TIGSource Forums

Afternoon, fellow TIGgers. I've been posting artwork from this over in the Art thread for a good while, and I think I've got a decent enough bit of progress for a devlog.

The story follows Sir Abelard who, under the orders of his liege, King Atlas, travels to the dead Kingdom of Lord Faustus to destroy the artefact said to be the cause of its demise: The Umber Throne.

Joining him in his quest is Magister Magnus, who stays at the main base camp acting as mission control, and three young knights.


The world of Umber Throne is kind of confusing. It exists within an immense void known as the Empyrean Expanse. Within this void float an immeasurable number of Realms, which have the appearance of floating chunks of earth. Upon each Realm sits a Kingdom and within each Kingdom sits a King.

The state of a Realm is tied to that of its King. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FisherKing) If the King is sickly and weak, his Kingdom is rather barren and in shambles. If he is mighty and thriving, so is his Kingdom.

Every Kingdom is connected by a sort of 'highway' of light known as the Aether Streams. To date, most Kingdoms have created special Aether Galleons which can travel upon these Streams and interact with other Kingdoms.


What I wanted to do with Umber Throne is have the main challenge stem from the players' skill and the skill of the enemies. I don't want the player to be limited by a lack of mobility or attack options. For that reason, I'm implementing a large number of options, including blocks, dashing, dodges, crouching, normal combos, aerial attacks, downward attacks, upward attacks, dash attacks, and attacks that break through an enemy's guard, among other things.

What I've got so far (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3YuOUVQpDM)

RIGHT. Almost forgot a really early demo build:
https://rapidshare.com/files/2094037568/UmberThrone.rar

Holding jump makes it higher
To slide, Dash while crouching

When messing with the control input, the important ones are the Horizontal at the top, and everything below the DIVISOR line. Escape to quit

I really like what I've seen so far, and love the designs I've seen of your characters in the other thread. Story and other ideas sound great.

Your youtube vid asked for suggestions, so I thought I might throw some out. I'm really glad that Sir Abelard actually holds his sword back as he runs. It really annoys me in games when my character is holding a giant 100 lbs. sword in one hand, yet he still uses the same run animation as if there's no weight in his hand. The angle Abelard is holding his sword at, however, seems a bit awkward. Part of it is because it's a 2D representation of a 3D object, and it's hard on the small video to see which way the sword is turned, but part of it is also that it's really hard to hold your arm out that straight without it tiring extremely quickly, even if you're not holding any weight. Add any weight to it and it's nigh-impossible to keep your arm out horizontally for any length of time.

It also feels like his sword needs more "weight" to it in those overhand chops. I expected more of a delay as the sword hits the ground and makes the camera shake, and then a slow acceleration of the sword as he brings it back up. Instead, he yanks it right up as if it doesn't weigh any more than a toothpick. That would slow down combat a bit though, so who knows, it may not be what you want.

His crazily awesome helmet feather is such a prominent part of his design that you expect it to have more... "life" or "character" to it, but I realize you've just barely started the project and that's probably not something you're worrying about at the moment.

Anyway, love what I've seen, can't wait to see it progress :)

Thanks for the reply, Duncan.

I'm currently addressing the issues with some of the attacks, as I too felt they lacked the Oomph they needed. Also note that Abe is reeeeeally old and reeeeeeally beastly, so a sword of that size wouldn't really be an issue for 'im.

New thing:
BOWS
ARROWS
MAYHEM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd1nQ_2bRVY

i love fast paced platformer gameplay.  that's what this sounds like to me.


can't really say much about the video, i'm excited about it though.  love them parabolas.

keep at it mantooth

Super cool idea, McMutton! I love the art style as well.

Can't wait to see more.

Thanks, fellows!

I've not really gotten much done since last time. Right now I'm trying to get the sword swing effects looking nice. But aside from that, I've done the effects for the few weapons you find lying about:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/PickMe.png)
The sparkles sparkle, and some light shines down upon it! (Although the effects seem a bit dull currently)

And I've finished the default weapon, the Regal Edge:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/RegalEdge.png)

wow the models look even more awesome close up.  beautiful stuff man.  i have to agree about the effects though, the item could easily be missed.  more saturation and brilliance, i'd say.

Nice stuff. I'll keep coming back.

You should write what OS the demo is for.

Purdy  8)

Lol I really like the look of the knight guy.

Thanks, guys. Sorry about the lack of a Mac demo, Skomakar'n; I lack one to test it on.

I think I've gotten a suitable sword effect thingy done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-WpCwZiHYg

As well as finishing the effects for obtainable weapons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq1QPp070vw

That sword, by the way, is the Zanbatou:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/Zanbatou.png)


~~EDIT~~

I think I should mention what I'm wanting to do with the different swords you find. These weapons don't simply have an arbitrary higher 'attack' value, but they've all got different attributes. In addition, each of the swords you find is pretty much balanced against the others.

Taking the two that I've shown, you've got the Regal Edge and the Zanbatou.
The Regal Edge, being the default weapon, is the Mario of the game. It deals decent damage and has a decent attack rate, but it has no special abilities.
The Zanbatou, in contrast, deals more damage and can do so through an enemy's guard, but it's a great deal slower.

So it's kind of like the way they did it in Soul Calibur.

 I felt the need to make the test room look pretty, so I've spent the last few days cooking up some environment assets.

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/room2.png)

really really sweet looking.  i'd say if anything, the stone wall doesn't quite match the rest of the art.  it could be the lines inbetween stones that seem out of place.

Perhaps if I made the spaces smaller?
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/Room4.png)

I've gotten some rudimentary AI on the first enemy, as well:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/Golbat.png)

It's part of a group of creatures called the Gol, or World Eaters. In our world, Time is the main source of decay; But in UT, it's these things. They always appear in underused places and devour everything, slowly but surely.

this looks great so far.  i like the art direction a lot - it seems really consistent.  i'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Damn those Zubats! Oh, wait.  :biglaff:

The sword effect looks really amazing. It has that Fire Emblem-esque motion blur, especially when it's being spun around, that makes it feel a lot more hefty.

Thanks, guys. I was actually using the effects from the GBA Fire Emblem games as reference when I made those sword effects!

Cross posting from Art, here's one of the villains, Magistra Mallea
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/MalleaCol2.png)

And I've gotten a good bit done, including more enemy AI, changing stuff up for switching swords, making the bow near fully functional, and enabling enemies to take damage. I'll throw up a video once I get this terrible bug handled.

Finally fixed that irritating bug. Time for...

SWORDS
BOWS
ARROWS
MAYHEM
...
DEEEEATH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYCjZBk92yw
(You have NO idea how evil my laugh was upon getting this working)

Hahaha I bet it was wickedly evil   :handshakeR::lol::handshakeL:

Nice arrow physics xD

Oh, shiny! Nice to see all that cool artwork in-game!

What's this? Progress!? Madness!

I'm almost done getting this guy completely implemented:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/Heavygame.png)

I've also done a couple of combat things:

You can now dodge certain attacks by ducking at the right time.

You can now perfom a COUNTER STRIKE by attacking right before an enemy's attack hits.
(Though I still need to perfect the timing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrjUwA8HNRA

Yaaaay.

~~EDIT~~

Ah, I'd almost forgotten. Some time in the future, I'll be in need of a musician. So if you'd be interested let us speak!

I can't believe I missed this.  :o

 :handmoneyL: :crazy: :handmoneyR: YOU CAN HAVE MY MONEY!

I can take it now, if you'd like.

Another one:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/Soldier.png)

This is freaking great dude! Really looking forward to this :DDD

Thank'eh, Maikel.

I'm quite proud of this logo. Though I think it needs a bit of shadow.
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/Logo2-2.png)

I think the letters need to stand out more... I had to stare at it for a little bit before I was able to glean the text from it.
Still, I think it's a beautiful piece of art.  :)

Huzzah!

Perhaps my monitor's a bit bright, as I can see it just fine. How's this?
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/logo4.png)

Looks much easier to read now for me!

I love the way you have the eyes shining from the darkness of their helmets, VERY cool.

Looking good! In the second one you got rid of the shady tendrils in the background, how come?

Wickeeeddd :-* I found the artwork to be, umm... how can I put it... sexy... In a good way
I love the sword slashing effect. Did you change the sword model when swinging the sword?
BTW, since you are using Unity3D, have you tried to use cartoon shader for the game? Just curious on how will the game look like with it.

Thanks Guys!

Kitheif- It's the basis of the game's style, so I hope it's super cool.

Destral- I may add them back at the menu screen, but I thought simplicity would be better for showing off the logo design

Bart - Glad to hear it. As to the sword, I have it in two pieces: The hilt and the blade. At certain point in the animation, I've the blade set to disappear and the trails to appear.

I'm starting to use a modified Toon Outline shader, since the concepts have one as well:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/Heavygame-1.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/SoldierGame.png)


New character, Engineer Gaius!
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/Gaius.png)

Added hatching to Abe's texture
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l43/Marshal_banana/hatchingabe2-Copy.png)

'Not sure about the hatching...
Shouldn't be the hatches rendered in screen space (http://astrofra.com/posts/realtime_nrr/03/02.jpg) rather that withing the textures. As it is now, on the screenshot above, it suffers of UV stretching and the bilinear doesn't help :-[

Otherwise, I love the concepts & even more the 3D models :)
They might deserve a less dense texturing, maybe :-[

Your models and textures are gorgeous. The outlines was a great addition! I think i prefer them without the hatching as well though.

Gameplay wise it's hard to tell, since I guess you're not super far along in to the project. My instant reaction was that maybe it all seemed a bit slow? A good pacing is what makes or breaks good side scrollers, so keep an extra eye on that!

Anyway, keep it up, I'll be checking up on this!

I like the hatching on the models themselves, though rendering them in screen space in real time would be neat to see for sure.

I'd actually found a decent hatching shader, but it reacts to the position of the camera rather than any lighting for some reason.

Also, I'm reopening development on this one again. I seem to have lost the original animation files for Abe 'cause Messiah sucks so much. 'S all good though, since that one had WAY too many bones.

There'll be a couple of changes such as the removal of different swords and Abe using a one-handed saber instead of a two-hander. Everything else will stay the same, pretty much.

As mentioned before, I'm going to focus on putting far more movement and attack options than anyone would need. My to-do list thus far includes:

-Horizontal attack while standing or airborne
-Attack at a 45-degree upward angle while standing or airborne
-Attack straight up while standing or airborne
-Attack while crouching
-Attack at a 45-degree downward angle while crouching or airborne
-Attack downward while airborne
-Downward flying kick while airborne, a la Castlevania
-Wall jumping a la Megaman X
-Dodging while standing and airborne
-Evasive slide while crouching a la Megaman and Castlevania
-Blocking with the same directional options as attacking
-Parrying, which is the usual blocking with perfect timing
-Attacks that break an enemy's guard.
-Dashing while standing or airborne
-Dash attack
-Maybe edge grabbing

Anything else you think I should add?

I love the main character. Great design and moves. Something that for me if off putting is how his feet slide when he arms the bow. It's a minor detail, but I seen it in the first video and the on the rest of them as well.  ::)