Disco Elysium OUT NOW (previously: No Truce With The Furies)

This week our Art Lead posted some art for you to fap to accompanied by some backstory and hints at the game.

"EQUESTRIAN MONUMENT OF FILIPPE III"



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Aleksander Rostov

Have you ever wanted to blow a national budget — not any national budget, but a global superpowers? It is said Filippe III the Squanderer – son of Filippe the II the Opulent and father of Filippe IV the Insane – third and greatest of the filippian kings of Revachol, had his bedroom converted into a treasure chamber where an unfathomable amount of krugerrands, bars of gold, ornate weaponry, armor and various chalices covered the floor and even the walls. There were whispers the king slept on a huge pile of gold like an obese dragon, instead of a bed like a normal person would.


A 3D model straight out of Blender which has yet to receive a paintover layer.

Before you stands the reconstructed statue of that very same Filippe — Filippe the Squanderer, Filippe the Lavish, Old Sumptuous Filippe who even among the filippian kings stood out for severe overspending. The original statue was badly damaged during the retaking of Revachol by Coalition forces – an event which effectively put an end to the revolution that had dethroned the monarchy in Revachol. The kings never returned, the flow of commerce did. And opulence along with it.

Some years ago a group of liberal art-minded individuals (designers mostly) thought it would be “ironic” to re-erect the statue of the most wasteful ruler of Revachol in the poorest part of the city, Martinaise Proper. The statue is supposed to capture the moment it was blown apart, like an instant frozen in time. A rare butterfly, trapped in amber, floating on a sea of shit.

You’ll come upon it in No Truce With The Furies, while exploring the traffic jam in front of the harbour gates. The statue also factors into our nascent politics system (imagine prestige classes, but instead of Spellweaver of the Fangolnir you get Fascist) where it plays an important part in the development of the Liberal.
 
Dr Fallout said:
There are fascists? Fascists we can join?
@Vergil.
Click to expand...
You can be a fascist - and you might meet others like you. Perhaps down the line there will be a banger outfit that qualify as fascists, but as a cop you couldn´t really join per se.


"BURY MY HEART IN ICEWIND DALE (A REVIEW OF HEART OF WINTER)"

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Robert Kurvitz
Game Designer

This morning I want to talk about Heart of Winter – the little known and seldom played expansion pack of the first Icewind Dale game. It’s an unlikely reference point for the location design of No Truce With The Furies’ district of Martinaise.

Why? Because of Lonelywood, Heart of Winter’s central hub. It’s the best late game standalone village I’ve ever played. Late game what? Yeah, you know – like Umar Hills in Baldur’s Gate 2, Dyrford in Pillars of Eternity, Tuchanka in Mass Effect 2, or even the (not equally well executed) Curst in Planescape: Torment.

The late game standalone village is a sweet spot for 10+ level characters. A moments respite, usually a backwater. This allows the story to reboot on a smaller scale. Both the “late game” and “standalone” parts make the village a perfect vertical slice for the main game. It also means they’re in development longer, which gives them extra polish time. The writing tightens up, minor characters become more detailed. Developers like to show these locations to journalists – to avoid spoilers the local mystery is connected to the main story in an easygoing, slightly tangential way.

Of all the late game villages I’ve seen Lonelywood certainly takes the prize. This gem is doomed to obscurity by being hidden in Icewind Dale’s expansion. Personally, I made it to Lonelywood two years ago. Back when Heart or Winter was first released I ignored it. Few played it, or have since.

Coming off Icewind Dale – oh boy is there a change of pace. The hubs in the main game are raw, minimal affairs. The first thing you need to know about Lonelywood is that it’s written by Chris Avellone. And not just “some of it” or “features some MCA writing” like Pillars. No. It’s full speed ahead Avellone mode with inventively structured dialogues, great thigh slapping material, ambitious side quests, level design that fills your path with little nuggets of interconnectedness, you name it! HoW features most, if not all, avellonian tropes. Like: the mysterious simpleton (or is he?) who says weird stuff in an otherwise unremarkable shack; the strikingly well written side character who steals the show in an Inn; an old “woman scorned” with an idiosyncratic speech pattern. Especially her! I found the Seer endearingly formulaic among these types of Avellone characters. It really shows you the nuts and bolts of how he writes his famous women.

It’s all of jarringly high quality after Icewind Dale’s spartan writing. There is this lovely moment where the old lady, in typically inter-connected MCA fashion, comments on all the other female characters in Icewind Dale. One by one. These gals are one note, one line baddies who had an inventory and a name. Now all of a sudden she’s getting all Ravel about them. Exhuding to them in riddles, decrying the fate of the woman in the middle ages.

It’s out of place in the context of the main game, but it fits Heart of Winter’s separate narrative very well. I think it’s the third best thing MCA has written. (After Torment and the Fallout: New Vegas DLCs.)

I played it two months before we began pre-production. Lonelywood prepared me for No Truce With The Furies in a lot of ways. Mainly, it inspired me to write an RPG that’s only the late game standalone village. (Although our Martinaise district is, techically, a city district. But still.)

Heart of Winter itself has it’s flaws – although few – but it’s central hub shares none of them. The best thing about it is how the sidequests are rolled out, foreshadowed, branched into. The guide character – a bored little girl – has some very nifty dialogue. The player gets to exhibit unexpected amounts of character (our main goal with No Truce). The scene with the kid is set up superbly: she lies, you may lie in return, her character slowly reveals. The village also sports a side quest that fakes the passage of time by taking it’s cues from your progression in the main quest. This lets them give the impression of a serial killer on the loose. Events happen that you feel you could have stopped. There’s a ticking clock feeling that I’m dying to emulate in a more complex manner. How the girl introduces the player to the Inn and her bored mother – and how you get to resolve both later – should be systematic touchstones for location design.

And there’s a good poetry moment in there too! I know it’s hard to believe, but there really is. The bard in the Inn conveys his back story in verse and by god I don’t know how, but it doesn’t suck. On the whole the Inn is brilliant. We’ve outright stolen and expanded upon many of it’s tricks. There’s another event cued to coincide with the main quest – an attack on the Inn. This finishes the inn keepers’ story. Lovely stuff.

Anyway, it’s all impeccable really. A shiny little pearl of sunlit snow and creaky log houses, one final parting gift from the Infinity engine. The opaque packaging kept me from opening it for 13 years. Once I did it inspired me to go through with the insanities of game production and financing.

I hope I didn’t waste your time talking about it on this winter’s morning. And I hope I get to outdo it.


Teaser screenshot of our snow tech​
 
Gaspard said:
You can be a fascist - and you might meet others like you. Perhaps down the line there will be a banger outfit that qualify as fascists, but as a cop you couldn´t really join per se.
Click to expand...
Yeah fair enough, though that doesn't usually stop cops...

So how will the combat system work?
 
Gaspard said:
There is no combat :o

And yet there is violence...
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I find that quite interesting, because in many games, I feel like the combat is over-done so they can utilise the combat mechanics.

I'm curious, how much do scenes which involve a shoot out come up?, Because I feel like that kind of thing would give you guys a unique opportunity to make a realistic amount of violence.

Also, how much control do you have over character-creation?, do you get any say in the character's backstory, personality or appearance?
 
JO'Geran said:
I find that quite interesting, because in many games, I feel like the combat is over-done so they can utilise the combat mechanics.

I'm curious, how much do scenes which involve a shoot out come up?, Because I feel like that kind of thing would give you guys a unique opportunity to make a realistic amount of violence.

Also, how much control do you have over character-creation?, do you get any say in the character's backstory, personality or appearance?
Click to expand...

The amount of scenes that involve some kind of shootout depends so much on pacing and is most likely in important storyline intersections. Like, you could shoot a banger in the foot during a rushed interrogation in an alley and get an important piece of information pertinent to your current quest, but might lose an informant in the long run. Or you could walk up to a group of locals brandishing your gilded and gem-encrusted hand-cannon only to see them scatter to the four winds.

Character creation in No Truce With the Furies is more akin to Planescape: Torment.
 
Newspost time! A wall of code for your pleasure :) We´re this close to coming out with an actual announcement, though. It could be later today. Fingers crossed. Until then, our Code Archwizard Veljo:

(Part 2 can be found here.)

Last time, I left you hanging a bit – not only was InputManager.cs quite long, it also used attributes and classes I haven’t even shown yet. Props to those of you who still understood the idea; maybe my code isn’t quite as arcane and hard to follow as I sometimes fear.

Still, better late than never (or so they say). Here are the missing puzzle pieces:

PersistentAttribute.cs
/// <summary>Mark the SingletonComponent as Persistent (it will call DontDestroyOnLoad(this) on Awake).</summary>
[System.AttributeUsage(System.AttributeTargets.Class)]
public class PersistentAttribute : System.Attribute {}
Click to expand...
SelfSpawningAttribute.cs
/// <summary>Mark the SingletonComponent as Self-Spawning (it will create a new GameObject with this component if one is not present).</summary>
[System.AttributeUsage(System.AttributeTargets.Class)]
public class SelfSpawningAttribute : System.Attribute {

public UnityEngine.HideFlags hideFlags { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }

public SelfSpawningAttribute() { hideFlags = UnityEngine.HideFlags.None; name = string.Empty; }
}
Click to expand...
SingletonComponent.cs
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public abstract class SingletonComponent<T> : BaseComponent where T : MonoBehaviour {

protected static T singleton;
protected static bool isReadonly = false;

protected static A GetAttribute<A>() where A : System.Attribute {
return System.Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(typeof(T), typeof(A)) as A;
}

/// <summary>
/// Use this instead of GameObject.Find to get a reference to the persistent object.
/// </summary>
public static T Singleton {
get {
if (singleton==null && !isReadonly) {
T res = FindObjectOfType<T>();
if (!res) {
SelfSpawningAttribute ssa = GetAttribute<SelfSpawningAttribute>();
if (ssa!=null) {
string n = string.IsNullOrEmpty(ssa.name) ? string.Format("{0} (selfspawned)", typeof(T).Name) : ssa.name;
res = (new GameObject(n)).AddComponent<T>();
res.hideFlags = ssa.hideFlags;
}
}
Singleton = res;
}
return singleton;
}
protected set {
if (isReadonly || singleton==value) {} // already set to this value
else if (singleton && value) { // violation of singleton pattern
Debug.LogWarning(typeof(T).Name + " Singleton already set to different object!");
Destroy(singleton.gameObject);
}
singleton = value;
}
}

protected override void Awake() {
base.Awake();
Singleton = this as T;
}

protected virtual void OnDestroy() {
if (singleton==(this as T)) Singleton = null;
//base.OnDestroy();
}

protected virtual void OnApplicationQuit() { isReadonly = true; }
}
You might have seen similar solutions elsewhere. It is a nice implementation of singleton pattern for Unity C#, also handling some “gotcha” moments you might stumble upon.

Agent.cs
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class Agent : System.IDisposable {

protected bool _isFinished;
protected Behaviour parent;

public Agent(Behaviour parent) {
this.parent = parent;
}

public virtual void Dispose() {
_isFinished = true;
}

public bool IsFinished {
get {
// Make IsFinished verify parent status on each read
if (!_isFinished && !parent) Dispose();
return _isFinished;
}
}
}

public class AgentCollection {

protected HashSet<Agent> agents;
protected float time;
protected float interval;

public AgentCollection(float cleanupInterval = 10f) {
interval = cleanupInterval;
}

public bool Add(Agent item) { return agents.Add(item); }

public void Clear() {
foreach (Agent a in agents) a.Dispose();
agents.Clear();
}

public void Update(float deltaTime) {
time += deltaTime;
if (time>=interval) {
agents.RemoveWhere(a => a.IsFinished);
time = 0f;
}
}
}
Click to expand...
Agent is a light-weight entity charged with an ongoing or recurring task. InputManager internally implements specialized agents for delivering input events to subscribers (that is, scripts), on the condition that the script is active and enabled at the time. This is certainly not the only way to solve this, nor might it be the best solution. Still, it works and made implementation easier.

Wrap-up (for now)
This is not the final solution by any means. It currently lacks runtime customization (keycodes and axes are hard-coded as attribute parameters), and it doesn’t mesh with UI event system. I have designs on how to tackle these, but for now it will have to wait it’s turn in the big ol’ TO DO list.

Thank you for reading!
 
Hey! So, after a fairly long silence on our side, we put and end to it with the launch of NO TRUCE WITH THE FURIES´ first teaser trailer. Hope it gets your antennae tingling:



There´s some blurb attached too:
We’ve been really really busy – and oh boy are we ready to show you what we’ve worked on! This is the first taste of our game: the world, the music, the voice acting. It’s a teaser trailer, an honest to god depiction of what to expect from No Truce With The Furies. And we’re proud like hell of it.

The company is now called ZA/UM.

There will be a new site in January, showing off more features.

We would like to thank British Sea Power for the music and Mikee Goodman for the delivery of those lines. And you for tuning in – expect a lot more from us in the coming months. We adore role-playing games and No Truce With The Furies is what we always dreamed RPG’s could be.
Click to expand...
 
Well, you can still keep your pants on - the game is still in development :D Here´s a tidbit of how tat´s going.

Meet: Rene

2gEsv2t


Forty years ago Rene was an enlisted military man and now he is (grudgingly) enjoying his retirement days. In No Truce you can pretty much straight up walk up to him and play with his balls.

Rauno, the heavy lifting modeler here at ZA/UM Studio (I almost wrote Fortress Occident... this is going to take some time to get used to) had fun in ZBrush and Marvelous Designer:

2hoqFqC

2holh6H


and I´m almost done texturing the guy and will give those normal maps a more homey-craftsy handpainted feel before we plop him in the game and remove the stand-in Everyman character model for your viewing pleasure some time soon.
 
Gaspard said:
In No Truce you can pretty much straight up walk up to him and play with his balls.
Click to expand...
Wait, is this literal, or metaphorical?

If literal, does that mean you can literally walk up to some guy and start caressing him out in the open?
 
JO'Geran said:
Wait, is this literal, or metaphorical?

If literal, does that mean you can literally walk up to some guy and start caressing him out in the open?
Click to expand...
Oddly enough I'm implying that it's the literal variety of playing with the man's balls. I can also guaranteeyou, that it is nothing like what you're even capable of imagining.
 
Gaspard said:
Oddly enough I'm implying that it's the literal variety of playing with the man's balls. I can also guaranteeyou, that it is nothing like what you're even capable of imagining.
Click to expand...
:confused:Well, that's certainly a bizarre thing to implement in to a game.
 
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