People News Check out Neal Hallford's Betrayal at Krondor: Remastered Tech Demo

[Infinitron]

Tags: Betrayal at Krondor; Neal Hallford

Three years after his unsuccessful 2012-2013 Kickstarter forays, Betrayal at Krondor writer and co-creator Neal Hallford has resurfaced with a new project. He's decided to teach himself to develop with Amazon's new CryEngine-based Amazon Lumberyard engine, by creating a remake of a small portion of Betrayal at Krondor which he's calling Betrayal at Krondor: Remastered. The ultimate objective, of course, is to use that knowledge to create an RPG of his own at some point. But for now, he's going to be publishing regular development updates for the remastered Krondor. The first one just showed up on YouTube:

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We'll be keeping an eye on this project. More information is available on Neal's new blog, where he's also been publishing a fascinating series of posts about the history of Betrayal at Krondor's development. Definitely check that out if you're a fan of the game - Neal's writing talent has not diminished.

 

[felipepepe]

Cool stuff, but I would definitely remove the upper part of the UI and decrease its size. Yeah, I know it was like this back then, but was mostly due to technological limitations.

Blocking the sky is really claustrophobic and dampers the whole "walking thought the countryside" theme... you can be faithful just doing something like this:

 

[Neanderthal]

Think all o chapter 1 might be a bit big to pull off, perhaps stick to western part o Kingdom o Isles? Looks a bit barren for Kingdom an all, too much sand, not enough dark mud an green grass.

 

[serch]

Yeah, Hallford is awesome, but I'm not getting any younger. Make a fucking game, raitnao!

 

[Infinitron]

Think all o chapter 1 might be a bit big to pull off, perhaps stick to western part o Kingdom o Isles? Looks a bit barren for Kingdom an all, too much sand, not enough dark mud an green grass.

I don't think he's going to make the entire map ("first zone").

 

[Neanderthal]

Just two paths to Krondor an Narab's trap, sounds logical. For one bloke its lookin good though.

 

[Xenich]

Cool stuff, but I would definitely remove the upper part of the UI and decrease its size. Yeah, I know it was like this back then, but was mostly due to technological limitations.

Blocking the sky is really claustrophobic and dampers the whole "walking thought the countryside" theme... you can be faithful just doing something like this:

I don't know... I don't seem to get that feeling. I can see where you are coming from, but for me, I like the constrained window. I used to be all about "openness, openness! OPENNESS!" over the years, but I have come to miss the closed window containment of the older games where your view is a "element" of the UI, not the entire purpose of play. /shrug

 

[Zed]

lol'd when Neal popped up.

Looks like he's taking great first steps.
Never heard of Amazon's engine before but it looks 'ait.

 

[CyberWhale]

This looks surprisingly stunning. Neal Hallford doesn't cut corners when he makes a Remastered edition of his games.

 

[Severian Silk]

Yeah, he needs to modernize that interface.

Cool stuff, but I would definitely remove the upper part of the UI and decrease its size. Yeah, I know it was like this back then, but was mostly due to technological limitations.

Blocking the sky is really claustrophobic and dampers the whole "walking thought the countryside" theme... you can be faithful just doing something like this:

 

[abnaxus]

I'd like to remaster Liallan.

 

[Grotesque]

Yeah, he needs to modernize that interface.

Nope!

 

[sstacks]

Neal's a friend of the show, he's one of my favorite people to chat with. I just had him and his wife Jana on talking about their horror film The Case of Evil, and he's coming on in April (not sure which Saturday yet) to talk about his Betrayal at Krondor "remastering" in Lumberyard and hopefully he'll spin some yarns about the original BAK development.

 

[Severian Silk]

Too bad he doesn't have the original actor photos. Would some other person maybe have them in their files?

 

[Rhuantavan]

Too bad he doesn't have the original actor photos. Would some other person maybe have them in their files?

I've actually been trying to contact the game's artists for the original art, but never ever got an answer.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Cool stuff, but I would definitely remove the upper part of the UI and decrease its size. Yeah, I know it was like this back then, but was mostly due to technological limitations.

Blocking the sky is really claustrophobic and dampers the whole "walking thought the countryside" theme... you can be faithful just doing something like this:

I guess he's using prefab assets for this? Thing needs a proper road.

 

[nealiios]

Too bad he doesn't have the original actor photos. Would some other person maybe have them in their files?

I talked to Dale Tendick, the guy who shot the original portraits, but unfortunately he didn't have the negatives or prints. All of that was property of Dynamix, and by extension, Sierra Online, so it went to them after Dynamix folded. There's a team of guys who are working on a book about the Art of Sierra Online, and they're been digging for stuff on other projects, but so far no sign of the original character photos. Wish I had them.

 

[nealiios]

Cool stuff, but I would definitely remove the upper part of the UI and decrease its size. Yeah, I know it was like this back then, but was mostly due to technological limitations.

Blocking the sky is really claustrophobic and dampers the whole "walking thought the countryside" theme... you can be faithful just doing something like this:

I guess he's using prefab assets for this? Thing needs a proper road.

Not a pre-fab. Just something I whipped together in like five minutes. Seriously. This was just for demo purposes so that Owyn wouldn't be standing in front of a big grid.

 

[Ninjerk]

No need to spend so much time on a road when you have a whole remaster to make.

 

[Nick]

Someone posted about Amazon's Lumberyard on ITS forums recently, in a thread about Colony Ship engine choice. I've been curious about it ever since. Nice to see things are getting done with it, definitely following the project. Please be generous on tech details =)

 

[nealiios]

Someone posted about Amazon's Lumberyard on ITS forums recently, in a thread about Colony Ship engine choice. I've been curious about it ever since. Nice to see things are getting done with it, definitely following the project. Please be generous on tech details =)

Hey Nick. Will do my best. This week I'm learning how to import FBX files using their new FBX importer. Since I'm doing all my modeling in Blender (and I'm anything but an expert in this particular sub-category), this is all new territory, so I want to make sure I'm doing it the RIGHT way before I try to tell anyone else. But once I've got it, will definitely include it as part of the next video on the puzzle chests.