[Discussion] Shadows of the Past - A new game

[-Kobas-]

Dear users,

Let me introduce you to a whole new Shadows of the Past project,
game based on Warcraft 3 - TFT mod, that was under my
development, for the last 2-3 years.

SotP represents Single Player Role Playing Game, what is expected
to see now is something like Single Player Turn Based Board Game.

I started this new project a month ago, and the progress I made is
really huge, launcher is already finished and fully operational. Game
interface is almost completed, at least basic staff, and now even
the battle simulation works like a charm.

For those interested I will say that language I use to code this is C#
working on Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5. That means you won't be
able to play game on MAC for example.

Now back to discussion, I won't share images and data with you right
now instead I want to hear your opinions about the game the way you
imagine it. Tell me what you expect to see, how interface should look
like, or any other element of it. Please, keep on mind that I'm not
freaking Blizzard or whatever big company with a hundreds of people
working on just single part of the game.

Another thing worth mentioning is that backbone, or core code, is
there for things like Units, Items, Spells. Off course project is far from
finished version and I don't think about some playable version for at
least next 2-3 months.

Thank you for your time, much love -Kobas-.

 

[Adiktuz]

Just one question for now: Will it still be 3D?

as for how I imagine it, I imagine something like having skill hotbars, a minimap, and support for keyboard/mouse movement

 

[Dr Super Good]

You should probably mention at least what Shadows of the Past was... It appears to be some kind of single player RPG.

As it is single player, you will probably be best off focusing on telling a good story. You could have different "heroes" which have different stories which all happen in the same area. You could have a feature of "multiple playthrough" where the actions of one hero affects another.

 

[-Kobas-]

@Adiktuz
Sadly it won't. I have no resources and such skills to do something like that.

@Dr Super Good
That's interesting, I was indeed thinking about few classes to make it more
re-playable, but for first release one should work just fine.

I still have a lot of work, especially with quests and story, but it can be done.

 

[Adiktuz]

I expected as much... It's just quite hard to make a 3D game alone and from scratch...

I'll be looking forward to this game

 

[Statharas]

Well, you could request some models here and there...

 

[-Kobas-]

Sadly I learned that if you want something to be done, you must do it yourself.
I had same problem with original SotP, where project members (most of them) did nothing.

 

[Statharas]

I know '-.-

 

[Adiktuz]

yeah... the same reason why I try to learn making art right now for my RM games, coz if you want to rely on others most of them expects quite an amount of money in return...

so unless you're running an actual team / actual studio, you would probably need to do things on your own...

 

[Kanadaj]

Kobas, I think if you use the models on THW, noone would blame you ^^

Though more seriously, there are quite an amount of models online (either free or paid). Some lack animation, some lack texture, some lack both - I can' really recommend these cases, but if it's already animated, texturing is not that extremely bad as long as it's properly mapped. Coding 3D though is tough, unless you use an existing engine (if it's XNA, it isn't that bad, but Unity for example, can really turn your regular workflow upside down as I've experienced).

Also, I hope you are using MVC, so you can replace the View to a 3D one if a miracle happens

What I'd like to see:
-More than one class
-Classes being able to be created and added by players as script files (base ones either hardcoded or not)
-Give us a good story

Also, good luck with it, I hope I will see the results soon ^^

 

[Adiktuz]

making 3D game from scratch is quite really hard... I think that's a bigger stopper than acquiring the 3D models themselves...

BTW, using the models here I think are not a good idea... because a lot of them are using Blizzard's Textures... so it might not be safe to do that...

 

[Kanadaj]

Yea that's actually true, but there are skins for every unit in the game, and those are not Blizzard's textures, tho not sure if they work out on a model ^^

 

[-Kobas-]

I already use blizzard resources, it's not that big deal.
Problem is as I said, lack of people, I can't achieve much solo.

Let me finish coding demo version that should be ready in like
2-3 weeks, so I can share some screenshots with you.

 

[Kanadaj]

Also, consider using Unity2D for porting (will need a wrapper there tho, but worth it) to Mac and Linux, and possibly phones. I could help with that as well, possibly doing all the porting. Better reference than than all those scratch Unity projects ppl request from me but dont have the means to finish ^^

 

[Adiktuz]

waiting for screenies...

 

[FRENGERS]

I know '-.-

Heey you are cute

 

[Ventyu]

I played the latest version of SotP and I loved it. It really looks like a TES game but has a darker ambiance. This part of the game was very succeful. The only thing that I suggest you to improve is the 3D camera system. I dont think this is the best idea for a game hosted in world editor. My opinion. Good luck on your project !

 

[-Kobas-]

I'm done with school for next 2 weeks or so I'm back on this.
I made awesome progress and with some core system rewriting
this game looks even more better now.

I have added a lot of resources into game (increasing it's size),
but you should enjoy graphic even if I'm not such great artist,
honestly, mostly to resources from all over web.

3 Towns with total of 15 quests are now finished.
Battle simulation is as I said earlier done as well, but I recreated
some code, made it object like so I can store results and other
data for replays or something in future.

So in total here is progress so far:
Launcher -> Game Menu -> World Map -> Town -> Quest -> Battle
if we split last one it will look like this:
Quest -> Units (Hero vs Enemy) -> Battle

Expect demo within first 2 weeks of 2014.

 

[Adiktuz]

Wow, that's nice to hear...

so far, what's the filesize of it?

 

[Kanadaj]

Wow, that's nice to hear...

so far, what's the filesize of it?

It's a standalone indie game, why would you care about that? Can't really go over 5GB as an indie game, and thats nothing in 2014...

 

[Adiktuz]

I do care about file size... when you have an internet connection not as fast as most people and only a few GBs left on your comp, you'll care about file size... and oh well, even with a not much used HDD I still care about file size mostly because I don't wanna install something that has an unnecessary file size bloat...

 

[-Kobas-]

All resources so far that I used together are around 60 MB in file size, while game itself is just below 9 MB.
But that will start to increase greatly as soon as I start adding sounds, music and such data.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I do care about file size... when you have an internet connection not as fast as most people and only a few GBs left on your comp, you'll care about file size... and oh well, even with a not much used HDD I still care about file size mostly because I don't wanna install something that has an unnecessary file size bloat...

Backing storage is too readily available for people to really be concerned about that. Most modern games no longer support installation size tailoring since even a big game uses up so little of modern discs.

With modern day streaming technology installations could be done so much better. For example, one could define a light build where all assets are highly compressed and low quality, perfect for slow internet speed or if a person wants to play fast without waiting for download. One could even make it so that higher quality files stream in over time and replace the low quality ones. The reality is that most games in this day and age could be playable within a few seconds on broadband with an initial install of only 10-20 megabytes with the rest of the data streaming as required.

All the bulky files (sound, image, animated image, model etc) can scale their size and quality very well as required. A rough approximation of a high resolution surface for a building could be only a few kilobytes where as the final high resolution one is a few megabytes. To get a game playable quickly these assets might be streamed at lowest quality as the player plays with minimal load delay. Over time higher resolution resources could be loaded so the quality improves over time.

The main problem obviously is with servers to do all the uploading.

 

[Kanadaj]

Backing storage is too readily available for people to really be concerned about that. Most modern games no longer support installation size tailoring since even a big game uses up so little of modern discs.

With modern day streaming technology installations could be done so much better. For example, one could define a light build where all assets are highly compressed and low quality, perfect for slow internet speed or if a person wants to play fast without waiting for download. One could even make it so that higher quality files stream in over time and replace the low quality ones. The reality is that most games in this day and age could be playable within a few seconds on broadband with an initial install of only 10-20 megabytes with the rest of the data streaming as required.

All the bulky files (sound, image, animated image, model etc) can scale their size and quality very well as required. A rough approximation of a high resolution surface for a building could be only a few kilobytes where as the final high resolution one is a few megabytes. To get a game playable quickly these assets might be streamed at lowest quality as the player plays with minimal load delay. Over time higher resolution resources could be loaded so the quality improves over time.

The main problem obviously is with servers to do all the uploading.

Actually this is what Blizzard does right now. On the other hand TERA Online does something similar, but instead of low quality resources, it downloads the first 10 levels of content and then reports to be playable, while prioritizing content in the order a player can play through it. While this is not ideal for end-game players who reinstall the game (unlike what Blizzard games do), it's still a working concept.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Blizzard games appear to download the content fully that you need access to. This means you are still bottlenecked for high resolution content even if you do not need it. Blizzard servers also stream in order of accessibility with D3 streaming A1 first and A5 (new act) last. This is still far from ideal and with about 400 KB/sec dl it was unplayable until about 40-50% done downloading.

 

[IcemanBo]

The launcher looks really cool! I wish you good luck with this project.

 

[FRENGERS]

How about the model?? Is it will be so HD ( Please )
Woow that's cool really extreme programer @..@
Totally indie game ( Independent :3 :3 )
+ REPT

 

[Kanadaj]

Lol some people just go and have an orgasm because of a single launcher xD

Tho it really looks cool, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't use that font, images and buttons unless you feel like being sued by Blizzard (which they love to do :/ Maybe not a problem if it's not a commercial game, otherwise...)

 

[-Kobas-]

Lol some people just go and have an orgasm because of a single launcher xD

Tho it really looks cool, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't use that font, images and buttons unless you feel like being sued by Blizzard (which they love to do :/ Maybe not a problem if it's not a commercial game, otherwise...)

I code this just so I can learn C#, because in school we play with C++.
Resources I use are from Diablo 3, TES Skyrim and Blood Battalion games, mostly because those
are badass, fit my theme very well and I don't have skills and time to create something, such like,
that will probably be lost somewhere on my HD in next year or 2.

 

[marko9]

Is the game in 3D or 2D, why don't you use some free Engines like Unreal to make this game, you would just need to find people to help you with models (If you don't want to use the models made by Blizz, Bethesda etc.) and you would do the programming just as you do it now?

 

[Kanadaj]

Or Unity so you could even port it while still using C#... Though you would have to get used to a few inconveniences, time-wise it's worth it, and allows you to implement features you would normally skip because of it's requirements.

 

[-Kobas-]

Nah I don't want to make marketable game, just simple project that will help me learn C#.
I work on it when I have time and I don't care about results. Off course if people find it interesting enough I may think of improving it but right now it's just there to keep me interested.

 

[Adiktuz]

+ 3D engines seems to take too much power from the computer when ur creating something...

PS: Though in case you decide to suddenly "market" it, you will probably need to remove all those resources from other games... else Blizzard will get in touch with you just like that android game on the other thread