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[pikkukatti]

Oh I remember seeing the game over on NeoGAF, it's definitely looking better than the last time I saw it and I like how clean it is. Do you have any higher resolution shots here because most of you latest show are quite small?

How's the greenlight going though, it probably wasn't there the last time I remember seeing you post on GAF, so I'm going to have to go vote for it now

[EDarkness]

Heh, I haven't posted anything in NeoGAF in a long time. I should check up on everyone to see how they're doing.  The game has come a long way since then, but it's still a long way from being finished. 

Here are a couple high res shots (720p). I try not to use them here as I feel like they can bog down the page when there are too many screens. 

http://skullforge.omc-games.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Skullforge_27.png
http://skullforge.omc-games.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Skullforge_26.jpg

Perhaps I'll try to include the link to the higher resolution screens in the future.

As for the Steam Greenlight, it's coming along.  Slow, but every now and again I get an e-mail or comment from people who have discovered the game.  I'm going to need to update the screenshots there with newer ones.  If anyone hasn't voted for us on Steam Greenlight, please head over there and throw us a vote.  The link is below.  :D

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=250832280

[EDarkness]

Another week and another screenshot.  This one shows off Blackquill's tavern.

[quixotic]

Hey, this looks pretty cool. I'm impressed how far one developer can get with a little help by the Unity asset store. I would have easily believed for this project to have 10 people involved just from looking at the screenshots.

I would recommend for you to update the first post and put the youtube video in there. Make sure to not just drop the link since that's easy to overlook, but create a screenshot that looks like a youtube video and link it to the actual video on youtube. This will help people to get a better understanding of the game without having to read up the different posts.

Cheers

[jctwood]

This devlog is very impressive, especially for a one man dev team using Unity, are you using Unity pro?

[EDarkness]

Hey, this looks pretty cool. I'm impressed how far one developer can get with a little help by the Unity asset store. I would have easily believed for this project to have 10 people involved just from looking at the screenshots.

I would recommend for you to update the first post and put the youtube video in there. Make sure to not just drop the link since that's easy to overlook, but create a screenshot that looks like a youtube video and link it to the actual video on youtube. This will help people to get a better understanding of the game without having to read up the different posts.

Thanks for the compliments.  I feel like getting good art is the thing that holds many people back.  I was lucky that one of the asset creators is a good guy and put together some great assets for people to use. Of course, being a programmer does make getting things functional a lot easier.  Let's just hope that it all comes together in a great package at the end of the day.

I hadn't thought of adding the video to this blog, but it's a good idea.  I'll go ahead and add it after I finish this post.  It's kinda old at this point, but I suppose it can't hurt to have it there until I can get a better one out.

This devlog is very impressive, especially for a one man dev team using Unity, are you using Unity pro?

Thanks.  Yeah, I'm using Unity Pro.  The lighting features are definitely worth it.  Luckily, Wii U development comes with Unity Pro as well.

[EDarkness]

It's another week and another screenshot. Enjoy!

[EDarkness]

Been working hard this week on UI things and I have to say it's the part I hate most.  Trying to get everything to look right and actually function is rage inducing sometimes.  The sad thing is after I worked on a few things I came to the conclusion that the UI needed to be redone.  I like how clean the current UI is but it's...missing something.  I'll admit that I don't really have an eye for creating something like this.  Which is why the current UI is a little clunky looking.  In any case, it does what I want it to do.  This is why in recent screenshots, I've turned off the UI. It's just not good and it kinda ruins the feel of the screenshots.  I'll be focusing more on the UI in the next month because I have to get quest and info UI looking decent.  Still a ways off on getting that functioning the way I want it.

Also, I picked up Chat Mapper and I'll be using that for quests and dialog. Keeping track of the crazy dialog trees in the Unity Editor makes my head hurt. Just the few dialogs I used for the Skullforge: The Hunt trailers was difficult to keep track of and I kept messing it up because I would get who said what mixed up. Something definitely needed to be done about that. It would have been nice if Chat Mapper had a Mac version so that I could work on code and dialogs on the same machine...but alas.  Luckily, the ole Windows PC is around and probably pretty happy he's getting some work outside of playing Mass Effect 3 and testing Skullforge PC builds. Gotta admit that the software is a little daunting in the beginning.  Sooooo many options to mess with.  In any case, here's to the future!

I'll end today's blog post with a new screen.  This is the updated warehouse.  You should notice that there is a lot more going on this time.  Woot!

[EDarkness]

Hello folks.  It's been a while, but we're still out there chuggin' away at the game.  I don't have much to say this week, so enjoy this week's screen.



There isn't any furniture in the Mercenaries Guild yet, but the movers are coming....

[EDarkness]

Hello, everyone.  It's been a while, but work continues.  Today, I figured I'd throw up a couple screens for you to check out.  I hope to have a more interesting blog post in the coming weeks as I'll have more free time due to the holidays.  Something I'm definitely looking forward to.  Anyway, hope you enjoy the screens.

[EDarkness]

Hey folks.  It's been a while since I last posted.  A lot has happened since then, the most important thing is that I made the move from Japan to the U.S.  Considering that the U.S. is where I'm from, it's strange being back.  Perhaps living in a foreign country really does change how you view the world you grew up in.

All that aside, we're still working on the game and have made some really nice progress.  I'm getting to be rather pleased with combat, even though it's still not exactly where I want it to be.  At the moment, it's about timing to get combos to work and less about button mashing.  I want the game to be relatively fast paced, but this isn't Diablo, so there should be a certain amount of strategy, especially when facing big targets or multiple enemies.  This week I'm going to make a little "Danger Room" so I can test out the combat with multitudes of enemies.  Something my wife suggested the other day.  The one thing people may not like is that there isn't any sort of "lock on" system.  I decided to avoid it since the pacing requires a bit of tactical know-how and providing a "lock" would make things a little too focused.  Of course, this could change once my "Danger Room" is up and running.  One thing I'm fairly certain about is more than 4 mobs and it gets a little hairy to survive.  Mobs don't just stand around and watch you beat up on their friends.  They'll try to flank you and are constantly attacking, which means the player can get surrounded and destroyed pretty easily.  There are multiple ways to handle this, but I almost always go with a divide and conquer tactic.  With more abilities at a player's disposal, I imagine players will find a way that suits them best.  Which is what I'm counting on.

I stated a long time ago that there would be a Wii U version of the game.  This hasn't changed.  As a matter of fact, I should have my dev kit this week and HOPEFULLY have some screenshots of the Wii U build next week.  It'll be nice to actually have the game running on the Wii U.  So far, I've tested the game on PCs and Macs.  It seems to run fine in both cases, with some issues with buttons and such that need to be resolved.  I haven't tested Linux yet, but that will be in the next month or so once I can get a dedicated Linux machine built.  I imagine it will run fine.  The only version I'm worried about at the moment is the Wii U.  Just not sure how well it will perform and there's a bit of trepidation that my vision of how this will work for that system will be shattered due to performance issues.  One thing I've been doing recently is trying to get the game to look as good as it can without too many crazy effects and a small memory footprint.  I suppose the next couple of weeks will hammer all of that out.  Don't worry about Wii U support. I'll get it working one way or another.  I'm determined.  I'll probably take a moment next week and talk about the Wii U in my next official blog post.

I already covered this in my official blog (http://skullforge.omc-games.com), but I'll touch on it a little bit here.  Been working on character art and NPCs for a while, but finding a good batch of them has been hard.  As you know, most of what has been done in the game as far as art goes has been from the asset store.  If it isn't on the asset store, then it won't be in the game.  At least at the moment.  Perhaps this will change so that I can add a bit of uniqueness to the game, but that's a matter of money which I don't have much of.  If you've wondered why there aren't many NPCs in any of the screenshots, it's because of two reasons.  The first is just a simple case of having not gotten to that point yet.  Most characters in the game are enemies used for testing the combat.  The second reason is that I haven't found a good batch of NPCs to use.  As a matter of fact, I'm still messing around with the test model for the main character of the game.  Don't get me wrong, there are a few NPC model packs on the Asset Store.  However, I feel like the "look" may not match the game.  I guess I haven't really decided on a "look" yet, which makes choosing a set of NPCs more difficult.

With some important trade shows coming up, I need to figure it all out before then.  At least a temporary solution.  I really want to change the model for the main character.  I like that particular model since it has a more practical feel to it, but I think it's about time for that to be fixed.  The trick is getting the final design finalized and then getting the 3D model made.  Still working on the design and the model...we'll get to that at some point.  I included this in my blog, but I'll post it again here for those who don't want to do a lot of clicking.  The design is coming around, but still in flux.  You'd think after a year we'd have this nailed down, but alas.  Heh, heh.



Well, probably enough crap for today.  I'll leave you guys with a few new screenshots that I haven't posted here.  Here's to the future.

[EDarkness]

I had a few minutes to kill so I figured I'd talk a little bit about combat and my thoughts on it. I said a long time ago that the game isn't like Diablo.  It's easy to get that impression from just looking at some of the media we've put out.  On top of that, RPGs with this camera angle tend to be like Diablo.  I chose this view because one of my all time favorite RPGs is a game called Soul Blazer for the SNES.  There was something about that game that really connected with me.  When I was planning Skullforge: The Hunt, I thought about what would be a good way to do it that is unique and relatively easy to do that isn't 2D.  I settled on what you see now.

So when working on combat, I wanted it to not be something where massive amounts of mobs come at you from all directions like Diablo.  It's just mass killing and I suppose that's video games in a nutshell, but I wanted something a little less spammy and more about strategy.  I played with a number of options and decided to go with something that limits button mashing.  However, it's not "dial-a-combo", either. Right now, it's kind of like PSO (the original).  There's a timing aspect to it.  Button mashing won't produce results, which means the player will have to be more careful with how they do things.  No lock on makes it even more important to make those attacks count.

What this really means is that combat requires a lot of moving around and waiting for the right moment to strike.  Enemies don't wait to attack you like in games such as Assassin's Creed.  When they see an opening, they attack, which means it's easy to get mobbed.  Too many enemies and you're dead.  I did this to keep players on their toes.  So many games people just run in and destroy everything.  It makes the game fairly easy.  I don't want that to happen in this game.  However, I do want it to be fun, so finding that balance is something we'll be working on and as we do more tests, we'll make adjustments.

Of course, this isn't to say there won't be some huge battles, but they won't be often.  Fights against 3 or 4 enemies at a time should be fairly common.  Using skills and good tactics should ultimately win the day, but I imagine that people will die fairly often when fighting multiple mobs at the same or higher level.  Lower level mobs will be much easier to dispatch such is the advantage of leveling up and getting better gear.

It'll be interesting to see how people handle the fights and what strategies they come up with.  In all honesty, it's one of the things I love most about designing things.  Have a good day.

[EDarkness]

Hello folks.  It's been one crazy week.  We worked on a number of cosmetic things for the game and I think it looks much better than it did.  It's amazing what a little color and some coordination will do for a game. We're not ready to reveal any of that yet, however.

The other thing we started working on was how to get grass working in the game.  One thing you should have noticed about all previous shots is that they've been mainly indoor zones. This is mainly because we've always been at odds with nature. This past week we decided to really look at grass, trees, and the like to see what works for the game.  Many many options later and we finally found something that works.  I really like how it looks in the game.  The angle we're at really makes grass look pretty terrible.  However, this current grass we're using works much better.  It's actually a combination of different models that don't look so good alone, but combined they look pretty good.  Below are some shots that show off what I'm talking about.  So now we can work on outdoor zones and feel confident we can make them look good.

Well, at the very least, I'm pleased with the results.





You guys have a great day.

[EDarkness]

We're back again.  This time I figured I'd talk a little about quests. I've spent quite a bit of time messing around with them in the past few days and I think they'll be the same yet different that what you'd expect.  What I mean is, some quests will be your standard RPG stuff.  Kill 5 dogs.  Collect these flowers.  That kind of stuff.  Others will be a bit more complicated.  If you ever played Ultima back in the day, then you'll recognize the element of typing in keywords to open up more dialogue options.  On top of that, there will be the choices you can make which show up on a list.  You can see what I mean in the pic below:



As you chat with other NPCs in the world and do some tasks, then other options open up in the dialogue tree.  My goal here was to make things that you do connected so that helping or hurting someone can lead to consequences later on down the line.  Quest turn ins are usually not automatic, though there are a couple of cases where someone tells the player to visit another area and when the player does, the quest ends.  Usually these are breadcrumb quests or quests to direct the player to some area for future exploration.

Another aspect of the system is that some quests will have multiple endings depending on how you handle them. I know many game say that, but in this case this will be true.  In the quest I'm writing for the demo, there will be multiple angles to solve the main quest.  In the final game this will be true, too.  I wish every quest in the game could be this way, but there's only me designing quests and I can only do so much.  However, I do want to have quite a few options for players so don't worry.  The main story quest threads will definitely be more robust.  Some of the side quests will be, too.  I just want to avoid a lot of "filler" quests where the player is fetching stuff, killing simple bandits, or collecting 10 wolf ears.

Finally, I'll leave a couple of new screens for those who don't follow us on Twitter.  They're of a new area I'm working on in the game.

[EDarkness]

Welcome to another edition of the Skullforge development blog.  I'm going to continue with grass since after some conversations with other developers it was brought to my attention that grass should move or something.  I agreed with that, but the 3D grass I was using didn't really work when moved and also killed the framerate.  Of course people with super awesome machines would be able to run the game fine, but my goal has always been for someone using a 2010 Mac Mini to run the game well enough at 30FPS.  Perhaps that's asking for too much, but I'd like for as many people to be able to play the game on as many machines as possible.

That lead me to start experimenting with 2D grass a bit more.  I think I found a good solution and the grass actually waves with the wind.  It's really nice looking.  I think people will appreciate this when they play the game for the first time.  There are some screens below, which you can compare to the old ones.  Hope you guys enjoy.



I'll try to get some video in the next week or so.  Got a lot to do these days, so finding time is hard.

Here's another screen before we go (for those who didn't check the Screenshot Saturday thread)....



Have a good day!

[Join Indies]

Looks really good. Very professional especially for just one developer, and making an RPG is no easy task.

[EDarkness]

Looks really good. Very professional especially for just one developer, and making an RPG is no easy task.

Thanks.  It means a lot to hear people say that.  You know, the best part is watching it all come together.  By the way, your site is pretty awesome.  I have been checking it out more these days and I think what you've put together is great for the community.

[pikkukatti]

Looking really great once again after not checking up on the progress for a while. I really like the skill, character and map UI elements; they look really great and professional. I'm not a huge fan of the font as I really like more clean and modern fonts (Sans-Serif usually), but I guess it fits the theme quite well. Any video updates coming soon?

[EDarkness]

Looking really great once again after not checking up on the progress for a while. I really like the skill, character and map UI elements; they look really great and professional. I'm not a huge fan of the font as I really like more clean and modern fonts (Sans-Serif usually), but I guess it fits the theme quite well. Any video updates coming soon?

I understand what you mean about the font, but I tried a simpler font and it just looked strange to me, so I went back to the one I've been using from the beginning.  I might try to change it again in the future if I find something that might work better.  I do want something that says "fantasy", so that's a point I have to deal with.

As for video updates, I hope to have one sometime in the near future.  The first couple of "playable" zones are almost ready, so I plan to do a little walkthrough video to show them off.  There will also be a playable demo for people to run around in sometime in June.  I'm hoping before E3, but we still have a ways to go, so I'm not holding my breath.  June definitely, though.

Here's a screen of the new dungeon we're working on that will be in the demo.  It's still in the very early stages, but I like the way it's turning out.



It's one of the dragons in my test zone.  I thought the shadow was cool as I was walking up to it.  Sorry it's large, I never made a small version of it.

[EDarkness]

Hello, folks.  It's been a little while, but we have been hard at work on the game and I haven't had much time to really sit down and do blog entries like I've wanted.  We're trying to get a trailer ready for E3 and also a little demo to show how the game works and something that will hopefully give players an idea of what to expect in the full game.  There's only two of us working on the game so we may not make it until after E3, but we'll get it done one way or another.

In any case, here are a couple of screens to show off some progress we've made recently.







On a final note, making trailers is hard and I'm not sure I really enjoy doing it.  I guess I'll never be a movie director....