Vapourware Sui Generis + Exanima Early Access

[Technomancer]

More stuff relevant to recent discussions.

 

[Kruyurk]

More stuff relevant to recent discussions.

This is so strange to read that he barely cared for combat at the origin, given how much effort went into it and how good it is. Combat is clearly the strongest point of the game and they improved it way beyond "passable", into top tier. I wish every sword hit is any game was as satisfying as in Exanima. You don't end up making something that good over so many years if you barely cared about it. And it's impossible to barely care about combat if you put that many medieval weapons and armors into your game. The 2012 trailer for SG mostly shows combat, which means it was one of the first thing implemented, and it was a selling point of SG from the beginning (not just a focus for Exanima).

I feel like Madoc is always trying to justify his priorities with the feedback of people. But since you always have diverse feedback, you can pick the ones you want to justify your point. He should just say: "It's my game, I do it the way I want, just go play something else in the meantime if the development is too slow for your taste." He is doing it his way but he tries to make it appear as if every decision is driven by players feedback. Not the most honest of geniuses.

Anyway, thanks for your posts as always, Technomancer.

 

[Technomancer]

This is so strange to read that he barely cared for combat at the origin, given how much effort went into it and how good it is.

I get a sense "barely cared" meant that they wanted to do RPG stuff but got stuck with what they had. So even if it was not exactly what they wanted to do, it was core of what people could play at the time so required full attention. And to be fair it really needed attention. If you look hard enough you can still find original Exanima arena combat demo installer still called Sui Generis. Or download super early steam builds through steam database. And gameplay there is atrocious compared to what we have now, I tried. At that point it was more like a proof of concept rather than something enjoyable. And there were few weapons and armors originally. That came much later when they hired Zetheros. Early builds had very basic armor, mostly cobbled by Madoc and it looked fairly ugly.

After combat was made passable they stuck in iteration loops for two years or so. Though I wager Madoc's definition of passable is different

"It's my game, I do it the way I want, just go play something else in the meantime if the development is too slow for your taste."

He did at some point. Saying things like "we are making the game for ourselves, something we want to play". Sounds like buzzwords but I believe he meant it. Also might misremember it, was long ago.

 

[agris]

He is doing it his way but he tries to make it appear as if every decision is driven by players feedback.

This is a common trope with developers smart enough to realize their actions will annoy some so, lacking the courage of their convictions, they go fishing for plausible excuses to do what they want: feedback. JES did this with Pillars time and time again.

 

[Technomancer]

25/9/23

Everyone including Madoc is just working on getting the environments and items for the update release ready. This is all that's really left to do now so this won't change until the final insider test at least. We managed to solve our most pressing problems with character foot interactions, and while we'll almost certainly do more on this in future things are definitely improved.

Another feature we've added is embedding scripts in item descriptions. This means that for example an item's description might change to reflect the state of events or characters in the world or affect such changes, dialogue etc. For now this has very limited applications, but longer term they are many and important. In general we've been adding a lot of this sort of functionality and figuring out some details of the roles and related systems that will be the focus of the following update.

In other news, we're hiring a new programmer to join the Bare Mettle ranks. This has been in the works for a while, but we finally got all the paperwork sorted and it's official. He's been a member of the community for a long time, you might know him as Jimmini, and through various private exchanges Madoc determined he's got some impressive skills and the right drive to join the team. We've got some important work lined up for him and he should be able to contribute in many ways going forward.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[Technomancer]

2/10/23

It's been a hectic week putting lots of final touches on new content and features. We added various scripted interactions leveraging new features, fully implemented the main method of Potential acquisition for Unknown, some mechanics for new secrets, a new special item ability, finalised new items and various other little things. At this point we're mainly adding encounters and randomised loot and we should have the insider release ready some time this week.

We also finally solved a difficult problem with physique morphing of armour and apparel that doesn't really follow the shape of the body and might stick out quite far in weird directions. You may have noticed these problems with some of the tournament reward armours and particularly tall hats. We needed a whole new approach to avoid even slight unwanted distortion and performance was actually a concern as we sometimes need to morph hundreds of items in one go. The new approach works perfectly and performs well no matter what you throw at it, so Zeth can go wild with his armour designs.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[Technomancer]

9/10/23

The update has been in testing for a couple of days and it has been going well, most issues reported so far were content and other minor issues that were easy to fix. We've already patched the test build once and we'll keep testing and monitoring things over the next few days as we also add some final touches to the new content, and if things are quiet enough we should be able to get a little more general polish and QoL type stuff in. So far it certainly looks like we should be on schedule to get the full public release out within a week.

It's certainly taken a while, once again, but it is a massive update and we've hit a bunch of really big development milestones. There's plenty more to come though and we're eager to get started on the next chapter and all the often small, but valuable features and improvements.

After some consideration, we are planning to change the frequency of the coffee diaries from here on to just once per month rather than once per week. We feel that with the general flow of development and mostly how often we just can't openly discuss what we're working on because of spoilers, especially at this stage, it's difficult for us to provide enough interesting information weekly that isn't just vague and cryptic. This might also make the diaries more suitable for the Steam news section and website.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[Technomancer]

Exanima 0.9

Force, story content and many improvements.

It's finally here, our biggest and grandest update yet. We go deeper still into the underworld on the heels of a recent disturbance to discover its source. Explore a huge new area to discover its secrets and face formidable foes therein. Unlock new powers as you traverse redesigned locations and seek out hidden places and new and updated items. New gameplay and storytelling mechanics and a slew of improvements provide the best Exanima experience yet.

FORCE THAUMATURGY

The Force thaumaturgy domain is here adding a variety of new powers that change how you approach the game. Force is all about physics which is Exanima's forte and we've worked hard to make this something special not just in terms of physics, but also effects, AI interactions and all those things that give Exanima that extra depth and unique gameplay.

With Force introduced there are now very meaningful build choices. Both domains are accessible, you can specialise in either one or be a hybrid, more skills are implemented and come into play both in terms of requirements and making the most of Force, with the balance of combat and mental skills also being more important than ever.

The thaumaturgy UI has been updated to support all this and other new mechanics. An important mechanic we're introducing is Potential for the scaling of powers, which while still not complete, already provides new story elements and objectives, and will support more build variety and strategic elements. There is also a new Mind power unlocked through the Revelation skill technique.

LOTS OF NEW CONTENT

A huge new area is included in this update, the largest one yet, packed with new and unique features and taking advantage of how our engine has evolved to support more complex environments. This is an important area in terms of lore, progressing the story and featuring some special new encounters.

The first 3 levels of the game have received a big overhaul, with lots of unique features, details and many new secrets to find. New items have been introduced as early as the first levels, and many items throughout the game have been completely overhauled and adapted to our procedural system. The procedural systems itself has also been updated and improved, important new materials have been added giving new variety to all items.

NEW 3D DYNAMIC PATHFINDING

We've developed an all new pathfinding system to improve movement, AI, support more complex level design with more verticality and layers and more interactions with the environment. This new system is dynamic and 3D, based on the actual shape of objects, this means for example a table is a completely different obstacle when flipped on its side, or could even be used as ramp. You can walk on any surface and create new paths that even the AI can understand, you can walk over and under things and AI can navigate complex environments with multiple layers.

Player movement in general is also improved, it is more fluid as there are no more artificial obstacles and everything is accurate to the shape of the environment and objects. You will no longer get snagged on corners or stopped in places that you should be able to cross.



IMPROVED OBJECT INTERACTION

There have been some important additions and improvements to how you're able to interact with objects. We know this could feel fiddly and unintuitive, and we've made many improvements to solve these issues.

Objects will no longer snap back to their original position when you try to place them in an invalid position, but rather will move to the last valid position you defined. You can still cancel the movement to snap objects back to their original position by pressing the right mouse button. Placing objects over voids is also much easier, it now always works intuitively without having to target something with the cursor.

There is a new way to move objects triggered by holding Interact when picking them up. This will physically drag the object with the cursor rather than select a new target position. This is useful for making smaller adjustments to an object's position, but importantly can also be used to drag objects with you as you walk using the movement keys. Dragging of bodies and now objects has also been made much more intuitive, accepting position inputs even if they're outside of your interaction range.



ENVIRONMENT IMPACT AND FALL DAMAGE

In a game with as much physics as Exanima, and especially with the introduction of Force, it was important that general impacts could deal damage, not just ones tied to combat actions. This was something we attempted before, but had to abandon because it behaved too unpredictably. This time around we've developed a stable and detailed damage system for general collisions and various core improvements to our physics engine support it well.



NARRATOR AND SCRIPTED EVENTS

A new, but long planned, feature we call the "narrator" is an important new tool in story and gameplay. This is of course text based, it provides information, feedback and special interactions to the player. It comes with various new important scripted events and lore exposition, but we still have many more uses for it in future.



AI SYSTEM UPDATES

Exanima features a unique AI system where characters aren't scripted to do specific things but are driven organically by emotions and other mental states. They can become distracted, curious, agitated, concerned, angry, scared, surprised etc. by varying degrees and can form specific relationships with every other character they encounter. So far this has all been limited to responding to other characters, but now we have rebuilt it on a new framework that allows AI to perceive, understand and engage with anything in their environment, with lots of new tools to guide their decisions and behaviour.

This was important for intelligent interactions with things like Force powers, and we made some core improvements along the way, but it is the foundation for many new AI behaviours that also extend far beyond combat situations. This is a particularly important step for Exanima's 0.95 update, which will focus on more NPCs with more complex behaviours.

There have been various other specific improvements to AI, high level tactics and importantly the ability to use special abilities and powers, which will feature more and more in the game. In general though AI is important to us as we think it's fundamental to a compelling and immersive experience. We will always continue to improve and expand on it.



AND MANY OTHER THINGS

We've hit some major development milestones with this update and as always we've added that extra depth and attention to detail with everything, which is what makes Exanima special. Exanima is built on our own custom engine and we have done much work on physics, AI, graphics and much more to support these new features and to provide an ever improving, more immersive gameplay experience.

We have polished a great many aspects of the game and we have worked hard to build and update systems that may not always add much immediate value, but support the constant evolution of the game and the many features we still want to add. The pieces are coming together and we are focusing more and more on content and features as this platform we've built becomes solid and complete.



Note that due to the very extensive changes, current story saves will be wiped. Arena saves will be converted and should result essentially unchanged.


Changelog for version 0.9:

• Force thaumaturgy, with 11 new powers and more to come
  
  
• Huge new area to explore, new lore, encounters and items
  
  
• Big overhaul of first 3 levels
  
  
• Over 50 new and remastered procedural items
  
  
• Multiple thaumaturgy domain mechanics
  
  
• New Mind power through revelation mechanic
  
  
• New 3D pathfinding system with dynamic paths
  • Allows for multiple overlapping layers of depth
    
    
  • Walk on any surface without artificial obstacles
    
    
  • Create dynamic paths that even AI can understand
    
    
  • More fluid and accurate movement
• General impact and fall damage system
  
  
• New "Narrator" gives information, feedback and special interactions
  
  
• AI can now use powers and special abilities
  
  
• Important AI general tactics improvements
  
  
• Many AI behavioural improvements
  
  
• Improved object interaction
  
  
• New drag object interaction mode
  
  
• New procedural materials and item features
  
  
• Improved item description systems
  
  
• Item captions are now coloured to indicate quality
  
  
• You can now play dead after recovering from unconsciousness
  
  
• Big performance improvements
  
  
• Core graphics engine and material improvements
  
  
• New "ultra" shading setting with specular GI
  
  
• Improved dynamic "death animations"
  
  
• Various improvements to footwork and character motion
  
  
• Important fundamental physics engine improvements
  
  
• Greatly improved loading times
  
  
• Greatly improved latency with vsync enabled
  
  
• Improved selection and interaction with small objects
  
  
• Brushes can now also clean weapons
  
  
• Core physics engine improvements
  
  
• Huge number of fixes

Best,

Bare Mettle

 

[thesecret1]

Brushes can now also clean weapons

HYPE!!!

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

And here I was trying to think of what to play next now that I finished WotR. It looks like my backlog will continue to take a back seat.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I couldn't patch it, so I reinstalled from the new version. This game runs so smooth. I can't say how much they've revamped the early areas, but I do notice a few different things. Force Thaumatury is awesome, but I suspect it's going to gimp me in the long run. It's certainly diminishing my skills. I can blast people then Derrin and I pummel them while they get up. Drastically improves survivability. Being knocked senseless by someone's mind seems to terrify the denizens of the maze too. They run away more than I recall. I might be at a game-over though. After equipping Derrin, he clipped through a door where his shield is one one side and he is on the other. The door cannot be opened and he cannot stand up. I can't unequip it from him because he can't talk while he's flailing on the ground. Sheesh.

 

[Technomancer]

The door cannot be opened and he cannot stand up. I can't unequip it from him because he can't talk while he's flailing on the ground. Sheesh.

I think it gets unfucked if you go away far enough. Derrin will just teleport to you. If not, then level transition will do it.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

The door cannot be opened and he cannot stand up. I can't unequip it from him because he can't talk while he's flailing on the ground. Sheesh.

I think it gets unfucked if you go away far enough. Derrin will just teleport to you. If not, then level transition will do it.

Unfortunately, he's got me trapped in a small bedchamber. The only way out is the door he's clipped through.

 

[Technomancer]

16/10/23

We finally managed to get the update out on Friday and it seems people are really enjoying it. We're hunting down a few bugs and we'll be doing some hotfixes over the next few days. Once things settle down we'll be spending a bit of time making improvements and gathering feedback on Force and other features.

We've already heard a bit of feedback along the lines of Force feeling overpowered. In its current state this is true, but along with whatever general adjustments we might make it's important to note that once Potential scaling is introduced most powers will initially be weaker, and will grow stronger with progression. We also plan to make a lot of the late game content significantly more challenging, to the point where powers and various things like special items will feel like important strategic tools. We will however also be introducing some mechanics for saving your progress or escaping death, which will make eventual failures less punishing.

One of the things we're currently investigating is excessive tripping or loss of balance. This seems to often be caused by a bug where your character loses balance for no good reason, but we'd also like to improve general character stability so that they're better at negotiating uneven ground and movement feels more fluid.

Once we're past this polishing phase we should be quickly returning to normal development. There's a number of relatively smaller features and improvements we've been working on that we'd like to release in a smaller update in the near future, and then we're on to 0.9.5 which is the next major update. The focus of this update will be a new area, more NPCs and lots of new behaviours as well as new dialogue for them based on further development of the role system. As always this will come with plenty of other new features, and with the major development goal only being the role system upgrades this time, we should be able to get some other juicy bits in.

Finally, we'd like to give a big thank you to our testers without whom the update wouldn't have been possible.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[JarlFrank]

I completely agree with Technomancer here, I'd rather have Madoc spend 20 years on creating his perfect vision than getting a toned-down version one year from now.

I've been playing games for most of my life - started when I was 3 years old, and I'm 35 now. I played a lot. I saw the ups and downs of the game industry from the early 90s onward. I once was a young and optimistic kid who thought games would only get better with every year, but then the mid-00s happened and everything declined. Since then, my gaming experience has been one of broken dreams. Where in the 90s and early 00s there were many highly ambitious games that ended up flawed not because they scaled down, but because the devs bit off more than they could chew, from the late 00s onward we entered the era of "just good enough". We no longer got hugely ambitious but flawed games, but reasonably-scaled and well-polished ones.

But it's the insanely ambitious flawed gems that I remember most fondly. I don't want "good enough" anymore. The past 15 years have been a time of good enough release after good enough release. Solid, polished - but rarely dreaming big.

I want to dream big. I want all those cool features I fantasized about as a kid to finally be implemented for real. More complexity, more simulationism, the stuff developers once dared to dream of but then scrapped because it's not economical.

Madoc is a man of my own heart, and I sincerely wish for him to continue doing what he does until he finally realized his vision.
Yes, give me 50 layers of clothing and armor, give me dynamic metal degradation on swords and breastplates, give me intricate physics simulations whenever blades meet!
Don't pare it down to something "reasonable". We've had reasonable for over a decade. It's time to dream again.

 

[Technomancer]

Madoc is a man of my own heart

For peeps who are still dreamers about games like you and me, he is definitely the one to follow as one of the few developers who actually try to innovate.

 

[Lyre Mors]

I completely agree with @Technomancer here, I'd rather have Madoc spend 20 years on creating his perfect vision than getting a toned-down version one year from now.

I've been playing games for most of my life - started when I was 3 years old, and I'm 35 now. I played a lot. I saw the ups and downs of the game industry from the early 90s onward. I once was a young and optimistic kid who thought games would only get better with every year, but then the mid-00s happened and everything declined. Since then, my gaming experience has been one of broken dreams. Where in the 90s and early 00s there were many highly ambitious games that ended up flawed not because they scaled down, but because the devs bit off more than they could chew, from the late 00s onward we entered the era of "just good enough". We no longer got hugely ambitious but flawed games, but reasonably-scaled and well-polished ones.

But it's the insanely ambitious flawed gems that I remember most fondly. I don't want "good enough" anymore. The past 15 years have been a time of good enough release after good enough release. Solid, polished - but rarely dreaming big.

I want to dream big. I want all those cool features I fantasized about as a kid to finally be implemented for real. More complexity, more simulationism, the stuff developers once dared to dream of but then scrapped because it's not economical.

Madoc is a man of my own heart, and I sincerely wish for him to continue doing what he does until he finally realized his vision.
Yes, give me 50 layers of clothing and armor, give me dynamic metal degradation on swords and breastplates, give me intricate physics simulations whenever blades meet!
Don't pare it down to something "reasonable". We've had reasonable for over a decade. It's time to dream again.

This is extremely romantic and something that I ultimately support. However, I do think there is a bit of a middle-ground that could have been achieved here, particularly in regards to Exanima. A very simple way that myself - and I'm sure many others - would have been appeased and satisfied with what they paid for is by making the campaign completable. Continue to fiddle, and futz, and procedurally generate weapon textures, and do whatever else he ultimately wants to be in Sui Generis, but see the initial project through to at least one of the smallest degrees, then continue to dream big. Build on top of that completed prototype - dream on a foundation.

I don't know man, I'm not an enemy of dreaming and innovation in games. I just bought something almost 9 years ago, and I want to be able to somewhat play it to completion. Then maybe I could come back with some fresh, less cynical eyes about it someday, play it, and truly appreciate all those little things that weren't there on the first playthrough. I don't think that's unreasonable, even as a supporter of dreamers.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Yeah, it's a question of priorities. Whether or not you're going to implement realistic cloth physics or whatever, there are certain things that every game needs and those should be dealt with first. It's less sexy but at the end of the day it's simply common sense, and doesn't stand opposed to ambition at all.

 

[vitellus]

innovate

yet when devs try to deviate from the norm, certain sections of the rpg community as a whole...

like, i love neat shit and love my janky fucked up games as they're the only one who'll provide a neat experience, but holy fuck if you want to try to change it up and represent stats as geometric shapes or do away with the shit-six-stats games have been using in one name or another for forty some-odd years then the reaction is the gif above from the aforementioned loud group of people.

i've been really on the fence about this game, but seeing as it is still being updated and worked on, fuck it it's only fifteen dollarydoos to let a guy jerk off and rub peanut butter in his hair.

 

[oldbonebrown]

Are bows still in the plan?
A janky bow I can't hit anything with has been my wish every since I bought the game many years ago

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Does this game have *anything* else going on for it other than the wonky physics?

 

[Technomancer]

Are bows still in the plan?

Sure, post 1.0 though.

Does this game have *anything* else going on for it other than the wonky physics?

Beautiful graphics and yet outstanding performance (I dare you to find something that looks like this and is optimized better), immersive realistic vibe and great environmental storytelling, thousands of custom made assets, unique items that actually feel and play unique instead of being boring +1 stat boosts, fun and fairly original magic.

Its still somewhat light on story though. There is a lot of lore laying around but it only provides glimpses of greater puzzle, not enough to piece it together. Next update will focus on it big time and will introduce new NPC and a lot of new dialogue and AI reactions so I would wait for that. Game will feel more like RPG than just dungeon crawler.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

One thing that has gotten a bit old for me with Examina is the looting. Looting is so slow. Comparing equipment is so slow. Items are often so similar in qualities that the only decent way to compare them is by superimposing their details window over each other and seeing what (doesn't) overlap. I didn't mind it too much at first (a decade ago, lol), but now I'd like it to be faster. Going through containers is also a bit tedious. It's not helped by their level design sensibilities, where they like to put a valuable chest under rubbish or simply on a shelf. When the game is populated by rubbish and widgets to get the immersion right, it forces you to click on every damn hammer or tool you come across as it might be better than whatever you're currently wielding. While it starts as gritty and methodical, it becomes a bit of a slog.

 

[Technomancer]

Comparing equipment is so slow. Items are often so similar in qualities that the only decent way to compare them is by superimposing their details window over each other and seeing what (doesn't) overlap.

At least they added item coloring for notable gear. Good thing its not usual diablo green-blue-puprle-orange though. Would look like shit.

it forces you to click on every damn hammer or tool you come across as it might be better than

What's even worse I think every little item you inspect gives you XP so you are rewarded for doing it

 

[oldbonebrown]

Does this game have *anything* else going on for it other than the wonky physics?

A really nice sense of dungeon crawling.