Vapourware Sui Generis + Exanima Early Access

[Technomancer]

February 2024

For this month's diary Madoc made a video again. We mentioned previously how we hoped to use more performance for more and better physics, and this is the result of those efforts. This gets a bit technical, but we think real time physics isn't a very widely understood topic that needs a little explaining.

These are some very significant improvements and additions to the game's physics that support a lot of things in terms of gameplay, world building and our development process. They make the very foundations that drive everything in the game better.



Best,

Bare Mettle

 

[Technomancer]

Madoc also teased tabards for arena that will display your company logo. But it won't arrive any time soon, not before dye system. Currently devs are focused on last two levels for story.

 

[Mud']

Is this game not moddable at all?

 

[Gumsmith]

Is this game not moddable at all?

There are one or two mods but they're not strongly advertised because the devs are a bit autistic about people showing off the game in ways that were not intended.

Hell Mode is the one I know of, it's supposed to make the story more combat focused, to quote:

Hellmode
This is a mod intended for veteran Exanima players that greatly increases the difficulty of the story mode, and adds new content, level layouts, lore, and heaps of new enemies and races that will do their utmost to kill you.

It's available on the modding discord here: https://discord.com/invite/KWrCfZbskt

I've been meaning to try it but haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[Technomancer]

the devs are a bit autistic about people showing off the game in ways that were not intended.

They basically don't want people to spoil their first time experience with easy access to cheats and silly mods. Why they don't allow to spread it on their discord. Once upon a time it was easy to mess with the game body morphing and both discord and steam was flooded with low effort shit posts of extremely obese or otherwise deformed characters so this caution is justified. When official modding tools arrive and people start to create actual interesting modded content the attitude will change.

Is this game not moddable at all?

Not originally but by now people created custom level editors and stuff. Its not perfect but way better than it was years ago.

 

[AdolfSatan]

That physics engine is insane, and the fact that he got it so well optimized even more so. Madoc is a crazy talented dev.

 

[agris]

Madoc also teased tabards for arena that will display your company logo. But it won't arrive any time soon, not before dye system. Currently devs are focused on last two levels for story.

that better be mf'ing velvet

 

[Technomancer]

that better be mf'ing velvet

Cloth material is procedural so it can spawn in all variants. Silk, cotton or velvet. Or leather where its appropriate.

 

[thesecret1]

dye system

Excuse me?

 

[Technomancer]

dye system

Excuse me?

They want to add coloring customization system for arena. Unknown if it will get ported to story as well. Was supposed to come out years ago with last big arena update but they run out of time. On a technical level it is easy to do if you want to simply add the functionality but they want to do in an immersive way, with fancy UI and more importantly with historically inspired dye system where you would need to hunt and buy various materials to do the coloring, with pricing depending on rarity of the colors. Like, in medieval times black dye was easy, fast and therefore cheap to produce, but for a long time a color like purple was reserved only for royalty (why byzantium heirs were "born in purple") because they could only extract it from special breed of snails by mashing them up. Which was slow, inefficient and required a specialist, which was reflected in prohibitively expensive manufacturing cost. I imagine gold was pretty expensive to do as well. Of course exanima is set in vaguely renaissance like timeline, time when craftsmen guilds started to rise and dyeing process among other things was revolutionized with various new inventions and chemicals coming into play. But many colors were still costly to produce and price range varied wildly depending on difficulty of manufacturing process.

Of course designing it in such a way is time consuming because it involves a lot of research and consideration so it was delayed and then put on the back burner while they are working on more important stuff. Similar situation with alchemy system which is also inspired by historical alchemy and is even more complex to design.

 

[thesecret1]

dye system

Excuse me?

They want to add coloring customization system for arena. Unknown if it will get ported to story as well. Was supposed to come out years ago with last big arena update but they run out of time. On a technical level it is easy to do if you want to simply add the functionality but they want to do in an immersive way, with fancy UI and more importantly with historically inspired dye system where you would need to hunt and buy various materials to do the coloring, with pricing depending on rarity of the colors. Like in medieval times black dye was easy, fast and therefore cheap to do, but for a long time a color like purple was reserved only for royalty (why byzantium heirs were "born in purple") because they could only extract it from special breed of snails by mashing them up. Which was slow, inefficient and required a specialist, which was reflected in prohibitively expensive cost. I imagine gold was pretty expensive to do as well. Of course exanima is set in vaguely renaissance like timeline, time where craftsmen guilds started to rise and dyeing process among other things was revolutionized with various new inventions and chemicals coming into play. But many colors were still costly to produce and price range varied wildly depending on difficulty.

Of course designing it in such a way is time consuming process so it was delayed and then put on the back burner while they are working on more important stuff. Similar situation with alchemy system which is also inspired by historical alchemy and is even more complex to design.

Oh my God

 

[Sibylla]

just one more procedurally generated clutter bro. this reminds me of overgrowth of wolfire games with similar long development and letdown

 

[agris]

dye system

Excuse me?

They want to add coloring customization system for arena. Unknown if it will get ported to story as well. Was supposed to come out years ago with last big arena update but they run out of time. On a technical level it is easy to do if you want to simply add the functionality but they want to do in an immersive way, with fancy UI and more importantly with historically inspired dye system where you would need to hunt and buy various materials to do the coloring, with pricing depending on rarity of the colors. Like, in medieval times black dye was easy, fast and therefore cheap to produce, but for a long time a color like purple was reserved only for royalty (why byzantium heirs were "born in purple") because they could only extract it from special breed of snails by mashing them up. Which was slow, inefficient and required a specialist, which was reflected in prohibitively expensive manufacturing cost. I imagine gold was pretty expensive to do as well. Of course exanima is set in vaguely renaissance like timeline, time when craftsmen guilds started to rise and dyeing process among other things was revolutionized with various new inventions and chemicals coming into play. But many colors were still costly to produce and price range varied wildly depending on difficulty of manufacturing process.

Of course designing it in such a way is time consuming because it involves a lot of research and consideration so it was delayed and then put on the back burner while they are working on more important stuff. Similar situation with alchemy system which is also inspired by historical alchemy and is even more complex to design.

procedural snail gland secretions when? we need anemic snail secretions, juvenile snail secretions, alcoholic mid-career professional snail secretions, and elder boomer in 3,500 sqft McMansion snail secretions for the full range of possible purple dye variants

i hope madoc isn’t content to just give us a single type of mortar and pestle like a fucking casual either. we need standard poorfag wood, mid tier granite, high friction but prone to fouling volcanic basalt, and optical-grade agate for the true connoisseur

 

[Mud']

I am still on the fence about buying it or not, for the longest time i thought that Examina was like a tech demo only where you played in the arena fighting random dudes in armor and in the dungeon would be just corridos where you fight random dudes in dungoens without a endgoal.

Does it have enough content to warrent a buy or should i wait more?

 

[Modron]

I am still on the fence about buying it or not, for the longest time i thought that Examina was like a tech demo only where you played in the arena fighting random dudes in armor and in the dungeon would be just corridos where you fight random dudes in dungoens without a endgoal.

Does it have enough content to warrent a buy or should i wait more?

You could get 50 hours before you even noticed it just playing the arena let alone the proper game.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Mud' Examina is definitely worth the price as is. Just buy it expecting a Diablo 1 experience with an arena attached. You're not going to get the full pitch and vision for a couple decades, if ever.

 

[Mud']

Mud' Examina is definitely worth the price as is. Just buy it expecting a Diablo 1 experience with an arena attached. You're not going to get the full pitch and vision for a couple decades, if ever.

Diablo 1 experience with good combat?

 

[Aemar]

Madoc also teased tabards for arena that will display your company logo. But it won't arrive any time soon, not before dye system. Currently devs are focused on last two levels for story.

So much effort spent on painstaking details that one can barely notice during gameplay.

 

[Technomancer]

So much effort spent on painstaking details that one can barely notice during gameplay.

That's zetheros for you. He is like best armor modeler on earth and he has nothing better to do anyway since other members do props and level assets.

But yeah madoc talked about doing some sort of inspect feature where you can view and rotate gear in higher detail. Its relatively simple to do but he never got time to complete it.

 

[Teut Busnet]

Would it be heretical to ask for some kind of character sheet with equipment slots?

I find it often confusing what armor allows undergarments, what is already complete, what armor pieces cover which body parts, etc.

I spent my grinded arena coins on stuff I can't really use mutiple times already.

 

[Technomancer]

I spent my grinded arena coins on stuff I can't really use mutiple times already.

You can clothe your arena hub char in best gear you have. Then when you are in bying screen, you can drag crap on the char without buying to preview it. If you drag something and some clothing you wore gets unequipped, that means that items take same layer. Its nor really that complex when you know but it is somewhat complex to systematize because various items use various slots.

Usually its like cloth layer where clothing goes and under garments like gambesons. Then chainmail layer. Then padded or leather coats and then armor.

 

[Technomancer]

procedural snail gland secretions when? we need anemic snail secretions, juvenile snail secretions, alcoholic mid-career professional snail secretions, and elder boomer in 3,500 sqft McMansion snail secretions for the full range of possible purple dye variants

Predictable joke is predictable. And even pointing out it was mostly a thing of the past by the time Renaissance came over, didn't shield me from your inexhaustible wit agris

Anyway, I doubt this particular type of coloring would appear because of

very specific historical and regional context it has.

The deep, rich purple dye made from this snail became known as Tyrian Purple. The process of making the dye was long, difficult and expensive. Thousands of the tiny snails had to be found, their shells cracked, the snail removed. Mountains of empty shells have been found at the ancient sites of Sidon and Tyre. The snails were left to soak, then a tiny gland was removed and the juice extracted and put in a basin, which was placed in the sunlight. There, a remarkable transformation took place. In the sunlight the juice turned white, then yellow-green, then green, then violet, then a red which turned darker and darker. The process had to be stopped at exactly the right time to obtain the desired color, which could range from a bright crimson to a dark purple, the color of dried blood. Then either wool, linen or silk would be dyed. The exact hue varied between crimson and violet, but it was always rich, bright and lasting.

The actual color of Tyrian purple seems to have varied from a reddish to a bluish purple. The murex shells coming from northern waters, produced a more bluish color than those of the south. The most valued shades were said to be those closer to the color of dried blood. The chemical composition of the dye from the murex is close to that of the dye from indigo, and indigo was sometimes used to make a counterfeit Tyrian purple, a crime which was severely punished. What seems to have mattered about Tyrian purple was not its color, but its luster, richness, its resistance to weather and light, and its high price.

In modern times, Tyrian purple has been recreated, at great expense. When the german chemist tried to recreate Tyrian purple in 2008, he needed twelve thousand mollusks to create 1.4 ounces of dye, enough to color a handkerchief. In the year 2000, a gram of Tyrian purple made from ten thousand mollusks according to the original formula cost two thousand euros.

But dye history is still vast and has a lot of material to draw on if your purpose it to construct a believable, immersive world where stuff makes sense. I think it will be mostly chemical in nature using various mordants, coloring chemicals and as always you would need to hire a craftsman to do the actual coloring. That's a permanent rule for the devs, main char can't just start to do bullshit gamey 'crafting' mastering in a day professions that take years to learn.

 

[Jinn]

Predictable joke is predictable.

I still get a chuckle every time he makes one of these jokes, because it's still completely relevant. The fact that time keeps marching forward and he can still keep making them only adds to absurd nature of it all.

Mostly it's just sad though.

 

[Technomancer]

I still get a chuckle every time he makes one of these jokes, because it's still completely relevant.

I don't really mind it, just saying it is expected at this point. And when it appears, it does get a smile out from me

Mostly it's just sad though.

Eh when oblivion came out, people hated it. For how shallow, boring and primitive the design of everything was. It was like antichrist of RPGs bringing apocalypse on the genre and hurling it into mainstream. Here comes exanima which goes into another extreme and tries to construct a believable fiction with great effort put into detail and immersion (madoc at one point said they wrote books of world building history before starting and we will not see most of it in games) and people hate that instead. So makes me think codex will find a reason always heh.

 

[Jinn]

People don't hate that aspect. They hate that in terms of priorities, it seems like things such as this should be placed lower on the list than actual gameplay. I think that should be pretty clear by this point.

As always, the argument has been: finish the game part, then go nuts adding all these more detailed things in. Make a completable game, then build on top of that.