Solo dev interested in your your opinion about a turn-based isometric RPG inspired by Fallout 1/2

[Skdursh]

I can make it available via a DOSBox bundle but only if you tell me you can read some Russian

What kind of uncultured swine do you take me for? I can read ALL Russian.

 

[dippy]

What kind of uncultured swine do you take me for? I can read ALL Russian.

Pardon my ignorance, the One and Only Mighty Language Master. Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sl9WpVOKx5cZp7Er_m8Gaee0JU_8ndvx/view?usp=sharing
You need to run start_cmyta.bat, which should take care of starting DOSBox with correct arguments etc. Feel free to change the default DOSBox config via cmyta.conf. Everything in the game is controlled via a keyboard.

 

[dippy]

Happy New Year everybody! I've uploaded the video of the latest state of the prototype:

 

[Twiglard]

How much time did it take for you to create the prototype sprites for scenery objects? I mean the garden-variety boring ones like shelves, kitchens, chairs, lamps, etc.

 

[dippy]

How much time did it take for you to create the prototype sprites for scenery objects? I mean the garden-variety boring ones like shelves, kitchens, chairs, lamps, etc.

I've not created most of the models. Most of them are assets I've got via sales or at their normal low price. I may swap some of them later or work on custom models, if/when I get other people interested in the project. I've been struggling to dedicate enough time to the project alongside my day job. So I have to use stock assets especially for boring but necessary items and focus on implementing the game prototype instead.

 

[shihonage]

At this stage in development you will vastly underestimate the amount of time required for creating and debugging content in a Fallout clone.

You're better off shifting focus to an isometric project which largely relies on procedural content generation and massive content reuse, such as a survival or building game.

 

[Twiglard]

How much time did it take for you to create the prototype sprites for scenery objects? I mean the garden-variety boring ones like shelves, kitchens, chairs, lamps, etc.

I've not created most of the models. Most of them are assets I've got via sales or at their normal low price. I may swap some of them later or work on custom models, if/when I get other people interested in the project. I've been struggling to dedicate enough time to the project alongside my day job. So I have to use stock assets especially for boring but necessary items and focus on implementing the game prototype instead.

FWIW, I've tried something similar, once using Fallout 2 and Arcanum assets. I even made some baked sprites people liked, but it takes a fucking long time. However -- unlike drawing, modelling can be done by the analytically minded, and you can get far using procedural textures (i.e. google how to make wood or grass with procedural textures). It's easy as long as you have a sense of taste. You can get far using tricks like displacement mapping. But making scenery assets takes a fuckton of time.

Obviously making combat and character systems or game content is less than trivial, but things like map editor, world data structure representation, baked sprite animation or a dialogue editor is a matter of perseverance.

If you get far in the project, these sprites aren't good enough but they're good placeholders. I'd advise to look into art direction and aesthetics in that case. See how VtMB has relatively simple HL2 models, yet looks better than these cookie-cutter open-world games.

Good luck to you Sir.

You're better off shifting focus to an isometric project which largely relies on procedural content generation and massive content reuse, such as a survival or building game.

I'd love to see an RPG-ish procedurally generated game with factions and "quests" that aren't banal grinding. You can't make actual dialogue for this, but you can make dynamic cities, NPCs with goals and factions.

 

[dippy]

At this stage in development you will vastly underestimate the amount of time required for creating and debugging content in a Fallout clone.

You're better off shifting focus to an isometric project which largely relies on procedural content generation and massive content reuse, such as a survival or building game.

Thanks for your feedback. I'd like to highlight that I've got a version of this game finished in 2003. Obviously, it may be full of bugs and inconsistencies since only a limited number of people ever played it. I'm changing a lot of things now but I'd like to stay on track and focus on the narrative element of the game rather than pivoting to an open world type of game I don't have a strong interest in.
If your comment is based on personal experience developing a similar game I'd be very interested to hear more details and other lessons learned.

 

[dippy]

FWIW, I've tried something similar, once using Fallout 2 and Arcanum assets. I even made some baked sprites people liked, but it takes a fucking long time. However -- unlike drawing, modelling can be done by the analytically minded, and you can get far using procedural textures (i.e. google how to make wood or grass with procedural textures). It's easy as long as you have a sense of taste. You can get far using tricks like displacement mapping. But making scenery assets takes a fuckton of time.

Obviously making combat and character systems or game content is less than trivial, but things like map editor, world data structure representation, baked sprite animation or a dialogue editor is a matter of perseverance.

Thanks for your detailed feedback. I appreciate when people share the obstacles and challenges they came across so at least I may be slightly better prepared. I guess I need to add a disclaimer that I'm simply inspired by Fallout. I am trying to get anywhere near F1/F2 in terms of the complexity, variability and scale of the world. I'm expecting about 5 hours of gameplay on average and about 4 towns. Variety of choices is also limited but more meaningful than "Yes", "No", "*Sarcastic*". These are concise decisions reducing the scope and increasing the probability of ever finishing the project.
Besides, I'm planning to be working with more people when all the basics are in place so it's easier to spark some level of interest.

Re procedural content generation, I'm fully familiar with the subject as I've been working on 64k and 4k demos years ago where one has to generate everything procedurally. However, I'd like to focus on other things here and I have a certain budget available for buying assets or paying people who are better at all of this than myself.

If you get far in the project, these sprites aren't good enough but they're good placeholders. I'd advise to look into art direction and aesthetics in that case. See how VtMB has relatively simple HL2 models, yet looks better than these cookie-cutter open-world games.

I've got VtMB in my wishlist and watched a number of videos praising it. The main thing holding me back was that it seems to be a hybrid between an RPG and a shooter (or some kind of 3d fighting game). I'm defo not a fan of non-turn-based combat.
The game looks great for its time but some of the fonts are butt ugly I have to say :D

 

[Darth Canoli]

A shame you didn't stick to improving the 2D version; more complex mechanism, slightly better graphics, more content; rather than going 3D, you said yourself it's a niche game, why bother with 3D?

 

[dippy]

A shame you didn't stick to improving the 2D version; more complex mechanism, slightly better graphics, more content; rather than going 3D, you said yourself it's a niche game, why bother with 3D?

Yes, it's a niche game but I don't want to narrow it down too much. The decision is based on various information I've been gathering about the first impression and how hard it is to get most gamers interested if the game is visually unappealing. I'm neither planning nor promising anything unique/"revolutionary" about the game mechanics, characters or lore so at least I'm hoping to stand a chance among thousands of indie games by looking a bit better than yet another bland 2d {put_your_name_here} clone.
I'm planning to be improving the graphics further when I've got all other basics in place.

 

[Communist]

This is too ambitious to be true.
Fallout was a small, humble game of 10 side quests and 3 or 4 main quests. And this little game was created by a whole crowd of people.
For a lone developer, I suggest 2 solutions: 1) temper your enthusiasm; 2) prioritize and, on this basis, choose a game editor (I'm talking about game editors like Renpy and RPG-maker, and not about real game engines; I don't recommend a game maker, because it's too complicated for users, who are mostly not programmers, but designers).
If you want a lot of dialogue, then you should choose Renpy. If you want something similar to Fallout in terms of 2.5d, then you should choose the RPG maker and related plugins. What is more important to you - an interesting story or a gameplay? Proceed from this, be like Peter Molyneux, the main thing is to moderate your enthusiasm.

 

[Twiglard]

choose a game editor (I'm talking about game editors like Renpy and RPG-maker, and not about real game engines; I don't recommend a game maker, because it's too complicated for users, who are mostly not programmers, but designers).

Even if all the retards are now using Unity and Godot, making your own tooling is still feasible and cost-effective. Don't be an agent of decline.

 

[dippy]

This is too ambitious to be true.
Fallout was a small, humble game of 10 side quests and 3 or 4 main quests. And this little game was created by a whole crowd of people.
For a lone developer, I suggest 2 solutions: 1) temper your enthusiasm; 2) prioritize and, on this basis, choose a game editor (I'm talking about game editors like Renpy and RPG-maker, and not about real game engines; I don't recommend a game maker, because it's too complicated for users, who are mostly not programmers, but designers).
If you want a lot of dialogue, then you should choose Renpy. If you want something similar to Fallout in terms of 2.5d, then you should choose the RPG maker and related plugins. What is more important to you - an interesting story or a gameplay? Proceed from this, be like Peter Molyneux, the main thing is to moderate your enthusiasm.

Thanks. I do agree with your points in general. Note that I was saying "inspired by" rather than "I'm creating a new Fallout". When I impllmented this game years ago it was a relatively small game, which can be finished in under 4-5 hours. I don't think I've got issues taming Unity or GM as I'm a programmer by trade. Hence, I don't see a good reason to switch to GM or Renpy when I've got a lot of basics already working in Unity. You can try the prototypish thing in the browser here https://simmer.io/@developter/crux-prototype
Overall I'm planning to collaborate with more people once I get a better idea of the general direction I want to take and get all basic systems in place.

 

[Communist]

You can try the prototypish thing in the browser here https://simmer.io/@developter/crux-prototype

I really liked what I saw. For a lone gunmen , this is amazing. I'm sorry I doubted your competence.
You definitely have all the skills that would impress skeptics like me.
I apologize for my pompous post. You definitely know more than me, and I am glad about it, because I saw not just another stillborn project, but a living project with inclinations and ambitions.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

If your comment is based on personal experience developing a similar game I'd be very interested to hear more details and other lessons learned.

I have been doing something like this but it was like in late 90s or something, so a lot has changed in the meantime (was doing it on DirectX 5 and speed was a concern back then).

Anyway, the (greatly outdated) lessons learned. There were two biggest obstacles. First was character animation assets. Until you had a dozen of unique moving, running, fighting characters made as a set with an option to change clothing and weapons you had like nothing. I mean, this (producing those prerendered assets) was such a big obstacle it shadowed everything else. We had like 3 artists back then and it was not enough. They tried Poser but... sure for a generic naked person without clothing it was OK but that was far from sufficient (note that nowadays with aboundance of generic 3D assets it might be no obstacle at all, dunno). Another was partial visibility of the walls (making the wall partially disappear where the hero was behind it, like the transparent circle in Fallout series).

Looking at the video you provided I see the same problems I had back then (still it might be totally doable nowadays). I would just be wary.
Also consider downgrading the graphics to top down 2D, it would solve you a lot of problems and let focus on the gameplay and the mood instead on technical issues.

 

[Galdred]

A shame you didn't stick to improving the 2D version; more complex mechanism, slightly better graphics, more content; rather than going 3D, you said yourself it's a niche game, why bother with 3D?

Yes, it's a niche game but I don't want to narrow it down too much. The decision is based on various information I've been gathering about the first impression and how hard it is to get most gamers interested if the game is visually unappealing. I'm neither planning nor promising anything unique/"revolutionary" about the game mechanics, characters or lore so at least I'm hoping to stand a chance among thousands of indie games by looking a bit better than yet another bland 2d {put_your_name_here} clone.
I'm planning to be improving the graphics further when I've got all other basics in place.

Actually, it is easier to get cheap 2D that doesn't look awful than cheap 3D.
Maybe with the variety of stock assets, it is less true, but I think it is very hard to use them well:
- Most look exactly like generic assets, and usually won't go especially well together.
- It may give an impression of deja vu.
That said, there are several games that were made with this kind of assets:
The Storm guard, Darkness is coming
I think the whole Wave Light Games catalog
Stellar Tactics
And these games are quite solid (I didn't try Wave Light games yet, though).

I decided to go with 2D in my game because of these reasons. It is much cheaper to have "some content", but you don't have diminishing costs for new assets as with 3D. However, being able to add a ton of extra art assets to the game is a luxury we seldom have.

 

[zapotec]

Why you can't use the 2d version?

 

[dippy]

I decided to go with 2D in my game because of these reasons. It is much cheaper to have "some content", but you don't have diminishing costs for new assets as with 3D. However, being able to add a ton of extra art assets to the game is a luxury we seldom have.

Why you can't use the 2d version?

All valid points. As I said earlier, I don't want to narrow the niche too much and I also want to try something new. I.e. I've already done a 2D game long-long time ago and really want to brush it up a bit. I may look into rendering 3d into isometric sprites but it works in 3d ok so far.

 

[dippy]

Here are some updates: updated the UI, integrated more assets, added a basic inventory system.




You can now switch languages during a conversation:

 

[zapotec]

You should add more garbage in the streets!

 

[dippy]

You should add more garbage in the streets!

Hehe, is that based on your observations of similar streets? It's in my backlog but defo not at the top of the list.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

The 2D version gave me DreamWeb vibes, I wonder if it can be reworked into a small cyberpunk RPG at some point in the future.

 

[Fluent]

looks cool as heck! good luck with the project, dippy . when u get close to release u can let me know, i'll do youtube Let's Play videos for it! take care. <3

 

[dippy]

The 2D version gave me DreamWeb vibes, I wonder if it can be reworked into a small cyberpunk RPG at some point in the future.

Interesting. I've never heard of this game. It does look somewhat similar. Well, my progress is pretty slow due to this being a hobby project where I'm planning to throw away most of the old content including dozens of thousands of words of the dialogues. Hence, realistically I'm not sure I'd have any capacity to satisfy your request. I may revisit a similar idea one day in the future but using the latest isometric view I've been working on.