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The Darkness Below: a retro CRPG in the making - now available on Early Access

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
The funky hair-dos on those goblins. Just one look and you know they're up to no good. I like the exterior areas, especially the wintery ones.

Hehe, thanx Dorateen, most of the monsters have that look. Especially effective on small but sinister creatures :)

This game looks like home, endless summer nights, drink-stained graph paper and "just one more room".

Thanx man! I'm striving for a vast, exploration-based experience, being a fan of diverse and memorable environments. Game is all about the exploration of the unknown, like the early M&M games and older games in general. I'm working to instill that feel through every update.
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
Well, better late than never :)
I invested a lot of the time fixing bugs, refactoring and gradually making the game more flexible & crawlish.
Those things should had been fixed before any kind of demo. Sadly, I still don't have a demo.
However, fear not as I already started working on my itch.io page...
Fixes:
* fixed audio bugs, mostly on Android; implementation of JIT audio loading/playing/releasing because OpenSL ES is just too restricted.
* Restructuring of camera's perspective & playing with vanishing points to allow greater visibility of ground items on current party's square.
* Minor fixes to minimap
* Lots of fixes to event system
* Replacement of old NPC graphics with new ones (centaur & cart), which should elevate the crawlermetric of the game; more investment on pixel-art & software.
* Ground items are finally completed; really a milestone as there are around 25+ different variants, each one carefully modeled & converted to pixelart.

and a lot of more errors that I'm quite lazy to write about.
Enjoy the images:

screenshot-21-1.jpg


screenshot-21-2.jpg


screenshot-21-3.jpg


screenshot-21-4.jpg


screenshot-21-5.jpg


screenshot-21-6.jpg


screenshot-21-7.jpg


screenshot-21-8.jpg


That's all, hope they're making up for the big time gap since last update.
Add some feedback or three, thanx!
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
@vlzvl


Are you updating Jolt3D alongside The Darkness Below?

Is Jolt3D independent of The Darkness Below?

Yes, I regularly update Jolt3D! to meet the newer requirements of TDB, both in features & bug-fixing.
However, the engine itself is independent and I plan to offer several static libraries per-system, after the game's release.
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
Hey!
That was certainly a delayed update but I think it was worth it.
This one marks the introduction of the game's itch.io page, as well as a proper demo!
Before listing some URLs, let me show you the usual shots of the work done:

screenshot-22-1.jpg


screenshot-22-2.jpg


screenshot-22-3.jpg


screenshot-22-4.jpg


screenshot-22-5.jpg


screenshot-22-6.jpg


screenshot-22-7.jpg


screenshot-22-8.jpg


You can find the game's demo, as well as a proper 25-min video, on the following links:

itch.io: https://vlzvl.itch.io/the-darkness-below
youtube: https://youtu.be/9AM3QZmK8gc

Highlight of this update is the prebuilt generator, allowing random characters to be created on a New Game, following the game's rulebook. This is the quickest way to start the game and, at the moment, the only way. A proper 'Create a Party' option will be added eventually.

There's only one build for the demo at the moment (Windows), with a Linux / Android version to be added eventually. So, go ahead and give it a try :)
Keep in mind that the intention here is not to provide a kick-ass demo, but merely a working one. The demo's content will keep getting updated with each demo's version. The content is heavily combat oriented, with a number of events and it involves a Forest, a Town (mostly empty) and a dangerous Tomb.
Please, be gentle to this very first version! You can also find the game' Rulebook in the demo's archive, which resembles a not-that-friendly manual of sorts.
Hope you like it.
 

Snorkack

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 8, 2015
Messages
2,979
Location
Lower Bavaria
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
This looks awesome! love how the mace sfx sounds like she's giving the goblins a bitchslap :D
One thing though, I really hope there are hotkeys for everything and you just used the mouse interface throughout the whole video just for the sake of demonstration. But requiring 9 mouseclicks in distinct locations for something like picking up a couple of torches gets old fast.
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
This looks awesome! love how the mace sfx sounds like she's giving the goblins a bitchslap :D
One thing though, I really hope there are hotkeys for everything and you just used the mouse interface throughout the whole video just for the sake of demonstration. But requiring 9 mouseclicks in distinct locations for something like picking up a couple of torches gets old fast.

Hey thanx, glad you're liking it :) I paid a lot of attention on item sfx and short sounds in general, those are things you'll hear a lot on the game, there are differences on context, use/move etc. They had to make an impact to improve the immersion.

About hotkeys, worry not as key-binding is on my /todo list, it's just that I couldn't fit everything on demo 1.0. I'm currently researching on how I could convert the whole gameplay to be played by keys, making it blazing fast. Yeah, I mostly used the navigation pad just for the sake of video, but WASDQE works as well.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,625
I could not stop playing. I did not kill the doppleganger, 20 freezing spikes and the wand were not enough, one more reason to play the next demo, although' the truth is I will replay with a mage party to kill it eventually.

First thing first, the game runs perfectly on my antique pc, I won't spend time on loading times, I know some people kind of don't care much but that's super important to me, it's one thing that could make me play this game instead of another one and to be more precise in this case will make me buy it on release day without a second thought.

The game looks great, in case you wonder the enemies' idle animation are perfect to give some impression of movement instead weird rigidness. The different gfx mesh well enough, I guess the portraits in town are a bit weaker than everything else. The game also sounds great, the default volume of the music is good and I liked the songs which remind me in particular of Eye of the beholder series' intro music and you can't go better than that.

UI's pretty good, 100% intuitive and 100% accessible. I think right-clicking on an item on the floor could directly add it to the shared inventory, not sure if it should work exactly the same for chests, right clicking adding everything into the inventory with a text detailing what's taken could work I guess, maybe there's something better to think about. One thing, I'm not sure if it's a resolution issue, but I have to click a bit to the left of levers and key locks, not directly onto it, I tried to take a screenshot but it does not work.

I loved the gameplay, of course, and chosen party was for sure much better than a unique imposed one for the demo.

I think there's no way to get neither the stats of a piece of equipment nor the actual stats of the character when you've equipped it directly in the inventory, I'm sure that's already planned or there's a way I missed but just in case that could help.

Enemies' turn is possibly a bit slow, it could be faster at very least as an option (I'd see default a bit faster anyway). Since it switches afterwards I think there's no reason why you'd need to click on End turn if you want to instantly switch to the next character after using your two weapons, so I guess it could automatically immediatly switch after you use those, without having to either press End turn of wait for the last attack's feedback. Combat's feeling is great anyway.

Very good job, can't wait to play the full game.
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
I could not stop playing. I did not kill the doppleganger, 20 freezing spikes and the wand were not enough, one more reason to play the next demo, although' the truth is I will replay with a mage party to kill it eventually.

First thing first, the game runs perfectly on my antique pc, I won't spend time on loading times, I know some people kind of don't care much but that's super important to me, it's one thing that could make me play this game instead of another one and to be more precise in this case will make me buy it on release day without a second thought.

The game looks great, in case you wonder the enemies' idle animation are perfect to give some impression of movement instead weird rigidness. The different gfx mesh well enough, I guess the portraits in town are a bit weaker than everything else. The game also sounds great, the default volume of the music is good and I liked the songs which remind me in particular of Eye of the beholder series' intro music and you can't go better than that.

UI's pretty good, 100% intuitive and 100% accessible. I think right-clicking on an item on the floor could directly add it to the shared inventory, not sure if it should work exactly the same for chests, right clicking adding everything into the inventory with a text detailing what's taken could work I guess, maybe there's something better to think about. One thing, I'm not sure if it's a resolution issue, but I have to click a bit to the left of levers and key locks, not directly onto it, I tried to take a screenshot but it does not work.

I loved the gameplay, of course, and chosen party was for sure much better than a unique imposed one for the demo.

I think there's no way to get neither the stats of a piece of equipment nor the actual stats of the character when you've equipped it directly in the inventory, I'm sure that's already planned or there's a way I missed but just in case that could help.

Enemies' turn is possibly a bit slow, it could be faster at very least as an option (I'd see default a bit faster anyway). Since it switches afterwards I think there's no reason why you'd need to click on End turn if you want to instantly switch to the next character after using your two weapons, so I guess it could automatically immediatly switch after you use those, without having to either press End turn of wait for the last attack's feedback. Combat's feeling is great anyway.

Very good job, can't wait to play the full game.

Wow, I wholeheartedly thank you for this thorough review on the demo, its greatly appreciated!
I had to read it a number of times, I liked it that much because it shows devotion to the genre. Thank you.

About the Doppelganger, you are quite the patient one :) The event's intention was more to "trap" you there against an unbeatable monster. If you check the accompanied rulebook, you'll find out that it its a level 10 monster, has around 100 hp and a high protection, leaving you only the magic option. Perhaps with a party of 4 wizards with good intelligence, you'll be able to beat it after a while. But kudos on trying to kill it!

Thank you about the performance notes. The game is written on bare bone low-level native code and tested on low-end machines & embedded devices, trimming a lot of nowadays goodness in favor of total control. Nowadays, this might sounds hilarious but one of my hidden intentions is to create a game in the old, standard way. The total file size is an indication of this; in fact, the final release will still be around that size. Everything is tighty packed, everything is used and I'm always on the hunt to eliminate bloated stuff. I just laugh hard on the 1GB size restriction of itch.io. I also like to see the games I play on technical level (I can't help it) and I'm delighted when I spot optimized builds.

The monster's animation is greatly inspired on the way Jon animated his own on M&M3-5 :) That is, cutting the animated parts out and making frames out of them. Ive implemented a way to automate the whole procedure and the final game will contain a boatload of such animated sprites. This seemed to me like a great convention and I chose to use that, instead of just moving the sprites here and there. I also paid great attention on sound part, given those sounds are heard all of the time. I'm easily annoyed s that greatly helps eliminating such issues :) I'll be using a lot of such tunes on different environments and situations.

I tried very hard to assemble an easy-going GUI. I'm easily annoyed of lengthy procedures to achieve something through the UI so thank you for your confirmation! Yeah, I like your suggestions. There are a lot of ways to streamline this to compact it even more. About the issue, I will implement some keys to provide screenshot ability to the user to debug this better. Perhaps its a resolution and/or shader not finding a proper texture size.

About the stats, I need to invent a way for instant comparison between the equipped items, without making it look like MMO. The current way is not the optimal of course; I usually change weapons of portait blocks with stats window opened to see the updated values but for other body parts thats not easy to tell. Its planned, yes. I will also work out more into speed and provide some more options on settings for that matter.

About the 'End Turn' buttons, its very helpful when your character is a caster and you're out of spells or your bare fists can't do much against a boss-like entity, such cases :) It was not added for speed but also to get rid of useless moves, which weirdly make things faster as well.

Thank you overall for the great review!
 

Eisen

Learned
Joined
Apr 21, 2020
Messages
747
I'm not so good at giving criticism, but the 10 minutes i've played was pretty cool(just slayed some snails and goblins tho), i am starved for a MM-like.

One thing that could change is the time taken between player turns, CryptRat probably already adressed this issue.

EDIT: added "already" after "probably"
EDIT2: Runs good in Wine
 
Last edited:

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
I'm not so good at giving criticism, but the 10 minutes i've played was pretty cool(just slayed some snails and goblins tho), i am starved for a MM-like.

One thing that could change is the time taken between player turns, CryptRat probably already adressed this issue.

EDIT: added "already" after "probably"
EDIT2: Runs good in Wine

Thanx man, yeah it seems that should be elevated in my /TODO list, there are a couple ideas of how to do that.

Congratulations on releasing the demo. I'll give it a try later.

Thanx @yomigael, I appreciate it man!
 

Mychkine

Educated
Joined
Mar 26, 2014
Messages
78
Since I love the M&M games since I was a child, I'm glad the news on the site made me aware this project existed, and I hope you are going to manage to complete it in a satisfying way. Before I try the demo, one question : if the turn by turn and tiled based movement certainly reminds M&M 3 to 5, the four man party and the character screen itself are far more reminescent of the later M&Ms. So, are you attempting to mix up elements from de two approaches, and will character developpement be more inspired by the WoX approach or the M&M 6 to 8 one?
 

Fluent

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 8, 2021
Messages
830
i'd like to cover this game for my tiny youtube channel when it comes out. and by cover i basically mean play, on camera. :) awesome work, pal! <3
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
Since I love the M&M games since I was a child, I'm glad the news on the site made me aware this project existed, and I hope you are going to manage to complete it in a satisfying way. Before I try the demo, one question : if the turn by turn and tiled based movement certainly reminds M&M 3 to 5, the four man party and the character screen itself are far more reminescent of the later M&Ms. So, are you attempting to mix up elements from de two approaches, and will character developpement be more inspired by the WoX approach or the M&M 6 to 8 one?

Hey, thanks man :)
I'm drawing many inspirations by seemingly different cRPGs. You may spot the parts related to Dungeon Master (spells/sounds), Eye of the Beholder (interactability/events/puzzles) and M&M3-5 and 6 for GUI (world building/socializing/quests/scale). In the final game, you will also see a lot of AD&D inspritations, classes, paths and generally homebrew stuff. Yes, I'm mixing things up but there are things not used in any of these games such as the training by-use. There's a 50-page RULEBOOK.pdf in the game's archive explaining it all. The character's development is closer to M&M6-8; trained by wandering masters and acquiring skills as you go; combat-wise is closer to M&M Xeen.

i'd like to cover this game for my tiny youtube channel when it comes out. and by cover i basically mean play, on camera. :) awesome work, pal! <3

Thanks man! I would love to see a thorough gameplay of the, probably, gigantic final release. Please do :D
 

Fluent

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 8, 2021
Messages
830
Thanks man! I would love to see a thorough gameplay of the, probably, gigantic final release. Please do :D

i'm not great at playing games, but one thing i can do is BE THOROUGH. lol. :D it may take me twice as long to finish a game as another player but i will make sure i have combed the game as much as possible in order to find what i can. and a gigantic release u say? wow, i feel like this game is a gift of God made specially for me, lol. can't wait! I'm GAMEGODFLUENT on youtube, by the way, if u ever feel bored and want to check out my stuff. see u on release day! much love. <3
 

Sinatar

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
569
Great demo very promising.

Some suggestions:
- Instant Movement: I know in a post grimrock world everyone feels the need to slowly animate each step through a tile, but an old school option to have movement be instantaneous ala the old school crawlers that inspired your game would be great.
- Turn delay: Currently when you attack a monster the next character can't take an action until the damage numbers fade, removing that delay would be fantastic.
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
Great demo very promising.

Some suggestions:
- Instant Movement: I know in a post grimrock world everyone feels the need to slowly animate each step through a tile, but an old school option to have movement be instantaneous ala the old school crawlers that inspired your game would be great.
- Turn delay: Currently when you attack a monster the next character can't take an action until the damage numbers fade, removing that delay would be fantastic.

Thanks for your words :)
I like your suggestions. In fact, I was already playing with this idea, how to add an option for instant movement. I had to delay this because the game is just so full of timed, chained animations. I'm elevating this up on my list because I'm also curious how it plays in that mode!

Yes, I have already a number of feedbacks about the increased combat delay. It only became apparent on the demo, against swarms of opponents. It's already one my top-2 things to fix, so worry not. I'm all out for a faster combat!

Thanx & appreaciate this feedback!
 

Alpan

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 4, 2018
Messages
1,340
Grab the Codex by the pussy Pathfinder: Wrath
Your engine looks really nice, and if I may ask, how long did it take for you to make it into something that felt comfortable to develop games with? I'm considering making a simple game engine (in C99) to gain more experience in low-level Windows/graphics programming (so I won't be using any preexisting library except OpenGL and stuff like XInput/XAudio on Windows, if I can help it) and wonder what kind of realistic expectations I should have. Really my goal is to have a set of personal libraries I can use to build applications over the years.
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
Your engine looks really nice, and if I may ask, how long did it take for you to make it into something that felt comfortable to develop games with? I'm considering making a simple game engine (in C99) to gain more experience in low-level Windows/graphics programming (so I won't be using any preexisting library except OpenGL and stuff like XInput/XAudio on Windows, if I can help it) and wonder what kind of realistic expectations I should have. Really my goal is to have a set of personal libraries I can use to build applications over the years.

Hey thanx, I appreciate it :)
That's a really tough question, given that I never thought of creating games with my engine! It was something I initially created to be used by others, starting around ~2001. I never really felt comfortable with any engine's version of that period, given it was only made for Windows + DirectX and I was always feeling that I was missing out. I only felt ready to make something out of it when the engine became fully portable, the API was mature enough & controllable, gathered a nice list of portable libraries with appropriate license, wrote automated scripts for building, reading non-technical books for game development, motivation and stuff. In short, I build enough technical stuff to reduce my frustration levels as much as possible while working with it, as well as prepared myself with the ongoing procedure of building a product that might take years. Surprisingly, its not only technical as many people think it is.
Having no expectations at all is probably the best, just keep doing it day by day, completing tasks from /todo lists, prioritizing stuff, researching etc.
I'm only talking for myself, these things may largely differ for anyone & their goals.
 

vlzvl

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
208
Location
Athens
Sorry for showing no face these months, as i had a terrible encounter with covid-19 and had to deal with lots of other crap.
The development of game was paused for like 2 months, until I had to get through corona, full relocation and full job obligations.

I'm fully working on the game now, like 1 month now, although due to job obligations, the development volume is decreased a bit.
I've mostly worked on game's feedback from V1 demo and you can already verify in the short GIF below that combat become
speedier and I also improved the event system (monster leaving a key).

However, due to the big pause, I realized that my code base is in need of serious refactoring, removal of bloat. I had to take
a break to realize this :) So, a lot of time is allocated on simplifying the game's code base internally, allowing more room for
the increased complexity that will certainly arise during the content's production. It has to be good enough then. The work on
feedback from V1 make this apparent.

Regardless, rest assured that work is continued.
The coming V2 will provide an extra level in the game's (only dungeon), with more traditional cRPG logic and more complex puzzles!
In the meantime, check the little GIF :)

tdb-update.gif
 

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