Game News Second Variety show off Shelter Trailer

[Section8]

Tags: Shelter

Here's something a bit out of left field - Second Variety Games are a couple of guys have been hard at work on a project that takes the key features of Fallout, the art content of Fallout: Tactics and neatly wraps them up into something new. To quote from their <a href="http://www.secondvarietygames.com">FAQ</a>:
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<blockquote>We are using key Fallout features (RPG-depth stats, turn-based combat, extensive dialogue, ambiguous outcomes, hints of emergent behavior, prevalence of text descriptions) as a loose starting template. Once the foundation is there, the game will shape into something that <b>could not have been done through a mod or tweaks to an existing engine.</b> We do not intend to copy Fallout, but we recognize the basics that we want to keep, before expanding on them.</blockquote>
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Sounds very much like our sort of game. Go and check out the <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=LMAYQMuKUF0">trailer</a> on YouTube, and see what you think!
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Thanks <b>shihonage</b>, for bringing it to our attention.
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[aweigh]

The writing left a lot to be desired but if the team actually delivers on the kind of c&c featured in the trailer it looks like it's gonna be a must-play CRPG. I've always loved it whenever I can double-cross factions in a game.

The music was hawt; anyone know where it's from?

 

[cardtrick]

Okay, that trailer was totally awesome. Awesome.

I don't really get this, though. I've never played FO:T -- is the art in that trailer actually taken directly from FO:T as it appears? If so, is it just a temporary placeholder they used for the trailer? From that FAQ, it sounds as though they're trying to do their own game with some key differences from Fallout, but the trailer looked more like an incredibly ambitious mod. Will this game be sold? Will it require FO:T? Can I play it now? Now!

 

[Section8]

I don't really get this, though. I've never played FO:T -- is the art in that trailer actually taken directly from FO:T as it appears? If so, is it just a temporary placeholder they used for the trailer? From that FAQ, it sounds as though they're trying to do their own game with some key differences from Fallout, but the trailer looked more like an incredibly ambitious mod. Will it require FO:T?

Yep, it's their own engine, using the art assets from Tactics. If they complete the game in this way, it will basically be an uber mod for Tactics - they can't ship their game with art assets under someone else's copyright, but anyone who already has a copy can play it.

Potentially, they could replace the Tactics assets with original work, but that would be a pretty intense undertaking. Tactics had a team of about 15 artists working full time for nearly 18 months. That's a lot of ground to cover.

Will this game be sold? Can I play it now? Now!

Hopefully shihonage will show up to answer some of the questions, otherwise, he's active over on NMA - check this thread.

 

[Kingston]

Yup, pretty cool. Love the cloud and rain overlay. The FIFE team could use this guy.

 

[cardtrick]

Thanks for the answers, Section8. I'll check that thread out.

Also, not to get labelled an audio whore, but I really liked the commander's voice over in the beginning of the trailer. Great stuff.

 

[shihonage]

Will this game be sold? Will it require FO:T? Can I play it now? Now!

As Section8 pointed out, we can't distribute it while including assets from Fallout Tactics (unless some sort of deal is made that we're not aware of in the present).

The game will likely come with an installer that will require you to have FO:T data files installed already, so we can avoid ... issues.

Our development isn't slow, and we hope to release *something* this year, most likely a demo similar in scope to Fallout Alpha back in 1996. Hope being the keyword

The project may look like "incredibly ambitious mod" now, but it is an entirely separate executable written from scratch in Visual C. The systems in place already differ from FO:T a great deal. These differences will eventually manifest themselves in more obvious ways in a future video.

The similarities to Fallout UI are entirely on purpose, as we'd rather use some ideas from an existing UI that worked pretty ok for this type of game, rather than invent something entirely on our own that may run into unpredictable issues later and have to be rebuilt.

 

[Arem]

The music was hawt; anyone know where it's from?

Battlestar Galactica OST

most of it anyway...

 

[bezimek]

Okay, that trailer was totally awesome. Awesome

True it gonna be great game/mod. Keep us posted Section8 and thanks for info !

 

[shihonage]

The music was hawt; anyone know where it's from?

Battlestar Galactica OST

most of it anyway...

BSG Season 2
The Last Samurai
The Truman Show
Sunshine

That about covers it.

 

[Calis]

Uh,

Am I the only guy here who gets somewhat suspicious when he hears "Sure, we can make our own badass uber-scriptable engine, storyline and dialogue and implement it all with deep, meaningful game design with choice & consequences, but we prefer using some other game's basic premise and artwork" ? Not to piss all over these guys, but I'm calling (well, mildly hinting at) bullshit, and am frankly quite disappointed that I am the first to do so.

Q: Have you thought about your stat/ability system? Will you adopt SPECIAL or create your own?
A: We found a 7-letter acronym for our system which mirrors SPECIAL exactly, but that doesn't mean that we will use it. That is yet to be determined.

Ooh, ooh, this one got re-linked recently!

Let me once again state my disappointment at being the only guy expressing some kind of scepticism at this point.
Haven't watched the trailer yet.

Edit: Alright, the trailer does look nifty.
Make a torrent of a proper-res video encode already.

 

[Claw]

Cool quest.

Love the Robocop quote.


Not happy about the Tactics assets though. Also, aren't you supposed to bring back the rouge raider for a trial? Or maybe you meant to write "burial"?

 

[shihonage]

Uh,
Am I the only guy here who gets somewhat suspicious when he hears "Sure, we can make our own badass uber-scriptable engine, storyline and dialogue and implement it all with deep, meaningful game design with choice & consequences, but we prefer using some other game's basic premise and artwork" ? Not to piss all over these guys, but I'm calling (well, mildly hinting at) bullshit, and am frankly quite disappointed that I am the first to do so.

I'm trying to understand what you're saying here. Can you elaborate please ?

 

[Calis]

I'm trying to understand what you're saying here. Can you elaborate please ?

Well, my post was largely born out of confusion. I looked at this thread & your FAQ before watching the trailer, and thought: "Wut? Make your own engine and quest design and then use interface and artwork from another game? Why the hell would you want to do that?!?". Admittedly, this question is answered implicitly in question 1 of the FAQ.

 

[shihonage]

Cool quest.

Love the Robocop quote.

Ah, someone caught it

Also, aren't you supposed to bring back the rouge raider for a trial? Or maybe you meant to write "burial"?

The goal of the trailer was to give an idea of how development of gameplay is progressing thus far, not to give an accurate impression of a finished product

 

[shihonage]

Edit: Alright, the trailer does look nifty.
Make a torrent of a proper-res video encode already.

This is a cleaner encode of the video.

 

[flabbyjack]

Uh,

Am I the only guy here who gets somewhat suspicious when he hears "Sure, we can make our own badass uber-scriptable engine, storyline and dialogue and implement it all with deep, meaningful game design with choice & consequences, but we prefer using some other game's basic premise and artwork" ? Not to piss all over these guys, but I'm calling (well, mildly hinting at) bullshit, and am frankly quite disappointed that I am the first to do so.

Let me once again state my disappointment at being the only guy expressing some kind of scepticism at this point.

Wow! Many Codexers would be like 'Oh I'm the most bitter badass here and your game is shite' and good ol' Calis doesn't disappoint. Here's my uninformed and conclusion-jumping opinion :

Shelter trailer looks great, like everything Fallout : Tactics needed to be. Dialogue trees, textual descriptions, quests, vaults, NPCs, they are all there!

The Fallout : Tactics engine is getting the attention it so richly deserves. After watching the Shelter trailer, I was suspicious that they borrowed some of the engine code(?) to get things started off on the right foot. And who would blame them because FO:T rocked so hard. Art, programming and design. If you get rid of the first one(graphics + sound) then a few RPG-lovin' programmers should be able do the last two. You shouldn't be so skeptical when hearing about borrowed art resources. Art is a very burdening part of making a game(I've heard of 3D-game indie developers saying this is their main problem to overcome).

 

[shihonage]

The Fallout : Tactics engine is getting the attention it so richly deserves. After watching the Shelter trailer, I was suspicious that they borrowed some of the engine code(?) to get things started off on the right foot. And who would blame them because FO:T rocked so hard. Art, programming and design. If you get rid of the first one(graphics + sound) then a few RPG-lovin' programmers should be able do the last two. You shouldn't be so skeptical when hearing about borrowed art resources. Art is a very burdening part of making a game(I've heard of 3D-game indie developers saying this is their main problem to overcome).

Fallout: Tactics engine is not getting the attention it may or may not deserve, because it is not being used in our project.

What we did is create a new engine from scratch. Development started in the year 2000 as a rather peculiar overhead view game borrowing modified sprites from Fallout and Warcraft 2, but it really picked up speed in 2005, using Reiner's Tilesets, until we dumped them too, migrated the project away from limitations of DirectDraw, and tuned the engine to work with FO:T assets.

 

[Shevek]

Its funny... when I heard Bethesda was doing FO3, I had a feeling deep in my gut that told me it was going to be very very bad (not mediocre...not soso...bad). Nothing has really dissuaded me from this (perhaps unfair) assumption since the announcement was first made. In truth, I have a worse feeling of FO3 than I did for the infamous FOBOS (which I know from reputation only). A big part of me wanted to be hopeful. I love FO and I would love a new FO game that doesnt completely suck but Betheda.... Now here are some indie developers working with old art assets and I get this gut feeling that just tells me this thing will be pretty darned solid if it sees the light of day. I dunno if its gonna be great or anything like that (it might be...who knows...). But it seems like a game that will be a labor of love more than anything and thats certainly a good sign.

I really liked the graphics in FOT and I always hoped that someone would end up doing some sort or mod or expansion or something with them. The game wasnt good at all but it visually looked how I wanted it to (its kinda how I feel about DXIW). Imagine my surprise when I see someone putting together a whole new game with those gfx... I sincerely wish you guys the best in this project and you can count on my dollars if it comes out alright.

I am not sure how much you folks expect to make though. I dunno how easy it is to get a copy of FOT or how many people still even have their copies (where did I put that game...). Not to mention, I dunno if you will be able to succesfully side step any legal battles. Have you guys talked to a laywer? Has he advised you that it is safe top proceed?

Anywho, best of luck.

 

[shihonage]

FO1,FO2 and FO:T together sell for about 13 bucks.

A lawsuit would have no legal basis, and there's precedent.

Standalone mods already sell - for instance, Garry's Mod, it certainly doesn't ship with Half-Life 2 assets included.

In addition, there's also precedent in form of executable apps like BartPE, which remix existing Windows installation content into something not originally intended by Microsoft, yet do not violate any copyrights in the process, because, again, they don't include Windows XP installation files with them.

I only see benefit for Micro Forte if we help bring FO:T back into circulation and into people's minds, whatever our ultimate agenda may be.

 

[Section8]

I only see benefit for Micro Forte if we help bring FO:T back into circulation and into people's minds, whatever our ultimate agenda may be.

Microforte wouldn't have much sway in it, and I'm pretty sure most of the guys who used to work there would wish you the best of luck. It's a question of Interplay, who may still retain some form of ownership of the assets, and Bethesda who own the intellectual property. There's nothing in the EULA to stop you guys from doing what you're doing, and like you say, there's precedent for commercial "mods" that require the use of (non-distributable) original game content.

I can't see any way you guys could get foxed, even if somebody wanted to.

 

[cardtrick]

If there is a lawsuit, it will come from Bethesda. And in that case it would be helped more by you guys using "A Post-Nuclear Roleplaying Game" and "vault" in the trailer than by you using FO:T assets, as such terms in the context of a CRPG are arguably part of the Fallout IP.

EDIT: Also, the interface could be justification for a "look and feel" claim, which of course has precedent.

 

[Claw]

The goal of the trailer was to give an idea of how development of gameplay is progressing thus far, not to give an accurate impression of a finished product

Well, you can't count on people taking that into consideration. On a related note, good luck on gametrailers.

Also, you want to be sure to fix this kind of inconsistency before you finish the game. I know many games whose code is full of "This needs fixing" comments.

 

[shihonage]

The interface could be justification for a "look and feel" claim, which of course has precedent.

Fallout 3 UI won't look like ours at all. We borrow the initial layout from Fallout 1, however given Bethesda's apparent wish to discard the classic interface, an action on their side would be unlikely, and it would certainly force us to realign it, but nothing fatal. Look at the kind of bottom-screen UI Age of Decadence is getting away with.

If there is a lawsuit, it will come from Bethesda. And in that case it would be helped more by you guys using "A Post-Nuclear Roleplaying Game" and "vault" in the trailer than by you using FO:T assets, as such terms in the context of a CRPG are arguably part of the Fallout IP.

Atomic wars aren't fictional, they've been a possible reality looming over the world since the 50's.. Neither are underground vaults, yet both have been used in many works of fiction before - not randomly, but because they're linked in context. Fallout doesn't set precedent in using such underground safety structures in the first place. Reality does.

We'd rather not get all paranoid about lawsuits geared from giant companies toward two guys making a 2D game in their spare time. If something happens, we'll find a way to deal with it.

 

[dagorkan]

Combat vid:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uypKnhkqlxY&feature=related