KickStarter Wellspring: Altar of Roots - tactical RPG inspired by JRPGs (formerly Bevontule)

[HoboForEternity]

You havent even seen anything about the game and already complaining like a retard. Do your fucking homework before typing anything.

 

[vazha]

Thankee, good sire. I followed your sage advice and watched some vids in this thread. And discovered that I hate their graphics/art direction too. Hope I'm the only one who feels that way and the game sells well though.

 

[MTG_Derek]

I take my words back then. Turns out it's not just the title, but the whole premise of the game that is retarded. Whats the story about? The second coming of Ents?

They prefer to be called treeple, thank you very much! JK, there aren't any tree people. I like to think of it as 'necrobotany.'

Wellspring itself is a decent name, I'd say. But I seriously, sincerely hope that the game actually has an Altar of Roots somewhere in the world which plays a role in the story and can be visited by the player.

Because if not, it's a shit title.

Make sure there actually is an Altar of Roots.

There is, indeed. And it plays a pretty large role in the story, so it doesn't just come out of nowhere or anything like that. Same with Wellspring.

 

[agris]

I seconded the motion that says "Wellspring" is a superior title to Wellspring: Altar of Roots. Even if the AoR appears in the game, the title as formulated strikes one as a grab-bag of nothingness. Wellspring conjures the imagination, while W:AoR is processed much like Noun: The Noun of Noun, i.e. word salad.

Wording is art, and like all things related to art, interpretation is subjective. MTG_Derek you probably have different linguistic sensibilities than me, but you might reconsider the the title regardless.

 

[Infinitron]

Wellspring's gridless combat system introduces the concept of 'chains', which allows allies (and enemies!) to queue up skills to deal extra damage and other effects. We wanted to make the presence of a chain more obvious, while also adding more gratifying visual feedback for the player. To help draw attention to chains, we've used Unity's Post Processing Stack (v2), and added three effects: vignette, chromatic aberration and color grading/tinting. Thanks to the flexibility of Unity's volume system, we can make the effect stronger overall just by changing a single value, and the more skills that are involved in the chain, the more pronounced the effect is. We also change the damage font as well, just to let the player know how 'large' the chain is. We're pretty satisfied with the effect, but we're wondering if it's too strong, or maybe not pronounced enough, so naturally, we're looking for feedback! We'll also have the ability to disable the effect altogether if the player flat-out doesn't want it.

 

[Infinitron]

Hi all! Here's a more 'behind the scenes' look at something that I've recently been working on! In our tactical, turn-based RPG Wellspring: Altar of Roots, up until this point, all skills have required an actual target before they can be selected and queued up. We always wanted to have certain skills allow the player to manually position them and therefore, not require a specific target. Unfortunately, we didn't build out our skill system with this in mind initially, so there was a little bit of uh.. 'messiness' involved with implementing this basic first step.

For Bodom's skill Teleport Strike, we want the player to be able to position it anywhere within a certain radius, and potentially do damage if it's close to an enemy--but it can also be used as an escape route or gap closer. There were a few tricky parts to implementing this: the first issue isn't super difficult, but requires the skill to be confined to the movement radius. The other, more difficult part, is the restriction that you can't teleport on top of something else (this ain't no Philadelphia experiment)

Since the targeting area moves relative to your character and you can still move at the same time as the target area, these two issues combine to cause what I thought would be a nastier problem, where the target area gets 'pushed' by the movement radius and accidentally overlaps with a character or it gets pushed from a character and accidentally ends up outside the movement radius.

The quick and dirty solution, funny enough, is to just treat the skill as if it's an actual character. Since combatants automatically have these restrictions 'built in' (they can't move outside of their movement radius and can't move through other units), we just slap a Character component on the actual skill and give it an alternate method of control, IE, use the arrow keys/D-Pad to move the target area as opposed to WASD/analog stick movement for the actual characters.

There were a few other little issues to sort out, such as UI changes, backend targeting code (prior to this, skills couldn't execute at all without a target) and camera/character control (the target area needs to move relative to the camera, but skills are 'awakened' outside of combat, which uses a different camera), but I'm pretty happy with where it's at. I still haven't implemented the actual skill, but that'll be next on the list!

 

[Infinitron]

Finished up most of the Teleport Strike skill for our turn-based, tactical RPG Wellspring : Altar of Roots! This is our first 'free-targeted' skill, meaning that you can position it anywhere within its attack range. If there isn't a nearby target, the skill simply moves the user to its targeted destination, but if there is an enemy (or enemies) in range, it will deal damage to the nearest one.

The most challenging parts were setting up the animation/particle effect timing and working out the logic for whether damage is dealt or not--our skill system is pretty robust, so it wasn't too terribly hard to get it up and running.

Pretty satisfied with how it turned out, but there are a few small issues (like the sound effects and particle effects disappearing abruptly) that'll be cleaned up soon enough! We feel that this adds a lot more variety to Bodom's overall strategy and play style--feel free to let us know what you think!

 

[HoboForEternity]

*teleports behind you*

"pshh, nothing personnel . . . kid"

 

[Infinitron]

So this probably isn't the most glamorous feature ever, but we've recently fine-tuned our combat "Inspection Mode!" This is essentially a way to 'pause' combat and cycle through all of the combatants to view detailed information such as movement range, the currently-queued up skill and its targets, as well as any active buffs or debuffs.. and probably some other junk too when I get around to adding it.

This mode has existed since the early days of Wellspring, but we noticed that players would sometimes enter this mode and not realize it--this update serves to make it a little more obvious that the player is 'inspecting' the characters and that the normal flow of combat is 'paused.'

Implementation-wise, we threw in another post-processing volume (gotta love these things) as well as the flashing "Inspection Mode" text controlled by a simple Tween. We also 'froze' all of the combatant animations, which was a little trickier than I thought. Enabling/disabling the animator component doesn't quite work, since certain values get reset, so I ended up just setting the animation speed to zero and reverting it afterwards. Not too shabby for an afternoon's worth of work!

Like always, we'd love to hear your thoughts about it and/or ways that we can improve it. Haikus are also welcome.

 

[MTG_Derek]

Thanks for posting our updates, Infinitron!

Got a quick question--should we lose the 'crystals' that appear above the selected/current combatant as well as the targets? They seem a little redundant at the moment as it seems like most of the information can be gleaned from what is being highlighted (or it isn't needed at all.) The crystals were implemented first and just sort of stuck around. They do have a certain charm about them, but I'm starting to think that they might be a little too intrusive.

 

[Abu Antar]

I like them. Reminds me of FFT and the like.

 

[Infinitron]

We've recently implemented new skills for our characters and I wanted to share one of the more interesting ones that we've come up with!

In our tactical, turn-based RPG Wellspring: Altar of Roots, Apolith fulfills the 'tank' role and as such, his job is basically... well, to get the hell beat out of him. He has a number of ways to go about doing this, from taunting enemies to reducing damage inflicted, to charging right into the fray. I wanted to play around with the more 'positional' aspects of Wellspring's combat, so we came up with the Substitute skill.

Essentially, this allows Apolith to swap locations with a targeted ally, thus removing them from the heat of combat. More interestingly, however, Apolith makes himself the target of any skills, damaging or otherwise, that were previously targeted to the ally he's substituting himself with.

In this video, you can see that this nice little lizard is about to put a hurtin' on Bodom, who really has no business being where he is anyhow. Nevertheless, with the Substitute skill, Apolith is able to 'save' Bodom and therefore absorb the blow that otherwise would've given Bodom, at the very least, a noticeable bruise.

We feel that this adds a lot more utility to Apolith, and is pretty unique as far as skills go, in general. Implementation-wise, this skill was pretty simple--we use Unity's navmesh for all of our placement/movement, so having the characters swap positions was a breeze. Changing targets, likewise, was simple, with only a tiny tricky part in that since Apolith is targeting Bodom himself, we don't want to switch Apolith's target to... uh.. himself. Because that would be weird.

Another nice thing about this skill is that it currently doesn't use any sound or particle effects, although I'd be open to adding them if anyone had any suggestions.

Also, for whatever reason, that yellow bush near Apolith decided to start wiggling. Don't look at that.

 

[Infinitron]

I know it's been a long time since we've posted anything, but we're still at it! Lately I've found myself playtesting a lot using Game/Scene views and managed to catch our battle sequence--the left side is what the player 'sees' and the right side is what actually happens in the scene without any other 'effects.'

In game development, and most things really, there's a lot of trickery involved. More often than not, a simple screen fade is almost all that's needed to get the job done.

 

[Infinitron]

When we first started developing our tactical, turn-based RPG Wellspring: Altar of Roots, there were several features that we knew would be incredibly difficult to figure out--for me, in particular, I imagined that the enemy AI system would be the biggest pain in the ass to implement. (spoiler: it actually wasn't)

So like the good little programmer I am, I decided to put it off for a really long time and focus on other aspects of the game--in the meantime, however, we needed a way to have the enemies do something, anything at all--so we ended up adding the ability for the player to control the enemies directly.

While incredibly entertaining (and somewhat unfair), this does serve a more practical purpose, allowing us to quickly test and balance enemies and their skills. It also allows us to turn on/off an enemy in the middle of battle--so if we need an enemy to do a specific thing (IE, for many of our combat-related videos/demonstrations), it's only a keypress away.

In theory, (I use the phrase 'in theory' when there's almost a 0% chance of it working) it should be pretty easy to go the other way, IE, have the AI control an ally. Even though this sounds pretty much pointless, this would have some benefit, say if we ever wanted to implement a "Confusion"-style status effect. Similarly, our upcoming playable character Elvali will be able to directly control or manipulate certain enemies on the battlefield, which is pretty much exactly what's being done here.

Plus, this has led to some really epic PvP fights where one person controls the allied side and another person controls the enemy side, usually the result of semi-introxicated bravado, inevitably flaring up into a "1v1 me, bro."

 

[Infinitron]

May have made a slight mistake here... (AKA what happens when you bind your running animation to the wrong avatar)

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Abu Antar]

Development updates!
Posted by Multithreaded Games LLC (Creator)
So I know it's been awhile since we've given an official update, but we're still alive, kickin' and developing Wellspring: Altar of Roots! In case you missed the last update, we're no longer Bevontule and have opted to go with a marginally more-decipherable name--we're still growing into it, but I think it'll work out!

Before we jump into what we've been up to, I know that we had mentioned re-launching our Kickstarter around September. Long story short, we're going to focus instead on continuing to develop the game, with a potential re-launch much further along the horizon.

We've already devoted a large portion of time developing the fundamental mechanics of the game, which should allow us to adopt a more measured and methodical approach towards future development. At the same time, having full-time jobs (yes, we're working for the man again) allows us to filter more money back into the project.

Our ultimate goal is to come back to Kickstarter with a much more polished presentation, and a larger slice of both the game's features and plot. While our previous demo provides a pretty large chunk, it doesn't have much context in terms of what's actually going on in the game at that point. Thus we'd like to spend the time to start from the actual beginning of the game, granting the player access to several other locations, story snippets and overall content.

At the same time, we'd like to implement new player skills, improved AI, and at least, a cursory glance at our crafting and bestiary systems. We'll get there eventually, but it's going to take a little more time--for now, we very much appreciate those of you who have come along for the ride!

After waking up from the massive bender that commenced upon our Kickstarter failing (just kidding... mostly), we decided to take a small break to drink some more, and then we got back to work! The first order of business was to fix some of the known and lingering issues with our demo--to be honest, there were a LOT of things, and you can check out the previous update to see a full list.

Most importantly though, we needed to optimize a few things, namely our cloth physics.

https://youtu.be/sX6RXgkthzU

After that, we began to go through some of the feedback we'd received--one of the main draws of Wellspring (if not its main draw) is our combat system and specifically, the ability to execute chains against opponents. Ultimately, we felt that this simply wasn't communicated clearly to the player and thus worked on a new screen effect:

https://youtu.be/xBSxjIQH_F0

While working on effects, we also took care of another bit of feedback: players could inadvertently enter our combat "Inspection Mode" (allows the player to check the status of combatants and their charging skills) and not realize it, as the visual feedback was somewhat lacking.

https://youtu.be/8HxCWfocMIw

We also spent some time adding a few more skills, as well as the ability for certain skills to be manually targeted, meaning that they can be positioned on the battlefield. Most skills, on the other hand, require an enemy or ally target before they can be charged.

https://youtu.be/-uTqFQlqVig

Using this framework, we were able to implement a skill that we've had our eyes on for awhile, called Teleport Strike, which allows Bodom to teleport to the targeted position, dealing damage to a nearby enemy.

https://youtu.be/billYSlAfpc

I should also stress that this is just a small sample of everything that we've implemented since the Kickstarter campaign--much of it simply can't be shown, but rest assured that the game and its mechanics are smoother than ever and nearly every known bug (including very large ones that, in some cases. have existed since the earliest days of Wellspring development) has been fixed.

Lastly, we've continued to work with outside contractors and freelancers to provide more character art and models--we're beyond excited to show off one such recent model, the indomitable "Berithane"--here is the concept art the model is based upon:

And finally, a video showing this creature's walk cycle! Keep in mind that there are still many more animations to be added as well as general updates to the environment:

https://youtu.be/8HCOW4GFb5k

Anyhow, I think that just about sums up, very briefly, some of the progress we've made over the last few months. While we may have slowed down somewhat, we certainly haven't given up by any means, and we very much hope that you'll continue to support us on this journey!

-Derek

 

[MTG_Derek]

Hey everyone! Not sure how I missed this (I thought someone else might have posted it), but we're cool and trendy now and have a community Discord. If any of ya'll wanna come discuss the game or just talk shit in general, I humbly extend this invite: https://discord.gg/xzWDYJw

 

[Infinitron]

After 3 years of development, we're ready to start making the actual game (kinda kidding, but kinda not) Here's a part of the very first cut-scene players will be greeted to (sans a few other opening shots.)

Work on the opening cutscene is about a third of the way done, barring major revisions--while a lot of RPGs are exposition-heavy early on, we wanted to throw the player into combat and eventually character control as quickly as possible.

With that in mind, here's what we've got so far--still a work in progress, and very much open to critique or suggestions!

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Abu Antar]