TIGSource Forums

Spice Road

Update 21-11-2013
Happy to say Spice Road is complete, polished and out the door! On sale now after a long and winding development.

http://www.aartformgames.com/games/spice-road

Update 24-09-2013

Check out the latest Spice Road video trailer & please upvote our Greenlight page!
Spice Road Video Trailer + Greenlight (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=148477186)

Update 16-05-2013
For all Strategy/Town Building/Economic Sim fans, the Spice Road Demo (http://www.aartformgames.com/beta/SpiceRoadDemoSetup0.501.exe) is now freely available for download.

Free Spice Road Demo (http://www.aartformgames.com/beta/SpiceRoadDemoSetup0.501.exe)


Beta version available to Preorders (http://www.shareit.com/product.html?productid=300577288&backlink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aartformgames.com):
New features in Beta 0.200 - 32 Upgradeable Skills and Abilities + Sandbox Freeplay Map Generator.

// Older post below

New Screenshots (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=8506.msg851090#msg851090)

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr2s.JPG) (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=8506.msg851090#msg851090)

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/BusinessAndPleasure.JPG)

Please feel free to critique anything and everything on my log, that's why I'm here :)

I'm confused. Judging from the name, I thought this will be a tycoon or sims-liked kind of game. But then you have this soldier that could kill his friends  :o

Which mean I can't wait to hear more about this .

Well you do have to defend yourself, and strike out new trade routes through bandit infested deserts and forests :)

An interesting theme. Are you going with the actual Europe-Asia trade routes, or is it a more general 'anyworld' setting?

I think this is an awesome idea. The setting is one that I really like but is not explored very often.

  The setting is an alternate world, using the culture and technology of the Napoleonic 18th Century, but mixed in with the Medieval Silk Road feel - it is the world as it could have been if the naval routes hadn't killed the land routes.
  There are even a few shades of the colonial wild west of the same time period, especially when it comes to town building and roaming bandits.

This game looks pretty cool, and I like the art style you've got going.  I would say that I tend to have a reflex against playing any games with "Tycoon" in the name.  If you put Tycoon in the name, people are going to have a certain expectation of a type of game play that it sounds like you're not going with.  It's like putting "Tactics" in a game's name.  Even if the game is tactical in nature, it shouldn't have "Tactics" in the name unless it's a turn based strategy/rpg hybrid.

malec2b - I know what you mean, I am trying to stretch the genre's a bit. It is much more of a Tycoon game than an RTS, and also is quite a Sim. The actual trading is not too overbearing, with as much emphasis on diplomacy and combat.

So while the game remain officially unannounced I can still change the name, so what genre is Tycoon+Combat+Trading+Sim ? :)

Why can't you just call it 'Spice Road'? Game titles that include the genre of the game are always boring anyway.

Will the game have badass alternate history mongol raiders/allies? It better have...

Name wise you could give it something pseudo-historical, like "The Karakorum Trading Company" or something better (by analogy to the Dutch East India Company). There must be some more Victorian trading company names that can be Silk-Road-ised.

Cool ideas, I would love to have mongol raiders as a playable class for some scenarios ;D
The combat is much more raider/ambush focused rather than simple territory grabbing, so raiding is an important gameplay technique, and mounted lightning raids on villages and caravans are a good way to go about it - making a quick getaway before the colonial troops arrive!

I'll take "Spice Road" as a working title for the time being - I've got about 100 alternate titles I tried while thinking up ideas for this :crazy: so I think I need to just move on and let my subconscious mull it over some more.

Sure man, I know how it is, I was just getting carried away :)

After a crash course in animation I got my musket soldier in engine. I am always surprised just how hard it is to do animation!

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/MusketsS.JPG)

Video of Walk Cycle (in animation tool) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Zm07Fb29c)

Now with some placeholder units working I can get back to making some buildings.

Reverse the arm motions - left arm should go back when left foot goes forward, and same for the right. This should help your animation a lot.

Ha! Thanks Plasticware Nightmare, I was paying so much attention to the keyframe positions I got my arms in the wrong phase to the legs. I'm glad I posted the video ;D Also reminds me to preview the anim more often in more than just front/side views.

Updated Video with Fixed Arms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GvVMfye68Y)

there's something really interesting about that style of graphics.  Looks like it could be an interesting game and the walk cycle is looking good already!

Started on buildings, on reflection I think 3000 polys is too many, and I'll leave more of the twiddly detail in the texture in future.

Only the red roof one is new - others are placeholder...

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/Townhall.JPG)

I've done my first press announcement (http://www.aartformgames.com/blog/2009/10/press-release-aartform-announces-spice-road/) on this game, and in the end I dropped 'Tycoon' and went for the much shorter title Spice Road

Otherwise I have been marching through building lots of meshes to populate the towns, and have begun translating my GUI mockups into actual code. I have dropped from 3000 to 1000 polies on the town models - but hope to get more detail and variety in the textures later.

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/TownS.JPG)
View Full Size (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/TownL.JPG)

Now I feel like I am going to get deep down into the coding forest - building tables and forms, buttons and panels, maps and inventories - and it may be a while before I come to a place where I can catch sight of the gameplay again. Apparently this is quite normal in game dev, a long doldrum of building before it really gets playable. Ah well, lots to get on with :)

(http://www.aartformgames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/SpiceRoadCavalry1.JPG)

I've been making horses (http://www.aartformgames.com/blog/2009/12/send-in-the-cavalry/), not as tricky as I thought they would be - although I know the anatomy freaks will hate them.

In a turnaround on my normal modelling work-flow I modelled from hi to lo poly on this one rather than carefully handcrafting the polies one by one to make the lo-poly mesh from scratch.

I needed to add a couple of extra polies around the leg joints but other than that the automatic mesh reduction from MeshLab did the job well.

(http://www.aartformgames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/HorseSculptCurvy3D.jpg) (http://www.curvy3d.com/)

Those are some fine horses you have there, good sir! :gentleman:
Now you just have to get the animation right.

With all the horse gaits out there I am hoping to make do with an idle, a walk, and a gallop, then do some procedural animation on top of the gait to make them bank into turns and bend round corners a bit.

Here is a walk cycle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c1c6QCl4r8)

Hmm. It's better than anything I could make, but seems a bit stiff. The head should definitely move more, especially up and down. Take a look at this (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=7510.0).

Looks pretty cool. Where's the saddles for horses, though?
The spice must flow!

Mogget - Much as I liked "Level Up" there was no horsey reference in that link.

ArchMonitor - Saddles are a good plan. I'm going to make a couple of variants of the horse and rider, mainly to add a desert bandit, but also camels - which I hope move in a similar way.

What? How did that link find it's way there? I meant this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWxnshBGZm8&NR=1).
(if that goes to level up, too, I'm branding these forums cursed.)

Thanks for the link fix! You can feel the power in the bounding horse, and the footfalls of the walk seem to give a bit of a kick to the head.

I don't want to make the motion too complicated on the horses back so I can easily sit a rider and their aim/shoot/sword/lance anims without having to worry about the phase of the horse's gait. Perhaps these horses are specially trained to allow their riders a clear shot :)

I dare say the gallop will still be 100x better than the death anim... there is no way I am putting a ragdoll physics horse into this game!

I've been researching bandits, villains and highwaymen - the worst I found so far were the Thugee, they would join large caravans in small groups and befriend the caravaneers... before strangling them all in cold blood.

Along with Arabian Desert Raiders and Oriental Monk Renegades - Spice Road also features the most famous of the raiding hordes, the Monguls, seen below in a skirmish with Avalon Troops.

(http://www.aartformgames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/SpiceRoadBandits.JPG)

This looks really, really nice. Any chance of a gameplay video though?

  I will upload some combat video soon - but you will have to forgive the AI at this early point of development ;)

  I'm working on a cross-section of the main systems at the moment, Combat, Travel & Trade. These are all working in a very rough way at this stage. This is not an RTS or Total War type game - the combat mechanics are far simpler to make room for deeper party and town management adventures. But that said the battles should make for good eye-candy when you don't feel like skipping them.

I've been concentrating on getting the fundamental gameplay working, trading and town building, but have found a little time to make a Video of Combat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VnNMcK9Mw4)

At the moment the big dilemma is Deep Simulation or Canned Gameplay (Scripted). As time goes by I am thinking Sim is more cool, but Canned might well give a more fun player experience.

Nice to see this project still going :)

This is probably because of placeholder animations etc, but I hope the guys charging at eachother will be using swords or lances (to clarify: not the medival jousting type) whilst on horseback, rather than the muskets... Or at least, switching to sword/lance in plenty of time before impact.

What do you mean by Canned Gameplay? Specific scripted scenarios?

I like Pistols and Sabre as mounted weapons. You don't really have a chance to reload or aim very well in a charge so melee combat will become more important. So yes, what you see here is limited by the amount of art I have - in fact I am getting all the gameplay finished before I add more breadth to the art and units.

As for Canned Gameplay...

Canned: Towns, prices, Faction alliances, missions all hand made by designer. World is effectively a snapshot in time with no dynamic changes. eg: Warcraft

UnCanned: World grows organically through simulation, trade and criminal opportunities appear out of simulated flows of goods and workforce between towns. World changes dramatically through player actions. eg: Civilisation

The canned version offers a more reliable player experience, balancing is easier, and certain activites the player wants to do can be automatically presented for their gaming fun.

The uncanned version offers more replay, but is less accessible to new players as you have to make the most of an unknown world. For example the encounters you face would not be even matches, and there may be times where trade or bandit opportunities are hard to find.

Realistically I think I am going to find a compromise between the two, perhaps a well balanced world to start with, but with opportunities to unbalance as the player progresses - countered by helpful measures to steer the player to challenges within their capabilities. The replay and sandbox elements are pretty important to me - but not at the expense of a fun experience.

Cool, yeah, I guessed as much. It's a good tech level/setting for all that kind of stuff!

Ahhh ok, got it. So even the canned version would be free-roaming and non-linear, which is cool. As long as you still pick your battles and have the result of your battle feed back into the strategy game and vice versa, you don't lose too much.

Also, you can get the gameplay working and develop the world generation to fit whatever turns out to be fun: You handcrafted balanced world should be a good reference point!

PS: I hope that there is a mix of balanced/unbalanced encounters even in a balanced world. It's nice to have to make a decision about whether you can handle the battle :)

That is something I have always wanted to do, although I have wondered if it will be a fun feature or just realism gone too far. I get annoyed by games where you always meet perfectly balanced mobs to suit your level, and prefer once where you can interact with much higher and lower level NPCs although not always through combat. Of course if you start playing with the mentality that you should win every battle it will get very frustrating.

Spice Road is quite economically minded - so sometimes you will be picking your fights not just on whether you can win them, but also on whether the consequences are worth the risks. Hiring new troops and restoring wounded ones is expensive, while killing a rival factions agents could make them retaliate against your own. So I do want the player to be selective about combat.

I often play an RPG and want to leave the story behind and start really living in a dynamic simulated world. Spice Road lets you go adventuring and run a trading business while the nations and factions around you eb and flow depending on your involvement.

I want to get some Zing into Spice Road with the art style and characters - hopefully setting a fun & gritty tone. Inside, the mechanics are a cross between "Port Royale" and "Elite", so I have to distance myself from RTS and wargames in style, if I pick the wrong angle I could be mistaken for "Mount & Blade" or "Age of Empires" - and that wouldn't do me any good.

Even though the style 18th Century - it is so alt-history I am bound to get plenty of flames from history buffs. It wouldn't take much of a push to turn into total fantasy (But I want to avoid any expectation of magic & monsters).

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/BusinessAndPleasure.JPG)

Here are some new screenshots taken from Spice Road Beta v0.100 (http://www.aartformgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21)

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr2s.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr2.JPG)

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr1s.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr1.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr3s.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr3.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr4s.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr4.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr5s.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr5.JPG)

Woah.... 3 years later... Impressive stuff!!
I hope that you can continue working on the game and complete it.

@dbest Thanks. Most of the work has been on the underlying systems, the economy and trade network. Now these systems are working it is relatively straight forward to write missions based on the mechanics. In fact I've already got 20 missions planned just introducing the main buildings and mechanics - after that the player should be competent to take on sandbox missions and compete with other players for highscores on different maps.

For all Strategy/Town Building/Economic Sim fans, the Spice Road Beta is now freely available for download.

Free Spice Road Beta (http://www.aartformgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23)

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/SR022013/sr2s.JPG) (http://www.aartformgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23)

New features in the free Spice Road 0.200 Beta (http://www.aartformgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23)

Adding to the RPG feel of the Campaign missions I've added a raft of Skills and Abilities that the player can upgrade as they complete mission objectives.

These range from simple utilities like reducing supplies required on a caravan route, to new tactical abilities like the ability to perform a lightning raid on an enemy town for loot.

Also new is the first take on a Sandbox, where you can customise and generate new maps to play on, and the addition of a Hard Mode to challenge even a well upgraded player.

Here is an example Tech-Tree for Security.

(http://www.aartformgames.com/images/techtree1s.JPG)

Please try the Spice Road Demo and let me know how you get on,

Play the first 5 levels from the game here:
Download the Spice Road Demo 33MB (http://www.aartformgames.com/beta/SpiceRoadDemoSetup0.501.exe)

To play further (11 Playable Missions with hours of fun Trading, Town Building and Economic Simulation) and use the Sandbox scenario generator just Preorder and play in the full Beta version (http://www.shareit.com/product.html?productid=300577288&backlink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aartformgames.com).

Check out the latest Spice Road video trailer & please upvote our Greenlight page!

Spice Road Video Trailer + Greenlight (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=148477186)

Happy to say Spice Road is complete, polished and out the door! On sale now after a long and winding development.

http://www.aartformgames.com/games/spice-road