “The Lord of the Rings?”



After some discussion, we had settled on a few parameters that would serve me as a guideline to create the game world. Some of our decisions were actually dictated by the art assets we had already in place, so we knew that for the most part, we wanted a traditional fantasy world with a pseudo-medieval setting that is not too exotic or radical—meaning no fancy machines or the like.

The entire team and I shared one core belief, that in order to make a fantasy world believable, it helps to make it relatable. To make it relatable, use something familiar. Ergo, we decided to loosely base the cultures in our game world on actual historic cultures. Naturally, making a fantasy game means we treat the term “loosely” really loosely and won’t let ourselves get bogged down by actual history.

In the end, we decided on a series of cultures, like a Nordic people, one that builds upon Central Europe, another one reminiscent of the Mediterranean, and then Elven people and dwarves, of course. But we also included cultures like the Maya and ancient Mesopotamia to our list. Not a bad start, especially because all of this can be expanded as the world grows. These generalized peoples also allow me to add granularity as I need it. Not all Central European cultures are the same either, after all. There are the French, the Germans, the British, the Irish… you get the idea.

As I mentioned before, it is important to us to make a game that is relatable, something that has a certain amount of familiarity without feeling like we’re trying to simulate medieval world history, for example. With these cultures in place, it is possible for me to begin adding colorful facets and nuances to them, which means… notes, notes, notes!

For years I’ve kept a general Writer’s Journal. It is a notebook in which I jot down everything that comes to my mind. Ideas, names, events, thoughts, anything really, that could be useful at some point.



Why would I do this? Because creativity is a fickle mistress. Inspiration typically strikes when you least expect it and good ideas are just as quickly forgotten. I hate it when I forget ideas and can only remember that it was something really, really cool! The Writer’s Journal prevents that and for Realms Beyond, I started a separate Writer’s Journal, specifically for things relating to the game. In it, I record the same things mentioned earlier, but I also collect quest ideas, ideas for cool monsters and other things that are relating to the game.

In case you are wondering, no, I do not collect these things in a physical book. I am using a software package called Scrivener which has been my best friend as a writer for many years. It is a writing software that is perfectly tailored to my writing and research needs because it allows me to organize things in ways that suit me best. I can throw in media files like images or soundbites, I can write, create folders and tree structures to organize notes, I can create a cork wall and pin note cards to it… it is truly the most perfect tool imaginable for the task.

Well, that just about wraps it up for today. Join me again next time when I’ll tell you more about the process of putting together a brand new world.

 

[AbounI]

No level scaling confirmed, not a thing we didn't expect though

No, encounters don't adapt to the player party. If you enter a region with roaming high level monster, you better avoid them.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.realms-beyond.com/source-inspiration-5/

Source of Inspiration #5: Phantasie
February 1, 2018

By now we can safely assume that you have heard about roleplaying games, but have you ever heard of a Roleplaying Odyssey? Let me introduce you to Phantasie, a game where the front of the box promised such an experience. And for the most part, we can acknowledge that it pretty much reflects the memory we have of the game.

Looking back, Phantasie might have been a pure Ultima derivative. It featured a large world for you to explore on foot as you searched for the next town or dungeon. However, it did not feature 3D dungeons. Instead, you would kind of unveil the passages of each dungeon on some kind of map screen. The advantage was that you didn’t need to create a pen & paper yourself! Add a combat screen to the mix and you had what some of us considered to be the best RPG of 1985 for the Commodore C64. Better even than Ultima IV because it allowed players to create an entire party made up of different classes and races.

Phantasie also included a remarkable hidden feature. If you allowed the game to pick a character’s race at random, it would give you access to additional race that were not accessible otherwise. This way, suddenly, even Trolls and Pixies could be part of your party, aside from the standard choices of Human, Dwarf, Halfling, Elf or Gnome. All in all, Phantasie wasn’t the quest of the Avatar and his friends. This was a game that offered a large number of combinations when it came to the creation of characters!

Aside from the character system and party creation, the fondest memories of Phantasiespring from its exploration elements. Practically every step you took while you were exploring the world could trigger some kind of random encounter. If you were lucky, you would even surprise sleeping monsters and have the advantage! The world exploration made Phantasie feel open and almost limitless in its possibility to adventure and explore.

The main objective of the game was to defeat the evil sorcerer Nikademus who lead the evil Black Knights that terrorized all the lands. But despite its story, the game never felt linear. It never guided or shackled you to your path to victory. Once you started strolling around, it was easy to completely forget about your main objective—and it happened quite frequently.

And then, there was the coolest and unique feature of all the RPGs of the era. Phantasieallowed you to print out the scrolls you found on your journeys. It was not just a gimmick, as you might first suspect. In fact, it was almost crucial, because these scrolls held valuable information about the game world and the print-outs were a great way to organize and archive all that information. Not to mention the awesome side-effect that you could study these scrolls under a blanket with a flashlight long after your parents had sent you to bed, and plot out your adventure for the coming day. Think about that the next time you hastily skip book pages in modern RPGs.

In a number of ways, Phantasie might, perhaps, be one of the most influential games for Realms Beyond. The foremost thing we want to achieve with our game is to capture that sense of wonder, that spirit of seemingly endless exploration. Finding books, discovering scrolls and tomes that may hint at a large treasure hidden deep inside a dangerous dungeon, revealing the age-old history of the location you are exploring and giving up more of its mysteries.

If we do our job right, you will be turning over every rock and visit every corner of the world of Realms Beyond, until you have uncovered its last secrets!

 

[Reapa]

https://www.realms-beyond.com/designing-open-world-roleplaying/

they don't seem to have anything to say about reactivity and c&c.
unless i missed it somehow.

 

[Dorateen]

they don't seem to have anything to say about reactivity and c&c.
unless i missed it somehow.

There will be plenty of gameplay Choice and Consequences. This is a build-your-own party, open world/go wherever you want adventure. If there is narrative choice and consequences, it will be a lower priority and subordinate to player agency and emergent story crafting.

Reactivity has always been a part of classic computer role-playing games, and I expect no less from Realms Beyond, drawing influence from titles like Pool of Radiance and Wizardry.

 

[Infinitron]

One of the Codex's favorite topics: https://www.realms-beyond.com/combat-system-hex-square/

Combat System #2: Hexes vs. Squares
February 8, 2018

As you may recall, we touched upon this particular subject some time ago very briefly when we talked about our die rolling experiments with D&D 4th Edition: Six sides are better than four. Let’s elaborate.

This particular subject led to some of the most heated discussions among ourselves while we designed the combat system for Realms Beyond. There are times in the development cycle of a game that can lead to actual combat. Only in those cases, it typically gets resolved with arguments and words rather than the use of force and weapons.

Players of traditional D&D campaigns and those of the SSI Goldbox Games used to prefer dungeons and battlefields that were based on a square grid. Wargames and virtually every turn-based strategy game, on the other hand, favor hexagons. Modern D&D computer games, such as the Temple Of Elemental Evil, often abandoned a (visible) grid altogether, leaving game designers with three different approaches, each with its own crucial implications in regards to combat, level design, and spell handling.

After many lengthy exchanges discussing various arguments, in the end, we decided to settle upon a hexagonal grid. Perhaps the strongest argument for hexes was that they add more depth to combat. As I said before, six sides are just better than four. But there’s more to it. Here are three additional reasons that serve as viable arguments for hexes and against squares (or no grid at all).

Reason One: Movement Cost

Movement costs are more obvious. Unlike squares, where diagonal movement is actually longer and diagonal squares touch each other only in a single point, hex positions always share entire sides and crossing from one field into an adjacent one is always the same distance. In square grids, the game somehow has to account for the longer diagonal distance. Typically this is done by ignoring it and therefore providing a built-in exploit, as it becomes cheaper to move diagonally, instead of making the two straight moves that would otherwise be necessary to reach the same field. If you ever played D&D 4th Edition, which will allow you to move diagonally at the cost of one square, you will be well aware of the irresistible urge to exploit that apparent “extra ground” you can cover by moving diagonally.

Within a hex grid, you simply do not have that problem. Every move covers the same distance and can, therefore, safely have the same cost. We felt that in a computer game where you want to simply point at your target field and have the character move there by itself, it was not only much easier to calculate the path across a hex grid, but it was also more balanced because no movement points were squandered as a result of some awkward navigation.

Reason Two: Correct Facing
With hex fields, you can make sure characters are always properly facing in the direction of their movement. With squares, you either have to start implying that the field your standing on is actually an octagon. You have eight directions that your character could face in, or you make facing irrelevant altogether, the way D&D 4th Edition did, where it is only relevant that two enemies cover opposing squares adjacent to one another. In Realms Beyond, we wanted facing to be relevant. We have actions like backstabbing where it is important because trying to get into another character’s back or trying to make sure the back of your own character is covered, adds immensely more depth to the decisions that need to be made during combat.



Reason Three: Organic Feel
Outside of combat, we have a world that is supposed to look natural or even organic. To achieve this as best as possible, we do not limit our level designers to build their levels based on a fixed grid, especially as the grid is truly only relevant during combat and combat makes up only one part of the game as a whole. Most areas of a level may never even have the grid enabled because no combat encounter will ever occur there. When we ran a number of tests, it also turned out that hex grids were much better suited to represent natural-looking scenes. By comparison, if we were to use square grids, we would have to readjust entire scenes to make sure they align with the square grid. While this is fine for buildings with straight walls and rectangular corners, for a path through the woods with rocks splattered across and fallen trees partially covering the ground, it would have had a severe visual impact.

Having considered all these factors, the decision turned into a no-brainer, really, so why the heated discussions I mentioned before? There’s a very simple reason for that. For pen & paper games, it’s a whole lot easier to prepare a map on a square grid, at least unless you have some experience working with hexes. Since we prototyped much of our combat system on paper, some of us were simply reluctant to give up the squares at first. Force of habit, I suppose. We had two choices. We decided to settle the argument with a drinking contest and while we were at it, we prototyped a combat scene with a hex grid. It worked out very well. So much so, in fact, that everyone was happy (and felt sick like a dog).

 

[Lagi]

One of the Codex's favorite topics: https://www.realms-beyond.com/combat-system-hex-square/

...


...

how does the huge creature move forward 1 hex?

the front is first 2 hex wide, next step 1 hex narrow?

 

[Mustawd]

Would like to see some discussion on the module creation tools. I'm legit at full chub right now though. Keep it up.










Get it? Cuz of my penis?

No? Meh, fuck you. I'm hilarious.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Jack Dandy]

All is looking great and exciting.
But I don't think I got the answer to this one yet, tho-

How are our boys funding this?

I will not pipe down! I must have my answer!

 

[JarlFrank]

they don't seem to have anything to say about reactivity and c&c.
unless i missed it somehow.

There will be plenty of gameplay Choice and Consequences. This is a build-your-own party, open world/go wherever you want adventure. If there is narrative choice and consequences, it will be a lower priority and subordinate to player agency and emergent story crafting.

Reactivity has always been a part of classic computer role-playing games, and I expect no less from Realms Beyond, drawing influence from titles like Pool of Radiance and Wizardry.

There will also be narrative choice and consequence.

 

[JarlFrank]

All is looking great and exciting.
But I don't think I got the answer to this one yet, tho-

How are our boys funding this?

I will not pipe down! I must have my answer!

We're still looking for funding options, a tax collection in Codexia for developing the perfect RPG included.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Consider my shmeckels yours

 

[Dorateen]

There will also be narrative choice and consequence.

That's good to hear.

As far as I'm concerned, games like Wizardry 7 and Might & Magic III also had narrative choice and consequences.

But whenever I read the term on the Codex, it naturally raises red flags for me signalling either a pre-defined protagonist, story dependent companions joining that character, or linear gameplay.

Realms Beyond has none of these, as I understand it, so I'm looking forward to this one.

 

[Sacred82]

k

>2018

>going nuts over the promise of a game from people who haven't delivered

 

[ERYFKRAD]

they don't seem to have anything to say about reactivity and c&c.
unless i missed it somehow.

There will be plenty of gameplay Choice and Consequences. This is a build-your-own party, open world/go wherever you want adventure. If there is narrative choice and consequences, it will be a lower priority and subordinate to player agency and emergent story crafting.

Reactivity has always been a part of classic computer role-playing games, and I expect no less from Realms Beyond, drawing influence from titles like Pool of Radiance and Wizardry.

There will also be narrative choice and consequence.

Portraits, 3d or 2d?