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[jrhee]

Hi! Liege is a story driven, tactical RPG, initially targeting iOS & Mac, with plans to port to PC & Android soon after. My goal with the project is to create an interesting blend of compelling, character focused narrative and elegant, accessible tactical combat. Other areas I’m focusing on include creating a unique, hand drawn visual aesthetic, and a minimalist, touch optimized interface.

I’ve been putting together a proof of concept to vet the key technical components, design elements, and visual tone that will support the final game. Take a look at the video and screens below for more info:

Proof of Concept Video
http://youtu.be/8zFYgWjgqVU

Screenshots


Promo/early concept art


Once the demo’s complete (hopefully by end of March), I’ll be switching gears and focusing on churning out content for the final game, which I’m hoping to complete in time to submit to next year’s IGF. Between now and then, I’ll be adding lots more content here and on my website. Let me know your thoughts!

[Paul Jeffries]

Looks gorgeous, although there seems to me to be a very subtle miss-match of detail level between different objects - for example the stone bridge and the waterfall.  I think it would look better with a more uniformly impressionistic style.  It also looks slightly strange that the people appear to be subject to perspective while the houses are not.  These are just minor niggles in something that otherwise looks very impressive, though.  Here's hoping the gameplay can match the visuals!

[jrhee]

Thanks Paul, didn't think anyone would notice that so quickly! Initially when I started on this I was targeting mobile only so I was doing the art at half the resolution. Since then, I've added bigger screens to my target list so I upped the resolution, but haven't had a chance to re-do some of the existing assets. Will definitely start at hi-res when I switch focus to working on final content.

I was toying with the idea of adding some slight perspective, since it would just be a matter of distorting in Photoshop. It may get tricky when it comes to things like collision detection, but will keep playing around. Thanks again-

[keo]

oh lordee beautiful beautiful work

[Gregg Williams]

Nice graphics style. Not sure about the seemingly ultra simple combat system though. Would love to see or hear more about that part of things.

[jrhee]

Thanks all. Gregg, will definitely post updates on combat once it's ready, hopefully towards the end of the month.

[jrhee]

Hi everyone! Over the last few weeks I've been fine tuning some of the basics I'll need to support things like cutscenes, dialogue, etc. Getting the timing down between the camera, dialogue, and characters turned out to be tricky to solve. I've also been playing around some more with effects to get different types of atmospheres/weather etc. Lastly, I've been working on figuring out how combat animations will work. I put together a quick video which showcases some of what I'm talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvHR-GlcdlU

And here's a whole bunch of screens! 

[John Sandoval]

Posted this on the TIGSource Tumblr. Good work.

http://tigsource.tumblr.com/post/45535234956/battle-keep-a-game-by-electrolyte

[allen]

looks really awesome, but that video you last linked is private.

I really like the art-style and character designs, very unique.

why the PC build after the Mac? I would imagine that when you release it is when you're going to get the most press, so PC users obviously wouldn't buy it then, and will likely forget or won't even know whenever you have the PC version out. just something to think about.

[jrhee]

@ John - Awesome, thanks!

@ Allen - Thanks for the heads up, video's public now. When I started this project a while back I was originally looking to do iOS only, but the scope's grown since then. I'm still figuring out my plan for launch, but Mac support is just easier from a technical perspective as of now. Point taken though, will be posting updates further down once plans firm up.

[kamac]

Incredible artwork as for a game. Just to make sure: it's 2D?
Also, do you draw these characters in 2D, or they're in 3D (possibly mapped to 2D?)

Anyhoo, it looks great!
I'd love to ask some technical questions. Can't really resist:

1. That cool fighting scene you've shown - is it some scripted event? (LUA perhaps?) (I can't really tell if it's somehow made-up or actually in game)
2. Will this game be moddable? (I think of making a new storyline)
3. Mind telling how big your map tiles are? (If there are such)

PS.

Not sure about the seemingly ultra simple combat system though

I think it could've be a bit more complicated, too.

[Alchiggins]

This looks really, really gorgeous. Look forward to playing it.

[jrhee]

@ Alchiggins: Thanks! 

@ kamac: Thanks- the art is 2d, but the characters are modelled in 3d using Blender, then imported as sprites. For your technical questions:
1. The scene in the video is scripted, but uses the in-game graphics & animation engine. The scene in the video was to test some of the code I'll be using to sequence cutscenes, along with some of the animations that will used for playable combat.
2. I don't have any plans to make the game moddable near term, but I may add support down the road depending on time.
3. Although the character movement is tile based, each environment is drawn onto a single large canvas and split up. Each tile would be 64x64 on larger screens and retina, and 32x32 for non-retina mobile.

[kamac]

Thanks for these answers, jrhee
Only two additional, not really so important questions:
1. What scripting language do you (guys) use?
2. What language are you coding the whole thing in?  

Cheers!

PS. I really wish there was some kind of function for following devlogs..

[jrhee]

Np- it's just me as of now, so I'm happy to talk about it whenever I can  The coding and event scripting are both being done in Objective-C as of now using cocos2d for iOS, with certain things reading off of xml property files. My plan is to migrate to cocos2d-x (C++) to get PC and Android support, but I'm waiting to see where they take the engine over the next few months since it looks like porting options are still evolving.