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[Pitxardo]

Project Lord
(Working Title)

About

A god-game where you play the role of a red flying giant god (The Lord) who creates a new form of life and help them to survive and evolve.

The player will be able to choose what technology their beings need to investigate, what they need to collect and build, and who they need to battle.
Also, you can use powers to help directly your people or indirectly by modifying the planet where they live.


Gameplay

The game will combine some gameplay components from RTS and sim games.
You will control The Lord only, moving him as another character in the game.
Some actions that you can do it:
- Order to build
- Order to collect resources
- Order to attack or hunt
- Investigate new technology
- Modify the terrain
- Use super powers!

You don't have direct control of your beings, but they will follow your orders.
Also, the control system has been devised to allow players to play with keyboard+mouse or with a gamepad.

All planets are procedurally generated and they will be dynamic: changes in the climate, natural disasters, pollution levels...

Screenshots

Any feedback or ideas are very welcome!!!  

I will keep updated this thread with my progress

[Geoff Moore]

This looks bloody wonderful! Have you ever played Doshin the Giant for the Gamecube? If not I'd recommend trying to check it out, it's really fun and could be good for some inspiration if you're looking for ideas. Can't wait to see more of this!

[Pitxardo]

This looks bloody wonderful! Have you ever played Doshin the Giant for the Gamecube? If not I'd recommend trying to check it out, it's really fun and could be good for some inspiration if you're looking for ideas. Can't wait to see more of this!

Never played, but I just watched some youtube gameplays and I think I can get some ideas from there

Thanks!

[Claude Ruelle]

Awesome stuff! Definitely reminds me of Doshin the Giant, which I used to love as a kid.

[Pitxardo]

Progress update:

Inspired by Neverwinter Nights menu, I created a circular menu with multiple levels.
Buttons are distributed in 8 directions, so selecting options should be easy for people playing with their gamepads.
Some buttons are actions and some other will open a new menu level.

NOTE: Almost all assets are placeholders. The target is to launch a prototype demo soon, let the community and friends test it to proof the gameplay and then start polishing the art for a second demo



Example of building a house:




On the other hand, I have added basic creeps in the map which they do nothing apart of walk at the moment.
The idea is to be able to hunt them as a source of food.
Also, some of them could be aggressive and attack our citizens.

Next update:

Battle system
Ability to manage up to five squads each one with up to five soldiers, and give them orders to attack, defend or hunt creeps on specific point in the planet.

This means, that there will be a distinction of workers and soldiers between our civilization citizens.

[Claude Ruelle]

That's really cool! Are you going to implement different tribes? I know this might get complex, but I'm imagining something like a conflict/war system between different civilizations.

[Beyond]

This looks fun!

[Pitxardo]

Progress update:

The battle system is done.

There were some changes since the last post about this.
Now, you can have up to three squads but each squad can have unlimited warriors.

The currently available options for each squad are:
- Recruit new warrior: Adds a warrior to the squad. Later there will be different types of warriors to recruit.
- Attack: Warriors will go to one point of the map and attack every enemy.
- Defend: Same as attack but with a smaller range of action.
- Hunt: Seek and hunt creeps in an area.



Next update:

As mentioned in previous posts, almost all the sprites you can see are placeholders, so before I start with the biomes, I would like to spend some time working in the art.
This will be some better units animations, better sprites for resources and creeps, and better sprites for The Lord.

[Pitxardo]

That's really cool! Are you going to implement different tribes? I know this might get complex, but I'm imagining something like a conflict/war system between different civilizations.

Yes.

There will be different tribes from different races.

Tribes can be in conflict between them or not.

The target is to conquer and unify the planet using the force or negotiating a merge.

[Pitxardo]

Updating resources sprites.

Before:


After

[Pitxardo]

Progress update:

I did some work with the game creatures, their animations, their sprites... and I added some procedural generation.

All living beings of the planet (except plants) use the same creature component, this mean that random creeps and civilization units are generated with the same procedural properties.


At the moment, the variety of different creatures is quite limited, but the base architecture and code is there, therefore it should be easy to add more assets and increase the amount to combinations.

In the following screenshot you can see some creatures example, here I'm using a combination of 5 different heads, 3 bodies, 4 legs, 3 arms and 7 colors:



The plan is to include a sensible amount of different parts, colors and sizes.


And this is the in-game result. A battle between a civilization of 4-leg horned creatures against a civilization of crocodiles with hands, meanwhile some pig-centaur creeps are around.




Next update:

Improve Lord sprite and some UI components.

[Pitxardo]

New Lord design:



Now it flies!

What do you think? Do you like it?

[Pitxardo]

Well... after some thoughts, I think that design doesn't fit well with the styling of the game.

So, I will work on something different for the Lord.

[Pitxardo]

New Lord design:

[Pitxardo]

Now with some shader for a nicer effect:

[Pitxardo]

Progress update:

In the last days, I have been working doing some art improvements for the Lord sprite and also some general UI design.



The new UI explained:



Next update:

Let's start implementing biomes!

[Pitxardo]

Progress update:

I have added properties to planet tiles such as water level, altitude, temperature, etc...
The combination of these values generate different kind of biomes.

For example, low temperature combined with water will create snowed terrain. If the water level is high, ice will be created.

[Pitxardo]

Progress update:

Clouds and rain.
High temperature will evaporate surface water in the terrain, generating clouds.
If the water condensation in the air is high, rain will happen sending the water back to the surface.

[Pitxardo]

Progress update:

Proper water tiles with a nice shader animation added.

[Pitxardo]

It's time to explore other planets!











I will try to prepare a gif/video showing how the Lord navigates the space for the screenshot Saturday