Some part of the icons have done! Stealth, repair, science etc. Also I reworked some textures and finished scifi tank model. And a lot of new models are not on the picture
My man @dmonin I heard from someone that the very reason why you decided to make this game is because you've concluded that modding Underrail is too much a pain in the arse? If that's the case, can I assume you're developing this game under heavy influence from Underrail? And am I wrong to assume the game will be more combat-centric like Underrail?
Yes, five years ago I asked Styg about some modding tools or SDK for Underrail. And yes, I really wanted to make some mod on Underrail.
And sure, Fallout 1/2 and Underrail inspired me. But I don't want to just copy them. I can't say that it will be more combat-centric game like Underrail. But combat gonna be no least part of the game. I'll try to create something my own based on scifi movies like The Thing, Screamers and Total Recall etc.
Hard to say. Right now I'm working only on environment. I'm not a 3d artist so thats why it could take more time than I am expecting cause everything I do I do by my own. As for me I'm already late for 2-3 months. But most of game mechanics, I mean background code, almost done.
Also I still have issues with animation and organic cause it's hard to model and animate. But I will manage them.
If the project advanced to a more comfortable stage for you to feel secure enough in its development are you going to expand it into a team and perhaps get crowdfunding for it?
If the project advanced to a more comfortable stage for you to feel secure enough in its development are you going to expand it into a team and perhaps get crowdfunding for it?
Hi! Hard to say. It will be nice to have a team. But actually I'm fine to work alone too. What about crowdfunding - will see. But only after playable teaser.
In a game full of the text the main bottleneck is a font. The font should be readable and not complicate the player's life. But choosing a font is very difficult process, as is its color. Plus, here goes the screen resolution and everything is getting worse.
I was planning to order a font. Make it like the old pixel (no, there is no thing like this I guess, but they are very similar to pixels) IBM PC fonts. But, unfortunately, the designer couldn't get the job cause he is very busy. So, I decided to look for a free font that would pass under three main requirements:
1. Absolutely free, up to commercial use.
2. Cyrillic support and at least a couple of languages - French and German (maybe someone will translate it if I find money for this)
3. And my favorite test a set of symbols - "Illegal1 = O0" (zero, letter O, numeral one, and English l and cursive letter l (L)
And I found it. This is the Iosevka font. It's totally free and almost passes the point #3
I will not stop looking for the font of my dreams, but so far, the choice has been made. I hope you like the font. And even if not, it will cause less irritation than Comic Sans.
One more thing. The font size on the screenshots is the minimum that can be set in the game, further - you can only make it larger. The font size changing option will be for sure.
And I'm still in progress of creating models for the environment.
I think it looks pretty great so far. There could be a little bit of tweaking with the font or the color of font and background but overall this is good in my opinion. Maybe something a slight bit bolder but not too much? Just to make it slightly easier on the eyes? I don't know.
I’m very sorry for the lack of news. Now about the most important thing - the project is alive, developing and not abandoned.
Straight to the specifics. There was no news for many reasons. One of the main reasons is that most of news are technical news and for the gaming community it would be just boring.
Next thing I broke my PC while trying to change my CPU cooler. Ha-ha, classic...
I was without a PC for a 1.5 month. Good news that nothing was lost because I do regular backup on several HDD also, I has github repo.
1. Most game mechanics have moved to Lua
I needed a good solution for the future to provide a quick fix for game mechanics. Because any editing of quests / dialogues caused a full rebuilding and this process could take a lot of time. Yes, I know that you can keep game mechanics in a separate assembly, but it is really bad way. I made script structure similar to the scripts from Fallout 1 / 2.
2. The dialog system now is based on Lua scripts too
I wrote a converter from Draft3 project to Lua. It handles basic stat check nodes and convert them to Lua. Writing own dialog node editor is too expensive so yes I use the Draft3 in my pipeline.
An original
Export from Draft3
And final result after convert
3. The dialogue system also running on the template engine
Added the text template engine for dialog nodes. For example, you can have a female/male character or display the name of the character, etc. and those things have to affect on dialog node. Also, it can check some stats but those checks should be in Lua but not in template.
4. Finished most of UI
5. Removed the "mobile" elements
For me old battle mode had strong reference to mobile games. I mean those big hexes. And I didn't like it. So now movement in battle mode based on lines. The hexagonal grid still exists.
6. Moved all game mechanics data to json format instead binary
AI behavior in battle, non-combat behavior, etc.
7. Started learning animation
This is a very fun thing actually. I'm in the beginning.
One thing I didn't finish it’s the Editor. Cause most of my utilities work from console and there is no any UI for them. As you can see the news a little bit boring. But the changes are massive, complex and contains a lot of work.
By the way I posted screenshots without a new visual things. I want to keep some intrigue. As for further plans I think to release something playable by the June/July of 2020. I can’t promise and don’t want to, but I will try.
