KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Prototype Thread

[LESS T_T]

Video interview with an annoying background music...from a vaper channel.



They mention prototype plan at 8:41. Well, this interview is from September, so the plan may or may not have changed after the interview.

 

[Cosmo]

Paul Neurath's demeanor and lymphatic diction with... metal ?

 

[Infinitron]

Video interview with an annoying background music...from a vaper channel.

http://rpad.tv/2015/10/09/underworld-ascendant-paul-neurath-joe-fielder-interview/

The followup to the highly influential Ultimate Underworld games from the early ’90s, Underworld Ascendant aims to dazzle gamers with an atypical style of fantasy role-playing. The original games were lauded for their sense of immersion; they are considered the first RPGs to offer first-person action in a true 3D environment. While many modern RPGs bombard players with millions of words of text, Underworld Ascendant will attempt to captivate gamers with environmental immersion and unscripted player-driven narrative. In many ways, the game is a throwback in the sense that the developer wants the player to put himself or herself in the game, as opposed to following the adventures of a heavily scripted character.

Underworld Ascendant will give players all kinds of choices, whether it’s character development or puzzle solving. As far as character creation goes, there are three types of skill sets that players can draw from: fighter, rogue, and mage. The skills can be mixed and mashed, accommodating a wide variety of player styles. Similarly, encounters with monsters and environmental puzzles can be handled in drastically different ways. Again, the emphasis is on player choice. You’ll be able to play Underworld Ascendant with the character you want to be, adventuring in the way you want to adventure.

Occupying the Stygian Abyss are three rival factions. There are dark elves, dwarves, and shamblers to encounter. The developer was quick to note that these races don’t fit into typical RPG trappings. For example, the dwarves in Underworld Ascendant will not have Scottish accents. The shamblers are particularly interesting — fungus-like creatures with mushroom heads that operate in a hive-mind society. The way you interact with and help (or not) these factions will alter how you experience Underworld Ascendant.

The interview below was lots of fun for me on several levels. First off, Otherside Entertainment founder & CEO Paul Neurath is a frickin’ legend. The man founded Looking Glass Studios, one of the all-time great game developers. Looking at the list of games Paul has worked on is mind blowing. He should be put on exhibit at The Smithsonian. Also in the chat below is design director Joe Fielder. I met Joe in the late ’90s when I was a corporate hack at Ziff-Davis and he was heading up GameSpot. He was one of the first videogame journalists I met and it’s awesome watching his career in game development burgeon.

Anyway, check out my chat with Paul and Joe below for more details on Underworld Ascendant, as well as lots of gameplay footage.

Connections!

 

[Aenra]

points for calling himself a hack at least..a rare feat these days, self awareness

 

[Athelas]

The followup to the highly influential Ultimate Underworld games from the early ’90s

Ah yes, Ultimate Underworld, the game series that is only rivaled by Planetscape Tournament in terms of the impact it had on RPG's.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Ah yes, Ultimate Underworld, the game series that is only rivaled by Planetscape Tournament in terms of the impact it had on RPG's.

lolz

Skipping a lot of steps there, aren't we?

There are other games that have had bigger impacts upon RPGs than these two. Cherry-picking your favourites ain't gonna change that.

 

[Darth Roxor]

lolz

Skipping a lot of steps there, aren't we?

There are other games that have had bigger impacts upon RPGs than these two. Cherry-picking your favourites ain't gonna change that.

nigga fetch your glasses

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Nah...I just need to wake up better.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Actually I would rank the Stygian Abyss right up there in terms of influence. It's amazing how much of the first person 3d RPG was fleshed out in the very first title of its kind.

 

[Infinitron]

Update coming soon, I think.

 

[Infinitron]

And here's a new podcast courtesy of one of Cleve's favorite sites: http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2015/10/11/qt3-games-podcast-underworld-ascendant/

Will listen to this when I have time.

 

[Aenra]

https://youtu.be/edMlwffFfXk?t=25s

"In the final version, in true roleplaying fashion, we'll leave it up to you to explain yourself"



Now tell me about runes. And magic. I want to come. Twenty two fucking years later, i have to. Tell me. Tell me everything.

 

[mindx2]

Issue #12, October 12th 2015


An Early Prototype!
We are excited to share with you our first real in game footage. The Prototype is a snapshot, as of September, of the recent progress we’ve made on Underworld Ascendant. It’s a video of a walk-through made from a running build of the game. You can watch it here with developer commentary:

https://youtu.be/edMlwffFfXk

The Prototype is tightly focused around highlighting key areas of recent progress:

- We wanted to have a big step up on the visual bar from the rough prototypes we showed during the Kickstarter. The final game will look even better of course, but this snapshot shows a lot of progress.

- Finding the right look of the Stygian Abyss. We looked at classical artists like Dore, 18th century impressionists, and even some surrealists out of Russia. We wanted to show a couple of different types of play spaces, so we are showcasing a few signature spaces in the Abyss, such as the colossal caldera, with a towering lava vortex, and a more typical hallway and natural meld you could expect to see while travelling in the Abyss.

- In the gameplay department we’re showing some fun stealth gameplay, but flipped on its head of what we designed for Thief. Here a stealthy monster, the Shadow Beast, is stalking the player. Our protagonist is a virtually unarmed rogue who must rely on her wits to defeat a deadly Shadow Beast. This interaction highlights the capability of the Improvisation Engine, from manipulating the lava flow and lighting torches to change the light levels to keep the beast away.

- Then there is the immersive audio soundscape to help deepen the immersion, as well as select voice overs to convey the game’s narrative. If you listen closely to the soundscape you will hear some ‘musical’ beats happening. We have some ideas on how to work with sound as a game system and to enhance the character of the Underworld itself. We learned a ton of lessons about sound and its importance on Thief and System Shock 2. Just to be clear, the VO of the rogue in the prototype is there only as a narrative piece to explain what the player might be thinking. There will not be player VO in the final game, as it’s a true role-playing game and we don’t intend to speak for the player.

The Prototype covers just a tiny corner of the Abyss, and is focused on just the single encounter between a rogue character and the Shadow Beast. In the actual game there will be a lot more going on, and many more choices for a player. Regardless, we think the Prototype shows great progress since the Kickstarter and we hope you agree. We will be updating the Prototype about monthly going forward, showing more gameplay and features at each step. Right now in the alchemy lab Tim is whipping up the spell system, Will is working on a new playground for development and testing, and others are off on secret quests for the time being.



Other News

We were tickled to learn that NYU has a course on LookingGlass:

http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/?courses=looking-glass-games

It is an art history course, which makes some of us feel old! With OtherSide, perhaps we’ll give NYU a reason to add a second course a few years hence that falls under contemporary art study.

Harebrained Schemes is at it again with their latest Kickstarter for a turn-based BattleTech. We’ve got some mighty mech fans here at OtherSide, and apparently there are lots more as the game is already well into its stretch goals. Check it out if you want to pile on:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech


The OtherSide Team

 

[V_K]

mindx2, the man who ninja'd Infinitron

 

[Aenra]

I want to believe(TM)

 

[mindx2]

mindx2, the man who ninja'd Infinitron

Believe me it's not easy to beat that astounding Jewish A.I.!

 

[Zombra]

Flipped through the video, saw a first person perspective walking past stone walls, up stairs etc. What amazing stuff did I miss? Are we impressed?

 

[Mortmal]

The prototype is quite impressive, its better looking than what i was expecting from a small team. I dont think you missed anything thats all we can say , not much evidence of gameplay there, you can move in a 3D heaily scripted environment and trigger some switches.

 

[Mustawd]

Flipped through the video, saw a first person perspective walking past stone walls, up stairs etc. What amazing stuff did I miss? Are we impressed?

I wouldn't say impressed. But satisfied with around 3 months of dev time. Also satisfied they're not using the kickstarter money buy pizzas and mountain dew while they sit around and theorize for months and months.

However, like I asked before...what exactly are you expecting after three months of development?

 

[Old Hans]

They should have had a demonstration on baking bread, rather than the 3dfx rubber suit monster.

 

[Zombra]

However, like I asked before...what exactly are you expecting after three months of development?

Huh? You didn't ask me.

Anyway, I'm not particularly expecting anything, good or bad. I bailed on pledging when they went full Zynga microtrans with the Kickstarter ... but I also know they're not pure evil so maybe they'll come up with a game I want to play. I'm relying on you guys following the dev to let me know if they do.

 

[Mustawd]

Huh? You didn't ask me.
.

Oops, you're right. I mentioned it in an earlier post.

 

[Infinitron]

And here's a new podcast courtesy of one of Cleve's favorite sites: http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2015/10/11/qt3-games-podcast-underworld-ascendant/

Will listen to this when I have time.

Man, Tom Chick has a hilariously weird voice.

Character development info: Paul Neurath once again confirms there'll be no stats and no experience points (they don't like RPG "abstractions" at all), and that instead there'll be some form of learn-by-use. At the same time, they want to find some way of letting you choose and "preview" skills rather than getting locked into a build you didn't want. There will also be a cap on the total number of skills you can learn over the course of the game, so you can't become good at everything. There won't be respec - "you can fail in this game, we're encouraged by Dark Souls".

It sounds like they want to actually discourage grinding by making it so people could screw up their non-fighter character builds by fighting too much. Not sure though, it's kind of hard to understand.

 

[Mustawd]

Sounds a bit like Ultima Online. Where the more you used the skill the more you built that skill. But that way was all grind all day, so it'll be interesting to see how they implement it.

 

[Infinitron]

They want there to be dangerous high-level areas that the player can take a risk by going to early.

They're not sure yet if siding with a faction will be an exclusive choice or not.

The narrative won't be exposition-heavy. Find clues and notes in the environment, environmental storytelling, etc. There's going to be some sort of "supplemental narrative", the notes of a previous explorer of the Abyss that you can find.