Incline Das Geisterschiff - turn-based cyberpunk dungeon crawler

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Spoiler

Links:
Steam
Itch

Check the FAQ to avoid asking the same questions
Soundtrack @ Bandcamp
Soundtrack @ Itch
Wishlist the game on GOG to tell them they hate money

Original Post:

Spoiler

I decided to finally open a separate thread instead of losing my posts over and over in the game development thread.

For those unfamiliar with this project and my spamming in the gamedev thread, it's a dungeon crawler/adventure hybrid (or RPG-lite, whatever) set aboard the ghost spaceship, which started as a clone/fan remake of Carmine, but ended up becoming a different project.

Latest screenie:

So, let's move on to details...

Gameplay

• The game plays like a grid-based dungeon crawler with turn-based duels (triggered by random encounters), which take place inside the dungeon instead of a separate screen.
• During the combat you can advance/hold/retreat automatically before attacking the enemy, but you can also attempt to ram the enemy before shooting him (but if your weight is lower than your enemy's, you'll just cause additional damage to yourself).
• There are traps (mines), which can be detected and destroyed, yet you can use them to your advantage by exploiting the enemy AI (forcing the human enemy to retreat onto the trapped square). There are also dark zones (shown on the screenshot), which try to hide whatever is next to you.
• Interactive elements include consoles which open/close doors and can be destroyed to prevent the door from being opened/closed by the enemy and doors themselves, which can be destroyed if you don't want to find the keycard to open it or end up being trapped.
• There is no character customization (planned, but dropped), but you are carrying several weapons, but there is a catch -- you can't replenish your health or ammo. At all. Period. Fuck off, casuals.
• The enemies can be divided into two main types (Human, Bot) and feature different AI -- bots follow their programming without caring about anything else, while humans try to act unpredictable and may try to run away if their health/ammo is too low.

Story

• You're piloting a mecha and your task is to retrieve the sensitive documents located on a ghost spaceship for a massive corporation. End of story.

• The details and some crucial information is told through logs/messages/dossiers scattered across the ship and the most can be easily ignored if you don't want to bother yourself with that crap. However, most of the important logs are password-protected or ciphered, which means you will have to find out what the password/key is before attempting to do it.

• The game is planned to take up to 4 hours to beat, but boy, I am doing my best to fill these 4 hours with the immense amount of butthurt.

So, how much is already done?

Combat and interactions are almost done, the controls work like a charm both in and outside of combat (finally, kek), AI is a placeholder that keeps following the player and trying to ram his ass, the graphics style is decided on, but the graphics and audio are still early and won't be touched much until the gameplay is done.

The plan is to finish the combat/interactions and the rest of the gameplay elements until the end of the year, do some public testing, then put it on Steam Greenlight.

Then spend the time left until Summer to tweak them, make enemy meshes, new dungeon graphics and audio, develop an interface, then keep testing it until the last fatal bug is squashed, only to release it and enjoy the butthurt of the popamole crowd.

FAQ:

Spoiler

Kickstarter when?
Never, but if you've got money to spare and want to help me out, you can buy some of my music here: https://surt-r.bandcamp.com/

Any audio samples?
Here is the latest track for the game.

Spoiler

Which platforms are targeted?
PC, Windows only. I'd like to release it on Steam and/or GOG, if possible, but the game will also be available on itch.io.

I'll post some updates on Thursday 2016.

 

[Wayward Son]

Glad to see this taking off swinezig

 

[Reinar]

I probably won't play the game as it's not my taste, but the music is good. The art is prosperinteresting.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Glad to see this taking off swinezig

Thanks, dude.

The art is prosperinteresting.

That's the point!

(Actually, the usage of faces on the bots/mechas is inspired by the Mussolini HQ)

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Took a short break and spent a few days figuring out if it's possible to make a demake of the game on Sega Saturn.

And yep, the movement works. Didn't get into collision/pathfinding/rendering 3D models yet, but who knows, working on this 'port' is a good way to relax and waste a few hours.
If you want to give it a try, get it here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/2cmasvblnnhn03b

 

[Rhuantavan]

Good at last you opened its own thread. Oh, Mac port or I'm not playing it.

 

[Severian Silk]

Took a short break and spent a few days figuring out if it's possible to make a demake of the game on Sega Saturn.

And yep, the movement works. Didn't get into collision/pathfinding/rendering 3D models yet, but who knows, working on this 'port' is a good way to relax and waste a few hours.
If you want to give it a try, get it here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/2cmasvblnnhn03b

MOST IMPRESSIVE GAMEPLAY VIDEO I HAVE EVER SEEN!!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Good at last you opened its own thread. Oh, Mac port or I'm not playing it.

TBH I don't mind looking into a possibility of a Linux/Mac version once I'm done with the Windows version as long as someone is willing to test the shit out of it.

 

[Wayward Son]

Can't watch the videos atm, is this in German or english? Or some other language? And if it's not in English, were you planning a English translation?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Can't watch the videos atm, is this in German or english? Or some other language? And if it's not in English, were you planning a English translation?

The vid above is a test of grid movement on Sega Saturn with some debug text. I'm 'working' on it when I need a break from Unity, but don't want to stop coding. Pretty sure it will run on Saturn with some anal magic, but I'm not willing to put any effort into it until the PC version is ready.

As for the language question, the game will be in English, and there is also a possibility of German/French/Jap translations if my bro (JarlFrank) and Fabrice (Helly) are willing to contribute. The German language used in the title is just a parody/mimicking of the way Japs use German in their games/anime, because why the fuck not.

 

[Helly]

I'm in

 

[JarlFrank]

Can't watch the videos atm, is this in German or english? Or some other language? And if it's not in English, were you planning a English translation?

The vid above is a test of grid movement on Sega Saturn with some debug text. I'm 'working' on it when I need a break from Unity, but don't want to stop coding. Pretty sure it will run on Saturn with some anal magic, but I'm not willing to put any effort into it until the PC version is ready.

As for the language question, the game will be in English, and there is also a possibility of German/French/Jap translations if my bro (JarlFrank) and Fabrice (Helly) are willing to contribute. The German language used in the title is just a parody/mimicking of the way Japs use German in their games/anime, because why the fuck not.

German translation is fine

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Some small news:

• Found a bunch of hungry artists, trying them one by one to see if it's possible to get some artwork;
• Combat system is coming along nicely, most of the stuff left to do is tying together all these small functions into a working system and provide an interface to do it;
• PERFORMANCE MICRO-ISSUES FIXED (still runs at 30-60 fps on my rig, but without any slowdowns/slow motion issues)

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Finally implementing doors and other interactive objects, because they're tied to the combat and other systems, and impementing them later is not an option.

Doors are useful against 'dumb' enemies such as combat drones, so you can lock yourself and get a few additional turns to run away or wait until they're done banging their head against the door. However, doors are divided into 4 types (Light, Standard, Hardened and Heavy) with different weight and damage capacity. Lite doors can be destroyed easily even by shitty combat drones, but heavy doors are the perfect protection against bots who will waste their ammo or turns to destroy them (or themselves if their weight is no match to the door).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Built a wall and made the drone pay for it.

(just testing dem doors, work like a charm)

 

[Severian Silk]

Will there be lightcycles in this game?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Will there be lightcycles in this game?

Your fat ass won't even fit inside the dungeon, so fitting in a lightcycle or two would be problematic.

 

[Severian Silk]

I'm glad you're making games for the mentally challenged. It must be a religious calling!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Another progress report. Special thanks to Accept for providing a couple of suggestions.

 

[Accept]

Another progress report. Special thanks to Accept for providing a couple of suggestions.

That's awesome bro!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Another progress report. Special thanks to Accept for providing a couple of suggestions.

That's awesome bro!

Thanks, bro. Took less than an hour to implement (and fix every potential and existing issue so far), but it adds a lot to the gameplay.

I'll start doing some preliminary work on the graphics overhaul later today together with AI customization and the rest of the combat system.

 

[Accept]

Made a quick room in UE 4 to show you what I meant by having an elevated area that over looks a room with linear stairs leading from it, really good way to break monotony in height variation.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Made a quick room in UE 4 to show you what I meant by having an elevated area that over looks a room with linear stairs leading from it, really good way to break monotony in height variation.

That looks pretty good.
I'd rather keep them sparse to avoid breaking the map into too many small 'chunks' like AAA games do. About five of these should be more than enough for the whole game.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I've started putting together the basic map for the demo (the collision is separated from the objects to swap the primitives with the higher-quality graphics), and started working on some graphics too. Except, well, there was a misunderstanding about the demo in the shoutbox earlier today, so let me clear things up.

Der Geisterjäger is more of a prequel to the main game to showcase the mechanics and graphics style to the players while adding some depth to the setting (and without spoiling the main story of Das Geisterschiff, which is rather short too). Unlike the main game, it's set on Earth and takes place on a small map (less or equal to 40x60 tiles). While some of you may wonder whether it's going to hamper the work on the main game, trust me -- it won't, since it uses the same mechanics and gameplay code, but takes place on a different map and requires a bunch of new meshes for the backgrounds. At the same time it serves a benchmarking purpose too -- I'd like to know how much detail I can cram into a single area before Unity starts choking.

So far I've decided to make a more hilly map with several paths to the objective -- I'm yet to decide whether to design it like a park, abandoned rural area or a graveyard, or everything listed... In any case, I've made a tree mesh and it looks surprisingly well.

(Let's hope it won't kill the performance)

 

[Accept]

I've started putting together the basic map for the demo (the collision is separated from the objects to swap the primitives with the higher-quality graphics), and started working on some graphics too. Except, well, there was a misunderstanding about the demo in the shoutbox earlier today, so let me clear things up.

Der Geisterjäger is more of a prequel to the main game to showcase the mechanics and graphics style to the players while adding some depth to the setting (and without spoiling the main story of Das Geisterschiff, which is rather short too). Unlike the main game, it's set on Earth and takes place on a small map (less or equal to 40x60 tiles). While some of you may wonder whether it's going to hamper the work on the main game, trust me -- it won't, since it uses the same mechanics and gameplay code, but takes place on a different map and requies a bunch of new meshes for the backgrounds. At the same time it serves a benchmarking purpose too -- I'd like to know how much detail I can cram into a single area before Unity starts choking.

So far I've decided to make a more hilly map with several paths to the objective -- I'm yet to decide whether to design it like a park, abandoned rural area or a graveyard, or everything listed... In any case, I've made a tree mesh and it looks surprisingly well.

(Let's hope it won't kill the performance)

Neat! Keep it up bro!