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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsA Credible Tale KICKSTARTER & DEMO UPDATE!
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Dajyareo
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« on: May 10, 2014, 07:55:56 PM »


We're now on Kickstarter!
Play our demo (Mac and PC links on Kickstarter page) and back us if you like us! Any feedback (negative or positive) is always appreciated!

We're excited to finally reach this milestone after so many months of development. We hope the community here joins us!  Beer!


A Credible Tale of Yokai, Robots, and the Lunar Tourist

Welcome to the development log for A Credible Tale! We're a small 4 person indie team with strong family ties to Japan. We set out to create a game that pays homage to 昔話 (old Japanese folktales) and the classic RPGs we loved growing up. We'd like to use this thread as an outlet to share with those following our project how development is progressing. Expect updates often!

Latest Update (8/30/2015)

Just put in the hero's super solar charge attack. Watch that Ochimusha NOPE out of this fight




What's a Yokai?
Glad you asked! Yokai (妖怪) means demon in Japanese. They are commonly the evil apparitions you'll see in Japanese folktales or movies.

Elevator pitch:
A Credible Tale of Yokai, Robots, and the Lunar Tourist is an Action RPG/strategy game that will be released on PC, Mac, Linux, and Xbox One. The game features a beautifully hand-drawn 3-D world set in classic Japan where you will encounter intriguing characters like the dangerous and mischievous yokai or the mysterious and elusive kami, inspired by authentic Japanese folktales. A Credible Tale will teach you Japanese language and folklore while you build and customize a village, explore the wilderness gathering precious resources, and craft powerful tools and defenses to hold back waves of supernatural invaders!

This game is a tribute to our team's two favorite things: SNES era RPG's and Japan. The style and combat mechanics draw inspiration from Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and Legend of Zelda: A Link To the Past. We've included numerous Japanese cultural and historical references in addition to language teaching features. Unlike other learning games though, we've focused on being a game first to ensure the experience is fun above all else. So put on your nostalgia hat, grab your favorite oyatsu (snacks), and prepare for A Credible Tale of Yokai, Robots, and the Lunar Tourist!

Gameplay is split into two phases: night and day. Explore and build during the day so you can defend your village at night. When the day ends, hordes of yokai will come to attack your village. Protect your villagers and resources by employing traps, defensive structures, and your own combat skills to repel the raid. Each type of yokai is unique, with specific objects and resources they are either attracted to or repelled by. The way you choose to defend your village is up to you: will you construct elaborate Goldberg-style traps and funnel invading yokai through a chain reaction of doom? Perhaps you would prefer to focus on honing your hero's combat skills and taking out invaders directly? Utilize the resources offered to you and forge your own path as you push forward to victory!

Out in the wild you will find precious materials for building and crafting, as well as hidden treasures, boss lairs, and more! Be careful though, your supplies outside the village are limited and some sneaky yokai may disguise themselves and deceive you!

Build creative defensive structures, then watch them crush invaders as they collapse! A flexible interface allows you to make your own designs by combining pieces however you like. Your choices will affect how the building is used, its resilience to damage, and how it will behave when it collapses... or explodes. Enhancing your village infrastructure will empower your heroes and attract new villagers to join you, who can use their skills to craft a wide variety of items to upgrade and customize your village or improve your combat prowess.

Older Updates:

(8/7/2015) A strange visitor.. and an unlucky home owner
(7/19/2015) Opening Scene Sneak Peek
(7/11/2015) Onsen Love
(7/10/2015) Smash!
(7/1/2015) A hot soak...
(5/15/2015) More Screenshots!
(1/17/2015) A Ghostly Visitor...
(1/10/2015) Screenshots of the hero's humble abode
(10/18/2014) The Doom Train of Hell
(10/11/2014) Nothing like a good soak!
(10/04/2014) Bipedal Festive Robot Fight!
(9/28/2014) Tower Defense Offense Part 2
(9/21/2014) Tower Defense Offense
(8/27/2014) Terrain and Physics
(8/10/2014) Characters and the party system
(7/22/2014) Bellevue Art Museum Exhibit
(5/21/2014) Bad English Lunar Beer Ad
(5/18/2014) Early Combat

Stay tuned for additional posts on the game and screenshots. Follow us here or on  facebook to stay informed!

What are we working on next?
Traps (destroy invading Yokai in all sorts of explosive and crushing ways)
« Last Edit: September 21, 2015, 02:45:50 PM by Dajyareo » Logged

jamesprimate
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« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2014, 10:27:41 PM »

looks neat! got a touch of a dragonball vibe from that (admittedly very brief) gif. love the name too, immediately piqued my interest.
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Dajyareo
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« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2014, 11:40:17 PM »

looks neat! got a touch of a dragonball vibe from that (admittedly very brief) gif. love the name too, immediately piqued my interest.

Thanks! That's awesome to hear you got those vibes--our over the top attacks are heavily influenced there in hopes of setting off that nostalgia.  Next time I'll showcase some updates with the combat system. I'll be sure have a longer GIF in there Smiley
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« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2014, 05:24:18 AM »

Very cool.  the name got me too.  It's very interesting to see a this kind of a take on a Japanese game.  Not quite Western but not purely Japanese either, but a healthy dose of both.  Can't wait to see what you come up with.
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« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2014, 06:44:57 AM »



It's like that Skyrim physics glitch, but for real Shocked
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« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2014, 07:58:34 AM »

Fantastic subject matter. Too few games really do great homage to traditional Japanese mythology without overblowing it. This reminds me of one of my favorite board games, Ghost Stories.

Excited to see where this one goes. I'm curious to see how you reconcile tower defense with open world RPG. Can you lose this game (like in Tower Defense), or is there little punishment for failing against the horde so you can continue your quest, like death in the Zelda games?
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« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2014, 12:53:02 PM »

Very cool.  the name got me too.  It's very interesting to see a this kind of a take on a Japanese game.  Not quite Western but not purely Japanese either, but a healthy dose of both.  Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Thanks, glad you like what you see! We are walking a fine line between the two cultures with this game, and it's encouraging to hear that we seem to be on the right track.
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« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2014, 01:03:17 PM »

Fantastic subject matter. Too few games really do great homage to traditional Japanese mythology without overblowing it. This reminds me of one of my favorite board games, Ghost Stories.

Excited to see where this one goes. I'm curious to see how you reconcile tower defense with open world RPG. Can you lose this game (like in Tower Defense), or is there little punishment for failing against the horde so you can continue your quest, like death in the Zelda games?

I had not heard of Ghost Stories myself before you mentioned it. I looked it up though, and you're totally right that we have some design parallels. Looks like an amazing board game! I'm going to have to try it out.

As for how we'll punish the player for losing their village at night, we plan to allow the player to retry an infinite number of times, or revert back to day to allow for more leveling or replanning of defenses. This is subject to feedback from our upcoming beta test of course Smiley The idea is to give the player control on when night ultimately falls, but unless you allow it to fall you'll never progress in the story or get more powerful enemies to level against.

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« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2014, 06:45:40 PM »

Ha, Ghost Stories is pretty incredible, but brutal. I will keep an eye on this one -- excited to see how it progresses.
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« Reply #9 on: May 18, 2014, 07:31:44 PM »

replying with the latest update to archive it since I only edit the original post with the most recent update

Latest Update: Combat
Combat plays out in real-time and is as simple as hitting the attack button or clicking on an enemy. It has been designed to feel a bit like the combat in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, where weapon swipes will knock enemies back and you can charge for more powerful attacks (like the spinning attack). We've expanded quite a bit on this by including a large number of powerups and different styles of combat.

As of now, there are two combat styles in A Credible Tale: Karate or Melee.

As you level up, both will offer various techniques you can charge to, like with Karate's Super Punch

Level up far enough, and you'll unlock ultimate finisher moves

For melee almost anything can be a weapon. While large items use more stamina to perform attacks, they can be powerful

Special area of effect abilities will also help the player handle hordes of enemies. Below is a early prototype of the bomb ability
« Last Edit: May 18, 2014, 09:40:31 PM by Dajyareo » Logged

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« Reply #10 on: May 19, 2014, 07:51:20 AM »

Quick teaser for next weeks devlog entry:
I'll be demonstrating our recent work on quests, dialog, and events. I'll also go into detail on how we plan to make this game support those trying to learn Japanese.

To all those reading, thanks for following us!
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« Reply #11 on: May 21, 2014, 08:35:35 AM »

Quick mid-week update to show off some concept art of a beer ad from the moon, complete with bad English subtitles. We want technology in the game to have a very retro yet alien feel, but also be recognizable (like the RAM that is being put into the computer). I'll be putting up more art and some details on how technology from the moon plays a role in this game very soon.

今年も月に美味しい秋がやってきた。秋限定ビール「餅月」
The Delicious Autumn on the Moon has Come. Let’s Enjoy Together the Refreshing Taste of Mochitsuki.
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« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2014, 09:28:49 PM »

So it's been a while, but rest assured we're as busy as ever trying to get the game to run as well as possible on as many devices as possible preparing for an expanded beta. In the meantime, here's a quick post with a promotional picture from our booth at the Bellevue Art Museum!

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« Reply #13 on: August 10, 2014, 02:04:44 PM »

I am one of the developers for A Credible Tale and I am excited to share with you today some updates on the characters in the game and our party system! Please don't hesitate to reply and share your thoughts on the direction we are heading, or make a suggestion about something you might like to see!

Characters and the party system:
A Credible Tale will feature at least 4 characters that the player will be able to control in their quest to fend off the evil Yokai. At any given time, the player may have the Hero and one or more other characters in the party. The player can toggle control between the characters, letting the game AI control the other characters (similar to Secret of Mana). Here is a piece of concept art for the four playable characters available in the game:



Character Descriptions:


Hero: The unnamed hero is the main protagonist of the game, and the primary character the player will be controlling throughout their journey. His combat style is primarily suited toward single target damage, but he will also have the ability to function as a tank character to keep others in your party out of harm's way so they can dish out their own damage freely.


Personal Oyaji Prototype Sphere-bot (POPS): POPS is an ancient sentient relic from a highly advanced lost civilization. POPS offers a lot of utility to the player with the various attachments that can be salvaged throughout the game and plugged into him to upgrade his existing functions or add new ones entirely. His unique shape and flying ability also allow him to access certain areas that no other character can reach! His combat style is primarily support and crowd control, but his high defense helps him soak up attacks pretty well too. Don't let the high-tech exterior fool you though, this floating robot has long since exceeded its warranty and is prone to spontaneous reboots and episodes of sparking and smoking uncontrollably. Couple that with his constant need to consume alcohol in order to fuel himself, and you'll learn pretty quickly that POPS can easily be described as high maintenance.


Kaguya: Kaguya is a princess from the Moon. She is a curious kid with a sharp mouth and an affinity for gadgets. If the player supplies her with the necessary resources and opportunity, she'll put her mind to work for you and invent an array of tools that she can use to help distribute the pain to the Yokai who keep pushing to destroy your town. With further supplies and opportunity, Kaguya can upgrade your favorite gadgets to improve their usefulness as you progress in the game. Kaguya has generally weak defense, but she makes up for it with devastating area of effect damage and status effects. If you can keep her safe, Kaguya will have no trouble dispatching any foes that get in her way.


The Mysterious Ninja: The Ninja is a bit of a conundrum. His cold, quiet demeanor and antisocial behavior might be off-putting, but when you need his help he's always there. The Ninja employs traps, poisons, and stealth to incapacitate anything that gets in his way. His stealth ability can help you reach areas you might not otherwise be able to get to, and his ability to set traps in the middle of battle can turn an impossible fight into an easy one. Don't underestimate the power of the Ninja, if you can apply careful planning and skillful execution there may be nothing he can't defeat.
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« Reply #14 on: August 15, 2014, 10:45:44 AM »

A Credible Tale has a nice artistic style to it. Hero kind of reminds me of Sasuke from Naruto. I got a Musashi meets Naruto feel from A Credible Tale Smiley

Thanks for sharing via Twitter Smiley
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« Reply #15 on: August 15, 2014, 12:45:30 PM »

A Credible Tale has a nice artistic style to it. Hero kind of reminds me of Sasuke from Naruto. I got a Musashi meets Naruto feel from A Credible Tale Smiley

Thanks for sharing via Twitter Smiley

Thanks for the compliment--I'll be sure to pass it on to our artist! I know he has taken a lot of inspiration from Naruto and Mukashi Banashi (old Japanese tales anime) among others. It's always great to have others notice as well Smiley
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« Reply #16 on: August 15, 2014, 07:49:25 PM »

Sweet looking game!! I like the art style a lot and combat seems interesting!
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« Reply #17 on: August 17, 2014, 11:41:34 AM »

Sweet looking game!! I like the art style a lot and combat seems interesting!

Thanks! Took a look at your game too and thought it was impressive! Can't wait to see where it ends up Smiley
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« Reply #18 on: August 27, 2014, 04:43:05 PM »

Being as this is a developer log, I wanted to take an opportunity to talk a little bit about the technology we're using to create the game's world and what the game will be capable of. Today I'm going to focus on two systems: Terran and Physics.

Terrain:

The world in A Credible Tale is large. In-fact it's made up of 64 regions all with their own distinct look, dangers, and treasures (see dividers on the concept map below):
*WORK IN PROGRESS*

In order to thoroughly explore this world, we give the player the ability to go into what we're calling a 'first person exploration view'. This works much like it did in Mario 64--you could switch to first person and look around but not move while doing so. Couple that with a huge world full of tall mountains the player can climb (everything can be explored), and you can see why we need to be able to draw a lot of terrain very inexpensively.

First we start off by loading a simple 3073x3073 (3072 quads squared) heightmap into memory that holds all the terrain height values. We could have gone with a smaller heightmap, but we would have lost a lot of terrain height detail (peaks and valleys wouldn't be as sharp). These are then fed into the terrain shader to use as it  dynamically generates the triangles that make up the terrain. We then use tessellation to increase the detail of the terrain on the fly. The size of these triangles are increasingly smaller (more detailed) based on the distance to the player.

If you're not familiar with tessellation, it's a technique that allows us to dynamically subdivide geometry into smaller, more detailed geometry based on distance using just the graphics card (the distance from the player in our case). With this in place, terrain far away from the player is made up of large quads, whereas terrain close to the player is highly detailed:


Physics:

In A Credible Tale, you'll be creating many different structures and traps to beat back the hordes of Yokai that invade your town at night. In order to make this experience as awesome as possible, we set out to design a system that allows for combining lots of individual craftable parts. It was important to us that physics affected these parts in a realistic way to let players set up elaborate systems to dispatch invaders. An example would be a trap tower you build with explosive sake underneath. You then attract enemies to the tower, and once they've surrounded it, throw a torch and watch your foes fly.

Each part provides some kind of benefit to your tower. For example, a rock foundation will make the tower much sturdier, and a platform allows you to place villagers inside the tower to shoot at enemies. No matter the configuration of your towers/buildings/traps, they all needed to work together in a consitent, and sometimes hillarious way. To do this, we knew we needed real physics. Rather than write our own physics engine, we decided to go with bullet physics: bulletphysics.org. While it did take a little adjusting and work to integrate into our engine, it was well worth the efforts.

Almost everything in the world has physics properties, even the terrain. In order to save processing time, we only create a physics object for the terrain in the current region. As you can see below, the grid that represents the terrain hit detection shape covers a square of the terrain:


This gives us great performance, but also a very fine level of physics detail for even the smallest objects since the terrain is bounded by its most detailed form in the physics engine. Here's a couple previews of it in action.

Careful where you fly.. ahh crap!
Not safe to build on a moutain

Thanks for reading!
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« Reply #19 on: September 21, 2014, 07:40:54 PM »

Tower Defense Offense


Villagers tired of always being on the defensive against the Yokai are undergoing a tremendous project constructing a giant, bipedal, festive war machine to finally take the fight to the Yokai's lair.

One of our extended goals that we think people will absolutely enjoy is the ability to eventually add mobility to defensive structures that they have created and have incorporated into their defense strategy. We think expert players will eventually wish they could take these defensive structures with them to the front lines.

Whether it's big burly guys from your village dojo running on treads to move your towers forward, wooden cogged legs from the Karakuri Workshop, advanced lunar tech, or simply religious incantations moving the giant structure miraculously, there is a lot of fun game play to be had with this possible future expansion. Each method of mobility will have it's pros and cons and will be dependent on certain resources to make happen.

This expansion will give the tower defense part of our game a tower offensive capability.
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