My isometric RPG

Very Impressive on every single details! And the video's informative too!

'Portrait with blood' is a cool idea stead of the usual health bar.

Thanks! I swear I rehearsed that video so much that by the time I actually recorded it, my voice was coarse, lol.

I actually got the idea for the portrait that filled with blood from Baldur's Gate II. The tricky part was inverting the percentage so that when you were at 80/100 health for example, the blood would only fill 20 percent. Took me several hours just to come up with the formula.

I've had way too much tequila tonight to give any explanations, but I'll be back tomorrow if anyone has any questions or comments. Thanks again!

Okay, some updates!

I have been playing with the level design a bit. I was thinking about how I am going create the different types of rooms and variations and what style would let me do the most. I need the level graphics to be something that can be easily arranged into new rooms since there will be probably over 100 rooms. (the graphics below are just for one or two floors. The others will be a bit different)

Here is a new style. I raised the camera slightly so you can see the ground more and objects would not be as hidden. In my original screenshots on page 1, I did a sort of cut-away effect so you could see the ground better. With this new style, you can see plenty of ground without having to do that. I also mixed up the stone with some slabs and other materials to make it a bit more varied and make it stand out more.

I also set up a highlight effect on the stairs, one for up and one for down. Here is the one you'll see if you want to go up.

I was worried that with the angle adjustment ,I would have to re-render the characters. Which would not be hard, just time consuming. I think the change was minor enough that the characters still look good without changing them.

Oh, and I set up a countdown when lock picking to prevent swiping stuff from a chest and running. If there is an enemy near the chest, I don't want people to just be able to grab the loot and make it out unharmed. I set up a red bar that gets smaller as you hold down the mouse over a chest so you could see your progress to unlocking. It only takes a couple seconds, but it alerts guards nearby right away too.

Art is great, really nice 3D feel for it, and its a good approach to animate using 3d models to get your frames.

If its designed for PC, you don't really have to worry so much about memory usage, most PC gaming setups are pretty damn strong with tons of memory.

— Thanks! Even though I'm mainly a 2d artist, I think 3d is more "fun" to work with.

I guess when it comes to memory usage, I'm just cautious. This is my first game that will be completed and released. I don't want to find out after I do a ton of work that many people can't play it for some reason. I do remember Ashley saying in a post that going over 200mb will eliminate some users, but under 400 or 500 is probably still fine for most gamers these days. So, I have plenty of headroom to expand if I want to. Those were the last numbers I heard anyway, so maybe I can get away with even more.

Actually, my main concern right now is just preview times. It gets harder to do tweaking or add in mechanics the more I add. I experimented once with making a version with no animations for faster previewing, but it just made it hard to keep two versions up to date (and I need the animations for much of the testing.)

After I release a demo later on and see how it performs on other people's machines, I plan on seeing how far I can push it.

On steam surveys, most gaming PCs have 8GB system memory, very few have 4GB. More have 16GB with each day.

The problem with memory is the difference between system memory and GPU memory, because most gaming machines still have 1-2GB video cards, while 4GB is getting more common, it's not the bulk.

So as long as you are aware, all your frames in a scene is loaded uncompressed into video ram, ie as a raw texture size of:

pixels^2 * 4 channels..

ie. 1 frame of 1024 x 1024 pixel = 4MB

There's a peculiarity that frames have to fit a texture size by the power of 2 so if you have a 800 x 100 pixel frame, it still gets allocated into video ram as if it was a 1024 x 1024 texture, so it still needs 4MB.

Just an example, if your sprite is ~256 pixels and you have 40 frames for one attack animation, that's ~10MB in video ram for that single atk animation.

Definitely its not something to worry about until you have a massive scope game with tons and tons of frames.

That's good to hear. I can always expand the visuals with some more animations. And not just characters, for example I could put in animated water, enhance the torch effect, or other bits here and there.

My nvidia gtx 680 has 2gb of memory. I plan on upgrading it eventually. I do consider it to be high end even though it is a couple years old now. I expect people with even older or cheaper cards to have less memory.

I am also keeping an eye on things because I'd like to use this template for future games either RPG or RTS.

Okay, I'm working on the graphics for each floor. Here is the upper level, mid level, and lower level. I still need to do the sewer/basement, and underground mine or cavern. I'll do those soon.

I've also added a few more props such as buckets, tools, sacks, etc. that I will spread throughout the castle to breathe a little life in it and make the rooms less empty.

I've spent a lot of time refining my template with very careful naming conventions and organization so I can easily change materials on floors or whatnot and easily move my objects around.

Here is the upper level. This level will have the best loot but also fully armored knights who won't be happy that you are there. This level will be more fancy with painted walls and whatnot. The lower levels will be more barbaric.

Here is the mid level. It's not as fancy as the upper level, but not as dark as the lower levels. The loot here will be okay, and the guards will be moderate.

Here is the lower level. It will be dark, and the loot won't be as great, but the guards won't be as ready to attack either (or as hard to beat).

I'll be spending this week on the two lower levels beneath these and also working on some more props to spread throughout the castle. I will also be doing the floorplan for the castle so I can get started making these into actual rooms.

Watched the video, looking really good, I will definitely play this! I like that it's influenced by BG but you have created your own gameplay style. Very cool +++

Trickshot Thanks! It always makes me feel good to know that people want to play the game! Even though this is my first release, and it is also functioning as a learning experience, I am also pouring my heart and soul into it to make it as good as I can.

When I was deciding on how to make the combat system, I thought about how to make it interesting. It will be a short game, as most rogue-likes are, with permadeath. So, I need to make it interesting to fire up and play at anytime. To do this I looked a couple of other games. I watched someone playing Heroquest on the Amiga, and looking at the dice rolls, it seemed like a fun system. I also recently started playing Morrowind again, and I liked how there was an element of chance in that as well. Combining the element of chance with a bit of skill and decision making seemed like a fun system.

So, I sort of combined the gameplay of Baldur's Gate with some other bits from other games, and my own system of gameplay of course, to make a game that didn't give the same experience every time. Combined with being able to go anywhere in the castle at anytime and having a choice of multiple routes, I think the game will be fun to replay.

I also made the game into one room at a time so you cannot "cheat" and look ahead to see where you are going and where the guards are. The doors will be locked until you unlocked them, so you are forced to make decisions such as "do I try and kill this guard or look for an alternate route?" "do I try and lockpick this door before the guard sees me or try and ambush him for a combat advantage?" little things like that.

Okay, I did the graphics for the basement and mine areas. I'm not sure if there will be any more or if this will be all. I just need to make sure I have enough to create a full game world. The three main levels of the castle will share a very similar floor plan, and the basement and mine areas will be a little different. All will be connected so you can freely move back and forth at any time.

The basement has some stone and whatnot and some dirt floors. I put in a bit of water as well.

The mine area will be more maze-like and be completely underneath the castle. It'll also be where you enter the castle since I'm putting the method of entry as a forgotten or neglected mine shaft that was never sealed off. That will be how you gain access to the castle (and escape as well). I've also created a few more props such as boulders, tools, and some other things.

I'm going to start on the floor plan which will be very detailed. I'll even number the doors so I can keep things in order when I get back to programming it. This will be the stage where I start designing the layout and shape of the rooms so the game is fun and strategic. I'm also going to make a few more props to add in for variety and helping make the rooms look different.

So do you have plans to eventually make large levels?

So do you have plans to eventually make large levels?

Honestly, that's something I have been heavily debating on for quite a while.

The benefit of doing one room at a time (like in the screenshots) is the a.i. is easy to work with, I do not need a fog of war, z-order sorting is less of an issue, and I can build as many as I need with no performance issues.

The benefits of a larger level with more rooms is that you can see more so it may feel more like an actual castle, and you could use the building's layout as a strategic element. It may also look nicer. I'd probably make some small changes though. It would be a little harder to manage I think, but maybe doable.

Having one room also forces the player to find his way through the castle and treat each room as an obstacle. It really is a toss up, and this will be something I consider very heavily this week once I get going on the floor plan.

Honest feedback:

RPGs are my favorite genre of games, a small level would make it very claustrophobic and removes one of the key element that makes dungeon crawlers great: exploration & tension due to not knowing what's behind that next door (fog of war too, treading lightly...).

I'm looking at your game level and seeing those doors, I am drawn to open those doors, at which point the level expands to include the adjacent room for my character to explore & pass.

Yeah, that's why it's something I've been heavily debating.

The way it works now is that you can only "see" one room at a time, but everything is still connected. Each door leads to the next room, and the rooms are all arranged as part of a large floor plan. You can go back and forth between doors as you please in any direction.

I would definitely like to experiment. Since I have only built the templates for the rooms' graphics, I can go either way. I'm not restricted to doing one room at a time. The only reason not to would be if I start running into issues with C2. With the foundation I've built though, I should be okay. I always plan ahead and keep my options open.

I am going to do some tests this week and see how a larger area performs. I am probably going to design it in sections of various sizes depending on what is manageable (and what makes sense). I am also going to fire up Baldur's Gate II EE again and do some more studies of how it did level design (and how it handled pathfinding or fog and whatnot). It had levels of various sizes, some with doors, some with larger areas, and all that. After some studies, I should be able to draw up a floor plan that lets me get what I want without too much trouble.

If I can get larger areas with multiple rooms connected working, then that will be the path I take for level design. I'll just have to see what C2 lets me get away with.

Good that you mentioned BG2, it's the classic dungeon crawl and the fog of war gave it a tension that wouldn't be possible if you saw the entire area right away. ie. Not knowing what's around you in itself, helps the atmosphere.