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Incline Hearkenwold - an IceBlink and DC engine Campaign

ProphetSword

Arcane
Developer
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Jun 7, 2012
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Monkey Island
Why does it only have a maximum range of 3 squares?

I think to keep it from being overpowered, the range restriction adds a targeting consideration. The risk of running your wizard to a somewhat vulnerable position, for the reward of getting a 5x5 square mass damage spell.

Ranges for Fireball at 5th Level:

1st Edition AD&D = 150ft
2nd Edition AD&D = 180ft
3rd Edition D&D = 600ft
4th Edition D&D = 100ft
5th Edition D&D = 150ft
IceBlink Engine = 15ft

One of these is not like the others...
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,322
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
Why does it only have a maximum range of 3 squares?

I think to keep it from being overpowered, the range restriction adds a targeting consideration. The risk of running your wizard to a somewhat vulnerable position, for the reward of getting a 5x5 square mass damage spell.

Ranges for Fireball at 5th Level:

1st Edition AD&D = 150ft
2nd Edition AD&D = 180ft
3rd Edition D&D = 600ft
4th Edition D&D = 100ft
5th Edition D&D = 150ft
IceBlink Engine = 15ft

One of these is not like the others...

Ha, looks about right.

Another consideration is that IceBlink is not a Vancian system, but uses spell points. I like the limited range as a means of keeping the player from spamming fireball, rather they might want to wait for an opening to present itself before bringing out the heavy artillery.
 

ProphetSword

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Developer
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Monkey Island
Fair enough. I was just curious what the thinking was behind it. Not really a criticism...well, not a major one anyway.

Besides, your game still looks awesome.
 

slowdive

Bree Arts
Developer
Joined
Nov 1, 2012
Messages
236
Fair enough. I was just curious what the thinking was behind it. Not really a criticism...well, not a major one anyway.

Besides, your game still looks awesome.

Keep in mind that all IB spells can be customized or even created from scratch for each module so that the builder can choose if they want to create something with pros and cons like this. Fireball seems to be almost too overpowering in many of the early D&D crpgs so having this range limit seems interesting to me and will be fun to try it out when Hearkenwold's next chapter is out.
 

ProphetSword

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Good to know that it can be customized by the designer, in case some of us might want to tailor it to a more standard D&D experience. Thanks for the info.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,322
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
I have the new updated version of Hearkenwold available to download.

This uses build 105 of the IceBlink engine, and the file can be downloaded here:

Hearkenwold

A quick summary of what this project is about.

  • Hearkenwold is a module constructed with the IceBlink toolset, designed as an ever expanding campaign, with the promise of further adventures
  • The concept behind the design is to use Gold Box style icons to populate a 2D top down map, which is created also using largely Gold Box style tiles and art assets
  • Gameplay features turn-based tactical combat, and Storm of Zehir style conversations using a party of up to six created characters
I have bundled the module with the IceBlink engine in the download file to make it easier to set up. From the extracted uncompressed folder, place the IB_beta_v105 folder into your computer's Documents folder. Start IceBlink and scroll through the menu screen to select the module Hearkenwold, then start a new game.

Some of the improvements include re-tiling earlier areas, and the spell interrupt system where characters positioned next to an enemy will provoke an attack of opportunity when trying to cast spells, and will need to make a save. Lots of new content, and new itemization.

NSGymUZ.jpg


t8Zigvh.jpg


b05vWFO.jpg


khtoleU.jpg
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,535
I spent the last few days in Hearkenworld. I expected a few fun fights, got a big full campaign slowly bringing my party up to level 7-8 with interweaved events, riddles to solve and dozens of varied encounters. was involved in political conflicts, freed a genie who rewarded me, freed and chased a lich and met a palendromedary.
The dialog lines of my halfling thief were often very funny.

Here ends the current chapter of Hearkenworld.
My party is ready to visit the Halls of Hamock.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
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Messages
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The Crystal Mist Mountains
Thanks for the post CryptRat

I wasn't sure what level a party might finish at, given the open ended nature of the adventure, but 7-8 is what I was aiming for. Also, I had been debating whether next to continue working on the Asherim (desert realm) side content or finishing the Halls of Hamhock. I think I will make the Halls the next update.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
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The Crystal Mist Mountains
I've been making several corrections and fixes to Hearkenwold based on feedback received over the past few weeks. In the meantime, the IceBlink engine has also been getting some upgrades to address outstanding issues or visual changes. By next weekend, I expect to post a new version of the module along with build 116, which will hopefully enhance the playing experience.

On a longer term prospect, thanks to CryptRat and his comment above, I have started work on the next piece of content to be included in the campaign, The Halls of Hamhock, which is presently inaccessible beyond the mountain gates. This will natuarly be a dwarf-centric adventure with quite a bit of history. First some background information:

I initially created the Halls of Hamhock as an adventure design using the FRUA toolset in the late nineties. Years later, I would recreate the module for NWN2. But now I am looking forward to building it again in IceBlink, returning this iteration to its proper 2D and turn-based origins.

The idea behind Hamhock goes back even further. It's one of those odd naming conventions of taking a word that has meaning in the common English language, and imposing it on a fantasy setting within its own context. I think the original inspiration for the name came from the Greyhawk city of Hochoch, where we launched our PnP campaign. Although even the literal translation of Hamhock is fitting, as the dwarves who live in the village have a rural quality to their character, while the dwarves in the mountain are the more traditional monocled sort. The player can even meet an angry pig farmer outside in the village of Hamhock.

One of the more noticeable changes to IceBlink on an engine level is that the size of the portraits used in conversations has been increased. Both the dialogue windows, if you compare to previous screenshots, and narration text.
LjErrlc.jpg


Another thing added to combat encounters, is a round indicator as well as listing victory conditions. We will soon have the capability of winning fights by eliminating a designated enemy (think assassination) or fulfilling other objectives. There is also a pop-up screen at the end of combat to better display the party's victory, XP earned and any loot drops.

qAbrhBb.jpg


Here is a sample conversation with a dwarven general, with a remark referencing the broader Hearkenwold adventure. Again, the portrait size has been enlarged, taking up more of the screen real estate than before. I believe the character icons on the bottom will be getting an increase as well, in an upcoming version of the engine.
Zhxxrdx.jpg


The architectural concept behind the Halls of Hamhock is a fortress built inside the core of a mountain. So you can expect to find tiled floors, brickwork and other masonry, in addition to cave walls and bare earthen ground in some places.
oTWkxno.jpg


Once the Halls are integrated into the Hearkenwold campaign, it will immediately become the largest dungeon complex in the game. An adventure for characters 5th to 7th level, although it might be attempted at lower levels with disastrous results. More importantly, it expands the game world and moves closer to one of the overarching goals I have of creating this campaign that players can jump into and go off and find their own path, exploring quests that might only have a peripheral connection to the main storyline.

It will take several months to finish this project. But next weekend I will post the updated module for Hearkenwold with more details about the fixes and changes.
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
Character and backgroud have different level of pixelation.
 
Joined
May 21, 2018
Messages
32
I installed this and it seems great, but the difficulty of intuiting what the various tiles mean prevents me from getting into it. What's a wall and what's a floor? I think with no perspective to imply depth, the tiles need to be simpler/cleaner with less detail and graininess (e.g. early Ultima). That would significantly reduce the cognitive overhead of playing it, making it much more appealing.

Fantastic work nonetheless, and probably the truest CRPG I've seen on mobile.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,322
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
I installed this and it seems great, but the difficulty of intuiting what the various tiles mean prevents me from getting into it. What's a wall and what's a floor? I think with no perspective to imply depth, the tiles need to be simpler/cleaner with less detail and graininess (e.g. early Ultima). That would significantly reduce the cognitive overhead of playing it, making it much more appealing.

Fantastic work nonetheless, and probably the truest CRPG I've seen on mobile.

Hey, I appreciate the feedback! By chance, since you mentioned mobile, were you playing the Android version? That was a port of the module from a while back. The latest build has been designed exclusively for the PC, and now includes height variation to help differentiate between walls and floors.
 
Joined
May 21, 2018
Messages
32
Yeah, it was the Android version. I don't have much time to play PC games anymore. :negative:

Good to know it's been addressed though. I can sort of see it in the latest screenshot.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
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Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
Character and backgroud have different level of pixelation.

Pretty, the art can be a bit all over the place. Tiles and character icons both come from the FRUA archive as a source, so hopefully they are a little more consistent. Character portraits on the other hand, are probably the worst offender. I've got Elmore mixed with the dwarf portrait I used in Wizardry 8, and I think there's some Baldur's Gate in there too. And that's just for the characters I'm running with. We have a whole folder containing images that will likely clash with the rest of the screen. But this is a hobby project, just for fun. No worries.
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
Character and backgroud have different level of pixelation.

Pretty, the art can be a bit all over the place. Tiles and character icons both come from the FRUA archive as a source, so hopefully they are a little more consistent. Character portraits on the other hand, are probably the worst offender. I've got Elmore mixed with the dwarf portrait I used in Wizardry 8, and I think there's some Baldur's Gate in there too. And that's just for the characters I'm running with. We have a whole folder containing images that will likely clash with the rest of the screen. But this is a hobby project, just for fun. No worries.
I think portraits and character art are okay, they have similar pixilization (even though protraits is a bit more highres).
The sprites are like 16x16 and portraits is like 128x64 (which is okay) but backgrounds is something way beyond XxX era.
The backgroud is a lot smoother than character sprites. Just compare rounds surface of fountain and round surfaces (like head) of character nearby.

Can't you use something like this:
https://opengameart.org/content/denzis-32x32-orthogonal-tilesets
https://opengameart.org/content/denzis-96x96-and-64x64-isometric-tilesets

those tiles seems good enough and they are free I think
 
Last edited by a moderator:

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
I somewhat agree unfortunately. The character sprites vs. backgrounds look ok to me (quite a few games, particularly adventures, have character sprites in less detail than backgrounds), and I don't have any problems with the portraits, but the background tiles themselves have vastly inconsistent resolution, perspective and sometimes even compression level, not to mention art style. I think it'd be better to find some free tileset that wouldn't clash too much with Goldbox character icons and redo the maps with it - depending of course on how much work that'd take.
 

slowdive

Bree Arts
Developer
Joined
Nov 1, 2012
Messages
236
I will look into some options further. Certainly I have been revamping each iteration as an ongoing effort to make this visually more appealing.
I like the current style myself. It has a graph paper PnP type feel and not a video game jRPG type look which wouldn't fit the intent to me.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,322
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
I updated the module available to download, which cleaned up some typos and fixed a few triggers that were not working as intended. I also went through and adjusted the saving throws on creatures, giving them a little more resistance.

Hearkenwold now uses build 116 of the IceBlink engine, and can be downloaded here:

Hearkenwold

If anyone has already started playing the previous version of the campaign, it is easy to transfer your saves. Just go into the folder of the earlier version (105) and in the saves folder is a folder called Hearkenwold. Copy that into the saves folder of IBBeta116. Then when you start the module, you will be able to load any previous saved games.

Version 116 of IceBlink includes numerous engine changes and fixes.

- better healing AI for enemies
- large ceratures are only hit once by area of effect spells now
- AoO is triggered when stepping away to the left, too, now
- message at begin of encounter is only shown for unsual conditions or modifiers
- held creatures will no longer interrupt pc cast attempts
- enlarged portraits and narration images (both convo only) by 40% in each direction (about double size)
- fixed bug with attack bonus on non-weapon items

In the meantime, I am continuing to work on the Halls of Hamhock, which will be the next adventure added to the campaign.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,322
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
I would be interested in feedback about graphics, following up on the previous comments. Below is part of a temple area. How do these floor tiles look, in context with the purple brick walls and the Gold Box character icons?

T04zy5T.jpg
 

Dorateen

Arcane
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Messages
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The Crystal Mist Mountains
No problem. Door tiles are easy to swap out. How about this, with standard grey bricks, and the rounded wooden door.

fB4fVWo.jpg


The reason I selected the purple pricks for the walls is because amethyst stones have a symbolic significance in this place.
 

V_K

Arcane
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at a Nowhere near you
Can you recolor the bricks on the door tiles into some shade of purple? I think that'd be ideal. Or cut the doors out and put them on purple background.
 

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