KickStarter Vigilantes: neo-noir, turn based tactical RPG

[Haba]

Any hints what sort of theme it will have?

With a profile picture like that, how can I say no It's very early to talk much about it yet (there's nothing much more than an idea) but genre wise it would be a combination of post apocalyptic and cyberpunk. The intention is to have 3 acts, with each act offering a big shift in setting and tone.

It will be the time travel RPG we've heard about.

 

[Timeslip]

How about a martial arts fighting game that plays like a turn based RPG. So it could look like Street Fighter but has a much better control method (I can show you), and you build up the character over time?

It could be a fun game (I'd buy it) but I'm very attached to what am working on. While the coding has just started, have been thinking about it for 18 months, and have spent the last 3 months solving the bigger production risks, and working out the story and design basics. While I have seen a few developers looking for ideas to work on, it's mostly the other way around. Ever considered developing it yourself? If you'd like to make it a reality, it's the most reliable way by a long shot.

 

[anvi]

Learning programming is painful :/ And the only stuff I like I think would be too hard for 1 person to ever do. So what is your game gonna be like? Xcom ish? Jagged Alliance? KOTC?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

How about a martial arts fighting game that plays like a turn based RPG. So it could look like Street Fighter but has a much better control method (I can show you), and you build up the character over time?

Heh, that reminded me of Treachery in Beatdown City.
Probably not the kind of game what you're looking for.

 

[anvi]

Nice, it is some old games I had in mind too. There was an amazing one called Panza Kickboxing / Best of the Best. You got to build a fighter from a library of moves.

 

[ushas]

ETA 2022/3.

Somehow I believe this. IIRC, you launched kickstarter with demo in autumn 2016, EA in autumn 2017 and finally kicked the game out of the door in autumn 2018.

Edit: Yup, it's even within few days precision from each other (Sep28/Oct5/Oct3). Nice.

Learning programming is painful :/

It's not that bad, really. I'd say learning a computer language is far less painful than a human language. Even when fluent you still have no idea what kind of compiler will people use in their head to understand your message.

There was an amazing one called Panza Kickboxing / Best of the Best. You got to build a fighter from a library of moves.

That sounds fun, tbh.

 

[baud]

Learning programming is painful :/

It's not that bad, really. I'd say learning a computer language is far less painful than a human language. Even when fluent you still have no idea what kind of compiler will people use in their head to understand your message.

As a (non-gaming) professional dev, I'd say the language part is not the most complicated: the hard parts of programming are rather everything that you need in addition to be able to write code, like understanding/writing requirements, testing/finding/evaluating/choosing/integrating/updating third party components and tools, deploying, debugging, writing documentation, UI/UX work, communicating with stakeholders...

Of course not everything apply for solo game dev, but you'd get a handful of others tasks like marketing and communications.

 

[ushas]

Learning programming is painful :/

It's not that bad, really. I'd say learning a computer language is far less painful than a human language. Even when fluent you still have no idea what kind of compiler will people use in their head to understand your message.

As a (non-gaming) professional dev, I'd say the language part is not the most complicated: the hard parts of programming are rather everything that you need in addition to be able to write code, like understanding/writing requirements, testing/finding/evaluating/choosing/integrating/updating third party components and tools, deploying, debugging, writing documentation, UI/UX work, communicating with stakeholders...

Of course not everything apply for solo game dev, but you'd get a handful of others tasks like marketing and communications.

Oh my, writing documentation...

For the record, not trying to imply developing software is easy. That said, I still think there is no need to be worried about starting learning programming itself. Even for somebody who uses an external programmer it might be handy to have some basic ability to understand the code.

 

[baud]

Learning programming is painful :/

It's not that bad, really. I'd say learning a computer language is far less painful than a human language. Even when fluent you still have no idea what kind of compiler will people use in their head to understand your message.

As a (non-gaming) professional dev, I'd say the language part is not the most complicated: the hard parts of programming are rather everything that you need in addition to be able to write code, like understanding/writing requirements, testing/finding/evaluating/choosing/integrating/updating third party components and tools, deploying, debugging, writing documentation, UI/UX work, communicating with stakeholders...

Of course not everything apply for solo game dev, but you'd get a handful of others tasks like marketing and communications.

Oh my, writing documentation...

For the record, not trying to imply developing software is easy. That said, I still think there is no need to be worried about starting learning programming itself. Even for somebody who uses an external programmer it might be handy to have some basic ability to understand the code.

yeah, I just wanted to clear that programming isn't just writing the code, but it's a start and it can help when interacting with devs.

For documentation, I'm happy that we have on our current project a tech writer for all the user manuals

 

[ushas]

For documentation, I'm happy that we have on our current project a tech writer for all the user manuals

Haha! keep that person happy :D

 

[Risewild]

How about a martial arts fighting game that plays like a turn based RPG. So it could look like Street Fighter but has a much better control method (I can show you), and you build up the character over time?

I haven't played this game in almost two decades, but this post reminded me of "King of Fighters Kyo" for the Playstation (PSX).
The problem was that it's in Japanese and I don't speak Japanese, but I still played the hell out of that game back in the day.

Jump to 4:50 for a fight scene:


If I remember correctly, you can pick moves and actions (like move closer or further away from the enemy, defend, etc) from a menu. You pick a few amount of them and then the turn starts and your character tries to do those moves/actions. There are moves that can only be made close to the enemy and moves that can only be made away from it, there are slow moves and fast moves. Certain moves cancel others, so the fight is usually quite strategic (or maybe I thought it was back then, when I was young).
The objective of the game was to recruit allies, that you then can make teams with and fight, or something like that.

For some reason I had fun playing that game, but it might have been because I was always a fan of King of Fighters.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

How about a martial arts fighting game that plays like a turn based RPG. So it could look like Street Fighter but has a much better control method (I can show you), and you build up the character over time?

IIRC Legend of Legaia had a TB fighting-like system, but don't quote me on that.

 

[anvi]

^ A modern version of that could be great.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Hybrid Heaven had something similar as well plus a heavier emphasis on wrestling than other fighting games / RPGs.

 

[Ninjerk]

How about a martial arts fighting game that plays like a turn based RPG. So it could look like Street Fighter but has a much better control method (I can show you), and you build up the character over time?

IIRC Legend of Legaia had a TB fighting-like system, but don't quote me on that.

It did, but once you unlocked the final moves it got somewhat stale (praying for RNGesus while they executed moves was p. ok).

 

[Timeslip]

Any hints what sort of theme it will have?

With a profile picture like that, how can I say no It's very early to talk much about it yet (there's nothing much more than an idea) but genre wise it would be a combination of post apocalyptic and cyberpunk. The intention is to have 3 acts, with each act offering a big shift in setting and tone.

It will be the time travel RPG we've heard about.

This is how old releasing a game makes you feel.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Any hints what sort of theme it will have?

With a profile picture like that, how can I say no It's very early to talk much about it yet (there's nothing much more than an idea) but genre wise it would be a combination of post apocalyptic and cyberpunk. The intention is to have 3 acts, with each act offering a big shift in setting and tone.

How big shifts between acts are we talking about?
Something like changes in POW in Canticle of Leibowitz, or something more sensible?

 

[Timeslip]

Learning programming is painful :/ And the only stuff I like I think would be too hard for 1 person to ever do. So what is your game gonna be like? Xcom ish? Jagged Alliance? KOTC?

It's difficult at the start, but like anything, gets easier (at least until what you need to code gets harder). If you are looking at tutorials/material which are too complex, it can make it seem way more difficult than it is. If you were to spend two hours a day coding, I think you'd be surprised at what you could do at the end of a year. In terms of the scale of what one person can make, you might be surprised too. I was the only person on code/design/writing for Vigilantes. It only took 4 years

Next game will use Vigilantes as a starting point, and focus more on story, choice and the variety of the experience. Setting will be a mix of post apocalyptic and cyberpunk.

 

[Timeslip]

Learning programming is painful :/

It's not that bad, really. I'd say learning a computer language is far less painful than a human language. Even when fluent you still have no idea what kind of compiler will people use in their head to understand your message.

As a (non-gaming) professional dev, I'd say the language part is not the most complicated: the hard parts of programming are rather everything that you need in addition to be able to write code, like understanding/writing requirements, testing/finding/evaluating/choosing/integrating/updating third party components and tools, deploying, debugging, writing documentation, UI/UX work, communicating with stakeholders...

Of course not everything apply for solo game dev, but you'd get a handful of others tasks like marketing and communications.

I'd find coding, debugging and promotion to be the most difficult, but that's largely as a result of the complexity of the game vs my coding experience. Vigilantes is about as complex as I could have managed with present level of coding experience, but will be able to push out farther next time. Being solo (at least doing all the code, design and making the decisions) and not building software to a customer's spec does have the benefit of cutting out a lot of the organizational stuff.

 

[Timeslip]

Something like changes in POW in Canticle of Leibowitz, or something more sensible?

It's been quite a while since have read it, so it's pretty hazy. Am reluctant to go into much detail, because there's nothing much to back it up just yet and don't want make claims that the game doesn't live up to. I guess if each act were a novel or film, it would belong to a different genre. Well, that's the intention at least.

 

[Nutria]

Will having 3 different acts mean you need 3 times as much art, or have you figured out a way around that?

 

[Timeslip]

Somehow I believe this. IIRC, you launched kickstarter with demo in autumn 2016, EA in autumn 2017 and finally kicked the game out of the door in autumn 2018.
Edit: Yup, it's even within few days precision from each other (Sep28/Oct5/Oct3). Nice.

Would expect a similar release schedule this time around. It looks like act 1 (or at least a chunk of it) will be released prior to kickstarter, with act 2 (or most of it) going live on EA, and full release with the completion of act 3. Sounds nice on paper, but difficult to plan longer term.

 

[Timeslip]

Will having 3 different acts mean you need 3 times as much art, or have you figured out a way around that?

The environments will be more different than say the rural maps of Vigilantes vs the downtown ones, but most of the cost will be in the coding. It's nowhere near as much work as starting from scratch, but making modifications to code when it's complex and there's so much of it is painfully slow. Haven't really done much coding in the last 6 months, so it's going to take some time to file the rust off.

The costs for things I can't do myself was the first thing I looked at. You could spend anywhere between 0 and millions on 2D/3D art and music, so there's a lot of scope for scaling the costs and saving resources to be better spent elsewhere. The trick will be to decide where to draw the line. Production value will almost certainly be higher than Vigilantes, but it won't be a focus. Happy at this point that it's manageable. Plan is to get as far as possible with act 1, go to kickstarter to part fund act 2, then Steam EA to do the same for act 3.

 

[anvi]

What things are you gonna do to try to make it sell more than Vigilantes?

 

[Timeslip]

What things are you gonna do to try to make it sell more than Vigilantes?

Make the best game possible for a start. Getting a Steam page up early will be important as will talking about the game as soon as there's something backing up the ideas. Hopefully some of the players who enjoyed Vigilantes will give the next one a try. Maybe I'll have an epiphany in how to promote a game in the mean-time, but if not I'll continue to pay obeisance to and make sacrifices in the name of Nirriti the Black, my patron deity. If all else fails, will fake my own death for a PR boost. Then to rationalise the post release/death updates, will set up new accounts on Steam and forums and claim to be a spirit medium consulting with my ghost.