Fall of Eternity -- Prepare to LEVEL DOWN!

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Don't talk to MetalCraze. He is an idiot. There's no fixing him, it is literally pissing in the wind trying to talk to him.

Thanks LoPan, and I apologize for the passive-aggressiveness.

In our three-man team, the writer absolutely loathed the idea of switching it to first-person. However, the artist agreed and we vetoed him via 2-1 vote, with the compromise that a third-person view would be select-able in the final version. Melee combat is easily the biggest challenge with this viewpoint.

I'll just be ignoring haters from here on out. I don't want to get caught in a vicious cycle. If I pleasure them with any further response, it's just giving them more material to work with.

I was caught a little off guard -- but I would be a fool and hypocrite to continue reacting immaturely while making a game about patiently conquering insurmountable odds.

kingcomrade

thank you for living true to your namesake

That posting style. Reminds me of that guy who made that browser game.

Posting to be alerted of progress for this game.

Actually, my post was kind. Because it can save you months of suffering, instead of leading you on - into a dead end.

Do you think I enjoy being a dick to people? It has nothing to do with being nice or mean - I have no idea who you are.

But you have to start off with something small and doable. Something you can put together in a week and start playing on the simplest possible level, and then increment features, and keep it fun. A River Raid-type game. A Lode Runner-type game.

Because an RPG isn't in the stars tonight. It will be in the stars tomorrow.

I'll give you this one chance to have a civil conversation if you're actually being serious...

I compiled my first funcitonal video game when I was seven years old, and never thought until recently to try making money at it. My first game was a text adventure/RPG.

I've been modding Morrowind for the 10+ years it's been out. Fall of Eternity is being scripted in Python, which is quite similar to LUA, the scripting language used in the Netimmerse/Gamebryo engine utilized by Bethesda... Key differences being in its handling of boolean operators, local variables, whitespace, and a few other things. Because Python, Blender, OGL, Bullet Physics, and the rest of the game's development tools are free, we asked for a modest $5,000 in compensation for making this game.

In the hours since you posted your original message, I made almost $200 in pledges for Fall of Eternity.

I can understand your concerns, this is a wacky concept and a tough sell, but you don't possess the magical ability to see the future (and neither do I). If the project fails, well, that's too bad, but it won't dissuade me from making video games.

If you had actually taken any time to read anything before posting, you'd see I have another, simpler game set to release June 30 (Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign). I've been working with this specific set of tools for about two years.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wizardbox/commander-3?ref=users




You chose to judge this game by a low-res screenshot taken from a low-res video. It's a pretty common trolling practice on other gaming boards, which is why I jumped to the conclusion. Sure, the graphics aren't anywhere near finished, but both you and I know it doesn't look quite as terrible as your picture suggests. These are real-time screens... This is what the gamplay demo actually looks like on my computer (and it runs at 60fps on my cruddy GTX260 -- I'm an advocate for good performance and resource management). Many Kickstarter game projects succeed without even posting game footage in the first place.




We are trying to evoke a similar atmosphere to Ultima Underworld. Plenty of people love that game, and look at its graphics. This was mind-boggling to people at one point in time. Its physics engine is still impressive given the limited resources. I still play this game to this day, even though I have Skyrim. Graphics != inherently good game.

@shihonage, I see you're a developer too, which is why I find it truly bizarre that you'd be so quick to trash someone else's work without even doing any research.

You clearly had to start somewhere before you could make a game with C and DirectX... I'm sure people tried to discourage you along the way. What do you gain from tossing such negativity in the air, other than a bad reputation with someone else in the field?

I'm an open-source multiplatform F2P guy (a linux-head at heart though I use windows), and you're working exclusively in Windows. Only 33% of my potential market crosses into yours. I promise I am not your competition or your enemy.

In fact, I wish you the best of luck in SHELTER. It honest-to-god looks pretty damn cool.

Well, there is a certain strange wibe in those screens - surface that's supposed to be stone, looks more like a slime due to the light effects and texture.
Which does give it a certain Prosperian feel, which can be said also of the Commander game.

But then a game with such art style is not so bad, it's enticing in a certain psychedelic way.

I started writing this point-by-point reply, but realized this is going to end in the same way as usual. I'll end up feeling like a jerk who hurt a well-meaning guy, and you'll end up feeling "attacked without provocation".

May your timeline differ from the one I see, eh?

Good luck.

P.S. just saw your follow-up post. It has absolutely nothing to do with "competition", or "enemies". And thanks for kind words on Shelter.

Thanks dude, and I'm glad we cleared up some misconceptions. PR is probably the hardest part of game dev, hah. I totally understand that I'm an unheard-of developer who has signed himself up for a daunting task.

Commander^3 made most of its money in the final hours. I'm signed up to do a live "digital interactive art display" early next month, where I'm hoping to pass out business cards and catch the brunt of our local contributions.

edit: re:follow-up post: you're welcome, just covering my bases in regards to "competition"

Thanks. Commander^3 is probably going to induce seizures, then again, it's an intentionally psychedelic/retro/absurdist/post-modern game.... As someone pointed out on my KS: My normal maps go to 11.

I started the KS for Fall of Eternity because I don't have much trouble stitching a game together, but my 3D games always look like they're made of cardboard, wrapped in cellophane, and drenched in some viscous goo. If we raise the funds to compensate a new artist, I hope players will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome

Our new company is dedicated to pushing new ideas in gaming... Even if it doesn't make much sense... Even if it isn't commercially viable. Structurally, I can't begin to describe Commander^3. You'll think it's a simple FPS at first, but by the end of the trip, you'll feel oddly satisfied as well as completely baffled by the game's existence.

Because the video on the KS is quite muddy, here are some higher-rez captures of the other areas shown. The abominations have a highly reflective and slimy animated surface (and so do their guts). Every house in the abandoned village can be tossed around with real-time physics, and you can also enter that crazy structure in the center (forgot to put that in the video). Please keep in mind this game has been in development for about three weeks.





I've got another game I need to finish. I'll be back in a few weeks to post new pictures and video of the integrated HUD. Thanks for checking it out, been a pleasure talking to most of you

Those... monsters definitely look Prosperian.

Who's your artist?

I think they don't really have one and that's what the KS is for.

I made those monsters from scratch. They were originally going to be sentient masses of chewed bubblegum for a humorous game...

The only model our new artist has contributed so far is Dak'Ur, the game's villain. The artist behind this model is a good friend of mine named Nathan, who sells his traditional artwork at Ren Faires in Texas. I'll have a tough time prying him away from his job without being able to pay him... If our Kickstarter is successful, every character model will feature this level of visual fidelity (sans jpeg artifacts), leaving me more time to work on better world textures and architecture:

So Prosper started his Kickstarter ?

If not, I'm sure prosper could do the graphics on this game, it would fit right in.

I know not of this Prosper, but I suppose I'll take it in stride. As I said in the first post, I'm already programming this game, and my significantly more visually-endowed friend will be doing the artwork if we manage to meet our goal.

While I'm sure to catch hell from trolls for this - I'm actually, honest-to-God, partially color-blind and over halfway to being legally blind. I am physically incapable of producing the sort of high-quality color artwork gamers clamor for. I don't know if this says more about me, or this Prosper fellow, haha.

My job is to make the logic work, but I don't mind helping out with the level design and architecture.

If you noticed my eyes darting in the KS vid, it's because I can't focus on my screen unless I'm inches away from it.

Thanks for the feedback, both positive and negative. I hope you guys like what we cook up... and if not, well hey, it's gonna be free anyway

Have a good day guys/girls, see you in a few weeks.

Ah, don't worry about it. The models just looked strangely familiar. What matters is the gameplay in the end. Looking forward to seeing some videos.

What is the cause?

I could be a smartass and say "unlucky roll"...

I have severe near-sightedness and astigmatism, will probably have to switch to hard contacts in about 5 years... The partial color-blindness isn't a problem with my retinal cones, it's just that my inability to focus runs everything together (cars with xenon lights are evil). I usually rely on motion to get my bearings because large areas of slightly-different color tend to bleed into themselves (hence the egregious specular and normals - it lets me definitively know where the ground is while I'm leaning back in my seat).

I do apologize for the muddy dev grafix, but I suppose I have a legitimate excuse. If we significantly surpass our goal, I would love to get corrective surgery and give your eyes a feast.

That's life man, LEVEL DOWN, lol

I was originally going to include a "vision" stat in this game, which gradually brings the LOD closer to the camera... Then my writer/storyboard editor slapped me upside the head.

I usually draw in B&W.. Non-vidya image below

I'll also take this opportunity to say that because of my vision impairment, I play a lot of different musical instruments... I'm composing all of the music by myself. If we reach our goal, I'll also be flying out to Atlanta and paying my friend in the Atlanta Symphony to record some somber viola music... and maybe get some metal tracks from my friends here in TX



I wouldn't call my company Wizard Box if we didn't have a few tricks up our sleeve

I kind of like how the game looks. It captures a very alien world quite well if you ask me. Obviously it needs improvements, and I'm not expecting amazing graphics, especially on a very early build of a game, but aesthetically it's definitely on the right track.

I strongly sugget you refrain from the usual high fantasy humor atmosphere, even if low key

that is not what these screenshots suggest at all

just go with it all the way with metaphysical worlds developer arthouse setting shit, it'll be better than 'ha ha I'm subverting that old fantasy genre dinosaur'!
at least have a good bit of otherness and uneasy alienation in there

Thanks guys, duly noted.

As this project matures, our story and world have too... It's really only recently set in that we're exploring some pretty heavy themes beyond the superficial "good vs evil", despite the main conflict being between rather standard god/satan archetypes.

This game is about the ever-present threat of the protagonist's mortality, religious factionalism, suffering of the innocent, and the things we, as humans, take for granted. We started out wanting to make a linear gimmicky Diablo clone, but the project is really beginning to take on a life of its own since we switched the viewpoint and opened up the world... and that life is rather harsh and dreadful

This game's atmosphere will greatly benefit from being more like Dark Souls and less like Oblivion. Every enemy is terrifying because it will either kill you, or make you weaker.

Even with its placeholder animations, without sound, one of those "abominations" snuck up on me during debug and literally made me jump

Don't be shy about showing the good sides of life as well. Try to motivate the player every now and then by reminding them of the little nice things in life that matter. If it's too depressing then it might be a bit difficult for some players to be inspired to carry on with the game, especially when they are constantly weighed down by the looming infliction that your character suffers. You need to give them a reason to care. Why do you carry on your fight when you keep getting weaker and weaker if the world is a piece of shit anyway?