KickStarter Vigilantes: neo-noir, turn based tactical RPG

[Timeslip]

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/958692255/vigilantes-a-crime-themed-turn-based-tactical-rpg
Steam Greenlight: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=746883233

http://timeslipsoftworks.com/Vigilantes

Spoiler

Thread Update:

• At this point, Vigilantes has been Greenlit and successfully funded on Kickstarter. More than 5% of the funding came from RPG Codex, so thanks for the support!
• The Kickstarter has allowed us to build a substantially bigger, better game. Dozens of features and tweaks have been added using the KS funding, such as interrogation, the ability to target body parts, more mission types, enemies who can flee and level up, different melee attack modes, shotgun cone of fire, a dynamic gang strategic AI, weapon crafting, temporary allies, to name a few. These features are not present in the demo.
• Vigilantes is on Steam and leaves EA on 4th October 2018.

Hello all,

I'd like to introduce the game I've spent over 4,000 hours working on since November 2014. Vigilantes is a crime themed, turn based tactical RPG inspired by the classics of the 90's, such as Fallout, X-Com, and Jagged Alliance. I've always had a passion for TB RPG's since I was young, and since getting into game development several years ago, have always wanted to make a meaningful contribution to the genre.



Here's an image of the main menu from Vigilantes, with the protagonist, Sam Contino, looking a little worse for wear.

The goal with Vigilantes was to create a turn based tactical RPG in a setting not commonly associated with the genre (a modern, crime riddled city), with very solid combat mechanics, and to avoid the current trend of simplifying RPG character systems. If you'd like to check out the (somewhat outdated demo), you can find it [here].


If you'd like to see the game in action, you can see a super quick playthrough of the first missions below:


Vigilantes is a combat RPG, but maintains a strong emphasis on story telling. Here's an intro video for one of the allies you will encounter in the alpha:

 

[CryptRat]

Hi,

My impression after playing the alpha is not really positive, but I hope you'll still find some useful stuff in my feedback, I think the final game could be good.

What I like :
- The character sheet and how specialization is divided between points and perks.
- The stat checks
- The AP system
- The equipement and in particular the shop, you're not over overloaded with money and you have to choose what to buy ; I imagine they'll be different specific armors as the game advances. I haven't dug enough to be sure but weapons seem rightly various.

What I don't like :
- The game runs like shit on lowest settings on my pc, which is not a warmachine but most games run fine.
- The maps in the alpha are terribly boring, you need some good layouts (with enemies which are not all visible from the start), interactive environnement, bigger maps. Besides the game is mission based so you need to vary objectives, not only " kill every enemy" missions. Honestly if these were the 9 first missions of the game, I would probably not even have played that far.
- The characters (enemies like player ones) have too many HPs.
- Sure armor breaking is cool, but the combat needs a lot more variety : for example injuries (which shortens movement, AP reduction or similar things based on the injury), aimed shots (targeting body parts), characters must fall, be stunned (well you can technically when hitten by a blunt weapon but it's not enough), chemical grenades (and then maybe masks)...

 

[Timeslip]

Hi CryptRat,

Thanks for taking the time to try out Vigilantes. Definitely some useful insights here. Sorry to hear that your experience with it wasn't great. As for performance, would you mind letting me know what your specs are?

To address some of your issues:
- The maps are more like instances for combat, rather than hubs to explore, but there will be some bigger ones. I'll also look at adding some Hold area missions also.
- Reducing enemy HP to make the battles play out a little faster is something I've been considering. Is faster combat resolution the reason you'd like to see enemy HP reduced?
- Injuries are partially implemented, but I've removed them for the alpha (You might notice there is an unused "Resilience" derived stat). I'm looking at the chance of your character picking up an injury when critically hit by an enemy. Then you can either wait for injury to heal, try to fix it yourself, or visit doc (the first level NPC) to get it fixed

The game's by no means set in stone, and I'm working as hard as possible to make it the best game it can be. Thanks again!

 

[CryptRat]

Thanks for you answers, all this stuff looks good.

- Reducing enemy HP to make the battles play out a little faster is something I've been considering. Is faster combat resolution the reason you'd like to see enemy HP reduced?!

Well, yes, it would make battles faster and you'll have more chances to fail fair battles (both because you're doing wrong or because you're unlucky).

To elaborate :
Taking advantage of the initiative will be stronger.
In current state sometimes two characters spend some substantial time shooting at each other. You can always heal yourself before dying even when exposed, that's understandable when the character is covered or when only one character is targeting him/her but it becomes problematic when he/she's exposed or even surrounded.
I think the chances to hit are just fine, the armor works fine too (and it can be easily broken, which is a really good feature) but the hps are a little high (or the damage too low of course), if you manage to shoot a character two times in a row then he should die, it's up to the player to take appropriate cover or charge with melee weapon in the right timing.

 

[Excidium II]

I like this concept, will check it out when it's out.

 

[Declinator]

Played the first two missions and will probably later play some more but some things which popped out:

-Firearms & explosives skills determining the amount of damage you do is rather questionable. I think they should only affect accuracy.

-You can only shoot at the enemies by aiming at the tile they are on and not on their bodies as in something like JA2. Not too big a deal but certainly something that wasn't necessarily intuitive.

-No quick keys for actions?

-The game says that "you are already receiving a greater bonus from cover" when I try to crouch. Am I correct in assuming then that crouch is only something used on open ground? Seems strange to not simply make it so you can both be crouched and in cover (and by doing so receiving a greater bonus)

-Buy and sell are separate which seems unnecessary. Could you not simply have "seller inventory" and "your inventory" side-by-side like most games?

-When you shoot two times from behind a corner the guy moves out from behind the corner on the first shot but doesn't do so the second time. I know not whether this piece of animation affects accuracy or whether it was simply coincidental that my second shots keep missing in such situations.

-The AI seems a bit indecisive. One guy decided to forego his pistol and start using his fists, closed in on me, and the next turn he took out his pistol again.

 

[Timeslip]

To elaborate :
Taking advantage of the initiative will be stronger.
In current state sometimes two characters spend some substantial time shooting at each other. You can always heal yourself before dying even when exposed, that's understandable when the character is covered or when only one character is targeting him/her but it becomes problematic when he/she's exposed or even surrounded.
I think the chances to hit are just fine, the armor works fine too (and it can be easily broken, which is a really good feature) but the hps are a little high (or the damage too low of course), if you manage to shoot a character two times in a row then he should die, it's up to the player to take appropriate cover or charge with melee weapon in the right timing.

Thanks CryptRat. I will look at tweaking damage and enemy HP. If you are looking for a weapon with decent punch, check out the Normandy rifle, and make some hotloaded ammo, it will kill most enemies in a single shot. I take your point though, when using lower tier weapons, like the basic pistol.

I like this concept, will check it out when it's out.

Thanks Excidium II. I'll do my best to make it as good as possible!

 

[Timeslip]

Played the first two missions and will probably later play some more but some things which popped out:

-Firearms & explosives skills determining the amount of damage you do is rather questionable. I think they should only affect accuracy.

Cheers for trying it out. I'm not sure on the scaling of Firearms/Explosives with the linked skills yet, there's a good chance it may be lower in the final release. Can I ask why you aren't too keen on it working like this?

-You can only shoot at the enemies by aiming at the tile they are on and not on their bodies as in something like JA2. Not too big a deal but certainly something that wasn't necessarily intuitive.

I've noticed mouseover detection problems when a character is obstructed on a couple of RPGs, so went for this approach, as it seemed a more reliable/less frustrating solution.

-No quick keys for actions?

Have been meaning to add this. I guess reload and crouch would be good to have quick keys for. Anything else?

-The game says that "you are already receiving a greater bonus from cover" when I try to crouch. Am I correct in assuming then that crouch is only something used on open ground? Seems strange to not simply make it so you can both be crouched and in cover (and by doing so receiving a greater bonus)

Yes, that's how it works. When in cover, you receive slightly better than crouching cover in all directions, and half or full cover bonus in the direction(s) where the cover is present. The decision to do it this way was partly to do with pacing, and partly to do with managing the animation states. Though, a "hunker down" perk could be interesting.

-Buy and sell are separate which seems unnecessary. Could you not simply have "seller inventory" and "your inventory" side-by-side like most games?

I agree, it is a little more cumbersome. It works better from an optimisation point of view, in the case of two inventories with a lot of items. Something to think about.

-When you shoot two times from behind a corner the guy moves out from behind the corner on the first shot but doesn't do so the second time. I know not whether this piece of animation affects accuracy or whether it was simply coincidental that my second shots keep missing in such situations.

This sounds like an error, data not being reset after the character steps out. I'll try to recreate.

-The AI seems a bit indecisive. One guy decided to forego his pistol and start using his fists, closed in on me, and the next turn he took out his pistol again.

It's difficult to say what might be causing this, without looking at the values of the order the AI is using to make decisions. In general, the main AI tries to maximise damage to the player team and is also incentivised for getting closer to the players, so it may have opted to use the AP saved from using unarmed rather than ranged to close the distance. Survivialists would be most likely to behave in the way you described, as they are more proficient with firearms, and are slightly incentivised (from an order scoring perspective) to use ranged weapons.

 

[gaussgunner]

-Firearms & explosives skills determining the amount of damage you do is rather questionable. I think they should only affect accuracy.

Cheers for trying it out. I'm not sure on the scaling of Firearms/Explosives with the linked skills yet, there's a good chance it may be lower in the final release. Can I ask why you aren't too keen on it working like this?

Hmm... accuracy has a direct impact on firearm damage. You could show which body part was hit, and factor that into damage calcs.

Bonus points if you let the player aim for the head, legs, or torso like in JA2, trading off hit chance for higher damage or disablement.
I wouldn't bother with arms.. you may hit them when shooting at the torso but they're such a small target.

But there's nothing wrong with simple "firearm skill determines damage", leaving the details to the imagination.

-The AI seems a bit indecisive. One guy decided to forego his pistol and start using his fists, closed in on me, and the next turn he took out his pistol again.

It's difficult to say what might be causing this, without looking at the values of the order the AI is using to make decisions. In general, the main AI tries to maximise damage to the player team and is also incentivised for getting closer to the players, so it may have opted to use the AP saved from using unarmed rather than ranged to close the distance. Survivialists would be most likely to behave in the way you described, as they are more proficient with firearms, and are slightly incentivised (from an order scoring perspective) to use ranged weapons.

That makes sense. No sense exposing yourself to unnecessary risk. I'd use my gun unless I was particularly worried about running out of ammo, attracting unwanted attention with the noise, or killing the wrong person.

 

[Timeslip]

Bonus points if you let the player aim for the head, legs, or torso like in JA2, trading off hit chance for higher damage or disablement.
I wouldn't bother with arms.. you may hit them when shooting at the torso but they're such a small target.

Likewise, am a fan of the ability to target body parts for different effects. Right now you can spend extra ap to aim/fire a burst, depending on the weapon. Targeting body parts is on the "nice to have" list. From a technical standpoint, it shouldn't be too hard to implement, but trying to do all the development myself is a really big job, so have to focus on the essentials first, and look at adding extra features later, depending on how smoothly development goes and the level of interest in the game.

 

[Timeslip]

Hi again. In case you are interested in AI in general, or in Vigilantes, here's a short development video from a while back, which covers the addition of a "stalker AI". The standard AI has a reasonable amount of variance in behaviour, but closing in and trying to maximise damage isn't the most convincing behaviour for a sniper, so I worked on a different set of behaviours. In the video, I compare the actions of the standard AI with the stalker AI, so you can see how they differ.



AI is one of my favourite parts of game development, but it's probably the most complex component in the game. Adding this new AI took the best part of a week.

 

[Kalin]

 

[anus_pounder]

So this isn't dead?



Having some...issues with my CC and DC atm, so I can't throw money at this project atm, but if somehow it gets on steam greenlight I'd be more than happy to buy several copies for whoever.

 

[Timeslip]

Thanks! I'm currently working on the material for a Greenlight and Kickstarter. Shocking how much work is required for a few minutes of video. CC DC, not familiar with these?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Thanks! I'm currently working on the material for a Greenlight and Kickstarter. Shocking how much work is required for a few minutes of video. CC DC, not familiar with these?

CC Credit Card.
DC Debit Card, bro.

 

[Timeslip]

Ah, cheers!

 

[Infinitron]

From the Codex inbox:

Hi Infinitron,

I hope this email finds you well. My name's Daithi. I'm a developer at Timeslip Softworks, a small, but hard working game development studio based in Ireland. I'm getting in touch to let you know that a preview demo and trailer is now available for Vigilantes, a crime themed, turn based tactical RPG for PC, and that simultaneous Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns are set to launch on September 28th at 12:00 GMT.

Vigilantes features tense tactical battles with fists, firearms and explosives, deep character development, surveillance operations, memorable allies, and a wide range of equipment to loot, buy and craft. It tells the story of Sam Contino, an idealist dragged down the rabbit hole of vigilantism, as he works to bring down the three gangs which dominate the declining city of Reiker: the mafia, paramilitary survivalists, and the Church of the Final Exodus.

Here's a 97 second trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=E11eWGcMGBs
Windows Demo: www.indiedb.com/games/vigilantes/downloads/vigilantes-alpha-10-windows

Vigilantes has all the typical features of a turn based RPG, yet stands out from its peers in a number of areas:

- Avoids typical RPG settings, striking out in its own direction with gritty, neo noir.
- Melee combat is choreographed and fluid to an extent rarely seen in turn based games.
- Avoids the trend of simplifying character systems and gameplay. It's very much old school, with the best of modern design advances.
- Emphasis on atmosphere: memorable allies, deadly opponents, a declining city, brought to life through quality writing, artwork and voice acting.
- Use surveillance to locate gang facilities and leadership. Randomly attacking footsoldiers won't get you anywhere.

You'll find additional information and links below, including a press kit. The web addresses for the Greenlight and Kickstarter campaigns aren't available yet, but I'll send links when they go live.

Should you have any questions, observations, or require further information, please get in touch through this email, or Skype. I'd be happy to talk to you. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Daithi Mc Hugh


Additional:
Vigilantes is Timeslip Softworks' second game (the first being Deadstone, which has 83% positive reviews on Steam), and has been in development since November 2014. A preview demo is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This demo has 2-3 hours of gameplay and is the result of well over 4,000 hours work. It has a near final level of polish, is stable, and is close to feature complete. The final version will have a lot more content (maps, perks, characters, items) a number additional features (injuries, facilities which can be built in your base), and will ditch the preset mission format of the demo in favour of a city map, which allows you to run surveillance operations and choose which missions to launch. The demo is the most up to date version of Vigilantes, but I'd be happy to send on a key, when they are available. If you'd like to meet one of the allies from the demo, here's a voiced intro for Ray Case, private eye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vunEy0xeS1w

A Note On Kickstarter:
I understand why many games journalists are reluctant to cover Kickstarter projects, due to a number of cases where no game, or something substandard, was delivered. I'd like to address these concerns in relation to Vigilantes, if I may. Development started by working toward solving the most complex technical problems first: AI and inventory. Once these are solved and the all the components integrated, as has been the case for more than 6 months, this removes any uncertainty about being unable to complete the game, due to a technical issue. From here, it boils down to being passionate about the game, and having the discipline to keep working until it's complete. Vigilantes has effectively been my life for the last 22 months, and my future in game development is tied to releasing a good game. I've worked on it 55 hours every week, only taking a here and there day off. At this point anything other than a full Steam release is unthinkable.

Links:
Press Kit: http://timeslipsoftworks.com/vigilantes-press-kit
Gameplay Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXDN02PyKTA
Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=E11eWGcMGBs

Windows Demo: www.indiedb.com/games/vigilantes/downloads/vigilantes-alpha-10-windows
Linux Demo: http://www.indiedb.com/games/vigilantes/downloads/vigilantes-alpha-10-linux
Mac Demo: http://www.indiedb.com/games/vigilantes/downloads/vigilantes-alpha-10-mac

Website: www.timeslipsoftworks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Timeslipsoftworks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaithiMcH

Elena Furey Intro Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpfeJJEbpc
Emilia De Soto Intro Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqo7mXb3gH8

(lol "Hi Infinitron")

 

[Timeslip]

Well, it's all out in the open now : )

 

[Infinitron]

Timeslip You're not the same Timeslip who made SFall, right? http://timeslip.users.sourceforge.net/

P.S. You might want to edit your email address out of that post (I shouldn't have quoted it, sorry)

 

[Timeslip]

No, different Timeslip! Done, no worries!

 

[Ninjerk]

No, different Timeslip! Done, no worries!

Be careful what you share with that guy.

 

[Timeslip]

Life is a series of painful lessons : )

 

[Fargus]

If you'd like to see the game in action, you can see a super quick playthrough of the first missions below:

Looks interesting. And it's really amusing how the characters fight h2h in this game. Reminds me of cheesy 90s karate movies.

 

[Neanderthal]

That Sam Case intro in Chandler style were great, reminds me o Fallout wi combat, i'm liking look on it.

 

[Timeslip]

Looks interesting. And it's really amusing how the characters fight h2h in this game. Reminds me of cheesy 90s karate movies.

Cheers. I was hoping no one would notice that everyone is basically a ninja

That Sam Case intro in Chandler style were great, reminds me o Fallout wi combat, i'm liking look on it.

Thanks! Getting the voiced intro for Case back from the voice actor was like christmas. There are a couple more character intros also, and quite a few more to come.

Elena Furey Intro Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpfeJJEbpc
Emilia De Soto Intro Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqo7mXb3gH8