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KickStarter Swordhaven: Iron Conspiracy - BG1-inspired low fantasy RPG From the ATOM TEAM - Early Access on December 12th

Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,392
Baldur's Gate 1 had this unbelievable atmosphere and charm, that none of these shit spiritual sequels like Kingmaker, PoE, Dragon Age, etc ever came close to touching. Hope these guys can do it.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,958
Charm was never a defining quality in BG1.

I think where BG1 shone was in its world building (Iron crisis, upcoming war, bandits problem) and personal stakes and how these things became a single one by the end. There was a pervading darkness everywhere you went, with greed, lust and murder present in every location. You were being hunted, on the run, with a party that seemed to come apart at the seams every time you made a moral choice, with nowhere to go back to and no real lead on where to go next, you are free from the start to do as you please, with a few suggestions here and there..

After playing atom and Trudograd I believe Atom can pull off that type of writing.
 

Tenebris

Scholar
Joined
Sep 18, 2017
Messages
278
Looking forward to it! I hope it has a cozy introduction. I always liked going around Candlekeep in BG1 and playing through the Harvest Festival in NWN2. I always felt that some developers these days are too afraid to ease you into the world and just dump you right into the action.
 
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MerchantKing

Learned
Joined
Jun 5, 2023
Messages
1,628
ss_fd7f07e08c2a35ebb444d9e914dadf52e5ca801c.jpg

What's that meter on the left?
And I hope party can have more than just 2 members as shown on screens.
This would have looked better with sprites
 

Lyre Mors

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
5,434
I still haven't even played through Trudograd yet, but know this will be a day-one purchase for me. Wish it was out right now. Exactly what I'm in the mood for right now and can't find shit to scratch that itch. Such is the fate of the CRPG-lover.
 

Feyd Rautha

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
2,071
Location
Nestled atop the cliffs
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
It's everything I wished for! I love BG1 and you couldn't have chosen a better source of inspiration. Also I love the ATOM games and I haven't been so immersed in a game world while playing a game for years.

I have for a very long time wished for a good system to switch between turn based and real-time, depending on the combat situation. And I hope you manage to implement it in a satisfying way because it has the potential to make the game very dynamic.

I also love all the references and nods to the good old games like the BG-font etc.

And please don't make the game political by writing dialogue and characters in order to please the progressives in the west, they already have a lot of games written for them. Just stay true to yourself.

What do you say about this post from some pages back?
 

flushfire

Augur
Joined
Jun 10, 2006
Messages
782
And please don't make the game political by writing dialogue and characters in order to please the progressives in the west, they already have a lot of games written for them. Just stay true to yourself.
I don't think it even has to be said. From their past work and Atomboy's activity here I really don't see any indication it might happen. What's more likely is there'll be a parody of it somewhere.
 

Cvilidreta

Novice
Joined
May 20, 2021
Messages
46
the "isometric-view-with-selection-circles-inspired-by-BG"-ad doesn't really work with me by now
 

Zboj Lamignat

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
5,777
A lot of screenshots show empty forest areas, so it's a very in-your-face kind of inspiration.

Jokes aside, looks interesting and I'm not surprised people have loads of goodwill after ATOM so all power to those guys.
 

d1r

Single handedly funding SMTVI
Patron
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
4,326
Location
Germany
Baldur's Gate 1 had this unbelievable atmosphere and charm, that none of these shit spiritual sequels like Kingmaker, PoE, Dragon Age, etc ever came close to touching. Hope these guys can do it.
Not possible because this game will be 3D.
 

Serus

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
6,947
Location
Small but great planet of Potatohole
ss_fd7f07e08c2a35ebb444d9e914dadf52e5ca801c.jpg

What's that meter on the left?
And I hope party can have more than just 2 members as shown on screens.
This would have looked better with sprites

I don't know about sprites but at least that would force them to make a fixed camera. Looking at the screenshots the game has a moving one. This obviously screams "we are lazy" but i can understand that. More importantly however, camera with bad controls is one of the worst issues i have with modern crpgs, and i'm not the only one. What chance is that we will get good camera controls? I don't remember, how it worked in Atom?

Edit: spelling errors
 
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Serus

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
6,947
Location
Small but great planet of Potatohole
This would have looked better with sprites
:kingcomrade:

nah, it shoulda been text based. 16 times the prestigiousness
CYOA is prestigious? Since when?

Seriously now. Sprites is just an aesthetic, technical and financial choice. There are many games made today using sprites. Many are talked about on this site. They aren't high budget ones but Atom RPG wasn't made by a big studio. It would be, in theory, possible but won't happen.
 

flushfire

Augur
Joined
Jun 10, 2006
Messages
782
I don't remember, how it worked in Atom?
Atom initially had a freely movable camera, controls were basic, zoom level is satisfactory. Iirc at the time was never criticized. A locked iso view option was later released, people liked it afaik.
 

Atomboy

Atom Team
Developer
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
734
I don't remember, how it worked in Atom?
Atom initially had a freely movable camera, controls were basic, zoom level is satisfactory. Iirc at the time was never criticized. A locked iso view option was later released, people liked it afaik.
This time we're building isometry in from the get go, so they won't have to wait!
A lot of screenshots show empty forest areas, so it's a very in-your-face kind of inspiration.

Jokes aside, looks interesting and I'm not surprised people have loads of goodwill after ATOM so all power to those guys.
Thanks man! They're not truly empty though, you will find loot too! Weŗe learning...

It's everything I wished for! I love BG1 and you couldn't have chosen a better source of inspiration. Also I love the ATOM games and I haven't been so immersed in a game world while playing a game for years.

I have for a very long time wished for a good system to switch between turn based and real-time, depending on the combat situation. And I hope you manage to implement it in a satisfying way because it has the potential to make the game very dynamic.

I also love all the references and nods to the good old games like the BG-font etc.

And please don't make the game political by writing dialogue and characters in order to please the progressives in the west, they already have a lot of games written for them. Just stay true to yourself.

What do you say about this post from some pages back?
Thank you dude, weļl do our best with the two mode option, but it might be a WIP for some time. Will it reach the satisfying mark? Probably in time! The guys already made a discord and weŗe listening to some suggestions even now, and there will be more work with the community when we pop out the demo. Hopefully with player feedback this one will outshine our previous work! We have the same artist we always had, so the portraits will be still made by the same hand, and they're pretty colorful and real looking, but from what I can tell he changed the style slightly for this, like if you put an Atom RPG guy next to one of the current portraits, they won't look like they came from the same game. But maybe that's because they are round instead of square. I'm a bad person to ask, since I don't really understand visual art. A portrait pack may be cobbled up if we won't forget! And chain bikinis, doubtful. We're taking a lot of inspiration from old fencing manuals, text books, other historical stuff, so there hopefully won't be anything too out there. Though there might be! I mean I wanted to make combat realistic, but in the current builds you launch a fella with your maul and he flies off 5 meters hitting his buddy and knocking them both out cold for you to coup de grass tyson em into oblivion at your leisure.
And please don't make the game political by writing dialogue and characters in order to please the progressives in the west, they already have a lot of games written for them. Just stay true to yourself.
I don't think it even has to be said. From their past work and Atomboy's activity here I really don't see any indication it might happen. What's more likely is there'll be a parody of it somewhere.
We're trying our best to tell a straight serious story this time, so I doubt there even will be parodies. Any nod to modern stuff, be it a reference to a pop culture thing, or even less a reference to some cultural or political thing from modernity goes through 10 edits and usually dies before getting into the actual game. This way Swordhaven will be like a third addition to a fanciful triptych of sorts: you have ATOM that is a parody, Trudograd which is much less a parody, and now Swordhaven that just isn't a parody. That's stylish!
Wishlisted. Everything that comes from the Atom Team is
:d1p:
for me.
Thanks man!
Wishlisted the game. After playing Black Geyser my itch for BG1 style games became even worse. I hope ATOM guys can deliver.
Thank you! Hope so too!
Will you be able to kill Drizzt not-do'urden by dialogue locking him?
We don't have a stand-in for him yet!
Atomboy Probably a redundant question for you guys, but is it 2 genders only?
We have sex, origin story, voice, char model and portrait selector at the start like in previous games, no deeper customization than usual.
I still haven't even played through Trudograd yet, but know this will be a day-one purchase for me. Wish it was out right now. Exactly what I'm in the mood for right now and can't find shit to scratch that itch. Such is the fate of the CRPG-lover.
Ohhh, that itch is gonna have to wait, sorry! We're far from finishing! Thank you!
Charm was never a defining quality in BG1.

I think where BG1 shone was in its world building (Iron crisis, upcoming war, bandits problem) and personal stakes and how these things became a single one by the end. There was a pervading darkness everywhere you went, with greed, lust and murder present in every location. You were being hunted, on the run, with a party that seemed to come apart at the seams every time you made a moral choice, with nowhere to go back to and no real lead on where to go next, you are free from the start to do as you please, with a few suggestions here and there..

After playing atom and Trudograd I believe Atom can pull off that type of writing.
Yup, we're going the free to go wherever route, but we'll try to make suggestions better than in Atom where people go to top tier monster areas from the start then think the game is unfair. No level scaling this time, but lots and lots of NPCs and suggestive map design that will tell you to stay away from a place unless you know what you're doing.
Looking forward to it! I hope it has a cozy introduction. I always liked going around Candlekeep in BG1 and playing through the Harvest Festival in NWN2. I always felt that some developers these days are too afraid to ease you into the world and just dump you right into the action.
Thanks dude. Well, the starting location will be like a microcosm of the whole game, with quests that will teach you the basics of everything, not like a tutorial, but just because some demand item use, some demand combat, some demand talking, some demand thinking outside the box, etc, etc, but you can just walk out and go on your way without even interacting with anything.

Baldur's Gate 1 had this unbelievable atmosphere and charm, that none of these shit spiritual sequels like Kingmaker, PoE, Dragon Age, etc ever came close to touching. Hope these guys can do it.
Thanks man, we played a lot of it in the last few years, hopefully some of it sticks.
Atomboy , will there be an early access release or a Kickstarter campaign?
We'll post more details soon, but yeah, we'll go for the exact milestones as previously, namely EA.

Congratulations Atomboy! I am 100% supporting this project.
Thank you!
please work on the AI. No idea what state it is in, but one of the reasons RPGs almost always have shit combat is because of braindead AI that does nothing but attack nearest target. I don't think AI scripting has to be complex, it just has to do things that trouble players.
Good AI is a must have for us. Currently it's just as you describe, but we're working on something more cool for the demo. I made a lizard that can do AOE attacks and rats that strategically avoid and circle you. More to come for sure, before we're public.
ss_fd7f07e08c2a35ebb444d9e914dadf52e5ca801c.jpg

What's that meter on the left?
And I hope party can have more than just 2 members as shown on screens.
Why do all the TB iso games except Archaelund feel the need to put big ugly bars over/under every character? Do the think the player cannot understand concepts such as X out of Y and need shapes to help them conceptualize it?
That's not even the full example of how it will look eventually. You'll have bars, armor rating, conditions the character \ enemy has (like bleeding or blind) etc etc. The "philosophy" behind that is to make everything really obvious. It was a damn shame, how some guys didn't even understand how armor worked in Trudograd and what not. So now I'm pro-showing-everything-on-screen. I guess we'll make the bars toggleable though. But it will only work for veterans of our combat system, because it can get tricky even now as a WIP.
You’ve got a nice looking game there, why fuck it up with all that? Put the info on hover over portrait icons, on hover over NPCs, or displayed over all combatants only when a key is toggled.
Call it a phobia or whatnot, but players not understanding ATOM's mechanics really traumatized me, so I'm going with as much info as possible on the screen at all times. Of course, we also have user customization as a priority, so I think you'll be able to turn all these off from the menu if you wanna.
Looks pretty. I am really hoping for it to be pretty. BG3 is an eye candy and I love this aspect of it because of dungeons, dynamic lighting and stuff, it looks great (except for sunlit areas which look rubbish) and makes me feel cozy. Also the fluidity of TB combat, BG3 got it right with seamless, dynamic animation (albeit with wonky interface feedback). Watching a 3d model approaching its target, stopping, then awkwardly flailing its weapon and its target reacting vaguely with delay always cringed me. TB games shouldn’t be slow!
Oooh, I really doubt we'll be competing with BG3. I mean that's like a tripple A game, and we're mostly Unity powered. We're trying to pretty it up pretty hard though.
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
5,419
I mean I wanted to make combat realistic, but in the current builds you launch a fella with your maul and he flies off 5 meters hitting his buddy and knocking them both out cold for you to coup de grass tyson em into oblivion at your leisure.
That actually sounds cool. Too many games lack physicality in combat. Tripping one guy into another should be a viable tactic.

We're trying our best to tell a straight serious story this time, so I doubt there even will be parodies. Any nod to modern stuff, be it a reference to a pop culture thing, or even less a reference to some cultural or political thing from modernity goes through 10 edits and usually dies before getting into the actual game. This way Swordhaven will be like a third addition to a fanciful triptych of sorts: you have ATOM that is a parody, Trudograd which is much less a parody, and now Swordhaven that just isn't a parody. That's stylish!
References can be good, as long as they aren't too out-of-place or too direct.
 

Mud'

Scholar
Joined
Oct 9, 2018
Messages
233
Very excited to see this, loved ATOM and the expansion, def gonna back this when it comes out, more so because i love low fantasy stuff
 

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