KickStarter Serpent in the Staglands Pre-Release Thread

[Cadmus]

I backed it. Fifteen bucks is roughly equal to five cups of coffee, so if it lasts longer than those five cups of coffee and doesn't put me to sleep, then I'll consider it money well spent.

Jesus.. I can get about hmm 40 coffees for that from a vending machine which is the only coffee I'll buy. IS THE GAME BETTER THAN 40 CUPS OF COFFEE?

The art and art direction look good and focused, I'm confused how it is even possible :d

 

[Akratus]

Jesus.. I can get about hmm 40 coffees for that from a vending machine which is the only coffee I'll buy.

 

[agris]

Update #6 is live

Leather armor poll, giant wolves, and what’s coming next

Thanks everyone, we’re on our way to the first expansion stretch goal! We’ve been hard at work marketing and working on the game and wanted to update you on a few things:

We put up these videos of our new pathfinding and movement speed on the main page (we’re still tweaking it, but it shows a great deal of improvement from the previous videos and plays very smoothly). There are also some additional combat notifications when hovering above enemies. You’ll see more of that in the combat video, along with some new animations. We’re in the middle of finalizing some more combat skills we’d like to show off before that, and also get in a creature! We’re finishing up with implementing non-humanoids, with completely different skillsets, and are excited to show them in action. Up to the sword first: giant wolves!

woof!
Also, polls! In our timeline we’re in the stage of finishing art assets and skill/spell code implementation. You’ve seen a very basic armor set we’re using for some commoners, and we have 2 main types of armor for each armor grade (so there are 2 heavy plate mails, 2 chains, 2 leather, etc.) your characters can equip. This adds a nice amount of variation, but with customized colors for specific armors and cloak lining/interior/exterior colors they can really distinguish themselves. We’ll be showing off more of these armors, helmets, monsters and weapons in the future, and we’d like to get your feedback on which models you like the best. Each set is hand-drawn and animated with a few hundred frames, so if we are having trouble committing between some, we’re hoping you can help!

To get things started, we have some examples on the left, but on the right we need a secondary leather armor. The first leather armor we’ve chosen isn’t shown, but these three are all very different from it, and we’d like to see any of them in action. They are all wearing the same cloak and the colors are the same. A, B or C, if you have a preference, lets hear it in the comments!

A. adventure jacket, B. fancy coat, or C. long trench
Also, reminder for anyone who hasn’t, Steam Greenlight votes! If you’d like that as a platform for Serpent in the Staglands to be released on, we'll need as many votes as we can in the months to come.

If you haven't seen them already, Ironward's game is nearing the end of its campaign and is close to its goal! The Red Solstice is a tactical 8 player co-op survival strategy game, and it looks awesome. There's a demo, so definitely try it out if space marines, swarms of enemies, and super strategic gameplay is your thing, which it probably should be.

PEW PEW PEW
Stay tuned for more of our combat info and demonstrations! Thanks again everyone!

I don't see any actual poll, so I think they just want you to leave a comment on the update. The adventurer jacket has my vote. I like C also, except for the two columns of buttons on the bottom of the jacket.

 

[Akratus]

C is obviously the best choice. The first two don't have any leather parts except the jackets, the third at least has some nice pauldrons. The first two are jackets, not armor.

 

[Cadmus]

I like B the most because it looks actually stylish. C is good too.

 

[LESS T_T]

Development update: http://www.whalenoughtstudios.com/blog/development-update-maps-cloaks-and-quests/

I quote the sections on story layout and journal:

World Map and Story Layout

The world map has been coming together as we’ve nailed down areas and quests in the Staglands. Though the map is completely open to explore, the beta will be limited to the Western side of the peninsula, so that’s where we’ve been focusing our efforts. With the exception of the Consils in the districts (where the councilor and law enforcers reside), much of the map will be blank until you have explored it. Erlein only has a general merchant map on hand highlighting some of the main roads to get to the port town of Cumin to the spice traders of Rumin.

Because so much of the story is dependent on who the player decides to talk to, what quests to take and where to explore, we removed the originally intended chapter triggers as they started to become too rigid. Quests are fairly un-structured in the conventional sense (besides bounties and official documented quests you can place in your inventory), and having a labeled ‘primary quest’ takes away from the open ended nature of progression. Since your players are keeping Necholai’s god status under wraps and moving about under disguise, the story itself will come together piece by piece, starting with collecting information on the region and through exploration. We liked the idea of making the player feel as helpless as Necholai when he realizes he’s trapped as a mortal, and thus are not giving strong leads to start your journey. Another part of the open world we’re developing is making sure you can put every man woman and child to the sword, so that the general structure of the game and world around you is purely what you and Necholai make of it.

Journal

After removing the chapters to encourage a more free flowing adventure, we decided we also wanted to create that tone with the journal. An auto-populated or checklist journal can make for a more generic world and we want the player to feel like they’re interpreting quests and reading the room, not a boring Tom Riddle that’s summarizing conversations for them.

Thus we have set up the journal with small areas that you can title and type out notes in. Each item in the journal can be deleted, and an infinite amount can be added. We know it can be hard to remember names and locations from a conversation, so on the right side of the page your most recent conversations will show up in a scroll box as a reference.

Sounds nice.

 

[DraQ]

All look good in terms of looks, but only C looks good in terms of actually looking like armour.

 

[wesleyclark]

Update. Some nice GIFs. Fog of war.

Project Update #10: Nobility, lights, town tunes and another armor poll!
Posted by Whalenought Studios ♥ Like
Hello noble backers! We’ve been busy the last month cranking up development for the beta release later this summer. We’re on schedule and excited about all the new content and progress! We wanted to share some of the main things we've been working on lately.

Beta Areas:

The eastern districts of Orf’s Bridge, Emerald Metalis, and Tratis Saltis will be where the initial beta will take place, so we’ve been focusing on getting the content completed for these districts first. It's a pretty sizable area of the game. Because of the game’s open-ended nature, the beta won’t have an obvious endpoint, but will be more of an exploration with the first options of the primary story to uncover if you choose and are able to discover them. Like in Darklands, the gameplay experience involves uncovering the story via your own exploration, with the addition of actually having a goal and a few (uncertain) leads to begin with.

The first tier of all combat and spells will be available, and we are planning to include the second tier in for additional testing after the initial beta launch.

General Progress:

Systems:

We wrote a dev blog post pertaining to some of the content additions we’ve been working on, and we also have some images below of some of the newer system/visual features, located in the first scene we showed from the Kickstarter video in Erlein’s temple. System wise, we’ve optimized saving and loading, finished off what was needed for the write-your-own-journal notes system, added in a great fog of war solution and some visual enhancements for environment art.

Moving forward we’re continuing to focus on dialogue content, level design, and scripting spells and skills.

Art:

Art has been and will continue to be a progression with map/area art and monster/people sprite sheets. We finished the latest poll-winner armor set (leather armor 1 of 2), and made some clips of it in action! *GIF quality ≠ actual quality*

LIGHTS

Fog of war

Cloaks and candles
Shadows and lights were a fun addition to the art, and though it took a little backtracking to get it running in previously made maps, we’re pretty set on the design for maps moving forward and have spent some time streamlining the map creation process. Even with combat everything is still running smoothly, and we’re going to be stress testing some of the larger trash-mob scenarios as we develop those maps.

Songweaving to be remembered in song

To manage any kind of skill-bloat and still have an engaging group of secondary skills, we had to be really considerate of what exactly these skills do and how uniquely they affect conversations, the environment, and what kind of combat/item skills they are used for. We’ve spent some time fleshing out the exact uses and buffs that every Aptitude gives a player, and focusing on making them both fun and something you’ll actually use to interact with the Staglands in diverse ways. Philosophy, for instance, allows you to talk more with Bloodless, work with the Pasaaran Bloodless hunters, and talk to imps who mainly converse in riddles (you can catch them in jars and use them in combat for a variety of effects).

During application of these, the Song Weaver Aptitude was falling short of application compared to the others. It was turning out to be the opposite of Harbinger, which is the kind of skill bloat we were avoiding (similar to having skills like intimidate and charisma just get the same results with different dialogue choices). We only have 6 aptitudes, and we want each one to be distinctive and appealing. After looking around our world, we realized we were heavy on outdoors and conversational skills, and light on in-town skills, so we’ve replaced Song Weaver with Nobility. Nobility gets you access to places you wouldn’t normally easily get into, as guards and servants will inherently trust you and your fancy ways, and with your refined skills you can waltz into and explore the greater Houses of the Staglands and city buildings that rough and tumble adventurers might not be allowed in.

Like a thief skill, Nobility allows you to impersonate different houses by wearing different House crests, name drop people you’ve met, and acquire squires and servants to trail you around (different than your party members). You can obtain the crests in a variety of ways, but being able to use them successfully will require you to have talked to certain people or read certain books to have the knowledge to back them up. To talk to those people or get those books, you’ll generally need nobility points.

New music!

Lastly, we have some more progress on our soundtrack and wanted to share some select tracks from our composer! Enjoy!

District Consils intro theme:


Eastern Marshlands:


Poll #2

Since you all made a great choice before, we wanted to follow up with another armor set poll! We’ll be whipping some more up later this month and we’d like your vote on a heavy armor set! There isn’t a system of knighthood in the Staglands, but some fighters favor heavier armor (more protection, less speed). The first one we designed is more of a chain-mail and plate-armored arm pieces, and this one we wanted to get in a suit of splint mail or a full metal cuirass to make it distinctive. The three choices:


Click to big-ify!
Thanks everyone! We’ll be sharing more combat/exploration in the next update and some backer portraits!

 

[Excidium]

Have they fixed the pixels of multiple sizes issue in this game yet? It looks jarring as fuck, do the artists responsible for GUI and game graphics hate each other or what?

 

[Zombra]

Heh, it's just one artist, isn't it? Of course, maybe he's schizoid.

 

[Mystary!]

I vote b for heavy, knights need fancy skirts and that chestplate is the best, the others are too cluttered.

 

[agris]

I like the cuirass on B but that blue skirt kills it for me

 

[Scroo]

Is it just me or are these dungeon walls giving a kinda weird space ship flair?

 

[tuluse]

Is it just me or are these dungeon walls giving a kinda weird space ship flair?

I see it, they would look right at home in a system shock game.

 

[SuicideBunny]

it's the weird bright green that seems to glow thanks to the light changing... this would be right at home in wildstar with their fixation on glowing green stuff.

 

[Zed]

looks hella good, in any case.

for heavy armor, I vote B.

 

[HobGoblin42]

The character movement reminds me of Nazgûls.

 

[Akratus]

Say that to my face and not online, she-elf, and see what happens

 

[wesleyclark]

New update. Has some videos (hope they embed correctly). Some portraits (from backer photos) and UI changes.

Project Update #11: UI, Settlers & Death
Posted by Whalenought Studios ♥ Like

Hey backers! Since last month’s update we took some time to polish some of the visual elements for an easier beta play experience, added some more art and enemies, put character generation in, more eastern maps, have a nice auto-paused prompt system set up, and are getting back to implementing more skills/spells for testing. We wanted to do an update showing some of those and some new features.

Steam Greenlight & GOG

We’re doing well on Steam Greenlight, and just wanted to ask those who haven’t voted to help us out as we inch toward the finish line!

And as we said before we’ll be sending a refined build of the game off to GOG in the fall for their approval.

Portraits

Our Count/Countess backers were kind enough to send us photos, and wanted to share with you some of the portraits we started working on (for the backers included, thanks for the mugshots!).

We’re still adding finer details to them, but we’re excited to have plenty of future Necholai and Staglands locals running around our game builds.

HUD

After testing the past few months, we’ve re-arranged the HUD to be center aligned on the right side of the game, to create a more proportioned playing field in the center of the screen and to allow the game feed to be larger (which can be toggled on and off at your leisure).

We are now rendering the game at a precise pixel-density, and the HUD/UI has been updated to accommodate. We really like the way it’s turned out, and believe it has given the aesthetics a much more cohesive design. You can check it out in some short videos attached showing where we are in arbitration and the UI:

Arbitration:


► Play video
Combat Awareness (more on that below):


► Play video
MiniMap and Journal:


► Play video

You can hover over your stat fields now for their info
Or mini-gifs, if you're into not playing videos:

The Settlers

Enough of UI, let’s discuss the Staglands, or specifically what’s happening there with or without your involvement during the game. We wanted to explore an idea of life occurring outside of your adventure, because the settlements in the Staglands are fairly young and the environment is still hostile and unstable, full of angry, displaced natives, chasms seeping with evil spirits and raiders from the north, which means that the likelihood of every town and outpost remaining cheerfully thriving ought to be slim.

peace: pending
So to reflect this unsettled environment, as you re-visit towns and outposts throughout the game, some will have the chance to be devastated by natives, natural elements, or you, of course. These settlers are basically playing a game of Catan while having to deal with power-houses coming along and flipping their table over.

Towns can be populated by “important” folks like merchants, constables, potential party members, caravan riders, and in addition the local population of settlers. We generate a select number of settlers (varying on the size of the village) not unlike how we’d generate the local populous of monsters or trash mobs in an area. If you remove a certain number settlers, or high-profile members of the community (who’s importance is weighed more in this scale), the town will scatter. During your game this can happen to villages without your presence, and on your next visit to a nearby wharf you might find yourself surrounded by hungry scavengers instead of pleasant townsfolk.

We think the gameplay addition of having the landscape of safety changing for your party adds a lot of value towards the experience, and makes you keep your party more self-sufficient.

Death

Unlike the Ironborn, what dies in Vol stays dead. That goes for gods, men and wizards alike. If a party member reaches 0 HP, he is dead and his equipped inventory items explode out of him/her for you to recover. This was designed because we believe ‘resurrection’ in fantasy worlds leads you to strategize like lives are expendable, because it complimented the rest of the design of the game, and mostly just because we believe games should be a challenge.

Since you can’t bring someone back from the dead, there are a ton of potential party members, all with a variety of skills to compliment yours and quips to love or hate. On the other hand saving takes a millisecond, so reloading after a particularly sad result of an encounter is just as easy as living with the consequences.

Stealth (enemy alarm states)

as seen in video above
You sneaky hobbit. Though we don’t have a ‘thief’ set of skills into the game, we have added an alarm gauge for enemies. Line of sight, proximity, and loudness of weapon all account for when an enemy is aware of another enemy’s demise. If out of the line of sight, there will be a random roll to determine of they investigate or not (influenced by how loud the weapon used to attract the first enemy was). Loudness is determined by category of arms: javelins and elixir explosions are loud, arrows and bolts are quiet, and melee weapons fall in between, while spells vary based on what they do. This will make picking off/luring dangerously grouped enemies much more interesting, as well as adding another fun stat to consider when choosing a weapon.

Updates to come:

More skills/spells videos and some play-throughs of areas! We’d like to start getting back into showing those off at a more regular basis, and we’ll also be prepping an updated website with their information to coincide with the forums. Lastly, and our last poll had Armor A win by 1 vote! Thanks everyone for checking them out! We’ll show that off in a future skill video when we implement it.

Cheers!

 

[Zed]

This game is to Baldur's Gate, what Underrail is to Fallout.
Gorgeous, hand-crafted and full of ideas.

The minimap is super-sexy, and the new UI layout is very interesting.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

I love those portraits, goddamn.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Holy crap. This game looks great. I also dig the music. Will keep a close eye on this and hopefully it'll be good enough for a D1P.

 

[Crane]

Looking good. Did that codex content creation thing ever pan anything out?

 

[BobtheTree]

I love what I see from this game more and more with each update.

 

[Sensuki]

Same ^_^