Cyclopean

• Cyclopean Interview  

Cyclopean Development Update ( Development info )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Wed 16 June 2010, 15:16:11
More info on Cyclopean - More info on Iron Tower

For those of you following the development of this Iron Tower Studios project, Scott has put up some in game renders depicting... buildings as far as I can tell. I also think I spotted a carpet.

I hear some of you* asking Why are there no furnishings?  I'm concentrating on base areas right now, Downtown Arkham exteriors, and interior floorplans.  I figure if I get someone to help out with 3D models one day, he will most likely be working on props as my interiors follow a very strict protocol in regarding to sizing.  I also have my own texture-mapping system which some have called insane...  Some doors are missing as well-- they are separate props.  One other thing:  before final export I intend to warp a few roofs and skew the buildings slightly out of true, but light cosmetic touches like that are best saved until you absolutely know no further editing is needed.

Spotted at: ITS

There are 3 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

Cyclopean Dev Update ( Development info )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Mon 29 March 2010, 18:51:06
More info on Cyclopean

Scott posted some rendered ingame images of his RPG. Seems as if he's making progress and as far as I can tell his game will have barns and shacks. I always liked those.

Developer peer pressure finally got to me and I decided to post some more 3D models. I shifted from producing 10,000 tiny props to building exteriors to use in Arkham. A result of shifting my focus away from the writing has been new inspiration. I've been returning to the master quest doc and refining and improving what has long been written.

There are 28 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

Cyclopean Dev Update ( Development info )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Tue 23 February 2010, 18:44:27
More info on Cyclopean

Scott reveals some info about game mechanics in Cyclopean.

Mythos Abilities
You cannot cast spells or use peculiar Mythos abilities in town, outside, during the day. The Arkham Police Department has seen many strange things and their unwritten policy is to shoot on sight anything they do not immediately understand, like Marxists.

Killing Spree
You can't just start combat and up and shoot anyone you see at any time. While in the real early 20th century, it may have been possible to shoot a group of civilians in the street and then disappear, you can't do it in Cyclopean for the simple reason that you would never be able to complete the game without access to the very few urban areas. I had originally conceived of a system where if you attacked someone in town during the day, they would shout, the police would arrive and you would engage in a battle which cannot be won. It would mean a ton of extra scripting in pursuit of a pointless exercise.

This doesn't mean you can't kill innocent people (wherefore the Serial Killer then?), merely that you have to be circumspect about it. You have to be inside (in town I mean, in the wilderness everyone's fair game) and you can't fire a gun. Self defense still applies. If someone else attacks you, you are free to defend yourself any way you like. There is also the possibility of getting into non-lethal combat (fisticuffs) if you have a disagreement with someone, instead of knifing them.

There are 98 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

Going Crazy for Cyclopean ( Interview )
posted by Jason on Mon 08 February 2010, 17:40:43
More info on Cyclopean - More info on Iron Tower

Iron Tower's Scott had a little chat with Critical Gamer about the upcoming Cyclopean.

CG: Will we see systems like insanity coming into play, where coming into contact with otherwordly creatures can have traumatic psychological effects on our characters?

Scott: Absolutely. The Sanity stat is critical to gameplay because of the subject matter. It is also unusual in that it must be carefully maintained. There aren’t any blue potions or post-combat regeneration in this game. A small amount of Sanity can be recovered through sleep. Other methods to recover lost Sanity involve drugs, which have side effects and are sometimes addictive, and staying at the Asylum, which is expensive.

There is another –and I think wholly original– system indirectly related to Sanity. Exposure to Mythos creatures and events earns (curses?) the player Mythos points. Mythos points have one effect, which is that once they exceed maximum Sanity, the player becomes Corrupted and is able to see through the tenuous tissue separating the world of men from other dimensions overlapping our own. While this means that more and different things are revealed to the player, it also can be very taxing on one’s sanity. However, a player who pledges his services to the Great Old Ones can avoid some of the harsher penalties of insanity while still being Corrupted. Mythos points cannot be reduced and Corruption is irreversible.

There are 27 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

Cyclopean Updates ( N/A )
posted by Jason on Wed 02 December 2009, 18:02:16
More info on Cyclopean - More info on Iron Tower

Scott of the Iron Tower gang let us know about some of the recent Cyclopean updates. First up is some engine talk:

Now... prior to getting the engine, I was doing a lot of what I called 'flowcharting', which specifically meant (or ended up meaning) outlining some of the functions I would need to write and how I thought the general structure of parts of the engine would look (the dialogue section, the combat section, the levelup section etc). There were a few false starts as I realised how much of what I had in mind wouldn't have to be done from scratrch but could be done with the existing functionality of the engine (such as I am able to understand it without full documentation) and along the way I also moved from working on the dialogue side of things (which will involve accessing text files of some sort, which is way outside my comfort zone atm) to the combat side of things (which will involve writing and calling lots of functions and is where my experience lies). I've also been cataloguing, as it were, the various different states a character might be in (asleep, prone, unconscious, bleeding etc etc etc) and which of Scott's many skills and traits affect what, and when exactly to calculate AC / damage / to hit etc etc etc, and what will have to be carried forward to where, and asking Scott lots of obscure questions, and slowly inching forward.

By the light of my lonely candle, I witnessed Mr. Jukes’s final repose. He sat propped up on his cot as ever, his eyes were closed, his expression serene. The dust here too was undisturbed. The poor mad fool had not even stood from his bed to save himself. I returned the handkerchief to my pocket and tentatively sniffed the air. The room smelled of damp, but that was all. I bowed my head a moment in prayer.

“Hello, Doctor.” Mr. Jukes opened his eyes, and though he did not turn from contemplating the bare brick wall opposite, a slight grin creased his visage, as much emotion as I’d ever seen from him. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

I felt the blood drain from my face, and it seemed from my body as well, pouring out my feet and into the earth. If there had been some way of bricking up that corridor again in an instant, I would have done just that. But I could not have borne another moment so close to the thing in that room. Clutching Ming by one arm, I fled.

There are 6 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

Cyclopean Family Therapy Fanfiction ( Development info )
posted by Jason on Fri 09 October 2009, 10:29:37
More info on Cyclopean - More info on Iron Tower

Scott is giving you another little taste of the writing to be scattered about Cyclopean with a short story, "Clockwork".

Gleaming rows of tools and implements were carefully laid out in a broad, square room as clean and orderly as any surgery. Much of it was for the fussy work of timepieces, but there were knives and saws as well, and other more curious implements. It occurred to me then that perhaps Oppol had not arranged the front shop at all, but that the half-ruined room had sat in just that state for decades.

Everything centered around a long table about the length of a tall man, with a long depression running down the middle. At one end was a deeper, bowl shaped concavity with an open circle at the bottom, presumably a drain.

There are 15 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

Cyclopean gets programmer on board ( Game news )
posted by Monolith on Sat 13 June 2009, 13:40:52
More info on Cyclopean - More info on Iron Tower

Scott's announced that he got a programmer on board, Ted of Keep on the Borderlands fame. Looks like Scott finally started to make a game instead of just talking about it.

Ted is the brains behind the Temple of Elemental Evil total conversion, Keep on the Borderlands, a project in which I was also involved.

As one of the chief tinkerers on the game engine, he was responsible for a lot of deconstructing and rewriting of Troika's tangle of code, unaided by the authors and without any sort of tools.

Other than that, Ted said he's been programming since the 80s and has experience in several languages, including BASIC and html! He also likes RPGs.

Most importantly, Ted brings a feverish enthusiasm both for computer games and the work of the Master.

Iä! Iä! T'edd fhtagn!

There are 14 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

Cyclopean - Mr Green, in the library, with the candlestick ( Preview )
posted by baby arm on Tue 19 May 2009, 17:43:46
More info on Cyclopean - More info on Iron Tower

Scott from Iron Tower has another Cyclopean writing example available for you to poke at.

Doctor Wolcott: The police believe that you murdered your step-father, Ward Rockwell, and your own mother as well. What do you believe, Mr. Barton?

Giles Barton: It’s not what I ‘believe’ as you put it. It should be evident to anyone who takes the time to look at the facts. Rockwell did it. He killed my mother, shot her, because she knew what he was about, that he was a liar and thief. She was going to throw him out. The dead man isn’t Rockwell. It's a colleague of his. He killed this colleague to throw the police off his trail.

DW. Right, we will return to that point, but may I suggest an alternative explanation? You admit that you hated your step-father. You hated him every day for five long years. Arguments, tantrums, running away, only to be retrieved by the police, this was the routine in your house. Everyone knew about it: the neighbours, your teachers, the grocer, everyone the police questioned. Five years is a long time for a young man, I remember what it was like. I’m not exactly a dinosaur myself, you know. And one day, you let your rage carry you away and you killed him with his own pistol.

GB. That isn’t what happened–

DW. Threw your mother into the bargain. Bullet through the heart, both of them. She was responsible for bringing him into your house though. She had to be punished.
*a pause here on my part elicited no response.

There are 23 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

More Cyclopean Writing ( Preview )
posted by baby arm on Sat 02 May 2009, 20:56:02
More info on Cyclopean - More info on Iron Tower

Iron Tower's Scott provided another Cyclopean writing example, "The Curious Manuxet Medicine Man".

Against all sense fascinated, I turned my eyes to the space before them. They stood within a depressed circle several yards across, scorched black at the edges as if by a single massive stroke of lightning. Within, the earth had been scoured away to the depth of about a foot, revealing the yellow clay which underlies the topsoil in these parts. At the center was a perfectly round stone platform, inscribed at the perimeter with a sequence of rough-carved sigils the meaning of which I know not. At the center was an image only slightly less mysterious: an eye perhaps two feet across with an hourglass-shaped pupil, like that of a goat. A few inches above this eye, without apparent source, danced a wavering green flame.

There are 37 comments on this article. Click here to comment.

Cyclopean Interview From RPG France ( Preview )
posted by Edward_R_Murrow on Sat 14 March 2009, 09:34:56
More info on Cyclopean - More info on Iron Tower

Some RPG-loving Frenchies decided to have a chat with the lead man behind Cyclopean, the Lovecraftian RPG being worked on by the Iron Tower Omega Team. The interview is in both French and English. How convenient.

I’m not worried at all about a Lovecraft game succeeding. Lovecraft’s concepts and creatures have been seeping into writing, film, computer games, and even music for over fifty years. His appeal to the masses is already proven. The problem with previous games (barring Dark Corners of the Earth, which made a good effort) is that they only borrow a few creatures and names from the books, but don’t try to emulate the philosophy or setting. A game where you run around shooting stuff isn’t going to give you the same feeling as reading a story like Festival.
[...]
I’ve always thought his Mythos would make a great setting for a real RPG, not just another survival horror or shooting game.
[...]
If the player wishes to join a faction he must first find it. Most of the factions in the game are hidden from the public, and do not welcome discovery. Depending on the player’s actions he may be approached by a faction. The player must also be of value to the organization. You can’t just show up in the secret lair of a cult of Yog-Sothoth and expect to be welcomed.

If I were to say 2013 it would be pure speculation.

There are 7 comments on this article. Click here to comment.