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KickStarter INSOMNIA: The Ark - dieselpunk sci-fi action-RPG set on a decaying space station

Guyduk

Studio Mono
Developer
Joined
May 31, 2014
Messages
27
https://insomnia-project.com




https://af.gog.com/game/insomnia_the_ark?as=1649904300

Hi guys,

I’m here to introduce my project.

I suppose you get a lot of threads like these days, so I’ll try to keep canned PR to the minimum, though I suppose with announcements like this it’s just unavoidable.



So, to start this thing up — we’re the InSomnia Development team, and that thing we’re bringing to you today is InSomnia - a dystopean, post-apocalyptic dieselpunk RPG.

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We’ve been on this project for three years - which is enough to get a lot of stuff done, but since you don’t have three years to read it, I’ll try to keep it short and somewhat organized.

To summarize:

  • InSomnia is an old-school, Fallout-inspired RPG, but with some important twists;
  • Classless, leveless RPG system, allowing both complexity, reach and flexibility in both character creation and development;
  • Dynamic combat, assisted by our random events generator, will frequently put you in a bind - but in a fun way!
  • Sci-fi setting. A lone ark spaceship, feelings of confusion, loss, isolation. It traveled for so long, that its inhabitants lost their hope — and even their humanity
  • Randomly generated content done right. We use mix of hand-crafted and randomly generated content, to ensure that our game would have both varied gameplay and strong storyline;
  • Our game will have co-op mode, like Divinity: Original Sin, with some hand-tailored content for it, though it’s not our main priority, but not just a gimmick, either;
  • Music — dark ambient, inspired by Mark Morgan’s works (both Fallouts and PST), but with its own sound and flavour.
  • Unique atmosphere, blending both sci-fi and dystopian elements.
On to the details so:what the hell is InSomnia?

InSomnia is a cooperative, real-time tactical RPG. If somebody would’ve asked us to tag our own project, I’d use tags like Noir, Dieselpunk, Post-Apocalypse. We took a lot of cues from Fallout series, especially when it comes to building a proper atmosphere.

We also know just how much a soundtrack can accomplish when you need to set a proper tone, and so we have specially invested in a proper Dark Ambient soundtrack.

You’ll like it. :troll:

Now, for a bit more serious approach, here’s the brief outline of the game’s setting: the game is set on a colossal space ark, traveling the Void for 400 years, escaping the downfall of an old civilization called the Noma. They’re set on a voyage to a new home: to a distant evacuation point, a new planet, the only hope to revive mankind.

You are an inhabitant of this ship - and your story is a story of survival. Your ways are many: you may fight for the preservation of the Noman Civilization, or ignore the heritage for your own renegade good. You may stand for - and eventually lead - one of the many factions of the stations, or you may search for answers in the old archives, hoping to understand what brought humanity to it’s grim state.

You can play both alone and with friends — we took some inspiration from Divinity: Original Sin in this aspect, though our approach is somewhat different. We didn’t just jam co-op in our game as some useless gimmick. We’ve speciallydesigned unique content for it and interactions for it, though single player mode is still our top priority.

InSomnia, though, is less of a story-driven game, and will have somewhat more freedom, more akin to Fallout 1 & 2. So — you’ll have various skills, traits and perks, which you can combine to create the exact type of a character you’ll want to play. This traits, though, can be negative too, and also you can acquire them after chargen, during gameplay.

We have a rather robust system for randomly generating world events and missions that we designed so that you won’t get bored even during your second (or third, or thirteenth) walkthrough. You will find yourself in all sorts of unexpected situations, which would differ each time you start InSomnia from the beginning. Even if you choose to simply sit in the middle of nothing, that, too, can often lead to some very unexpected circumstances. But rest assured InSomnia will have hand-crafted story-heavy missions too, and not just randomly generated ones. While randomness could be fun, it seldom leads to good storytelling (if that’s not Dwarf Fortress or Crusader Kings, of course).

As for the actual meat of the matter, i.e quests and storyline - we wanted to blend our mechanics in a framework that encourages complex and unorthodox approach to decision-making, with unexpected consequences for your actions that might or might not come back to bite you in the ass later. There will be branching dialogs, there will be points of no return, there will be moments that’ll feel unique to your playthrough and your character.

We have many inspirations for InSomnia. Classic RPGs are our main passion, so, obviously, main thematic inspiration comes from Fallouts — both the first and the second. As for mood and setting inspiration there’s also, of course, Planescape: Torment, mainly its feelings of loss, isolation, and general weirdness. Games aren’t our only inspiration though, we also love sci-fi and science fantasy. In particular we were inspired by Alastair Reynolds’ “Revelation Space”, and Gene Wolfe’s “The Shadow of the Torturer”.

The game is still early stages of development, but we’ll have a small demo ready soon, so you’ll be able to see how it all is supposed to work.

We have 6-man team working on this in their free time, and we’re planning on launching our Kickstarter by the end of June, so that we could finally try to bring the development up to speed.

We’ll be updating this thread on a constant basis, and we’ll be hanging around to hear your comments and feedback.
 
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Jack Dandy

Arcane
Joined
Feb 10, 2013
Messages
3,039
Location
Israel
Divinity: Original Sin 2
I like the screens.

Gimme details about the battle system. I disliked FO 1-2's combat so I don't really mind that it's realtime, but I still want to understand what makes it more than a silly top-down shootan affair
 

TheLostOne

Savant
Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
770
Location
Limbo
Nice pitch. What kind of scope are you planning? Do you plan on using Kickstarter money to expand your team? What engine are you using?
 
Weasel
Joined
Dec 14, 2012
Messages
1,865,661
Looks interesting and will be good to see something solid before a kickstarter campaign after all the recent 'back my idea' pitches.
 

Abelian

Somebody's Alt
Joined
Nov 17, 2013
Messages
2,289
InSomnia is an old-school, Fallout-inspired RPG [. . .] We took a lot of cues from Fallout series, especially when it comes to building a proper atmosphere. [. . .] single player mode is still our top priority [. . .] InSomnia, though, is less of a story-driven game, and will have somewhat more freedom [. . .] unexpected consequences for your actions that might or might not come back to bite you in the ass later [. . .] As for mood and setting inspiration there’s also, of course, Planescape: Torment, mainly its feelings of loss, isolation, and general weirdness.

I sense an upcoming Codex campaign.
 

WhiteGuts

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2013
Messages
2,382
Well one can certainly tell the Fallout influence, the game looks like it's taking place in a huge vault. I also liked the music.
 

TheLostOne

Savant
Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
770
Location
Limbo
I sense an upcoming Codex campaign.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. They used a lot of nice words and obviously know their audience here, but I'd really like to hear more concrete info on the team, their experience, their progress and their plan before I decide whether to care.
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,764
Guyduk Can you tell us more about the combat, dialogue and skill system? Is the combat purely real-time like we see in the video? Since it's level-less, are you using a skill point award/buy system in place of XP/levels?
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
Ok, I'll bite. It looks good and I like the ambient. Neat stuff. But judging by your video and pitch I still can't tell if it's an Action RPG that focuses mostly on combat or does it have other kinds of interaction? I mean is it an RPG or an ARPG?
 

WhiteGuts

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2013
Messages
2,382
The level of details is really mindblowing for an indie game. Is it made with Unity ?
 

Guyduk

Studio Mono
Developer
Joined
May 31, 2014
Messages
27
Nope. That was back from the time some of our potential investors just told us that the only way it gets made is all-online, all the time, and only if the public has enough interest in it. A bit self-contradictory, I know.
Well, it was their last point in a rather long list of demands, and naturally it didn't work out on multiple levels.

Guyduk Can you tell us more about the combat
Pure realtime, but we did try to make it relatively slow-paced and tactical.

dialogue and skill system? Is the combat purely real-time like we see in the video? Since it's level-less, are you using a skill point award/buy system in place of XP/levels?
Dialogue and skill-system-wise it's your typical Fallout-like, really. We've tried to avoid a lot of pitfalls that usually come with that approach, but it's more or less an issue of fixing something that was never broken in the first place - and we don't think a there was all that much to fix in the first place.
Usual weapon skills dilemma aside, of course.
 

Guyduk

Studio Mono
Developer
Joined
May 31, 2014
Messages
27
The level of details is really mindblowing for an indie game. Is it made with Unity ?
Yes, it is. Contrary to the reputation, Unity offers a really decent framework for any kind of games, really.
Engines alone don't make games look better or worse, it mostly depends on artists - and, after looking at the current prototype I can say we've got some talent going in that department.

Nice pitch. What kind of scope are you planning? Do you plan on using Kickstarter money to expand your team? What engine are you using?
Well, I'll be honest here. At this point, it would mainly depend on where the Kickstarter gets us. This has been our pet project for a long time, but it has arrived at the point where it either gets our full dedication, or it doesn't, and it basically either gets canned. That's a six man team we're talking about, plus software licensing, plus a lot of outsourced stuff(with the amount of funds a title like that will attract, it is highly unlikely that we'll get the opportunity to expand our team with some full-time members, though it'd be really nice).
 

Guyduk

Studio Mono
Developer
Joined
May 31, 2014
Messages
27
I sense an upcoming Codex campaign.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. They used a lot of nice words and obviously know their audience here, but I'd really like to hear more concrete info on the team, their experience, their progress and their plan before I decide whether to care.

Well, you'll hear that-and a lot of other stuff soon enough, but one thing I'll tell you from the start - we don't really have any kind of big names to our team.
You see, there is a reason you don't hear all that much about Russian videogame industry - it has mostly shifted to online-only segment, most of the big-name developers decided to either dive right into it, drifted away from gaming, or have their own stuff.
We're just a bunch Russians trying to make their take on The Great Post-Nuclear RPG. Whether you consider this worthy of throwing money at the screen or not is up to you - we'll give you plenty information to decide.
 

Surf Solar

cannot into womynz
Joined
Jan 8, 2011
Messages
8,828
Looks and sounds cool!

Looks like it's one of these non-fixed camera/non orthographic games where you have to wrestle the camera all the time, so instant turnoff for me.
 

undecaf

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 4, 2010
Messages
3,517
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
I got some odd Beneath a Steel Sky vibes from the video, which is always a good thing.

How combat heavy (and I need to comp Jaesun here that it is a shame it's not turnbased - the combat doesn't look very... well, inspiring) is the game in comparison other gameplay elements (problem solving and interaction through other means)?
 

Kem0sabe

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2011
Messages
13,076
Location
Azores Islands
Looks interesting but at the same time it's worrying that they didn't show character creation, inventory management, dialogue systems, skills systems, map and travel system and any other complex rpg system.

They showed something pretty and with "oh-hum" combat, for all we know it could end up being just another space siege.

Heres a hope for some more in depth information besides promises and appeals to fallout nostalgia.
 

Abelian

Somebody's Alt
Joined
Nov 17, 2013
Messages
2,289
Looks like it's one of these non-fixed camera/non orthographic games where you have to wrestle the camera all the time, so instant turnoff for me.
In Soviet Russia, camera wrestles you.
In the West, you turn off video game. In Soviet Russia, video game turns you off.

Looks interesting but at the same time it's worrying that they didn't show character creation, inventory management, dialogue systems, skills systems, map and travel system and any other complex rpg system.
In Soviet Russia, characters create you.
In Soviet Russia, inventory manages you.

I don't think something can be both post-apocalyptic and dystopean at the same time.
In Soviet Russia, something can be both post-apocalyptic and dystopean at the same time.

Nice pitch. What kind of scope are you planning? Do you plan on using Kickstarter money to expand your team? What engine are you using?
In Soviet Russia, scope plans you.
In Soviet Russia, team expands you.
In Soviet Russia, engine uses you.

I like the screens.
In Soviet Russia, the screens like you.

OK, I'm done now.
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
3,212
Location
Vostroya
I don't think something can be both post-apocalyptic and dystopean at the same time.
Actually, I believe that post-apocalypse is a dystopia's sub-genre (or maybe offshoot).
dystopia
Pronunciation: /dɪsˈtəʊpɪə /

An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. The opposite of utopia.
Oxford Dictionaries.

As for the game - looks decent, but sorely lacks details. I mean, I'm a storyfag, so I really would like to see some info about dialogue system, speech skills, non-combat quests and so on. More info about a setting would be also appreciated - I mean, I like Alistair Reynolds and Gene Wolfe as well as any geek, but those precious few details about the setting in this pitch could also be interpreted as that the setting is just some Pandorum knock off with dieselpunk twist.
Pretty graphics though, way prettier than Wasteland 2. Really shows that Unity in itself isn't a bad engine, if you have some decent artists and 3D-modelers within a team.
P.S. Shame about realtime.
 
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