KickStarter Serpent in the Staglands Pre-Release Thread

[ERYFKRAD]

Is there any support for 1366x768 resolution yet? Or something close? Whalenought_Joe?

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

Is there any support for 1366x768 resolution yet? Or something close? Whalenought_Joe?

Right now I think the minimum screen size is 1280x800. The game itself is scaled 3x to be viewable, similar to booting up a small DOS game and blowing it up. To control stretching and keeping it all neat, that does limit our minimum size, but there might be something we can do for laptops by having an option of shrinking the right HUD. We'll look into it for an update.

 

[Sensuki]

I take it fullscreen isn't available yet ?

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

I take it fullscreen isn't available yet ?

commandF/Alt-return or whichever should work as usual, and should be scaling correctly now. We'll add a Fullscreen toggle in the options later.

 

[Sensuki]

Oh that actually works, cheers.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

Is there any support for 1366x768 resolution yet? Or something close? Whalenought_Joe?

Actually Hannah is on a mission fixing that now. Here's what the game looks like at 2x:

Which looks fine, and allows the min height size to be something like 575 – for the menus and right side hud. We'll play around with it and make sure all the menus and text got sized correctly and message you a link to a new build.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

So we tested that earlier today and everything seemed to look good on OSX. Build here: http://serpentinthestaglands.com/community/forums/topic/build-with-update-for-smaller-resolutions/

We have some other things to tackle at the moment, and will look into why Windows is having trouble with the resolution this week. We'll auto-detect that in the future, so the 2x version will be limited for smaller resolutions. Playing with it on larger resolutions has some design implications with the menus/HUD being tiny and in the very corners of the screen.

 

[dukeofwhales]

Hey Whalenought_Joe - is this still on track for the end of the year? Pretty keen to give it a crack, looks great.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

Hey Whalenought_Joe - is this still on track for the end of the year? Pretty keen to give it a crack, looks great.

Thanks! We'll be close, realistically it will probably be January/February depending on testing. We've got all the KS reward layouts ready and getting our test hardcover handbook in the mail soon, which is exciting. For the game we're checking off the remaining maps/puzzle dungeons/content, but our main goal the next couple months is polish and adding in as much as we can to the existing areas.

Since a player can walk into any map right out the gate, balance has to somewhat take a back seat for this kind of open-world format (i.e. knowing where to get power armor and steamrolling), but we're trying to make sure it's all cohesive via quest and item design no matter how the game is played. It's a lot of intentionally unbalanced elements interacting, and testing the mid to late game aspects of that is going to be the most challenging.

We'll elaborate in a KS update in the near future, and show off some of the other districts. We're happy with the development thus far, there was only 1 wish-list item not making it into the game, which was pretty inconsequential anyway.

 

[Eagle74]

If we are backing late can we still play beta

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

If we are backing late can we still play beta

Sure thing, through the website: http://serpentinthestaglands.com/order-game.php

If/when we got on GOG and steam it will be just the standard copy, so we'll have it on the site for a while longer yet.

 

[Nihiliste]

Anyone who pledged for the beta have any comments? Looking forward to this.

 

[tuluse]

Anyone who pledged for the beta have any comments? Looking forward to this.

es bueno

 

[Silva]

Can someone give a negative or positive to my previous questions, which I transcribe below ?

"Does this game also has those beautiful static images where you do macro-choices ala Darklands ?"

I.e.:

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

^ This. Please let there be these - they are one of the most memorable parts of Darklands.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I haven't played the beta yet, but I don't think those were mentioned anywhere in the game's pitch? So tough luck on this particular aspect, I guess.

 

[tuluse]

I haven't seen any in limited play time. Skill use works more like Fallout actually.

 

[Crane]

I haven't played the beta yet, but I don't think those were mentioned anywhere in the game's pitch? So tough luck on this particular aspect, I guess.

Yeah, I'm not sure what you all were expecting. They never said ever that it would have those screens, to the best of my memory. It's like wondering if the game has the SPECIAL attribute system or some shit.

 

[Jaesun]

Pillars of Eternity has that.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

Can someone give a negative or positive to my previous questions, which I transcribe below ?

"Does this game also has those beautiful static images where you do macro-choices ala Darklands ?"

We considered that early on (pre-KS) to show events and game world lore you come across, but ultimately thought it would detract from the flow of gameplay and power of your skills and spells. Besides a coy nod to Darklands, we couldn't find a compelling reason to tell players in these drawn cinematic scenes that wolves are circling them when the game is showing them getting ambushed by wolves all the time. It's disingenuous and inconsistent for the player's idea of what they can control in the game world with their skills. I have a few early concept drawings from last year of I think a giant stag and bandit ambush, would have been fun (and not timely) to draw a lot of them though!

A lot of gameplay revolves around players using skills and items in realtime to solve challenges, where these screens would pause that world and bring them into a new one, like some kind of mini-game cinematic. When characters are already getting amped up on potions, funneling magic, and activating items before a battle we don't want to interrupt that by describing the situation. It worked brilliantly for Darklands because besides map travel and combat, all gameplay was narrated in these screens, as I recall. It would just be shoehorned in for Serpent where players have an interactive environment, and given the tools to overcome challenges in whatever unorthodox way they want.

If gameplay is too abstract for the skills given to a player we have guided actions in a dialogue screen, like selecting a party member to cross a pond on a raft, or tying a rope onto something to rappel. More often you just use your skills like polymorphing, environmental spells, and aptitudes directly in the environment, making choices as important as the situation they're in and what the player makes of it, rather than the game telling them what's important.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

While I respect your decision, those story telling cutscenes were a huge part of what made Darklands special and they are a sad omission from your game.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

While I respect your decision, those story telling cutscenes were a huge part of what made Darklands special and they are a sad omission from your game.

I hear you. Darklands nailed atmosphere and RPing on so many levels and made an incredible charming package to put it in. I just think it takes a game to fully devout the gameplay to the image-c&c to do it justice. It would be wonderful to see a game go all-in with it again though.

 

[Shadowfang]

I have way too many games to play, and thanks to the incline i managed to impose myself to a turn-based combat only diet. I crossed this game out of my list as soon as i read it was rtwp.

Still, i felt drawn to it. I saw the a playthrough and it got stuck in my brain. I liked the character creation, the premise is quite unique and fresh, the graphics have a lot of charm, the atmosphere reminds me of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is a plus in my book.

Today i went to it's kickstarter page and i was shocked by how little it got and touched by the devs commitment. My wallet is now open.
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[Angthoron]

Today i went to it's kickstarter page and i was shocked by how little it got and touched by the devs commitment. My wallet is now open.

This is something that I thought of back when KS was running, and, seeing we have Joe posting here occasionally, maybe I can finally get the "mystery" solved.

Whalenought_Joe - were you guys intentionally going for a humble sum, so you could more or less do the thing you planned with the budget and time frame intended? Seeing how some of the projects spun out of control and had huge amounts of cash (and obligations, and new deadlines) dropped on them, this has crossed my mind, since you're a small team. Or were you hoping for millions and instead ended up with ~30K? If the latter is the case, I think your modest asking sum/goals might've actually worked against you...

And yeah, it's a pity I was saddled with D: OS Codex logistics at the time, otherwise I might've given the Codex-side fundraiser a better stir, too. SitS, fully funded on base asking price by Codex? That could've happened, I'm sure!

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

you could more or less do the thing you planned with the budget and time frame intended?

SitS's scope for the story intended was finite and carefully designed for the KS pitch, if millions came from the KS they would have been a lot of pre-orders (and better coffee funds). Though extendable by the few stretch bonuses, the scope and deadline were built simultaneously. We knew what our limits were and what we could accomplish if we kept our heads low and dug in into development with a small budget, and could shoot for release sales if we got on Steam and GOG for profit and (hopefully) future development. We didn't need to hire anyone and didn't want to spend the backer money on trips to conferences, and living/working together obviously leaves room for an optimized budget.

So while we were certainly using it for marketing, our main intention was to simulate a publishers funding directly through backers, because a traditional publisher would be an inane route to take for this type of game. Surprisingly we were contacted during/post KS, but have remained on our own ship. In that regard KS worked wonderfully, we didn't bloat the project and we got the funds needed to develop it full time with only needing a minimal amount out of our own pockets and side work (future testing delays aside).

Obviously it's been tight, we haven't had a weekend for a better part of a year and have consistently weird work hours, but working with such a limited budget has kept the game focused. We love this work. And in working grow strong.

I do miss good coffee though.