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[Nick_Carver]

Hi there,

Brave Odyssea is an open-ocean, action RPG roguelite where the player controls a small ship and crew navigating its way through a partially flooded, alternate early 20th century filled with magic, monsters and treasures.

The basic feel of the game is very arcadey, with lots of different items/weapons that you can equip on your ship (cannon, harpoon, salvage crane, sea mines etc.) and a fun moveset for your ship too (double jumps, speedboost, gliding etc.). There's definitely a big Wind Waker influence to it, but with a greater variety of actions associated with the player's ship. Also, the game takes place with you always onboard ship (although crew can leave/die/be replaced etc.).

I don't want to say too much while I'm experimenting, but you basically upgrade the different stations on the ship by finding new crew members out in the world. And venturing further out = greater dangers. I'm playing with a certain amount of randomness in terms of how different biomes, dungeons etc. populate and I think there's some interesting possibilities in combining roguelite elements with the seafaring gameplay.

I'm in the early stages of developing it (in Unity), but here are some images of the project so far.





















No more info online just yet, but you can see further images here:

http://www.braveodyssea.com/

It's my plan to put out an initial trailer, which will fully explain the core concept of the game, within the next couple of months. I'll try and update this thread with development info as often as possible.

Cheers!

[Music Vortex]

Looks awesome, I particularly like the ones at night! What's the gameplay gonna be like? Following!

[Nick_Carver]

Thanks! I'm still at an early stage, but the basic feel of the game is very arcadey, with lots of different items/weapons that you can equip on your ship (cannon, harpoon, salvage crane, sea mines etc.) and a fun moveset for your ship too (double jumps, speedboost, gliding etc.). There's definitely a big Wind Waker influence to it, but with a greater variety of actions associated with the player's ship. Also, the game takes place with you always onboard ship (although crew can leave/die/be replaced etc.).

I don't want to say too much while I'm experimenting, but you basically upgrade the different stations on the ship by finding new crew members out in the world. And venturing further out = greater dangers. I'm playing with a certain amount of randomness in terms of how different biomes, dungeons etc. populate and I think there's some interesting possibilities in combining roguelite elements with the seafaring gameplay.

Thanks for your interest!

[RofB]

Beautiful art direction. I look forward to seeing more.

[The Armorman]

i am told this will be "the good videogame" please tell me about the pleasure of sailing

[TheGoatee]

Looks gorgeous, can't wait to see more. Following!

[DireLogomachist]

Damn this game has style! Following!

Would love some tech breakdowns of the clouds and water

[s_harriton]

I love the art. Very  cool!

[Nick_Carver]

Thanks for the kind words, guys!

DireLogomachist: The clouds and water: I actually just bought and customized a couple of Unity Store assets: Time of Day (skybox system) and Suimono (water). I tweaked values and replaced textures to achieve a cel-shaded rather than fully rendered look that keeps everything graphic and cohesive. In addition, I'm using trail renderers for the boat wakes and flipbook fx for the splashes etc. Oh, and there are some 3d cloud models that populate along with the skybox. Hope that's useful - let me know if you want further details!

Here are a couple more bits of art:

Character models for potential crew members:





Enemy that is currently being animated by a buddy of mine:



Concept paintover for a Leviathan encounter that I've recently been prototyping with giant, dynamic tentacles:



HUD UI test. I'm still trying to decide how I want this to look - ideally I'd like as little onscreen clutter as possible - but this is what I have in game at the moment:



More stuff soon - cheers!

[Filipe Baptista]

Looks very atmospheric. Really good visuals!
Did you pull off some time to do the gameplay trailer? I'm curious about what the mechanics are and the feeling when playing.
Keep up the good work

[sufimaster]

The art style looks dope! I really need to work on my art.

[Nick_Carver]

Filipe Batista: Not ready for the trailer just yet. I'm still working on a number of things that I want to include in it, but hopefully it won't be too long now. Thanks for looking!

[benjkers]

Really hitting that sense of scale in all this imagery. Looking forward to more!

[Nick_Carver]

Thanks benjkers!

I've been playing around with these tiered waterfalls recently. They let the player do some platforming (yeah, the boat can jump!) and get to elevated bodies of water for exploring, fishing etc.







More stuff soon - cheers!

[Tuba]

Loving the look of this.

Good luck!

[VampireSquid]

Very interesting.  Some of the screenshots are quite inspired.  You have already come up with a good range of different scenarios it appears.

It just seems very ambitious so I hope you are up to the challenge.  Don't let us down!

Just out of curiosity, how many people are developing this?  It looks like a real team effort.

[Nick_Carver]

Thanks guys!

VampireSquid: Yeah, I guess it is ambitious, but I feel like the prototyping phase will tell me a lot about how I will scope the game for full development. I've worked in the games industry for 13+ years on teams ranging in size from 2-200 and I hope I've learned some lessons along the way about what is feasible depending on your resources. The initial demo will encompass all the core ideas for the game, and based on how the initial development of each part goes, I'll have a clearer idea of where to spend my resources most effectively.

I'm currently developing the prototype solo, but I've had a bit of help with animation and music, which I've been very grateful for. It's my plan, depending on how the initial trailer/demo is received to look at potentially hiring some additional shipmates, but no more than 1 or 2 people. I'm a firm believer in developing small and scrappy, and my experience with Unity so far gives me confidence that a very small team can still do impressive things.

[SolS]

This looks great! Love the visuals

[VampireSquid]

Looks like we're not the only ones impressed by this.  Shout out to you from indiegames.

http://indiegames.com/2017/01/sail_the_deadly_low-poly_seas_.html

I think you have a very real chance of pre-beta funding.

[Frankienaitor]

Holy crap, this looks gorgeous :0
Wind Waker is one of my favorite games
If you're not ready for a gameplay trailer just yet, can we have some gifs then?  
I really, really want to see this in motion