Frontiers - Mass Effect-like action-RPG

[Pope Amole]

Bros, so I was minding my business, browsing the web when I stumbled on this:



Yeah, an indie-rpg (well, action-rpg, but novadays, it's as good as it gets) that I don't remember being discussed here (or even mentioned in the indie-rpg list). So what's the deal with this project, anyone heard anything about it? Sure, I guess most codexers will get annoyed by Mass Effect being the main source of inspiration, but for more open-minded folk that really sounds interesting, especially since it looks like there's a lot of effort being put into it yet all of it ('xcept for the voice-acting, I think) is done by a single man. Which is pretty expressive, I think, although it will be probably released by the next thursday, but you know how it goes.

So what, any info on it?

 

[DraQ]

Never heard of it, but I'm butthurt over the misleading title.

I've also made the observation that if you can't make decent animations, you shouldn't make your game TPP.

 

[Jaesun]

Yet Another Shitty Action Game #3847503948752340958

Wake me up when Knight's of The Chalice II comes out.

 

[Mortmal]

Frontier ? That was misleading it reminds me of elite: frontiers, space travel, a vast universe, well the games of the 90's *sigh*. Now what i see ? Indie commander shephard with a broomstick up his ass, not really interested, i already did not enjoy that much the last mass effect.
Same as above , wake me up for knights of the chalice 2 or something of same quality(very very unlikely) .

 

[DraQ]

Frontier ? That was misleading it reminds me of elite: frontiers, space travel, a vast universe, well the games of the 90's *sigh*. Now what i see ? Indie commander shephard with a broomstick up his ass, not really interested, i already did not enjoy that much the last mass effect.

Be my brother in butthurt!

 

[Mortmal]

Totally butthurt yes, i remember back then , the game was so awesome a friend skipped sleeping completely , truly a wonderful innovative game, the kind of thing that get me into gaming. A vast believable universe to explore in a few floppy disks ,i felt like the actor of my own space opera saga, i cant find words to express how good it was. Nowadays when i get a new game most of the time its just 'meh' another one.

 

[DraQ]

Totally butthurt yes, i remember back then , the game was so awesome a friend skipped sleeping completely , truly a wonderful innovative game, the kind of thing that get me into gaming. A vast believable universe to explore in a few floppy disks ,i felt like the actor of my own space opera saga, i cant find words to express how good it was. Nowadays when i get a new game most of the time its just 'meh' another one.

I still play Frontier (PC) and FFE (using JJFFE) from time to time, and the first time I've ever seen them was after shaders became commonplace.

Great games and they are among the very few doing space and space-flight right. You can even slingshot or put your ship in stable orbit if you know how.


Also, do google pioneer space sim - a modern, unofficial, open source remake of FE2, currently in alpha stage.

 

[MMXI]

Yet Another Shitty Action Game #3847503948752340958

Wake me up when Knight's of The Chalice II comes out.

 

[Falkner]

The voice acting is hilarious.

 

[Kalin]

I was actually playing JJFFE today, running Imperial missions in my Viper Defence MK2. I never made it to either Prince or Elite in FFE (not even close actually, I always quit around Baron for some reason) so now I am gunning for both. While I doubt that I will ever reach my goals, I am still having a lot of fun.

 

[curry]

looks sweet for an indie project tho

 

[DraQ]

I was actually playing JJFFE today, running Imperial missions in my Viper Defence MK2. I never made it to either Prince or Elite in FFE (not even close actually, I always quit around Baron for some reason) so now I am gunning for both. While I doubt that I will ever reach my goals, I am still having a lot of fun.

, though I'm more of a fagderation kind of person (Alliance, actually, but the don't give any missions).

And I never had the patience to reach higher tiers of military either, so my only contact with high level military stuff came in form of CLASSIFIED missions.

 

[villain of the story]

What makes Frontiers impressive is that as a one-man "team" and in a relatively short time, he has already achieved like 100x more than what entire assemblies of modders fail to do after years of putting out disjointed shit. And the author was working on space combat the last I checked, as in "hop on ship, get to space, fight it out".

But yes, source of his inspiration and his direction is shit. The thing is, the guy is a teenager IIRC, so he could possible be indoctrinated on monocle tastes and motivated to do something worthy of mention.

And I think he might be using procedural animations, that might explain the shitty and inconsistent animations.

 

[sirfink]

The voice acting sounds like it was all done by the same guy living in his mom's basement recorded into a cheap headset microphone.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Only clicked on thread because of Elite. Moving on.

 

[Zed]

It's pretty impressive for a one-man project. Reminded me a bit of Outcast.

 

[JarlFrank]

For a one-man indie project, this looks pretty impressive. Yeah, shitty 3rd person shooter combat, but it doesn't look too bad, and if this guy plans to keep doing stuff like that and improves his design ideas with time, we might have an actual non-vapourware indie RPG dev.

 

[tindrli]

seems like Fag effect to me

 

[Sollthar]

Hehe, always trust the internet for people who can express their dislike in a civil, constructive way. But there was no one who wished my sudden demise, so thanks for that I guess. :D

On a more serious note, I'm the dev of this game and just found this. Thanks for the thoughts and insight into your opinions. They're always interesting to me.


To clarify a few things, I'm not a teenager. I'm 31.
I only started with gamedesign about a year ago because I like the media and wanted to try it some of my own ideas and concepts. And one of them was a sci fi game where you can fly around with ships, walk around the bridges of these ships, land on planets and interact with everyone you meet along the way in a way a "story" will develop based on the way you play rather then in a linear progression.

I'm also aware that someone in an "RPG" forum will probably dislike my approach since I personally rather dislike classical RPG's - or better put, many of their mechanics. I don't like experience points, I don't like the entire concept of "levels" or "classes" and I don't like to have to look at a bunch of numbers improving (or popping up in screen when I hit something) and make gameplay feel like a math lesson. So there will be none of that in my game. I like stories and to go into those. I like open worlds that actually offer me things to do and I like a world that reacts to what I do. That's my idea of "role playing", hence I call it an "RPG".


There will be plenty of people this won't be for and that's fine. I don't really mind or think about an audience, I just want to experiment with the media.

Mass Effect was indeed partially an inspiration, as well as Mount and Blade. Both have aspects I really liked and aspects I really didn't like. As well as other games like the original UFO: Enemy Unkown and the Elite / Wing Commander series. Then obviously, there's ideas of my own and I'm interested to see if the mix will be any fun to play : to me. And who knows, maybe some others too. If even maybe not here.


As for the games content: What you see here is simply the parts I started with. There's many many elements I haven't even begun working on hence you don't see them in that dev video (hence there's no space parts and little of the story system). Technically, lot's of things are still Work in Progress and or experimental.
And the voiceacting is indeed just me speaking into a headset mainly to check that the right sound is triggered. The final game will have voiceactors, obviously.

I'm also glad I'm not the only one who seems to think that many games put too much emphasis on shooter mechanisms to hide they have little else to offer. Mass Effect was the best to me when it wasn't about taking cover behind a crate and shooting the 1938th enemy.


In any case, thanks for the interest and food for thought. Take care and enjoy gaming, whatever it is you enjoy.

 

[Lightknight]

if you can't make decent animations, you shouldn't make your game TPP.

Which is, what, every RPG ever ?
Thief sold, didnt it ? Even pro AAA+ stuff like Doom3 had horrible human animations, and modeling wasnt all that impressive either.

 

[Elwro]

HEY IS SOMEONE MAKING A NEW SPACE TRADIN


oh


Good luck, still

 

[Sollthar]

As for the animations, I agree. The stick up the ass comment made me laugh cause I said the same thing. :D
I will certainly keep working on it and see if I can improve it.

It's obviously easier to call something shit then do it better, but I'll try.

 

[Destroid]

I actually really like the visuals, probably because the levels of graphics reminds me of a time when games were better. I do hope you implement optional first person perspective, for those who don't like over the shoulder. The video makes it look very much like Mass Effect as others have stated.

 

[Sollthar]

I'm not sure if 1st person view will be implemented. But I'll keep that in mind and see if it will be possible. If it is, I'll let the end user decide his perspective of choice.

It's just so far it had zero priority for me because I don't like FPS much myself.

 

[rpgcodexusername]

looks like you spent money on some bvh motion capped animations, models and environments,

it all ties together nicely, if the game is well written it could be alright