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"LandTraveller"
13 years ago
General
I've settled on the name "LandTraveller" for the game. There isn't much deep meaning behind the name, but then again there wasn't much meaning behind names like "MineCraft" or "Terraria" either. It's named after (part of) what you do!
Progress has been slow, but steady. The engine seems to work with a few bugs here with me and a few Steam friends testing it out along the way. A public alpha testing will be released soon, but realize it's just the extremely early unfinished stages of the game. There isn't even a title screen yet!
What is the game?
LandTraveller is a hobby game I've been writing for the community. By "top-down", I mean the classic perspective you see in many older RPGs. It's actually a 3D voxel game but the actual scene is projected into a classic 2D top-down. The engine will make a cutout if you head into caves or behind tall things. It's a constructive game like MineCraft or Terraria, but it will be more of an Action RPG Mystery Dungeon style game. You do build a town, fort, or whatever you want and explore through eight randomly generated maps that have the entire exterior and interior of the "dungeons". There is an actual linear progression this way, you will eventually become able to build the portal to the next dungeon.
Central to the game are the characters. Many of the players and NPCs alike will be Kemonomimi. I've actually been in the middle of drawing all the animal types and hairs to finish the character maker. Even though I wrote a character sprite set compositor engine, it's still a lot of pixel art for someone who has many other things they have to do. Here's a description of how the characters will work:
Everything in that menu is purely cosmetic except the animal types. Once I have finished drawing all the pieces, an actual mini stats window will be on screen to show you the effect each animal type has on the character. Some can sprint in one direction quickly, some can jump high, some can camouflage, some can fly, some can't be pushed around by damage, etc. The available animal types will at least be Wolf, Fox, Cat, Bird, Drake (Dragon), Fairy, Bear, Mouse each giving the character different stats and two abilities (like the ones I mentioned before). I think people enjoy trying to make a kemonomimi of their fursona despite asking me to make everyone full-anthro every other time they give it a try.
As you gain levels, you will be able to pick traits and affinities that add more gameplay features to the character. It's good not to be overwhelmed with every gameplay mechanic from the start, so you'll get this gradual increase in ability and power. Everyone gets to pick from the same traits and they will enable you to gain momentum and use "crush attacks" as well as modify your base stats even further. Affinities are specific to the animal you chose, you may have between 2 to 6 to choose from. These actually associate the character with an element, style, etc. and add more abilities to the character as well as specify your "crush attacks".
Anyone who's played those acrade scrolling shooter games knows the odd Japanese terms "crush attack" or "bomber attack" for that one thing that typically fills the screen with explosions and such. In fighting games, it's usually accompanied with a quick slide of the character's portrait in a silly, intense pose. You will have a "ki" (spirit / energy) bar that falls slowly and raises depending on your trait- so if you like fighting many enemies, you would pick a trait where you gain "ki" from fighting. Once the bar is full, you can use whatever "crush attack" comes with your affinity.
The game will be forgiving in the beginning, but will have a sharp difficulty curve and become insane. I know this will make the game less appealing to more casual gamers even though the game will be as easy to pick up as I can make it- but perhaps they might give the challenge a try. The game won't make itself harder in multiplayer as people join. The game can be made a bit easier by inviting friends.
Even though at some point it will accept donations, the game is written for the community and will be distributed open source and free. All of the technical legal license information will be contained inside the game download, but I'm basically using a non-commercial attribution share and share alike Creative Commons for the art and LGPL on the source code.
Progress has been slow, but steady. The engine seems to work with a few bugs here with me and a few Steam friends testing it out along the way. A public alpha testing will be released soon, but realize it's just the extremely early unfinished stages of the game. There isn't even a title screen yet!
What is the game?
LandTraveller is a hobby game I've been writing for the community. By "top-down", I mean the classic perspective you see in many older RPGs. It's actually a 3D voxel game but the actual scene is projected into a classic 2D top-down. The engine will make a cutout if you head into caves or behind tall things. It's a constructive game like MineCraft or Terraria, but it will be more of an Action RPG Mystery Dungeon style game. You do build a town, fort, or whatever you want and explore through eight randomly generated maps that have the entire exterior and interior of the "dungeons". There is an actual linear progression this way, you will eventually become able to build the portal to the next dungeon.
Central to the game are the characters. Many of the players and NPCs alike will be Kemonomimi. I've actually been in the middle of drawing all the animal types and hairs to finish the character maker. Even though I wrote a character sprite set compositor engine, it's still a lot of pixel art for someone who has many other things they have to do. Here's a description of how the characters will work:
Everything in that menu is purely cosmetic except the animal types. Once I have finished drawing all the pieces, an actual mini stats window will be on screen to show you the effect each animal type has on the character. Some can sprint in one direction quickly, some can jump high, some can camouflage, some can fly, some can't be pushed around by damage, etc. The available animal types will at least be Wolf, Fox, Cat, Bird, Drake (Dragon), Fairy, Bear, Mouse each giving the character different stats and two abilities (like the ones I mentioned before). I think people enjoy trying to make a kemonomimi of their fursona despite asking me to make everyone full-anthro every other time they give it a try.
As you gain levels, you will be able to pick traits and affinities that add more gameplay features to the character. It's good not to be overwhelmed with every gameplay mechanic from the start, so you'll get this gradual increase in ability and power. Everyone gets to pick from the same traits and they will enable you to gain momentum and use "crush attacks" as well as modify your base stats even further. Affinities are specific to the animal you chose, you may have between 2 to 6 to choose from. These actually associate the character with an element, style, etc. and add more abilities to the character as well as specify your "crush attacks".
Anyone who's played those acrade scrolling shooter games knows the odd Japanese terms "crush attack" or "bomber attack" for that one thing that typically fills the screen with explosions and such. In fighting games, it's usually accompanied with a quick slide of the character's portrait in a silly, intense pose. You will have a "ki" (spirit / energy) bar that falls slowly and raises depending on your trait- so if you like fighting many enemies, you would pick a trait where you gain "ki" from fighting. Once the bar is full, you can use whatever "crush attack" comes with your affinity.
The game will be forgiving in the beginning, but will have a sharp difficulty curve and become insane. I know this will make the game less appealing to more casual gamers even though the game will be as easy to pick up as I can make it- but perhaps they might give the challenge a try. The game won't make itself harder in multiplayer as people join. The game can be made a bit easier by inviting friends.
Even though at some point it will accept donations, the game is written for the community and will be distributed open source and free. All of the technical legal license information will be contained inside the game download, but I'm basically using a non-commercial attribution share and share alike Creative Commons for the art and LGPL on the source code.
