Abeyance - First Unity3D Project

Hey folks. I think I've got to grips with Unity3D enough to start my first project in it. This project is a turn based Japanese style RPG. I made the original demo in Dark Basic Professional. That version can actually be found over here (there's a download on the site too)

But since testing out Unity3D and loving it, I thought I'd work on porting the project over and completing it in Unity.

​

Workflow:
3D Modelling UVMapping: Hexagon 2.5
Texturing: Gimp
Rigging: Carrara 5 Pro
Animation: Done within Unity3D
Map modelling : Cartography Shop
Lightmapping : Gile

The Plot:

You follow the perspective of Keats. A man living in a totalitarian world being pushed to follow the same routine day in and day out, working the factories, staying quiet, staying to himself. With no place for him to freely express himself as an individual he, like many people, finds himself suffering from repression and as a result Keats enters a dream world that blends with reality as he grows more and more insane. Hence the story starts with his first encounter with this dream world.

The Design

The game is made up of two parts. The turn based battle system, which I'll explain below, and puzzles. So in the first map you are exploring a warehouse and it's full of various fiends and at the end is a boss fight. For every fiend you kill they will drop a clue and you need each clue to be able to beat the boss. In the first map you have to be able to translate what the boss says, as there's an important message that'll help you decide how to win the fight.

The complicated bit is actually the battle system, but it'll make sense. Like any RPG you've got stats and these are how the stats are laid out.

Stats:
HP - Health
Concentration - Mana
Strength - Physical attack power
Vitality - Physical defence
Mind - Neuro ability power
Delusion - Psycho ability power
Dexterity - Accuracy/Ranged attack power
Agility - Evasion
Threshold - Resistance to different attack types.

Abilities:
Attack - Strike with a melee weapon
Ranged Attack - Strike with a projectile
Neuro - Mind based attacks (uses concentration), these never miss.
Psycho - Rage based attacks (uses concentration)
Cower - Improved Defenses

Thresholds
Curse (Mental boost)
Blood (Delusion boost)
Frantic (Strength boost)
Nerve (Dexterity boost)
Fear (Agility boost)
Empowerment (Vitality boost)
Lucid (All stat boost) - can only be activated through item use.

The way in which Thresholds work is that whilst in battle you're able to use your turn to change a Threshold based on the attacks the enemy is using. If you can work out the enemy's Threshold you can adjust your Threshold to give you an edge.

Your Psycho and Neuro abilities can be aligned with a Threshold.
So here's a fight:


Lets say the enemy is Curse based.

Cursed enemies are weak against Frantic. As a Cursed enemy he might be using more Neuro attacks - so if he's got some hard hitting attacks, you might be comfortable with an Empowerment Threshold and just launch your Frantic abilities. If he's hard to hit, you might use a Nerve threshold. Or you might just go Frantic because it fortifies your strength and makes his weaknesses weaker.

I've done it this way because I want to make tactics an important part of the battle. Some RPG's become easy because you can just grind them. With the Threshold system you can potentially triple the effectiveness of an attack.

Anyway, I hope that makes the system clear. Have I over complicated it a bit? The game will ease you into it enough instead of throwing you in the deep end.

There's also the class system, which offers a little more choice. I'll write them out with small descriptions to give an idea:
Whisperer: Focus: Neuro attacks. (Like a Mage)
Psychopath: Focus: Psycho attacks. (Like a Magic Sword User)
Manic: Focus: Melee. (Like a Warrior)
Trigger Finger: Focus: Ranged (Like a Ranger)
Shadower: Focus: Avoiding damage, shadow based attacks (Like a Rogue or Ninja)
Tormentor: Focus: Heavy Defense. (Like a Paladin)

Here's a video testing out some of the animations in Unity3D - I don't think they're working perfectly yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO9EeY_QfPs

And a couple more screenshots:

 

I've not really had much of a chance to work on this in the last couple of months, but got back to it this week. I've practically finished the battle system. I just need to display the damage to the UI, create end-battle conditions and clear up any bugs, once I've done that I'll see if I can upload a WebPlayer version. Then I can get to work on other elements in the game.



I've got a couple of YouTube videos, this one is demonstrating Enemy AI

And this one explains the battle system

Cheers.

 

Looks good so far. How long have you been working on this project?

 

Cheers for the comment. Basically the initial test demo was written at the beginning of this year, then the second one a month straight after (with major changes), both were written in Dark Basic Pro and took me a month to do each (full first area). The reason I redid it was because I was experimenting with different ideas and coming up with the best approach. I decided to give Unity3D a go, loved the concept of it then spent time learning it and pretty much started this in May (as you'll see I posted this thread at the end of May). I'd probably say, a total of 2 weeks working on it here and there (as June was a blank month as I had other things that needed doing).

 

This is nice work. The plot sounds really creative and unique. The design of the game very-well thought out.

The animation is smooth but kind of bland like they make the same movements over and over.

Overall, it's good work though and has a lot of potential . Keep it up . Feel free to check out my work as well if you have time

 

I agree the design has potential and im sure theres plenty of artists willing to contribute if thats not your area of expertise.

 

Cheers for the feedback. Animation isn't one of my strong points but as I get better I will replace any animations. There will also be more battle animations to help mix it up a bit, for example - the Psycho (sword based attacks) will use different animations for different abilities and Neuro will be using different sets of particles as they're more like magic. At the moment I see it as being Programming > Art at this stage. I would like to improve the art, but that'll come second.

I'd say I'm a capable 3D modeller (for example), texturing skills needs improving, rigging does too and animation definitely needs it. Personally I would like to practice so that I get better at it. Chances are, character models will be redone. I might go for the hand painted route.

I checked out some of your music on your blog, There's some cool stuff on there. Decent range of content. Certainly a lot better than anything I can come up with.

 

Hey, it's Fuzz from TGC forum. Very interesting game!

 

Hey man, nice to see you around and cheers for the comment.