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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSubtyrannya - A Story-Driven Merchant Game
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Author Topic: Subtyrannya - A Story-Driven Merchant Game  (Read 4437 times)
KorbohneD
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« on: October 05, 2018, 05:57:12 AM »


Greetings fellow citizen of the underground,

This is Subtyrannya.  A Game where you chaffer commodities and meet mysteries.

You play as a lone merchant with a vehicle full or empty, driving through the colonized underground to make a profit and hopefully a living. There will be multiple situations where you have to decide on the fate of people, cities and sometimes whole tracts of land. All while struggling to make enough money to sustain yourself.


Main Inspirations:
- Sunless Sea / Fallen london
- H.P.Lovecraft
- Movies like Event Horizon or Alien
- Apocalyptic/dystopian Stories like the Fallout Series



Current Status:
Version 0_1_6a
If you want to try it out, feel free to head to the Itch.io download page.

https://korbohned.itch.io/subtyrannia



Interactivity and Story

The Underground is colossal.

The more you trade and explore, the more sectors will open up to you. Imagine mushrooms as big as houses, deep dark pits of chittering and glowing eyes or even a whole black sludgy ocean that somehow wound up below the ground.

You will travel bustling roads, worn dirt paths and broken highways. Whenever you want to stop somewhere you just do. How long you stay, is your own business. Approach the locals, try their food. Attempt to discover why everyone has holes.

But beware, your actions might shine light on certain secrets of a place. You will most certainly stumble upon peculiar information, which will then often lead to much grave decisions.




Traders and Trading

At every Place you can unlock up to a couple of merchants, that sell and buy different commodities from you. The Economy of the underground is complex and will fluctuate, whenever you interact with the market. Different places will have different prices, but selling a lot of one thing will always put a strain on the market. Maybe you can use that to your advantage?

Soon you will be driving around, bribing traders into selling cheap rarities, talking others into taking humming foreign artifacts in or bulk selling your useless goods to the one guy you really don't like, because he tried to screw you over that one time.





Development

I am a single developer and all my games will be free to play over at itchio/steam/etc...
I am currently making games as a hobby. This won't change in the near future, but with enough support I can outsource some parts of game-making like art, sound and music. This will not only vastly improve the games, but will make development much faster

Your support is very appreciated!

https://www.patreon.com/korbohned

Also, if you want to support by helping, there are various things you can contribute like sprites, music, soundeffects and even testing. Just joing the discord and write me a pm!

https://discordapp.com/invite/Em9vPqs



« Last Edit: March 20, 2019, 06:29:07 PM by KorbohneD » Logged
KorbohneD
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« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2018, 09:57:45 AM »

Update #W5

This is the first update in three weeks and quite a lot changed.
I updated the interface (the datapad) to be more astethicly pleasing and to provide more user experience. There are now 3 distinctiv buttons on the left which let you switch between the market, the place itself and your own inventory, where you can look at the newly implemented items and conditions.
Those are going to be more important now. They are needed for getting different rewards and consequenzes in tasks.
I also added the mines, where you have a repeatable task, where you can spend some Consumables to get some raw material, which you can sell for a profit.
Contentwise I didn't manage as much as I hoped, but you can access the tavern now, where you can find the first contraband quest for the holey brothers. Also, every place now as something for you to do. (Even if it often is just one or two screens)
But that will probably be expanded in the near future.




Changelog 14.10.18 w5:

- Updated Interface with new Gui-Buttons and Design

- Added Animation the the interface

- Added the Tavern and Doctor to discover and interact with

- Added the first repeatable task for the tavern

- Added special Objects, which you need for some tasks and that you can buy and sell at specific places

- Added Conditions, like "Wounds" or "Reputation" which you can increase or lower by specific tasks and which can grant you access to specific tasks

- Added three Skills (Presence, Ingenuity, Expertise) which can be increased at specific places by spending the "Experience" Stock. Those are also needed in some task-storylines and in different options to get different rewards or consequenzes.

- Added Title menu with small pixelated Tutorial on the side (Only Start and Quit Buttons are working right now)

- Added the Mine as a visitable place, where you can currently spend Consumables to gain raw materials.

- Replaced sprites of places, interface-images and more
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KorbohneD
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« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2018, 01:00:35 PM »


Updating is hard work

This time I've really planned to finally release a new demo again. But certain things got in my way again.

First of all the abstruse idea that there should be no light in a cave environment, which is why everything has to be dark. Promptly I experimented a bit in Photoshop until I produced a halfway pleasant shader. Then I programmed some shaders around until I could set light sources, which were then displayed appropriately. You can see the preliminary result above. I'm not satisfied with it, but it at least fulfills my urge for darkness.

Right after that I wanted to produce more content, until I noticed that I still have no real idea what the world looks like now. That's why I sat down, shook some ideas for regions out of my sleeve, tried to connect the whole thing for the moment and then put everything into a nice little map and textured it.
It all looks pretty nice now, but it's rather destroying my previous approach with the content. But since I wanted to change from a single-celled map to several rooms soon anyway, I threw the whole system overboard. Currently, as you can see above, you are spawning in a separate part of the map, where you can find the diner and another locality. Then you'll have to go through a little story that will give you access to the rest of the first sector. It's like a tutorial to help you understand how to proceed with the rest of the game.

I also took a lot of inspiration from the Metroidvania genre. Not all sectors will be accessible at the beginning. First comes the tutorial, then the first sector, where you have to play for a short time to get access to two more sectors. In these sectors you move again for a while and then you can unlock more accesses.
At the beginning the world should be focused to make it easier for you to get into the game, but at the same time you should be able to explore and discover as much of the world as possible later on and in any order you like.


Changelog #W8


- Transferred all Ingame Text into Text Files
 
- Made things darker.

- Made light exist.
> Basically God now

- Designed a overworld and a room-map for the first sector

- Made a couple screens, which where you can drive from room to room.

Added new sprite design for the diner and reworked some of the texts.

Changed driving to feel more natural.



Next Weeks Update:

Difficult to say.
I want to finish at least the tutorial. Apart from that I will probably texture some smaller rooms with DevArt, so that you can at least get a little further in terms of driving.
But if I really finish the tutorial, I'll use the opportunity to create a new demo version.

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Geoff Moore
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« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2018, 04:06:34 AM »

This is neat! The perspective and moodiness remind me of Bullfrog's Syndicate in a good way. Looking forward to seeing it develop further! Gomez
« Last Edit: November 07, 2018, 04:15:02 AM by Geoff Moore » Logged

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« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2018, 08:08:48 AM »

Oh lovely! This looks like it has real potential to be an awesome game! Good luck! I'll keep my eye on it, I've got a feeling it'll be in my steam library with tons of hours played!  Coffee

A word of caution with your text/icons, make sure they're very readable! Even in screenshot size it matters! Not sure if it's the color or thickness of the shapes but some of your icons have lost some readability when scaled in your shots. Not a huge deal this early but I've been studying design for the past few weeks to help my own path on the game making journey and thought I'd share the advice!
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KorbohneD
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« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2018, 02:43:13 PM »

This is neat! The perspective and moodiness remind me of Bullfrog's Syndicate in a good way. Looking forward to seeing it develop further! Gomez

Thanks for the compliment Geoff!
I don't really try to copy any artstyle out there. That is just the only stuff I can really produce with my lack of real art skill. ^^
A couple people already compared it to the old fallout games and I can see where they, and also you are coming from.


Oh lovely! This looks like it has real potential to be an awesome game! Good luck! I'll keep my eye on it, I've got a feeling it'll be in my steam library with tons of hours played!  Coffee

A word of caution with your text/icons, make sure they're very readable! Even in screenshot size it matters! Not sure if it's the color or thickness of the shapes but some of your icons have lost some readability when scaled in your shots. Not a huge deal this early but I've been studying design for the past few weeks to help my own path on the game making journey and thought I'd share the advice!

Thanks Cojack!
I hope I can someday entertain people with what I make here. ^^
For now it doesn't look too bad. I already got a couple people who are really liking it.

As for the images, they look fine ingame, but Tig somehow doesn't like bigger pictures and they always get cut of by the borders of the forum.
So for now I always scale them down with Photoshop and then publish them via imgur. Sadly a lot of image quality gets lost in the process.
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KorbohneD
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« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2018, 10:11:11 AM »

DEMO TIME!

Check it out!
https://korbohned.itch.io/subtyrannia


Yep, finally something to play.
But to be honest, its pretty short right now. Only the most basic tutorial area with two places and two rooms, which after you can drive trough two more rooms before it all comes to a very unspectacular end.
To be honest, thats not quite the enthusiastic Description I had in mind for this demo-devlog.
But eh, just play it and you will see for yourself.

The tutorial area fulfills a couple of purposes. Most which I copied from famous metroidvania style games.

To get out you need to backtrack to the beginning. Which means driving back from the second room to the first room. This lets the player trough gameplay know, that in this game there will be passageways and stories that are inaccessible at first, but are unlocked as you accomplish more stuff.
This will consist throughout the world. At the beginning your path is limited to only the first sector. After gathering different upgrades for you truck, more and more paths are opened until you can drive trough the whole map.

Changing environment trough actions. Once when you take the energy core of the diner and the second time when you open the doors of the abandoned gateway.
Both times your action changes not only what you possess and your ties to others, but also the very ground on which you can drive and the places you can visit.
 
Actions have sometimes bad consequences. I don't want to spoiler to much, but there are different conditions and some are not very pleasant for you in the long run. Random events can happen, towns can close themselves up, bandits will appear more often, etc...




Changelog #W12

-Finished the Content for the Abandoned Gateway and Diner for now, including new pictures, text and pathways.

-Finished the content for the whole tutorial area

-Fixed a couple of bugs, like persisting sound, weird transitions from room to room and more

-added a couple smaller/bigger stones that protrude throughout the caves and that you can bump against

-added sound to different scenes. Some actions and descriptions now have short effect sounds like slapping or falling rocks to them, while others could have more background sounds like talking people or driving cars.

-added new menu art and reworked the code inside

-added tileable info Ui, which displays option names etc...

-changed fog effects to the darkness. Made it prettier.

-remade sprite of the abandoned gateway to make it look more like its description.

-Added two new Rooms with collisions, where you currently can't do more than drive around and against walls and look at weird sand outlines.




Next Update:

Overhaul the whole item and buying/selling business.
The gameplay is still kind of stuck between two goals right now.
First of, I want to make a story driven game with rich history and a lot of atmosphere, on the other hand, I want to make a good trading game.
That means, integrating trading into the whole story stuff, which is harder than it sounds. For example, it always needs to be clear to the player, on how to proceed and reach the goal he has in mind.
That's why I am probably reducing the total amount of items that exist for trading in the game.
Until now, I had my mind on making as much items as needed for the story and using Stock for trading, but with only 4 different stocks for real trading, the whole thing kind of breaks, if you have lot of ports.

So in the future, I plan to get rid of stocks and the whole “infinite” item thing and just gonna introduce about maybe twenty different items, which some sectors trade cheaply, others buy it at high prices and a couple don't trade that at all.
These are then also used in a lot of stories to proceed with the game.
The main idea behind this change is that I want to make it simpler for the player to keep record of what he can really do to be proactive ingame.
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KorbohneD
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« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2019, 06:28:47 PM »


Greetings fellow citizens of the underground,

a bit dusty here, isn't it?

I am finally reaching the art direction I want to go in. Things look nice now, with a certain old Falloutvibe. Everything is murky and stony, the darkness only sometimes broken by a lone lamp.

I made a lot of mechanical changes in the past months. Most are not visible to the player, but are definitely noticable by me. It is now very easy to introduce content into the game by just simply copying and pasting the word files I work in.  It is something I really put a lot of effort in, to save a lot of effort in the future. Hopefully it pays of.


Changelog V_0_1_6a

- Updated the Menu interface to use less buttons and to make it more accessible

- changed how interactions are displayed. Each option now has its own icon so you can know with a single glance if you need some good or if it changes some condition.

- separated Tasks from Conditions. Also, added Tasks to the game. Now you immediately know if something furthers a current story. Each can now have their own description that changes, depending on how far you are in it.

- changed most sprites from a 2D asthetic to a 3D asthetic (lots of changes)

- added Map Screen

- added the first Quest for the Reasonable Trading Hub

- added the Käfer Embassy. A place where bugs try to make peace.

-added individual lighting to improve scenes
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