[Mattias Gustavsson]

Here's a little preview of a game I'm working on, called "Thieves and Warriors".


(all the screenshots can be clicked on for full size view)

The game is somewhat inspired by old RPG games like Phantasie 3 (oh, and Pirates! as well, obviously), but even more inspired by oldschool pen and paper RPG's. Ther'll be lots of stats and numbers, none of it hidden away. And not so much animations or effects - more static screens and menus.



You control a party of adventurers. I won't have a limit on how many, but eventually it will become difficult for you to manage, I guess.



The game starts off in a town, and you will also be returning to the town after completing quests. When in the town, you'll be able to visit the market or tavern.



The tavern is where you get your quests. The quests will be auto-generated, but quite simple to their nature.



To get where you're going, there will be one or more days of journey, where you can be beset by foul weather, food shortage and more.



You can also be attacked, and I'm not quite done with how that will work yet - thinking of having it like a game board with abstract pieces.



When you reach your destination, which is inevitably some sort of dungeon (keeping it classic, remember), which I haven't even started to visualize yet - it will be auto-generated, but apart from that I don't know. I'm considering a "doodles on graph paper" kind of look, but need to experiment some more.

Making the background pictures have been quite a challenge for me - have never used Poser to this extent before, and I'm really quite happy with the result :-)

Any feedback appreciated.
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Hajo]

Oh, wow. The graphics totally got me!

[Verious]

The graphics look fantastic, but the window/menu style seems to clash with the graphic style.

[Malignus]

The environments look lovely! Some of the character designs bother me a little, though. The warrior especially just looks...well, kind of generic, honestly.

I'm excited by those menus on the traveling screen--reminds me of the Oregon Trail! :)

[DeveloperX]

[tcaudilllg]

Those graphics are good... how did you do them?

[RampantCoyote]

I suspect Poser is involved somehow... ;)

But yeah. Very sharp menus, and the graphics for the combat screen look pretty sharp, too.
_________________
Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[RedSlash]

Who cares about generic warrior, give him a red cloak and he'll be special. Looks great!

[Nodtveidt]

Guys, he specifically noted that he used Poser to make the backgrounds... :P

What I wanna know is...what version? :D
_________________
If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[DeveloperX]

[Ichoris]

Nice work. Looking forward to playing this!

[Nodtveidt]

Using Poser to produce such good scenes requires a good knowledge of lighting, just like in photography. Knowing that, I've produced images in Poser that people cannot distinguish from actual photographs. Too much light and the scene looks 3D rather than photorealistic. I don't think he's trying to go for photorealistic, but these images are very well-done.
_________________
If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Thanks for all the comments, good stuff :-)

Yeah, it's all done in Poser obviously - I couldn't model stuff myself if my life depended on it :P I've been using Poser since the first version, and I'm currently using Poser 6 (which isn't even the newest one, but good enough). It's a very easy tool to learn, but it's difficult to get things looking nice - so I'm glad you like the look of it :D And yeah, it's not meant to be photo-realistic, more inspired by covers of old pen-and-paper RPG books: colorful, a bit cheesy and cliché.

The characters are meant to be quite generic - if I knew how to make the other characters more generic too, I'd do it, but the barbarian is an easy one.

I understand the concerns about the menus and text boxes, and I've heard it from others too. What I've tried to do is something like these:

And I'd rather not move towards the stone-and-wood look which are quite frequently found in games. I'd like too keep it more simple and clean looking, to help enhance the pen-and-paper feel (btw, I also have printed character sheets in the game, which are filled in with handwritten stats as you create your character). I guess I'll have to work a bit more on this, so any suggestions on how to improve it is appreciated.

Good mention of the Oregon Trail - I'm in need of some more ideas for the travel part, so I'll look into that a bit for inspiration. Thanks :-)
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[DeveloperX]

[Nodtveidt]

I agree on the old paper look. You could also try using a tattered scroll, a la RuneScape. Neither technique is overused.
_________________
If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace