KickStarter Swordhaven: Iron Conspiracy - BG1-inspired low fantasy RPG from the ATOM TEAM - now available on Early Access

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Charm was never a defining quality in BG1.

Iron crisis, upcoming war, bandits problem… There was a pervading darkness everywhere you went… You were being hunted, on the run, with a party that seemed to come apart at the seams every time you made a moral choice, with nowhere to go back to and no real lead on where to go next, you are free from the start to do as you please, with a few suggestions here and there..

Yes, it is the very picture of charm.

Just add comfy soundtrack.

 

[Atomboy]

I wished they had take inspiration from Icewind Dale or even Temple of Elemental Evil. I miss modern RPGs (non-wizardry clones) allowing me to create my own party.

ToE and especially IWD will always be among the games I constantly replay, so there will be some inspiration from that, no doubt about it. I think I already posted this here years ago, I'd love to be the one to bring full party creation back into the spotlight in traiditonal RPGs, and this was discussed when planning SH, however it was considered too risky for our singular current project. Guess more people just prefer partners with personal stories and would get alienated. However, unpopularity of full party creation will not stop me when I finish Swordhaven and begin personal work on Blasteriade I: Quest for the Infant Regalia. Thought that will be a Wizardry clone. However, it will feature at least 8 distinct races, 12 professions ranging from modern (or even futuristic) weapons expert or spec ops sniper\computer hacker (they are called Deckers) to Hyborian wizard priest of Moofoolan. You could basically make conan the barbarian with a laser minigun, or a huge snail man with a poleaxe, or a conan the barbarian with a poleaxe. Or Red Sonja with a poleaxe and laser buskins.

I agree with the barbarian, should be different than "Gather your party" shit. Going to feel cheap if thats what you go for.

Honestly we never gave it one thought before the codex. I personally didn't even know the original phrase was a meme or something. I guess we'll work on avoiding it.

 

[Quillon]

Atom initially had a freely movable camera, controls were basic, zoom level is satisfactory. Iirc at the time was never criticized. A locked iso view option was later released, people liked it afaik.

Once I discovered the follow toggle/Home Key I was mostly ok with Atom's camera. Tried the iso view yesterday, its ok/feels more fallout 1-2 but I'm not sure it is the best way to play the game cos the levels weren't designed for a default direction/perspective.

For free movable cam, BG3 is the gold standart right now imo. For levels designed for fixed/recomended direction, probably Pathfinders. Also follow cam is very important for way less hassle during exploration imo, Idk what the party controls will be like for this game(?); if the party's gonna follow the controlled character follow cam should be on by default & double clicking portraits should be enough to turn it on instead of a key on the other side of the keyboard and if the gameplay's gonna be marquee-select characters then move etc. Deadfire's party follow feature was way better than none at all.

 

[Serus]

Yeah I'd be up for it but expect lots of thinly veiled racist rants foot fetishism from some NPCs.

My expertise lies in interesting multiple choice quests with lots of variables and unusual premises. If you're interested, @Atomboy, I can give you examples from past and current projects in private.

You should work under pseudonym like the videogame Dalton Trumbo.

Jarlton Frankowich.

Would: Chief Foot Fetishson be too obvious?

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah I'd be up for it but expect lots of thinly veiled racist rants foot fetishism from some NPCs.

My expertise lies in interesting multiple choice quests with lots of variables and unusual premises. If you're interested, @Atomboy, I can give you examples from past and current projects in private.

You should work under pseudonym like the videogame Dalton Trumbo.

Jarlton Frankowich.

Would: Chief Foot Fetishson be too obvious?

Francesco Podolatro?

 

[Serus]

Atom initially had a freely movable camera, controls were basic, zoom level is satisfactory. Iirc at the time was never criticized. A locked iso view option was later released, people liked it afaik.

Once I discovered the follow toggle/Home Key I was mostly ok with Atom's camera. Tried the iso view yesterday, its ok/feels more fallout 1-2 but I'm not sure it is the best way to play the game cos the levels weren't designed for a default direction/perspective.

For free movable cam, BG3 is the gold standart right now imo. For levels designed for fixed/recomended direction, probably Pathfinders. Also follow cam is very important for way less hassle during exploration imo, Idk what the party controls will be like for this game(?); if the party's gonna follow the controlled character follow cam should be on by default & double clicking portraits should be enough to turn it on instead of a key on the other side of the keyboard and if the gameplay's gonna be marquee-select characters then move etc. Deadfire's party follow feature was way better than none at all.

Pathfinder Kingmaker had fixed camera so obviously the levels had to be designed for that. So was in Infinity Engine. But that requires additional work so in the sequel the player needs to do the work instead. In WotR proper camera angel changes all the time - unless that was the case only in the very beginning - i never had the courage to continue past the first very few hours (camera wasn't the only reason).

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

The WotR camera had in-game consequences in the demon city, which was just bizarre. Rotate the camera and pathways open or close. Logically this makes no sense.

 

[AfterVirtue]

What would you wish to hear instead?

Collect thy retinue and advance.
Or a variant of "bros don't leave bros behind bro".

Collect yo bitches.

Win Palworld audience: "gotta catch 'em all".

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Alienman]

What would you wish to hear instead? We haven't voiced those lines yet and are open to suggestions!

"May God have mercy on the fools we are leaving behind"

 

[std::namespace]

whats actually limiting the size of maps in unity? is it some kind of object count? that makes map loading and gc a non-linear pain?
edit
its probably simply target hardware gpu memory...

 

[biffthestiff]

(I initially wrote this comment in the announcement thread but I found out the dev is reading it and felt bad and am moving it here)

The graphics are generic and unappealing. This is visually indistinguishible from 90% of 3D indie RPGs from the past 15 years. Why do small studios use generic 3D assets instead of creating a unique 2D look? Does it really save money?

Why is the setting and plot so generic too? I get that it's going for a Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale audience but surely those people are sick of the playing a nearly-identical fantasy setting in every goddamn game?

I think the Atom developers should have been a bit more daring to stand out. Unless I hear the gameplay is absolutely exceptional, I'm not touching this game because the novely factor is ZERO.

I'm not trying to be a dick or troll. RPG is a genre for older people, who will have played a lot of other RPGs, so dev should try to stand out more. A teenager might be fine with the visuals and setting because they haven't seen it 100 times before, but I'm not. Teenagers are playing action games, not your oldschool RPG

 

[Quillon]

btw. I noticed this is not called "low fantasy" anymore; does that mean every third guy in the game will be a fag wizard now?

 

[Serus]

What would you wish to hear instead? We haven't voiced those lines yet and are open to suggestions!

"May God have mercy on the fools we are leaving behind"

Nice but since i don't think the setting has monotheism more like: "May <insert god of travel or death name> have mercy...".

 

[Sunri]

Can i romance companions?

 

[Serus]

Can i romance companions?

Yes, also a few bears.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

What would you wish to hear instead? We haven't voiced those lines yet and are open to suggestions!

"May God have mercy on the fools we are leaving behind"

Keep "Gather your party before venturing forth" and make it great again! The phrase has worked well in the past and will work now and always.

It was the Kickstarter-era RPGs that defiled it. But that era is now gone.

 

[rojay]

What would you wish to hear instead? We haven't voiced those lines yet and are open to suggestions!

"May God have mercy on the fools we are leaving behind"

Keep "Gather your party before venturing forth" and make it great again! The phrase has worked well in the past and will work now and always.

It was the Kickstarter-era RPGs that defiled it. But that era is now gone.

Just have the characters lagging behind yell, "Hey, wait for me!"

 

[Atomboy]

whats actually limiting the size of maps in unity? is it some kind of object count? that makes map loading and gc a non-linear pain?
edit
its probably simply target hardware gpu memory...

I'm still learning the ropes, but I think it's not Unity specific, it's just that when you have a certain poly count in an area, it starts demanding a better GPU to run smoothly, and we want the game to be available on as much hardware as possible, while still keeping it pretty. From bug reports on our previous games, we know that some players don't have really modern machines, and it would suck to leave them behind. So we're not doing locations that are too huge. Still, I'd say Swordhaven's locations are way bigger than what we had in TG or ATOM but load times are a bit smoother. But we'll know for sure when a lot of people confirm this, not just us.

(I initially wrote this comment in the announcement thread but I found out the dev is reading it and felt bad and am moving it here)

The graphics are generic and unappealing. This is visually indistinguishible from 90% of 3D indie RPGs from the past 15 years. Why do small studios use generic 3D assets instead of creating a unique 2D look? Does it really save money?

Why is the setting and plot so generic too? I get that it's going for a Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale audience but surely those people are sick of the playing a nearly-identical fantasy setting in every goddamn game?

I think the Atom developers should have been a bit more daring to stand out. Unless I hear the gameplay is absolutely exceptional, I'm not touching this game because the novely factor is ZERO.

I'm not trying to be a dick or troll. RPG is a genre for older people, who will have played a lot of other RPGs, so dev should try to stand out more. A teenager might be fine with the visuals and setting because they haven't seen it 100 times before, but I'm not. Teenagers are playing action games, not your oldschool RPG

I'm reading this topic too!!! There's nothing disheartening about what you wrote, we got it all through our run as devs. Ready made assets naturally save a huge amount of time and money. Moreso time. Making something from the ground up, even if it's like a spoon or something, can take a day! That being said, not a lot of what features in our presentation are assets. We made a lot of our own models for everything and where we use stock, we never use it out of the box, unless it's a placeholder, we always customize it in some ways. It's not even 50\50, more like 75\generic assets in some locations. But that's the thing, since we are going for a realistic style on a realistic planet with realistic lighting and mostly realistic people and animals, how can you tell? Unless you somehow google reverse search an asset and find out it was made by our very own studio and not bought, you won't know that. So that's just a fact of life we live in. Some folks find out we're using unity and call it an asset flip, much like Atom gets called a carbon copy of Fallout with nothing new, etc. It's just part and parcel. Hopefully others will feel the soul and craft behind it tho! There's a plenty!
On the other bits: the hard truth is because we feel like we have something to say and we want a traditional low magic fantasy RPG as a medium for that statement. We like games we are used to playing, and that's why we choose them as basis for our work. It's much less "we can't physically be novel and create a new genre" and much more "we don't want to this time". Everyone can be novel and daring if they wanna, like during my attempts to learn Unity and programming to help my guys out, I made a turn-based first person shooter set to elevator music, and a CYOA with platformer and plane flying sections, true story. Those are pretty rare on the market. I left them as prototypes because I wanted to craft something warm and familiar I could play like I played ATOM for years on end. Maybe one day we'll make a really bizarre experimental thing, but this time is not today!
Although, and I hate to make it sound like an advert, a certain crucial plot twist in Swordhaven will be something I haven't personally seen in games I played since 1992, so there's that. It's gonna be pretty novel! No promises on exceptional gameplay, but there will be that dang twist man! Give it a go!

btw. I noticed this is not called "low fantasy" anymore; does that mean every third guy in the game will be a fag wizard now?

Hey, I don't even know how to change topic names, so it was the choice of the guy who named it! We're still low-fantasy. Too late to change that and make mages.

Can i romance companions?

Ohhh, still pondering whether we should... Really hard pondering over here!

Can i romance companions?

Yes, also a few bears.

Only the mauling sort, and they will hopefully be half-pigs, not true bears, since it's a fantasy.

What would you wish to hear instead? We haven't voiced those lines yet and are open to suggestions!

"May God have mercy on the fools we are leaving behind"

Keep "Gather your party before venturing forth" and make it great again! The phrase has worked well in the past and will work now and always.

It was the Kickstarter-era RPGs that defiled it. But that era is now gone.

Just have the characters lagging behind yell, "Hey, wait for me!"

Most of the suggestions were good ones, but this one especially shines!
I'm taking a note!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

a certain crucial plot twist in Swordhaven will be something I haven't personally seen in games I played since 1992, s

Ok so we just gotta look at all the twists before 1992.

 

[Atomboy]

a certain crucial plot twist in Swordhaven will be something I haven't personally seen in games I played since 1992, s

Ok so we just gotta look at all the twists before 1992.

Well, I said personally! There might be games with that funky turn somewhere along the plot coming out every year, I just don't know it! Do not quote me on that! :O

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Do not quote me on that! :O

Too late. Infinitron newspost this and I will send five brofists your way.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

This doesn't have prequels, so the one from U6: The False Prophet is out.

 

[Infinitron]

Twist: "Batlin is evil?!"

 

[Harthwain]

Hey, I don't even know how to change topic names, so it was the choice of the guy who named it! We're still low-fantasy. Too late to change that and make mages.

You could always go Battle Brothers'/Darklands'/Conan's way.