I noticed a sharp decrease in RSS readership just recently. Of course I am entirely to blame for this, and the title of this post probably explains it for the most part. Add to that a less than prolific dev blog and there you have it. Changing the URL from www.classicgamesremade.com to www.olderbytes.com, therefore breaking previous feed links, probably didn’t help either.
My initial estimate for releasing Underworld Gold was March 2012. That was a while ago. I think all this deserves a little explanation.
Content and features.
Underworld Gold now has loads more content than its preceding version (v1.06). New NPCs, 150 new items, some of which stackable and charged and with a wide array of useability, five existing maps redrawn and three new ones, a couple dozen more monsters (needed to maintain balance with the new levels), some of which with brand new abilities, and others of which with two different abilities that contribute to making combat less than predictable. Content-wise I’m just a few short hours away from beta.
I’ll post a more exhaustive feature list in a later entry and you’ll find there’s quite a bit. There are also a couple I’m looking into but am not sure I’ll be able to provide yet (animated transitions for movement as an option being the toughest request I’ve had recently).
Technical difficulties.
All the new content brought forth new challenges. In the game’s current state it triggers Window’s security, forcing the player to Run as Administrator. I have a good idea how to fix it but it isn’t a small task. Also the new content and higher resolution graphics have kept me struggling to optimize performance. I believe I’ve reached a satisfactory level now, but the game not being quite finished yet, I’ll reserve further comments at this point.
Naturally, all the fixes and additions have brought forth slews of bugs that have required lots of squashing.
The sequel.
Work on the sequel has taken great strides as well. The foremost reason I am doing this alongside finishing Underworld is that I prefer to keep the artists working. This is necessary to not risk losing them, which in turn could harm the quality and cohesiveness of the final game. At this stage I have all planned outdoor environments, including roads, forests, desert, mountains… New monsters (mostly outdoor mobs to populate the gestating world), several cutscenes, new stores and art for two new classes. About half of the GUI is done as well, which will allow me to post a video announcement shortly after releasing Underworld.
And of course real life. Things tend to get in the way like they always do but I do find time each day to at least inch closer to a final release.
The knight leads the party, alone but closely followed by the paladin, ready to reinforce the front line. The two are ready to take the bulk of the wrath of incoming oponents ahead. But sometimes they can be overrrun. Sometimes, a third party member needs to step up to divert some of the enemy’s blows and give the priest time to intervene. Other times, things get so bad that they will need to step away from melee altogether.
The rogue is patient, but his time has come. Lost to the enemy’s eye, in the shadows, he steps in, bluesteel dagger drawn for a lethal assassination. It is so much more effective than his blowpipe that it is worth the risk of exposure. That blow to the vigilante’s jugular will turn the tide of battle. Then he can choose to fall out of sight again, then strike once more with vicious effectiveness. If the battle has truly turned to his party’s advantage, he may also choose to remain in sight and fight… fair.
Hordes of enemies are massed behind the melee, dealing damage with crudely fabricated but nonetheless efficient arrows. The party leader orders his companions to press forward, overtaking a few of the shooters, forcing them to drop their bows. Now the rogue is within distance and eagerly takes part in the hacking…
Swords and Sorcery - Underworld tactical options
Underworld Gold has new combat rules that involve distance management, adding both realism and tactical depth. In previous versions only monsters were marked in or out of melee (a + indicated that they were in). Now the same goes for characters. This opened the door to a few extra tactical options.
– Any character can rush to the front.
– Characters in melee can choose to step back.
– Those behind the lines can choose to step in.
– Characters in melee can attempt to shove enemies out of melee.
– Party leader can order the party to press forward. This only uses up the leader’s turn and causes both monsters and characters to enter melee.
– Party leader can order the party to fall back. This only uses up the leader’s turn and causes both monsters and characters to leave melee.
They each have their advantages and drawbacks. A character that leaves melee avoids exposure from blades, but increases it for those left in. He can no longer use his melee weapon but can now use his ranged weapon (only available out of melee, except for archers). That can be a downside however because bows, crossbows and slings are typically less effective than swords and hammers. Previously, all characters were considered in melee, exposed to the monsters that were as well. Also, these actions use up a battle round for the character.
The first three can affect the order. If there are four characters in melee and the second leaves the pack, he finds himself leaving that second slot and taking the fourth. The third and fourth move up a notch and there are only three left in melee. If a character rushes to the front, all the others fall back a notch, but none leave the melee even if that character comes from behind the lines.
Enemies also have the option to join (this isn’t new) or leave (but this is) melee. Shooters and casters using the leave melee option, as well as melee fighters being able to join the meatgrinder, will make some battles more difficult and engaging. This affects their order as well. One consequence is that they are almost never left with no other choice but to wait. Previously monsters could only enter melee if the monster just ahead of them was already in. Now any of them can, anytime.
Diagrams
Note: These aren’t in the game, just here for illustrative purposes.
Basic tactical diagram
The above illustrates a combat situation similar to the one in the screenshot, only with a few more bandits.
The Knight, Paladin, Archer and Rogue are in melee . If the party formation was a little less neat one could imagine the rogue being just out of the melee but in this situation all four are marked with a +. The Grounded buccaneer and the first bandit are also in melee. The following four are not.
Now let’s see the options again in this context:
– Any character can rush to the front. Anyone but the knight will have this option. If the Rogue chose to do this the diagram would become something like:
New layout after Rogue moves to the front.
Some shuffling occurs for the sake of keeping the three rows but it isn’t entirely necessary. I could also have kept the paladin close to the bandit and messed up the three rows but those are convenient for picturing and it doesn’t hurt.
– Characters in melee can choose to step back. If the knight steps out of melee at this stage there are only three left:
Knight then leaves melee
– Those behind the lines can choose to step in. Three may not be enough so the Sorcerer decides to step in front of the Knight (bad idea in most cases, unless looking for the Paladin’s (P)rotection perhaps):
Sorcerer jumps into melee.
– Characters in melee can attempt to shove enemies out of melee. Â A good way to isolate someone, or take some pressure off the front line. There are still 4 characters in melee (and 1 mob)..
Bandit gets shoved out of melee.
– Party leader can order the party to press forward. This only uses up the leader’s turn and causes both monsters and characters to enter melee.
Now there are 6 characters and 3 mobs in melee (some random applied in this case)
– Party leader can order the party to fall back. This only uses up the leader’s turn and causes both monsters and characters to leave melee.
Right back to previous step 🙂
This makes combat a little less orderly. Monsters and characters alike can get all mixed up. It also opens the door to new spells and special attacks… 😉  Ultimately it makes combat more difficult, as monsters will have more opportunities to inflict damage. But the increased difficulty is compensated by new skills for the knight, rogue and archer, as well as a more favorable loot system. I may actually need to increase difficulty a bit more. More on those on the next post!
Also a lot of testing is in order to make sure the monster AI uses the new options coherently, and that I haven’t broken anything.
Any thoughts on this? Is the tradeoff between simplicity and tactical depth good or bad in your opinion? Discuss!
First things first: A great and happy new year to everyone! Ignore the harbingers of doom and believe in 2012 being the best year ever, premisce to many more great years to come!
It’s been nearly 2 months since my video update, so this post is quite overdue.
Sadly there aren’t any great breakthroughs to announce. Image assets are being completed slowly due to events in the Philippines (location of the art studio I’m working with on this project). Washi, a ruptured dam in the Manila area and the end-of-year festivities have slowed them down. On my end the family situation I mentionned about a year ago came to a tragic end in November. I moved back home and am slowly settling in again, and will be working pretty much full time on Underworld and the sequel over the next few months. Â Then, decisions will have to be made.
Nevertherless, the prolonged development time has given me the opportunity to nicely enhance Underworld. Three new maps, 10 new monsters, many moar lewts, a double special attack for some mobs (greatly adding to the technical challenge of many encounters), new special attacks for others, much better end of game balance, new features enhancing gameplay (like setting game speed, (P)rotect replaces (B)lock…).
The images that have been done look pretty sweet! Phantoms, wraiths (both new mobs) and a few others have transparency effects that I personally can’t stop gawking over and some of the still cutscenes are absolutely awesome 🙂
Rising from grave
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Apparition Encounter
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Militiaman Encounter
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Also you might have noticed that the first monster in line is illustrated as before, but in a reproduction of the encounter’s environment.
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To summarize I must confess that my early 2012 release goal will not be met. I’d rather not set a date that may not be met either at this point, but it shouldn’t be long. The bright side of things is that Underworld Gold will be all the better for it.
Underworld Gold is still work in progress, but the last remaining images, mostly the full screen storyline illustrations, are coming in at a good pace. The following video shows a couple, and hints at a few more changes. There are still a few glitches that need fixing, but nothing of much consequence.
I’m looking at an early 2012 release at the moment, which should allow for some more polish, new levels and “puzzles” (a term I use loosely to define any kind of obstacle that requires some thought to get accross).
Everyone knows a project is bound to face contingencies, setbacks, delays…
From the indie one-man studio (now with outside help) to the large construction company, something(s) are bound to get in the way of anyone’s objectives.
Underworld and sequel are currently affected by… Typhoons! Not one, but several have hit the people I’m working with in Manilla (Philippines), the worst of which is happening right now. So I’m glad I didn’t set a release date, but remain confident the remaining assets will be delivered as soon as can possibly be, given the circumstances. The most important being that they stay safe until good work conditions return.
You aren’t a troll, are you? Â They tend to leave their rooms more untidy than the average mountaineer. And that is saying a LOT.
Then you are most welcome. Sign for a room, the RSS feed, and enjoy your stay in our frugal yet hospitable gladiator’s inn.
The arena re-opens soon, careened and refitted, and filled with shiny new monsters. And stores will greet you with a homely image. Things are moving along at a good pace!
The graphics project is going along smoothly, but that’s pretty much out of my hands. Except for the integration of completed pieces into the game, which quite frankly isn’t difficult, what am I doing?
I can muster 2-4 hours of effective work time a day. I’m putting on weight for lack of exercise and a less than rigorous diet but that’s the way it is when you want something done yesterday, and have limited time ressources to do it. I want Underworld to be great… And done. I’ve been talking about the sequel way too long to be comfortable about it.
What Ive got planned while the graphics are under development breaks down as follows… A long list of little things.
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Graphics and UI Integration and fixes
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Integrating monsters is simple but the walls still require minor fixes. Also the new UI’s text boxes aren’t exactly positionned as the previous version’s was. So there’s a lot of text to reposition. Besides that, the 3D engine requires that many parts of the game be adapted as it causes little… mishaps.
Transparency effects for monsters. There are quite a few and frankly I’m liking the result! Semi-transparent apparitions and the like really help the atmosphere.
There are a few dozen signs throughout the game – in towns and below. The previous sign images have all been replaced and the new ones must be plotted into the game (not just a replacement, a rewrite is required).
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Game balance
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A few issues and suggestions about game balance have been reported. In short, the game gets too easy in the end. This is due in part to levelling that becomes increasingly easy beyond lvl 9. There’s also the rogue’s Bleed ability that kind of makes him overly godly. Then there’s the immobilization spells that work almost systematically – but that is linked to the levelling that is too quick (monsters do resist, but not if they are way surpassed by your party’s strength). All these aspects and a couple more are taken into consideration again to maintain a tactical challenge all the way to the final encounter. The difficulty is to not turn the game into a grindfest. That will be thoroughly avoided through careful playtesting.
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Encounter enrichment
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Buying stock art for the early versions did three things. It gave me easy access to images that I thought were a nice addition to an otherwise graphicless endeavor. It got a lot of people upset as the styles varied immensely… Especially with my own (art)work, namely the wall and ground tiles as well as the UI and… On a more positive note, it gave me ideas. You run into an image and it makes you think of a monster, a quest, a setting, loot it could be carrying…
The same thing happens to some extent when I get a new batch of completed work from the newly appointed artist (I gave him considerable leeway for creativity). So some monsters are going to have  new abilities.
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Sequel preparation
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I’ve started work on a map building utility (about 50% done). Right now I use… A text file! Plotting codes needed to be painstakingly written with a few hundred lines per map. With this new tool the process will become much more visual, way faster and much less torturous. That means much faster level design for the sequel which, having an overworld, will need quite a few maps.
Along the same lines and for the same reasons, I’ll be building item and monster creation utilities.
I hope to release Underworld Gold by the end of the year, but also be much better armed to make the sequel release more than likely in 2012.
Wall thickness being an important issue for immersion in a game where there are a lot of walls, there needed to be a better solution for a cavernous environment than six sided blocks. After all, cavern walls aren’t square.
Swords and Sorcery - Underworld Cavernous environment
Underworld now has a basic 3D engine but the goal to keep things simple was to make do without 3D objects. Just basic shapes and textures. That is how it worked out for the caverns.
A few people have asked how monsters appear in the new environments. Well, they do so much like they did before – a very oldschool way. Only now those that have feet actually have those on the ground. Here’s a peak at the upcoming monster art as well.
Underworld has greatly suffered from my lack of artistic ability (or time to learn… or even try). There’s a simple solution to that problem: outsourcing. I have finally been able to do that.
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Swords and Sorcery - Underworld GUI for v107 (Click to enlarge)
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The entire game is being redrawn. At this point I have enough material to show this screen (walls,tiles, interface). But the enhancement goes beyond the general aspect. The worldview now works with a basic 3D engine, which greatly facilitates the inclusion of more varied environments, as well perks like actual wall thickness. I also have a list of smaller fixes I’ll talk about in a later post.
This sets the new graphical standard for the Swords and Sorcery series. The sequel is making slow progress because Underworld still takes much of my focus. But with these enhancements to the engine, a large , varied and attractive overworld becomes a much more feasible short term goal.
