Indie of the Year 2014 - Strategy Pack Armored Division Preview

YEAH! We aren't going to make it! But I'll just blow our minds if we recieve a bit of love ;)


Help us with some free support, and vote for us!!


2014 Indie of the Year Awards via Indie DB


And as a gift, here you have some marketing render of the Strategy Pack: Armored Division is going to sell soon enough in Unity Asset Store to help self-funding GBF:Ancient Relics!

(Zoom to watch in what I sweated the last month...)

I don't have time to post this month, enjoy your holidays!

GBF: Ancient Relics - Work in progress Space Combat Camera System

Just want to show you a fast update in the looks of the Dancing Kraken Space Combat system I started scripting this weekend.

This video shows in-action footage of the Space Combat (It's not a cinematic, it's the real combat that allow the player to switch different cameras).


And I'll take the occasion to explain the camera system:

There is three kind of cameras:
1- Tactical view: A free rotation view of your main craft to not miss detail of strategical situation.
2- Allied camera views: Cinematic views from turrets and allied deployables (drones, figthers, deployable turrets) to see the action from their gunners view
3- Enemy camera views: Cinematic views from Fighter squadrons, Enemy turrets, Fighter cockpits, Cruisers launching fighters, Enemy manoeuvre...

The persistent HUD in all views let's you know in all times the state of the battle (Hull/Shield Health, Crew action point generation, and an event messenger that notifies of damaged systems or destroyed ships both in Allied and Enemy side.

In options, you'll be able to select the behaviour of the cam system, and change it to fit your taste.

Manual: No auto-switching of cameras, player use a key to swap between Allied camera views, another key to return to Tactil view, and another to swap between Enemy camera views.

Auto: Starts with Tactical View, and offers a pseudo-cinematic experience switching to other cameras temporarily when an event occurs, to make the player more aware of what is happening in the battlefield (an Enemy Cruiser firing its main weapon, a figther squadron being launched, a turret shoot-view when skirmish starts..). -include manual control-

Total Cinematic: A series of priority events decides what camera see the player, in the most cinematic take the player can have, also representing the confusion of the combat. The Hud and event messenger let you stay aware of all event in the battlefield (except incoming attacks), so a Expert player can almost play in this mode if suits him. In any moment, if the battle get very fiery, can go to manual mode.


Due to the nature of the combat system, an easy combat can be resolved without much player interaction (just change passive modes if the ship needs more repairs, shield generation or may can focus on attack), and some well-minded special action selection, so  even Total Cinematic mode doesn't have to be problematic to win a combat. But Hard combats may require full awareness of the situation and manual mode will better used (Auto can be better for non easily-distracted players, as show dangers when they are produced).

Stay tuned to more updates!

And as always, follow the game most importants updates at indieDB!

GBF: Ancient Relics - Working in the new Space Combat System

While there is a lot of more things to do (already advanced WIPs) like finishing the tutorial level, improving the space chart and ending other important scripts, I began the crafting of the Space Battles system.

My first idea was just translating the ground turn-based tactic combat to space, but, hell, that was boring and very unappealing. In ground is perfect; But I wanted something more... Galactic Battlefare.

So I got this idea, of a dynamic auto-combat with shifting and tilting cameras, and laser beams everywhere in the screen, lookalike modern space fighters dogfighting, or what the hell, Real dogfight of all times in fiction. The thing is that in one afternoon I scripted the essentials of the systems, seen it in Real Action and said, "That's what I want, let's make it great".

Do you remember the Movement Octopus of Doom System? Of course you don't, was the first thing I scripted for the game.... Anyway, Behold THE DANCING KRAKEN OF SPACE COMBAT system!

The premise of this Combat system, or, better explained, Battle system, is that the player is the Captain of a relatively big ship (a Frigate), so he has his calls, but doesn't have direct control of the ship. He doesn't have a mind-machine connection that allows him move the ship and point every weapon to their objectives (as in most of the games). The function of the Captain is shouting orders; In gameplay, and exactly in Ancient Relics, the player as a Captain will have this 3 functions:

-Energy Flow (passive selection): Where to administrate the big energy output; Shields, Weapons, or disconnect it for emergency repairs.

-Kind of Target Selection: Determine what kind of enemies are the primary objective for the main weapons (the point defence turrets always shoots fighters or the closer enemy, but other big ships usually doesn't get so close).

-Call Special Actions (Didn't decided yet if every action has its own cool down of there is a general cool down for all actions and you may choose one.

In the video you can view a general idea of the system, with only The Ancient Relic (Player's frigate) and a pirate enemy squadron in the dance.

While writing this, I'm scripting and implementing the point defence turrets and preparing the Managers to take in count more figther squadrons and bigger ships.

Until next time!

Ancient Relics early alpha features promo trailer! yay!

After the snail speed of the holidays, the first real video showing some basic features of GBF: Ancient Relics is here. (Features of this early alpha build).

We don't have an ace of video edit, so we just did our best to craft this little early trailer, so people can just start to understand the kind of game we are doing here.

For all of you, viewers, here it is:

Summary of features (Complementary with the video):

Two planes of gameplay:

a) First Person squad RPG Dungeon-crawling in retro style in colonies, spaceports, space stations, barren worlds, lush alien planets or ancient tombs, among others things, exploring, questing, combating and treasure hunting. You'll meet hundred of NPCs (One of thing we are getting care is with deep dialogues), and you'll can recruit dozens as your squad companions and crew members of your ship.

b) Travel by Terran Space and a Little Beyond discovering and trading in an interactive economy where selling and buying different kind of cargo (more than 30 kinds of extracted, gathered, manufactured or only adquired trade goods) can change the resource output of the trade hubs. You'll customize your space frigate with parts bought in differents parts of Terran Space to improve Combat, Trade, Stealth, Exploitation capacities... As well you'll recruit different kind of crewmen to potentiate those different factors (regular crewmen, scientist, cargo heavers, belter specialists, agents, marines...)

Main concepts:

-Deep background, outcome of a RPG setting (Galactic Battlefare) elaborated along more than 8 years of work and growing.

-Nor levels, nor quests, nor items are procedurally generated. Everything in the game is hand-designed to meet the highest quality of RPG design we can get. Our premise is to give a complex game, reminiscent of the RPG's of old, but with easy interface and gameplay.

-The customizable main character (every choice in character creation has a direct impact in conversations and quests) is victim of the battlefare, that meaning being part of a losing party of the Civil War that ends of the settlement of the Terran Confederation, and making him an outlaw. In gameplay terms, that means that the player will have total freedom to roam the playable subsectors looking for fortune and allies.

-In consequence, there is no mandatory questlines or heavy limited ways of travel; It's not a singleplayer sandbox (except for the "trading empire" part), has some major quest lines and a lot of minor ones, but player is free to explore and begin where he feels to.

Alpha stage estimated numbers:

-More than 50 multi-planetary systems to travel, with at least 2 ground scenarios (single or multilevel) per system. (Being them "civilized" (colonies, spaceports), barren/vacuum, wildlands, or "dungeons" (derelict ships, alien tombs, facilities...)
-At least 20 companions to find, recruit, know and combat with.
-30 kinds of cargo
-8 kinds of crew
-Literally hundreds of NPCs. (a Benefit of being them 2d sprites).

Objetive of the game?
-For Questers, there are some major questline involving discover ancient alien treasures and techonologies and resolving some major political plots. 
-For Achievers, there are a lot of secrets to discover, time of year based secret events, and a lot of different kind of treasures and techonology to find.
-We are working on giving a easy but appealing turn tactical based squad combat and a decision based space combat that, along with the rest of the game, will be fun for itself.

More news coming along the development of the game, so stay tunned!

 Watch out for pirate boarding parties!

Every feedback is appreciated! (And yes, the quality of the video composition is amateurish and the sequences selected are WIP, but, again, is only a early alpha features promo).

An as usuall, follow the game in IndiDB!!

Post-holidays update - Galactic Battlefare and Ancient Relics Inspirational concepts PART I

During holidays, Ancient Relics has been developing in some sort of snail speed, but was time to do a good lot of sketches and idea's gathering for the parts I'm not actually scripting now (Like detailed maps of spaceports and other colonies).

A little (short, more PR-fashioned) but good video about the Space Chart at this alpha stage is coming very shortly (I just need to polish some GUIs and make sure some extravagant event pipelines works top-notch.

But before that, I was thinking I just can throw a match to enlighten the surroundings of Galactic Battlefare Universe; I mean, what are the most inspiring books, tv-shows and games (among other hundreds) that enrich my young life and what flavour you can expect of them in the space opera universe of GBF.

Today I'll start with computer games, 'cause I'm sure that is the reason a lot of you are here today.

GAMES:

Silmarils (1987 - 2001)

Amazing french game developer company. Make some of the most niche and hardcore RPG/Simulators/Strategy you can find and with appealing graphics and story. My work in gameplay is very influenced by his games.

Crystals of Arborea/Ishaar trilogy

3d dungeon crawler? yep. Giant free maps, no dungeon passageways exclusive? Yep. Giant metropolis to roam step by step, with real time combats, full of shops, amazing freedom to recruit different people and find hidden quest? YEEEEP.

Never intended in the past 10 years to make a 3d crawler of any Galactic Battlefare game, but now is the time and the baggage is crystal clear; You'll see a lot of Silmaril's crawlers spirit in Ancient Relics, easily seen in city and landscape exploration. (An as intended, number of recruitable companions, well see.) 

 Transartica, 

Oh, god, Transartica.  Story game (better than adventure game) while doing the administration of a Behemoth train in the apocalyptic future of nuclear winter. Buy and sell trade goods, equip your train with wagons to emphasis trade or war (even slave wagons, useful for selling or for doing hard labors). GBF:Ancient Relics is, strangely enough, on the Space-side of the game, a big evolved transartica in the same way a lots of games are; You will upgrade your ship for combat and trade, you will trade and sell, visiting colonies, outposts and big spaceports, and find more than various anomalies to study and adventure on. To this point, lots of games are like Transartica (and Transartica was like others), but when I created the Interface to see your ship, the different parts of it (bridge, cargo, crew quarters, Intelligence service...), It remembers a lot to me to the good old transartica. Things deep in heart are hard to forget, I think. 

Robinson's Requiem/Deus

One of the first sci-fi survival (with insane health management- you could die just constipated or for diving in a lake with a cut in a leg and getting bateriae!)  3d games? Oh ******* yes. to gameplay, I'm not taking much from these splendid Silmarils games, (was more in my temporary on hold game, GBF: Pangaia), but the background of the AWE (Alien World Exploration) and savage worlds as prision for criminals? I bought that concepts, thank you!

Other companys (thanks, jesus, you might say)

D&D Birthright. I bought this game a long time ago without knowing much about the setting, before I go wild dungeon mastering with my friends. Some years later, I begin to port the concept of Birthright to all my custom settings: I mean: 

Dungeon crawling in special spots along the world, finding personal-size items and treasures for the glory of your adventurers. (GBF: Ancient Relics: Got it. Find places to dungeon crawl and get treasures? Yes, simply explained but yes)

Empire administration and conquest of all a BIG peninsula with lots of micromanagement and exquisite region administration and politics? YES. Galatic Battlefare IRL-RPG is a lot about that, but GBF:Ancient Relics right now, just not. Management of your own colony/planet? Well, I'll want to do that, but we'll ask to our crowfunders ;).

Army sized battles! Godamm you can do that as well on Birthright!!! Not a feature that you will see in Ancient Relics, again, but a BASIC on Galactic Battlefare (all about factions and races and empires and space and land combats... The IRL-RPG book has a 2mm miniature warfare apendix with to the date 10 army lists and some simple rules.

In future Galactic Battlefare games? Mandatory: If you will be able to control an entire faction as an strategy game full economic simulator or just a band or pirate ships, is up to see the success of GBF: Ancient Relics. Right now in GBF:Ancient Relics, there is tactical turn combat in land and space, but not army-sized. 

MASTER OF ORION SAGA/MASTER OF MAGIC:

The "first 4x" Master of Orion Saga (Master of magic was more like a Heroes of Might & Magic meets Civilization in a Master of Orion Style) inspired my first sketch about galactic empires in a fringe of the known space in the milky way. In fact, the map I draw ten years ago of that little piece of galaxy (8x5 sectors, divided on 4x4 sub-sectors (the minimum spacemap to show) of 10x8 parsecs (the minimun unit to play, a "hexsquared parsec" per system) is still the same map, just better drawn and the races and empires that populate it are a lot more complexes. 

(So, GBF universe condense right now a known space of 51.200 "hexsquare parsecs" in 640 sub-sectors. In GBF: Ancient Relics, you can see 6 sub-sectors (60% of the terran space) and play at least in 4 of them). 

In fact, one of the first things I did with my Known Space map was define relations between empires, and even base some empire in some of the achievements of my games (x race with x number of slave races, x kind of militar sstrategy and x kind of use of techonology). It's like Playing Spore to sketch alien appearance (and his buildings and vehicles, why not), a work template. And I'm very proud of enjoying every hour in Master Orion I, II and III and being it my template to create my Galactic Battlefare Universe.

(I mention the Spin-off Master of Magic because the first ideas for some of the basic races (like the Ss'oraks or the Corridhons) come more from Master of Magic than Master of Orion (Draconians as reptilian race and Dark Elves as my perverted Corridhon race...)

But The primordial thing when a player approach GBF is the three faction conflict between the Atlantic Alliance, the Russian Consortium and the Arabic Union, and that is not absolutely coming from MoOs.I'll be better looking in another classic direction....

DUNE

Some years before me being addicted to the Frank Herbert's books, I played this jewel of a game, a fantastic adventure-strategy strange mixture of first Westwood's Dune.

An adventure game with Dungeoncrawling-like movement? (even discovering secret chambers as fantastic plot-twists) Walking square to square in the desert until die of thirst? Travelling with the old ornithopter flying by clues to find new places to control or commerce? Creating a totally inesperated strategy game with a terraforming background (took from the second and third book) and a simple but clever resource management (type of troops + available equipment + player administration + finite resources...)

Hell, Westwood make a hell of a game with the first Dune. And I think the Trinary conflict system comes to my heart since the young Dune II. (the redies, the bluish, and the greenys).. (though if you study a bit you know that the green Ordos were invented (more than 7 books and dozens of houses and the ordos were invented (and my favorite :P), the blue Atreides with a hawk were really red with a bull and the red Harkonen were really blue with a Hawk (Just like in Dune 1... Why the hell the need to rewesternize the colors for good and bad people in Dune II when you  get it well done the first time in Dune!)

Frank Herbert's Dune Saga is something I'll talk more in Part III of inspirational concepts, Books!

I think is enough for today, a fast travel among some of the games mark more my young-hood and make a mark in the way I develop my own games... 

For the old ones that know these games, you'll know that at least some of them are masterworks that need to be count on when you make something. It's very difficult to make something really original, so when you look up to make inspiration, at least let them by good inspiration. 

For the young ones that don't even know this games, and have a like for the old jewels of computer games.. Run and play them all!! You don't regret!

See you in the next post, let it be a small video featuring the graphics improvements and review of features of Galactic Battlefare Ancient Relics, or let it be the second part of this post!.

See you around!

Thank you, gamers!

First of all, A big thanks for the hundreds of new players that are taking a peek on a single little game to killing time like is Hot Lander, the first published game by 7ye, made on 3 days.

Second, I encourage you to follow the blog, because good fresh meat is gonna appear soon since the mobile market is doing so well for us; The Release of the beautiful Hearts Date Club is getting dilated in time by the programming of our PC game GBF: Ancient Relics,

(that's deserve a zoom in, shoot it!)

And third, don't waste time and take another peek on the first quality and original mobile game by 7YearsEntertainment, Xtreme King Abdicator . To give you a bone, I'll gift you one of the sequencial storytelling of the game, unreleased to the media. (wow, that's special! :P)

(and that deserves another more yummy zoom... And you haven't seen the more than ten storytelling sequences of XKA)

Beat the dull work of a king in Xtreme King Abdicator to see all the history of the famous or the infamous King you may well be!

And if you liked Hot Lander's gameplay, just play Lil's Bunny Race, a programming spin-off but with more cheerful graphics!


I'm preparing two big updates on the blog and IndieDB about Ancient Relics; Videos with enchanced graphics and showing the impressive Space Charts gameplay, among other things.

See you soon!

The thing I hate more of making games is.... - Little dev update

The Save/Load system.

I enjoy deeply programming all the systems, making the pieces tie together, (C+ scripts, Playmaker visual scripts, pre-made Asset...)..

But Hell... decide how to save, how to load, what to carry on all the game and what to instantiate when needed, what need to be an abstract system and what to be a physic one...

And the worst is, as I said, you do the programmer job mixing C+, java, Playmaker and pre made assets.

And then Save it altogether. And then repeat all the steps to Load it. In programming there are a lot of mechanical chores, non-creative and ape work that nobody is gonna do for you, so you have to do it anyway.

I'm making the first simple save/load system for Ancient Relics now that has a good core (the Space Chart where you do half of the game play is nearly done), and, I have done so many saving systems to date that is only automatic work, (meanwhile I try to calm the cries of my baby), but is Dull, Dull, Dull, and I just come here to say that, if there is only one thing that I really hate of designing games, scripting or making graphics, is the Damn, Save, Load, System. Gaaaargh!

So, I gift you this little game art with the WIP system, Some creativity I had to create to don't bore me to death!

PS: I hope I could work more and update more right now, but I really need a nanny for my little kid!

Galactic Battlefare Ancient Relics: Recapitulation for losts & founds.

As I introduced GBF:Ancient Relics to IndieDB (a web for promoting indie games, indie developers get the hint!), I wrote them a good introduction to 7Ye and GBF:AR. And as I'm a kind (but brutal and insidious) good man, I'm gonna reproduce it here.

And a bonus Art for you!

(try to zoom it... the bigger the better!)

Where to start...

(From the beginning) 
Ten years ago I began to write and sketch a big Space Opera universe; a universe where political, racial and territorial conflict between (and inside) different governments (three very different human factions and more than ten huge alien empires) were deep, with background, with personality, and really interesting to make a Role-playing Rulebook. (A big one). Was a colossal job, so I worked on it every now and then. The years past and I discovered my hobby to make free computer games. (Adventure games in this time). I didn't see any better idea than to port Galactic Battlefare Universe to this games (If you want to now about that, read the developer blog!). Those games were nothing special, apart from the love I put in them. (but was GREAT to make the art for the games, I've been always a fan of pixel art and got a way to express it).

(Recently)
Years past away, finished my career and thought; "Gak, it's time to make something good, something special that I can give to sci-fi lovers like me to remember and make it keep growing". Me and some collaborators decided to start Seven Years Entertainment and begin to work in some commercial games. In the start of the year (2014), we worked hard making our first prototype, Galactic Battlefare: Pangaia. At first it seems ambitious. But wasn't; or better said; Wasn't so much ambitious to compete in its genre (sci-fi Rpg/FPS). The story was good (Damm, 10 years of Background story making), but the game not yet that good. 

We take some steps back, worked on little projects (myself, made some silly android games (One of them is unreleased, Hearts Date Club, but is a good one that will see the light soon or later)....

 (And Now)
Now is time; Some months ago I started programming and making the graphics of this new and shinny GBF: Ancient Relics. From week to week, the concept grow stronger and defined, and now I can proudly announce that is the game I always wanted to do, and moreover, the best first game to commercially distribute showing the Galactic Battlefare Universe.  

And what is GBF: Ancient Relics? 
That's easy. It's a Sci-fi-3d-Retro-Dungeon-Crawler with Complex-Pirates-and-merchants-simulator with Turn-Tactical-Combat. Ahem...

In tabletop roleplay we say one thing: "the game is about the story, or the game is about the place". And this game, is about "the place". And the place are 3 playable subsectors full of dozen of systems (full of more than half-hundred planets) where you will explore, hunt treasures, knew the flora and fauna of terran space and neighbour aliens, trade cargo and resources in a rogue trader way, build a team of charismatic companions and upgrade your ship to 'fend yourselves and fly further and bolder. 

Too much to explain; What I strongly recommend is watching the videos. They're mildly alpha right now, but a lot of things will be here in the final build. In the first video I updated to IndieDB we have the Character Creation in a RPG retro way that affects gameplay, Deep and long dialogs with most of NPCs, the Eye of the Beholder retro kind of movement...

Soon enough, I'll upload the video showing the space charts, where you will plan your navigation and discover all the playable systems, and I really think you're gonna like it. 

I'm not sure right now how I'll update the news of the game, I was using a devblog until now. It's time to think and regroup!

I'll keep making this devblogs here of course, and other kind of post, if you start to know me a bit. It's just I don't know how to update the news in IndieDB exactlly, apart of just "state updates" and some images.

Well, Happy Holidays!

GBF Ancient Relics Devdiary #3 - Character Creation and Dialogues.

We have been without publishing three weeks; The reason:

1) Alar is now a daddy. His firstborn is here and have time to him and to work in the game, but not so much to also publish often.

2) Had been working hard in the basic systems in of the game, and make graphics, enough to show you a good video.

I have to write the transcription of the video here, 'cause the english accent is very terrible (I'm sorry for your ears), and I kill two birds in one shot so you can read what I explain in the video if you cannot hear it in the moment.

We'll upload the transcription in another the moment, there is a little baby that need care!

3) Big news here. This game is gonna be Huge, and you'll hear about it. Right now is very alpha, making some basic systems, but I'm proud of the work i'd done 'till now.

Here is the second video of Galactic Battlefare!

 I'll edit this post later on, cheers!
 

So much to do so little time - GBF-Ancient Relics General Ideas and Art Guide

It's have been days that I have thinking of record a video of actual development of GBF Ancient Relics, first to show you the dialogue system, then to talk about inventory ideas (manage Ship upgrades, cargo and crew thru inventory), and later for showing off the character creation system.

About Character Customization and it's reflection in gameplay

But so much to do, so little time. The dialogue system is nearby finished (the work will be make all conversations to the level of the old RPG immersion that I pretend. That was the reason for the character creation system; every choice you make will be tangled with the conversations. The way they speak to you, conversation options, or whole conversations can depend on your choices on character creation (for the time being; gender, faction, personality (that is linked to the aesthetics of portrait).

 I'm wondering if keeping the user selections simple (you select simple things and the scripts make of you a complex character), or adding so much choices as you will remember from the first Elder Scrolls or Ultima character creation, like homeworld, studies (if any), and career choices 'till the moment where game starts,  class specialization (engineering, science, etc) that affect stats, but, the idea I'm working on is that the main character is the captain and will depend on having the right companions (that they sure will be engineers, scientific, military, etc) on roster. One can say "I can let that for the next game", but hell, I'm gonna be working hard for months with this, and the success can determine If I release another sci-fi retro RPG of the Galactic Battlefare Universe.

The thing is whatever male, female or androgene sex the character has, former faction, or personality, the main character of Ancient Relics is a retired naval fleet captain with problems with the Terran Confederation, and will find old friends and make new ones. You don't write letter by letter what your character say, or what he is done in the past. The character is already created, you customized it. It's not like Ultima's Avatar, where the only thing the main character say is "Job", "Name", and "Bye". So in the context of Ancient Relics, I think simple character selections, that will return in more complex conversations via script, is the way to go.

Note: Dialogue system reminds right now more to the first Elder Scrolls games, where you select a keyword of action (Trade, Accept, Reffuse, Attack, Leave...), of conversational tone (Calm, Harsh, Interested..) or game story keywords (ask about certain person, or certain place). But the option trigger a real conversation between the characters, with bracketed narration included (so yes, I think the closer experience is first Elder Scrolls Games. I'm working around the idea of having a max of 9 conversational options at every moment, or make a scrolling window of options that will let me open or close global dialogue options, precisely like in the best old rpg games. That you can be in one point of the galaxy "doing a quest", asking people if they know how to make it to somewhere, and go back to the other point of the galaxy and ask the first npcs you encountered if they know where is it. This will be preferable in inmersive narration, but will build scripting expensiveness, so I'll see what I do.

¿Told'ya that I love how my dialogue system is right now?

About the art

I established the cannons of 2d art in Ancient Relics; 3d realist toon shaded sprites of guys and gals and multi-limbic aliens. There is a lot of art just for npcs here, companions, and Player Portraits (there are 30 in total of the last, today I did 7).

a NPC that you can come across during any town shop day or dungeon friday, need a 1024px ingame sprite. NPCs that you can talk with (most of them), will need (at least, maybe some of them need more) one 1024px Dialogue Sprite. NPCs than can be team up (recruit as your companion) need a 516px portrait, and NPCs that can be part of the ship crew need an 256px Inventory Crew Icon. I'm not sure yet if all Crew members can be companions and viceversa, I will think of that when time is on the essence.

The second NPC I put in the test level was a placeholder  NPC take out from Hearts Date Club, but finally get fond of she and remake the graphics for Ancient Relics standards. She is a NPC that you find in game, can talk, and can be recruit, so need all the graphics. This way, I made a template so you can see the kind and variety of graphics I'll use per NPC:

Don't miss detail, zoom this commie.

The Character Creation system is functional,( but I have to fix the script 'cause when cancelling and making a new character, portraits doesn't show well), when I'll have the other 24 player portraits (in a few days I hope), I'll have enough to justify a new video (character system and dialogue system with the first conversations, so you can taste the flavour of the game).

About RPG systems

Player inventory - Ship inventory

As I'm immersed with all the above, I'm letting flow in my head different ideas about the inventory. Right now, I have one basic scripted in place (items, equip, stats..), but my priority is making two kind of inventories, Player and Ship. How much you will can customize the ship thru his inventory, or how well by compatible the dual inventory idea, I don't know yet. Sure, you can purchase merchant cargo in a spaceport and take it directly to your spaceship.. But when you're roaming a derelict spaceship dungeon, the only cargo you'll can handle will be personal size? Teleport is not of human use in GBF (for teleporting merchant cargo directly to the ship from spot. Maybe you can tag cargo for, when you return the ship, send the minions to take the load? Hmmm...

Combat system

No idea yet. Wanna do something original, fast or slow, but engaging. Two days ago, a found a Success $100k Kickstarter grid-based space RPG (Space Crawlers). Nothing to do with my retro-conversation inmersive-space opera universe, just procedural dungeons and some kind of nintendo old style RPG first person combat system, but with appealing AAA graphics (I don't need nor want AAA graphics, but I congrats space crawlers developers). I thought before about a  first person perspective rpg turn based combat, but thought that was bland. Face it, in Eye of the Beholder, Ishaar trilogy, Lands of Lore, the real time first person timed actions based combat works, at least for its age. But in a sci-fi enviroment (yes, they will be close combat enemys, but mostly ranged) with grid-based movement, I don't see it. A Realms of Arkania isometric-grid turn-based hardcore combat system is a naughty idea, but really costly to achieve, out of my possibilities or budget.

Real time? Turn-based? First person, isometric, top-view? Minigame, hardcore RPG? Any suggestions will be appreciated, in the meantime I'll think about it.

From the time being, I'll keep working day and night, soon you'll see more or less the results of first (and maybe second) week of work!

And a message of our advertisers, in Ken Williams key of humor;

  http://www.stdcheck.com

First Person Grid-Based Sci-Fi RPG - Development Diary #1

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