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[and]

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Among The Willows is a game in which you try to survive as you explore the Wild West, searching for revenge.
Be a lone gunman or get a gang together. Be honest. Be crooked. Be a little bit of both, it doesn't matter.
In the end, all you are is the legend you leave behind.

Play the current combat build!

Click here for the first gameplay video of the combat!

The World of Among The Willows

• Exploration is node based, with your current location generated procedurally when you arrive - read more here
• Avoid those searching for you while trying to gather enough information to determine your next destination
• Keep your gang fed and keep them happy. Keep them from turning to one another's throats, or turning on you
• Respond to the random events triggered by your actions

Combat in Among The Willows

• Turn-based tactical combat with a focus on cover and the tactical positioning of your gang members - read more about combat here
• Various biomes including Desert, Plains, Towns and internal locations - read about the impact of different biomes here
• Special missions such as jailbreaks, bank heists and train robberies
• Take advantage of the strengths and weaknesses of each weapon - read more about weapons here

Influences - Among countless others: FTL, X-COM, King of Dragon Pass, Zaga-33, High Plains Drifter, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Blood Meridian
Development Team - Just me!
Engine - GameMaker Studio
Platforms - PC, Mac and Linux
Release - Aiming for early access in September 2015, final release some time in 2016

Thanks for reading

[Sarge]

Jailbreaks and train robberies sound fun.  Good luck.

[Panurge]

Great idea and I love the gritty aesthetic and influences. Keen to see where this goes.

[and]

Here's a little work in progress shooting animation

You may have noticed that the gun has changed hands, that's because it makes it so much easier to do a shooting animation! For now, everyone is going to be left handed. Unless they decide to face left, then they'll suddenly and magically become right handed!

Let me know what you think! Advice is also MOST welcome!

Cheers

[and]

Ok. Been working on that idle animation too.

[TerenceChill]

Oh man, I'm definitely keeping an eye on this project.

[and]

Apologies for the lack of updates, I was unfortunately struck down with a nasty case of gastroenteritis!

Unpleasant.

Anyway, in lieu of making any real progress on Among The Willows, I just wanted to add a shout out to a couple of other awesome looking games with Wild West settings.

Death on The Frontier
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=42005.msg1040703#msg1040703

Bandits and Bounties
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=35512.msg1041755#msg1041755

If you like the Wild West setting, or anything even remotely dusty, I'd recommend checking out both of these.

Right. Back to work. Proper updates soon!!

Cheers

[and]

Ok, not very exciting I'm sure, but I made a banner! First time I've tried this kind of thing so just kept it simple.

What do you think?

[and]

Hmm here it is without the pixel glow around the text:



Better, no?

[dez]

looks neat!

my only suggestion might be to saturate the colors a bit so it doesn't feel drab.
Maybe you are going for a 'black & white'  or 'old film'  kinda thing... but I dunno, I think it would make it more appealing.  OR at least to have some elements with bold splashes of color.

[and]

looks neat!

my only suggestion might be to saturate the colors a bit so it doesn't feel drab....

Thanks!

Yeah I was thinking of just having the red of the blood as fully saturated, but I think you're right in that it looks a bit drab. You're not going to see blood all the time anyway.

This is one of the characters with higher saturation:



Think it looks better? Could keep the backgrounds as lower saturation so they stand out maybe.

[dez]

I would push much more (personally):


And leaving the background exactly like you suggested.  Anything that matters in the game: saturated like your health bars.
It would pop it all out visually.  This all just my suggestion, of course.

The other thing too since it seems you are kinda not sure where to put the color and how much or what color.  I would figure out (if you haven't already, of course) what is the theme of your game.  By 'theme'  I mean the story meaning or purpose of the game: what is it's core message.  For example, my game's theme could be stated something like: "authoritarian power structures function by making those involved act against their self interest" - this was the inspiration for the characters, gameplay, everything.  Whenever I wonder whether I should do this or that or color this or that or should the game contain this or that... I go to my theme and usually the answer is clear with this lens.  What is the theme of your game?
  

[dez]

My post got myself thinking... here is a good example of another theme:
http://adelaidescreenwriter.blogspot.com/2012/02/brian-mcdonald-godfather-and-how-to.html

Pixar movies also pretty much all of them have very clear themes that inform the entire films. (and sometimes not so clear themes in Dreamworks movies, and you can see the difference imo...)

[and]

What is the theme of your game?
 

Well the theme is about the ambiguity of morality. There's no good guys or bad guys just guys (and gals) with their own motives for doing what they need to do. I guess there's more to it and that, but I haven't really talked about the theme so far!

So far that's fed into the mechanics, and art wise was why I'd gone for quite a desaturated look. However, I do think they look better and they stand out more from the background with more colour in them.

Still early days yet so I've got plenty of time to play around with these things!

Thanks for the feedback

[and]

Aargh and just because I can't leave this with 13 posts on here (superstitious fool) I will leave you with a couple of work in progress characters from today:

p.s - @dez thanks for the link, I'll have a read through now!

[dez]

I will leave you with a couple of work in progress characters from today

yea the new guy looks better imo, just being a bit more saturated than the original versions.

Well the theme is about the ambiguity of morality.

oh thats nice and meaty!
It makes me think a little bit of hotline miami, where you think at one point you are killing a 'bad guy'  but it turns out that he was really exactly like you.

Judging by the characters 'looks'  i might have guessed that it might be everyone is 'bad' though, due to their unambiguously angry brows.

p.s - @dez thanks for the link, I'll have a read through now!

yw, I really like your style. Best of luck!   

[and]

First 5 characters DONE (except for some finishing touches):


Oh yeah and there'll be lots of different heads to pick between, each class is going to have at least 4 outfits each. Would you want to be able to select the colours for the different parts of the outfits too?

So, what sort of stuff do you want me to talk about next?

A) The Character Classes

B) Combat

C) Travel and The Strategy Layer

[Christian]

Oh wow

I needed this like yesterday

The art style is so good. Can't wait to see more. Will the setting be realistic or will this be more of mythical Wild West, Jonah Hex-style?

I'd be interested in combat next. Or the world structure (any open world exploration, hubs, etc.?)

[and]

Cool, thanks Christian!

I'll cover combat next, with some gifs (and iffy prototype UI) to illustrate how it works exactly.

I'm going for a realistic setting, the idea being that you're hunting down the man who killed your family. All the while, you're being hunted yourself. For what you do not know (unless you play through a few times and piece the bits of story together).

I'm rambling.

Anyway, came across this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/08/11/hard-west-kickstarter/#more-226521 today. So, I guess I've just got to get over missing out on all the 'XCOM in the Wild West' goodwill and then the motivation to finish this thing will return.

Maybe I'll just call it a roguelike, that's pretty popular still right? I mean, it's got a procedural world (and levels if I can get them working right) and permadeath? Right? Right!?

Right?

[kruxus]

I'd say just continue doing your thing. The benefit of being the "first" is a pretty short one, and not something you can rely on. That's not what makes your game unique.

That said, keep an eye on that game, and try to differentiate from them where appropriate. They will probably be somewhat limited in having to please their backers (implementing a crafting system for the sake of it etc), while you can do whatever you want.

Btw, I think I prefer the new saturation levels, but maybe you can make some details stand out with more color? Not sure if it's a good idea, but the colors still look a bit to dull.