KickStarter Monomyth - A first person action RPG/dungeon crawler - now available on Early Access

[V_K]

Speaking of magic systems, RatTower, how are you planning to go about spellcasting? Just selecting a spell from the list and expending mana or something more intricate (rune formulas, mixing reagents etc.)?

 

[The Wall]

Bro, you must be RPG Mozzart! How do you manage to do all of this on your own?! Truly magnificent event is merely watching the strenght of your will, discipline and creativity working together and materializing inside UE4 engine borders which you seem to keep pushing, and pushing

How do you plan to finance this thing? Kickstarter, Early Access, Patreon, Mysterious Publisher, Rich Uncle? I repeat, this is fucking amazing! You embarrass many AAA devs with your work!

 

[Doktor Best]

I asked Raphael Colantonio (former president of Arkane Studios) if there was a post mortem article on Arx Fatalis, discussing why it failed financially. His response:



I believe this information could be quite useful for Monomyth as well.
Does anyone have an idea who might be interested to cover that story?

Spoiler

I already suggested the codex of course

Not really a sophisticated analysis, but i have the gut feeling that Arx simply came out in an unoportune time era. People were craving for new and fancy big open worlds with ultimate freedom back then like Gothic or Morrowind. Arx simply couldnt manage to create enough attention compared to those as it embodied a tried and tested, but also known design concept.

People only learned to look back at immersive sims when it turned out that there was also something lost in transition.

You also wont reach a multi million customerbase by making an immersive sim today i think. But those that played them always will come back for more.

 

[V_K]

There's also the dialog thing - having NPCs only speak oneliners, without any dialog choices, felt like a very bizarre decision for an RPG at the time.

 

[RatTower]

Speaking of magic systems, RatTower, how are you planning to go about spellcasting? Just selecting a spell from the list and expending mana or something more intricate (rune formulas, mixing reagents etc.)?

I'm currently reworking the spell system.
Originally it pretty much worked like the system in Dark Souls, where you'd select a couple spells depending on the amount of spell slots you have available. You'd then cast those spells with the help of some item/weapon (a catalyst).
In Monomyth's case that catalyst was a tome you had to equip. For the moment I have removed the tome and made it possible to just cast spells on the fly/with any weapon equipped, which is more like Arx/UUW/KF. You select spells at a shrine and then just scroll through them with the mousewheel and cast them. At the moment no further preparation is required. Casting costs mana but nothing else. I was, for a while, also considering reagents as a sort of "ammo type" for spells, but I haven't tested that so far. Also, I remember a lot of people actually disliking that system in Ultima Online. I'm personally okay with it. I'm just not sure if there should be another restriction for casting spells (besides mana & spell slots).

I have reworked the system this way, because I think spells will play too much of a central role in Monomyth to separate them into their own playstyle (like it's done in DS). Doing that would be a bit like taking augmentations in Deus Ex or implants in System Shock and saying "you can only have those if you play in this one very specific way". But that's obviously not the case in those games. Instead augmentations/implants form the underlying tenor for all playstyles. No matter whether you are taking a more aggressive approach (which would be equivalent to Monomyth's warrior/strength-based playstyle) or a stealthy approach (which would be equivalent to Monomyth's thief/dex-based playstyle) - you'd always be using your augs/implants (or in Monomyth: your spells).

So you can probably think of spells in Monomyth the way you'd think about augs/implants in Deus Ex/System Shock.

However, spells are still categorized into three castes (Cosmos, Divine & Aura, with their main attributes being Intelligence, Wisdom and Willpower). Now I haven't planned too far ahead with this right now, but it would probably make sense, to relate these three castes and the spells they provide to the three playstyle archetypes (Mage, Warrior and Thief). So for example one of the better spells of Aura might be Invisibility, which is obviously good for a stealthy playstyle, wheras Divine provides Blessings that may be interesting for a warrior type. Cosmos is essentially a damage-focused mix, with higher attribute requirements (since both the mage playstyle and the caste are based on intelligence).

I can already see this will be confusing to some players, since (in the current character system) it essentially requires you to multi-class from the get-go. People are used to dropping all their attributes into one stat.
That's also one of the reasons, why I want to make many spell effects available through consumables. For example "High Jump" may be an Aura spell, but there is also an item called "Harpy Root" that provides the same effect (currently with the downside of poisoning you a bit - which should be a bit of a hint to go for the spells).

All of that makes it easier to combine different spell effects, even if you don't necessarily know the spell, or pushed for a different spell caste.



(casting animations/vfx are not final)

Bro, you must be RPG Mozzart! How do you manage to do all of this on your own?! Truly magnificent event is merely watching the strenght of your will, discipline and creativity working together and materializing inside UE4 engine borders which you seem to keep pushing, and pushing

How do you plan to finance this thing? Kickstarter, Early Access, Patreon, Mysterious Publisher, Rich Uncle? I repeat, this is fucking amazing! You embarrass many AAA devs with your work!

Thanks for the kind words!
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the project is currently pretty much funded out of my own pocket. Which isn't too much of a problem, since I do most of the stuff myself and the tools I use are (mostly) free. At one point I will however need to hire a musician, that will create a soundtrack. I have looked into various forms of financing for that - most of which would require me to establish a business. That in itself is no problem, since I'll need one in the end anyway. But it might be a bit early for that (keeping a company running around here actually costs quite a bit of money - especially the equivalent of an LLC). I hope I'll have more information on that within the coming weeks.

 

[V_K]

I was, for a while, also considering reagents as a sort of "ammo type" for spells, but I haven't tested that so far. Also, I remember a lot of people actually disliking that system in Ultima Online. I'm personally okay with it. I'm just not sure if there should be another restriction for casting spells (besides mana & spell slots).

I think you can just have a mixed system - weaker spells could only cost mana, while more powerful ones could require reagents.

For example "High Jump" may be an Aura spell, but there is also an item called "Harpy Root" that provides the same effect (currently with the downside of poisoning you a bit - which should be a bit of a hint to go for the spells).

I think it's a rather backwards approach balance-wise to be honest - consumables already have a cost in being, well, consumed; they don't need another trade-off. If they also have more downsides than the spell, it means that once the character gets the relevant spell, the consumable becomes dead weight. Now if the root was a multi-use consumable (basically, more of a wand than a potion) and the spell version of High Jump required reagents, then the choice between the two would be less of a no-brainer.

Invisibility, which is obviously good for a stealthy playstyle

This is also something I find dubious - if you want all stealth builds to have Invisibility eventually (which is how I read your "spells as augs" argument), why would the players invest in sneaking then? Invisibility is the ultimate mage spell because it allows the mage to bypass obstacles in a way other classes can't (i.e. waltz through a brightly lit room full of enemies), but presumably at a higher cost (in mana or reagents).

 

[Thal]

I'm currently reworking the spell system.

Seems fine. Diablo 1 also did this, and nobody complained that you can't play a "pure single class type". What helped though, that you had to collect some of the spells while playing, which led to a very organic and attractive character development. In my warrior playthough, I never found Stone Curse, so I had to think outside the box to deal with teleporting mages. If you're going for the augmentation way, I suggest you make these spells complementary for different playstyles, not a requirement for being successful.

Also, in Diablo your class is really only a base. If you find a spellbook of healing, your warrior is essentially a paladin. Thus, your "class" is the product of your playstyle and procedurally generated gameplay experience, not something you just pick from the get go.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Hey RatTower if you're interested here's a video examining Metroid Prime 2 level design:







Is that a new UI, I spy?

 

[RatTower]

Hi,

only a slightly reworked version. I still have to re-arrange a couple things and redo parts of the graphical elements.

I think it's a rather backwards approach balance-wise to be honest - consumables already have a cost in being, well, consumed; they don't need another trade-off. If they also have more downsides than the spell, it means that once the character gets the relevant spell, the consumable becomes dead weight. Now if the root was a multi-use consumable (basically, more of a wand than a potion) and the spell version of High Jump required reagents, then the choice between the two would be less of a no-brainer.

This is also something I find dubious - if you want all stealth builds to have Invisibility eventually (which is how I read your "spells as augs" argument), why would the players invest in sneaking then? Invisibility is the ultimate mage spell because it allows the mage to bypass obstacles in a way other classes can't (i.e. waltz through a brightly lit room full of enemies), but presumably at a higher cost (in mana or reagents).

Both invisibility costs and item trade-offs are mostly balancing issues. I hope that trade-offs may lead to a couple interesting situations for players, but we can only really find that out once the system is being tested.


Other than that:
I'm currently on another business trip, so there probably won't be much progress to show this week.



Concerning level design, I updated 3 out of 4 subsections of the alpha level, using the new workflow.
I have also been working myself through Unreal's profiler output to get rid of some performance issues.
Once the fourth section is done I'll still have to adapt some of the AI and check the performance on that.

I'm currently thinking about setting up a system for modular NPCs (see here for an example). I should have probably done that from the very beginning since it also helps with visual player customization (which has been treated as a complete afterthought up till now, since it doesn't really matter much in a first-person game). Not sure if this will make it into the alpha.

Oh yeah... I've also been talking to an accountant for the business side of this whole project.



With the price I'm currently targeting an LLC (respectively the local equivalent thereof) requires around 20k sales to be sustainable (ideally 40k in the first two years). Which is quite a lot, especially for a newcomer.
Otherwise large portions of the profits would be consumed by taxes and fees, making a sole proprietorship the better option. At least if I still wanna be making games in three years.
Now, completely disregarding the liability aspect of an SP (which is the main reason I dislike it), a real problem with that legal structure starts when it comes to crowdfunding campaigns (as I mentioned above - I'd like to do a small campaign to hire a musician).
The profits of a crowdfunding campaign go to the company as regular profits. Profits in an SP are taxed together with the personal profits of the company owner (the SP is essentially just a legal facade for the company owner, that's why everything the company "owns" is actually the property of the company owner and everything the company "owes" falls back on the owner as well, including lawsuits - an LLC on the other hand is a separated legal structure, where owner and company are two different things)

Anyway, if the company owner is working on the side (as I am currently), the profits of the SP are taxed ontop of those earnings. And since we have a progressive tax rate around here, that means everything from that crowdfunding campaign would probably be taxed at around 35-42%, which effectively means that the targeted amount for the campaign would have to be higher. Which is also kinda ironic, since, technically, the more money the campaign gathers, the worse it gets.

In short: I haven't really decided on anything yet and I'll have to talk to the accountant again in a couple weeks. What I can do until then is realistically assessing the potential sales figures for a game like Monomyth. I always felt like 6-9k would be a pretty good number, but I currently can't really back that up with anything.

 

[V_K]

But if you're using these funds to hire someone, shouldn't there be some sort of tax exemption down the line?

 

[RatTower]

With an LLC probably. I'd guess a commission is an expense. With an SP I'm not sure.

I have seen a couple KS projects that explicitly list taxes in their funding goal breakdown, so, for the moment, I assume they are fully taxed. If you can get tax exemptions for further costs down the road and how high those are, I can't really say atm.

 

[Curratum]

Do you imagine a more traditional RPG musical score or something more ambient, similar to what Grimrock was doing?

 

[Nyast]

In short: I haven't really decided on anything yet and I'll have to talk to the accountant again in a couple weeks. What I can do until then is realistically assessing the potential sales figures for a game like Monomyth. I always felt like 6-9k would be a pretty good number, but I currently can't really back that up with anything.

How many wishlists do you have total ? How many do you get per day in average ? How long until the game is sold on Steam ?

I'm asking these questions because some people have been doing studies about the average amount of sales to be expected based on accumulated wishlists. This might interest you, if you haven't seen it yet:

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Jak...s_should_you_have_when_launching_on_Steam.php

and

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/steam-week-1-vs-year-1-revenue/

Summary:

- take your current amount of wishlist and extrapolate the average values until you launch on Steam
- multiply that total by x0.5 ( half ) and you get your expected sales in the first week
- quintuple that and you get the expected sales in the first year

Ex.: let's say you have 3000 wishlists, you get 50/day and you release in 3 months. That'd be 7500 wishlists at release date.

Then you can expect 3750 sales in the first week and a total of 18750 sales in the first year.

Disclaimer: using average values. Your own project could be up or down quite a bit, especially if it's particularly good ( or bad ) compared to other games. Also remember that I'm talking of unit sales here. If you do discounts / sales you'll get less $$ revenue per unit sale, so take that into account when you extrapolate sales to revenue.

 

[Nyast]

Another thing about running a company as a sole proprietorship ( this is my case, so I kind of know what I'm talking about, caveat being I'm in Belgium and it might differ a bit in other countries ):

- of course you can deduct all your professional expenses. You only get taxed on your net revenue ( gross - expenses ). But keep in mind VAT when you set your game price on Steam, cause it'll be included in the price, so after Steam's 30% cut you'll end up with even less for each EU sale.
- you can also deduct your social cotisations, those are usually considered professional expenses. Here in Belgium it's 22%, so it's pretty significant. If you have no idea how social cotisations are going to factor in to your revenue, stop here, and talk to your accountant.
- there are a lot of other things you can deduct. Accountants have a full list. For example I'm working from home and I can deduct a percentage of electricity/internet/gas used for my professional activity.
- finally, if you're owing rotalties to another company ( ex.: Unreal Engine's ? ) these are considered professional expenses. Make sure you have contracts / documents available on request for tax verifications.
- for KS projects ( crowd funding in general ) that's a gray area. You need to figure that out with your accountant and/or lawyer. I know some companies that can pass of KS revenue as research & development, which doesn't get taxed ( or at a lower rate ), but it's probably very country-dependent.

 

[RatTower]

Thanks for the advice!

Really short update since I've been fed another deadline and got little time this week

I implemented breakable containers, some of which contain loot.


The loot is very rare (like a 5% chance) and taken from a tiered loot table.
Its just small consumables that might come in handy in the respective area/level range.
You don't need to break every barrel in your way.

Just a little random element to mix things up a bit.

Do you imagine a more traditional RPG musical score or something more ambient, similar to what Grimrock was doing?

The musician I was about to hire sent me a really nice sample of what he'd go for.
It was actually good mix of calm, almost ambient-like music and more melodious, "heavy" tones for combat/action.
All in all very close to King's Field in style, but without the strong synth element to it.

 

[RatTower]

Things are slowly becoming more structured.



Same goes for the project's organization.
I got myself a better timetable and more clearly defined goals for the individual areas of the game.
Which means that it's much easier to pin down future efforts, required time and also costs. Which makes it easier to hire people, plan out test versions etc etc
When I collected spells from this thread I put them into a big table with five tiers. This has also been very helpful in organizing the rest of the game.
You might not notice this while playing, but these five tiers align with character progression, weapon balancing, areas, etc.

It's a solid game design approach - also with regards to the much feared feature creep that kills so many projects.
I guess I should have probably done it this way right off the bat. Either way: Things are coming along well.

Edit:
Level design-wise there was some progress as well: One of the main areas is pretty much done. Unfortunately it wasn't really designed by the new approach and had to be fit in it somehow. It was originally what I wanted to release for the alpha but it's too much for that now anyway. I might have to work over it again, but only slightly.

So now I'm putting together another sub-area with nicer - more uniform - set pieces, which speeds up the whole process by a lot and also looks better in many ways. Geometry brushes have the unpleasent side-effect that, if you're not careful, you'll pretty quickly end up with non-uniform looking rooms (ceiling heights being slightly off, hallways looking different in size, etc.). So the set pieces are quite the blessing. I hope I can finish the sub-area by next week.

Also after the alpha I want to redo some parts of the NPC code and set up a proper system that actually allows for some modularity there as well. Otherwise I'd have to make every NPC from scratch, which isn't really a feasible approach.
I think I mentioned it already, but I might end up with a system like this, which also has the nice advantage that I could use the models for the player character (giving you an actual body with armor and everything when you look down).
So that would definitely take a while, but I think the output would be more than worth it.

Oh yeah, performance wise there was also some good progress. I have the big advantage that I can cull quite a bit of the environment. Also with regards to animations and AI, which take up a lot of hardware resources.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Remind me man, have you developed any games before? You seem so freakin' professional about the entire thing, it's super impressive!

 

[Punch]

Remind me man, have you developed any games before? You seem so freakin' professional about the entire thing, it's super impressive!

Yeah you better spill the beans so I can finally dream of doing a good looking 3D game.

 

[RatTower]

Remind me man, have you developed any games before? You seem so freakin' professional about the entire thing, it's super impressive!

It's my first gamedev project in a semi-professional setup.
I have guided a few tiny software-related "projects" in the past though (more like bigger programming tasks).
Spent a lot of time with workflow optimization and setting milestones.

Spoiler

Apparently not enough. Otherwise that alpha would already be done.

Either way, it would be nice to turn this whole thing into a fully professional (i.e., full-time) operation at some point.

 

[Lutte]

All of that makes it easier to combine different spell effects, even if you don't necessarily know the spell, or pushed for a different spell caste.

If there's many instances like these of creative use of what you're given, I need this game in my life.

 

[RatTower]

Still working on that new sub-area. Coming along pretty well.



The asset pack for that dungeon environment is nearly done.
The area was pretty much blocked out with dummy set pieces so it should come together relatively quickly (it still requires a detail pass).
I'll probably be able to shift my focus on coding a bit more and nicely knit everything together in the coming weeks. Of course I'm loaded with deadlines again so expect some minor interruptions.
Other than that: Blender 2.8 just released, meaning I'll probably also spend some time sculpting enemies, if my schedule allows it.

 

[BlackGoat]

Legit. Tho my aesthetic sensibility demands that chest face straight forward

 

[DJOGamer PT]

RatTower wouldn't it be better if there wasn't an interaction icon in the torch.
I mean I do get that without it you would need to have another way of comunicating to the player about the secret (otherwise the only way for him to figure that out would be trough mindless clicking in every object). But having a such clear indicator of the secret's existence lessens the sense of discovery that was supposed to give.

Legit. Tho my aesthetic sensibility demands that chest face straight forward

It's nice that way to. It kinda gives off the impression that's an unorganized secret stash.

 

[RatTower]

I might still remove the prompt or lower the distance for it on secrets. The thing is, there are many small levers, buttons and items that are otherwise nearly invisible.
Either way: The level I'm currently working on is almost finished, so I spent a bit of time on setting up a layout workflow.



Obviously a standard manual isn't really necessary as long as the ingame tool tips are explaining everything. I'm mostly thinking of attributes and the character system here.
But I do want to create some support material, which would otherwise only clutter the game in the form of lore dumps.

If you can think of any particularly nice looking cRPG manuals (or P&P books) please, feel free to post their names here.
I'd like to take a look at them. Ultima is obviously one, but there are just so many others.

 

[Sinatar]

I might still remove the prompt or lower the distance for it on secrets. The thing is, there are many small levers, buttons and items that are otherwise nearly invisible.
Either way: The level I'm currently working on is almost finished, so I spent a bit of time on setting up a layout workflow.

Obviously a standard manual isn't really necessary as long as the ingame tool tips are explaining everything. I'm mostly thinking of attributes and the character system here.
But I do want to create some support material, which would otherwise only clutter the game in the form of lore dumps.

If you can think of any particularly nice looking cRPG manuals (or P&P books) please, feel free to post their names here.
I'd like to take a look at them. Ultima is obviously one, but there are just so many others.

Serpent in the Staglands did a pretty good modern take on an old school manual: http://serpentinthestaglands.com/manual