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[gavanw]

http://www.voxelquest.com
http://www.twitter.com/gavanw

(Many people hate the name, and that is ok! It's not permanent.)

Voxel Quest is a 100-percent procedurally-generated (PGed) game (with some trivial exceptions).
I've already been successfully Greenlit and Kickstarted, so I won't bug you about those!  

Not only is the world entirely PGed, it is solid (you can break apart any object and see inside it) and contains quintillions of unique voxels in a given world (by virtue of generating them mathematically, rather than explicitly storing each one).  It supports isometric and perspective views.  Although it looks "pre-rendered" like Baldur's Gate (especially in isometric mode), it is all fully 3D.

Yawn.  

But the really exciting part (to me) is the procedural story telling. I am going above and beyond the typical hack/slash/grind formula of your modern RPG, which typically contains a prebaked story, and if you are lucky, a few extra branches as well.  Rather, I want to create a system that fosters stories as a result of NPC attributes, environmental circumstances, and dynamically determined NPC motivations. This is the so-called "holy grail" of game development, and has yet to be achieved (at least, it has not yet been done well). I may not succeed, but if I don't try who will?  

I am using a couple tried-and-true AI techniques to achieve this, which include pathfinding, score maximization, propositional logic, backward chaining, and a few other tricks.  As I have stated many times elsewhere, I am not striving to build a perfect system or an AI capable of parsing and understanding English, but rather a fairly crude system that focuses on dynamic/emergent behavior vs pre-defined behavior trees or similar mechanisms.

There will be 3 modes of play ultimately: roguelike (permadeath), sandbox (no rules, or you make up the rules; good for simulating DnD campaigns and such), and traditional RPG.  At this time the "traditional RPG" mode is the primary focus although I do intend to add in all modes ultimately.

I have been largely inspired by many roguelike games, as well as many board and collectible card games, 4x games, and more, although my top games of all time are probably Ultima 7 and Fallout 1/2.

I've been working with voxels for over 15 years, so I'm not just jumping on the Minecraft bandwagon.

So, here is a dump of my progress to date.  Keep in mind that I am only 1-2 years into development at this point, of a 5 year total timeline.



Here is a video dump followed by an image dump, roughly in order of development from early to late.







http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gavan/voxel-quest (Kickstarter trailer)






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alMJ-hQh1jw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW04jTU5FQw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7MYf01X1Y4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFqI6oK0pGA

Full Gallery Here:
http://www.voxelquest.com/gallery.html

[Mig (@wtfmig)]

This is good. I like this.

[happymonster]

Looks amazing!

[gavanw]

This is good. I like this.

 

[gavanw]

Looks amazing!

Thanks!

[vladharsan]

pretty impressive! 

[gavanw]

One more recent image:

[JobLeonard]

I'm getting weird Donkey Kong Country vibes from that last one

Anyway, welcome to the board! Been following your technical development of this for a while now. It's really impressive!

[s0]

I'm getting weird Donkey Kong Country vibes from that last one

im getting donkey kong country and/or super mario rpg vibes from all of them

but yeah looks fantastic, following.

[Octopus Tophat]

I heard about this a while ago, it's nice to see it here!  I actually like the name 
I'm really blown away by the graphics.  It really looks like a pre-rendered game from the 90's, even though it's voxel based.  I'd like to see a really zoomed in picture, to get a scale of the voxels.
I'm going to stop making all my sentences start with "I's".  Okay.

[jctwood]

This is also beautiful! I love stumbling across this project and seeing the incredible progress being made. I can image this integrated with roll20 being perfect for hosting roleplaying games.

[newtquestgames]

Lots of work gone into this. Procedural storytelling could be fantastic I'll keep my eye on your project

[gavanw]

I'm getting weird Donkey Kong Country vibes from that last one

Anyway, welcome to the board! Been following your technical development of this for a while now. It's really impressive!

You're not the first! Yeah I kind of like that style, although it was implemented subconsciously.

[gavanw]

I heard about this a while ago, it's nice to see it here!  I actually like the name 
I'm really blown away by the graphics.  It really looks like a pre-rendered game from the 90's, even though it's voxel based.  I'd like to see a really zoomed in picture, to get a scale of the voxels.
I'm going to stop making all my sentences start with "I's".  Okay.

Here is an (older) zoomed in pic, from Kickstarter.  It no longer uses cubic voxels (they are just square points), but gives you an idea of how big they are.  Also, voxel resolution can be adjusted, limited only by hardware.   So can be higher/lower resolution than this.

[eobet]

I've also been watching this for a long time, but was too chicken to pledge since there's too little game in it yet.

The tech is crazy impressive, though.

Can I ask what you are using now instead of cubic voxels? I ask, because that older screenshot you posted looks (imo) quite a lot better than the more recent one you posted earlier. The recent one looks "dirty" and rough, while the older one looks clean and organized, and also a nice retro feel with the cubic voxels looking like "pixels".

(Then again, since you can change voxel sizes, hopefully you can also change voxels styles in some similar setting?)

[gavanw]

I've also been watching this for a long time, but was too chicken to pledge since there's too little game in it yet.

The tech is crazy impressive, though.

Can I ask what you are using now instead of cubic voxels? I ask, because that older screenshot you posted looks (imo) quite a lot better than the more recent one you posted earlier. The recent one looks "dirty" and rough, while the older one looks clean and organized, and also a nice retro feel with the cubic voxels looking like "pixels".

(Then again, since you can change voxel sizes, hopefully you can also change voxels styles in some similar setting?)

Thanks, I understand being hesitant to pledge as there definitely is not much of a game there (yet!).  I also agree that I like the look of the cubic voxels better, I may very well go back to that look (only downside is more vertex transforms and memory used).

[JobLeonard]

It's technically still a voxel, it's just no longer cube shaped.

See wikipedia for a technical definition of what the word "voxel" means

I dunno, I like the idea of using voxels for a painterly and/or grainy film-look

[surt]

I also agree that I like the look of the cubic voxels better, I may very well go back to that look (only downside is more vertex transforms and memory used).

Nooo...don't fall prey to the minecraft kiddies who don't know what a voxel is. Proper, actual, traditional voxel rendering was one of the main reasons I backed this.

[JobLeonard]

Yeah, I say screw that, do what the other arts have been doing for over a century now and embrace non-realistic rendering!

How about hatching based on gradient with neighbouring voxels?

[gavanw]

I also agree that I like the look of the cubic voxels better, I may very well go back to that look (only downside is more vertex transforms and memory used).

Nooo...don't fall prey to the minecraft kiddies who don't know what a voxel is. Proper, actual, traditional voxel rendering was one of the main reasons I backed this.

Yeah, I say screw that, do what the other arts have been doing for over a century now and embrace non-realistic rendering!

How about hatching based on gradient with neighbouring voxels?

Overall look is pretty flexible - I support multiple versions for whatever people prefer, and shaders are easy to modify as well (they can be hotloaded as the game is running).