Games Shadows Of The Dead - Medieval tactical combat survival

Hi! I've been working on this project on and off the past year. Lately I'm working on it as much I can (bricklayer, father and house owner, time is scarce). I will try to update this with a weekly basis.


It is a mainly a sidescrolling game with turn-based tactical combat. Set in Sweden during the middle ages during a undead apocalypse. With a focus on fun and advanced combat and a immersive world.

You start with one character randomly created with stats, skill, perks, background, equipment etc. With him you choose if you will harvesting resources and build a village, craft items or explore the world and loot abandoned cities, fortresses, mines, towns and more. You encounter other characters along the way, some will befriend you and join, others trying to kill you. But mostly you will encounter undeads that is not friendly at all.

Some of the main features
Each unit has his own inventory with layered equipment. Head, chest, arms, legs has 2 layers or gear, making it possible for him to wear chainmail + plate harness or gambeson + leather harness.

Wide variaty of weapons, armors and shields with slash, blunt, pierce damage/protection.

Tactical turn based combat on a hexagonal grid. Where each weapon have different kind of attacks and defences. Attacks can be parried, dodged, blocked and the countered. Stamina and initiative will play a major roll in surviving a battle.

Dice rolls will determine how well you perform an action with a skill. If you crafting a weapon the dice roll determine how well you (if you) success with the weapon, resulting in lowered/raised damage, durability, resource use, stability(initiative modifier) etc. Or if you attack it will modify your damage done as initiative for next turn. A good fighter don't just do much damage but is more likely to be able to attack before his opponent.

A world map that is procedurally generated with biomes. And each spot your unit visit is unique with randomly generated background depending on type of biome.

Day and night cycle with sunrise and sunset and a moon with dynamic phases changing every day.

Weather effect with fog, thunderstorms, clear skies and everything in between.

For more info visit:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sotdthegame
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SotdGame

 

Done some major changes. This is old images showing the game when it was in pixel graphics. Scrolling further down will show the game in its current state.

UPDATE #1

Hi! Here is a weekly update of the game. Been kind of busy I think, now when I look at the list.

• Added a new moon with dynamic phases that changes every night from new moon to full moon. Still some work to do to mask the stars behind the "transparent" part of the moon.
• Some rework on the item database and added shields and weapons (ranged and melee)
• Created some weapon items that the units can equip, also some sprites.
• Started to work on the dynamic weather system. And a weather manager to control the weather during the day. It will be clear sky, cloudy sky, fog, light/medium/heavy rain. Every type will affect sunlight, fog thickness, cloud amount, sky color etc.
• Added ambient sound for the forest. Added rain sounds when it is raining.
• Experimented with some random distant sounds (a person screaming, echoing deep within the forest). Will be adding, owls, crows, deer barks with more, depending on biome.
• Created some graphics for the crafting one handed swords. 4 types of blades, handles, hilts? and guards. Lost some where between the laptop and the stationary on a external disk... never gonna use that one again.

In the ucoming week I think it would be good to continue on the grid and combat. As I plan to have a battle tech demo available sometime around Dec-Jan. Polish the attack action with different kind of attack types depending of weapon, defences, some simple AI for enemies etc. But I think I'll do something with the weather system as well, it is so much fun to see it come alive.

Here's some screens of the new weather system and with the moon.

 

It looks amazing, crazy that it's pixel art!

 

Thank you! I have been putting a lot of effort in the visuals (maybe too much, work been suffering in other areas).

 

real nice man!

 

Here is a small video showing the dynamic weather.
The quality is not that good, something is wrong (settings or me) with my recordings as they always get wierd lag. So this is the best I get.

 

sorry for my ignorance here, but... what is the point to make it pixel art if it has this level of detail?

 

The pixel art is fast and easy to make (got 3 years in art school so painting is something I feel comfortable with). I'm not that good at making 3D models and it would take twice the time. Plus that I like the pixel art feel, I think that it look better then my mediocre 3D attempts. But I understand your question, some things would not have been the headache it was with sprites

 

UPDATE #2

Here is some of the stuff I have been working on this week.

• Added dynamic sun intensity set by overcast amount. Low sunlight when overcast and high when clear. And everything in between.
• Ambient light color dynamicaly changes by overcast amount.
• A lot of fixing and tweaking with the colors and values of the fog and sky.
• Did some experimenting of clouds as particle.
• Implemented the battle grid and mechanics to the "real" game. First it was planed to be a new scene with the battle grid, save and load units to it etc, now it is the same scene as the main scene. Making battle more fluid with less loading screens.

This is a video showing the battleground. Its rough and needs alot of polishing, but it's a start. It also needs enemies, and the dudes, they need clothes. Finally I think you'll choose which units you will have on the battleground. Pick and place from the units within screen boundaries.

 

UPDATE #3

Been a while since I posted an update. I've been working on a major update of the whole project. I had some problems with the animations and the sprites the units and equipment are made up of that I thought would end up in a mess. So I decided to bring in another dimension to the project. Most of the graphics are placeholders from asset store at the moment, while I get the game up and running again.



Here some of the things I've been doing.

• Created a new project. The game will now be in 3d. Have moved all scripts to the new project. Which has resulted in some rework of a lot of stuff.
• I have re-implemented units, player input, day and night cycle, battle grid and battle functions, some weather effects and more.
• Created a Main Menu scene that creates a new world on new game.
• Removed the camera pan and added a fade to black instead when entering and leaving battle.
• Added a toggleable health bar above each unit in battle.
• Added a selection marker that also will function as a unit info button later. Where you will receive current health, stamina, hunger etc.
• Created a Debugger class to help me out.
• Created a new hexgrid for the battleground. With new graphics for the cells.
• Implemented the attack action during battle.
• Working on behavior for undeads during battle.
• Been cleaning up some of the scripts

 

UPDATE #4

Here comes an update of what I have been working on.

• Almost finished with the foundation of the battleground. Player units can now walk and attack, AI units can pathfind to nearest unit and attack them. Camera setup for battle is working, added obstacles on the battleground and some highlighting and marker fix.
• Enemy units can now both be human and undead. Will add another pathfinding for the undeads later. Now the the AI only check the shortest distance to its target. I think they might be better suited for checking nearest target in sight.
• Implemented the inventory and equipment manager for human units. At the moment there is just weapons that the units can equip.
• Created a blueberry plant and a Chickweed plant to use as ground vegetation in the coniferous and mixed forests.
• Started to work on a human unit model in Blender.

(Graphics and animations are just placeholders for now. I will change them further on the development).

Here is the ground vegetation I created. The image is cropped due to lack of background environment =)

 

UPDATE #5

I have been busy with some experimenting lately. Trying to find a graphics style that is some what realistic, fast in making and something I can created with my limited experience in 3D. I have come to the conclusion that I will try to make something like Warhammer Onlines handpainted textures mixed with Firewatch moody stylized graphics. This is what I've come up with so far. None of the models are finished and will most likely change later on. The underpants will be part of the human unit as default instead of them being naked.

This is a "old" image of the human unit. I've fixed some of the proportions and other stuff now. Also need a proper texture.

Kettle hat. Outer layer headwear. Color, roughness and normal map from sculpt. I like this, but maybe to much work with sculpting.

Medieval underwear. Will be part of the unit as default. Just a color and roughness map. I think this is a little bit to cartoonist.

 

Here is an small update of how the game looks like in its current state. I've replaced the trees I had as placeholders with my own. Still need some work on the bark and some fixes with the transparency on the branches etc. But I think it's coming along well. This is sunrise, morning, evening and sunset. I will post a video of the full day and night cycle as soon as I've fixed the sun and moon rotation. It is a little bit messed up atm.

 

A small update on some of the stuff I've been working on. Have mostly been doing graphics in Blender for a change, but decided to get the battle mode to work. It doesn't look pretty but most of the stuff is working and it is fairly playable. I've also adde BattleActions (attacks/defences) that will be added to the weapons and they show up on the GUI. This is what I got now.

EDIT: I will have defence actions when a player unit gets attacked. It could be block with shield if wielding a shield, parry with a sword or simply dodge the attack. Anyway, I'm having a hard time deciding if I should just switch the attack actions to defences when under attack or use some kind of pop-up menu with them. Any idea thoughts?

Heres some items I've been working on aswell




And some modular swords
https://twitter.com/SotdGame/status/1084222060447100929

 

I put together this video to present this amazing and suspense track that will be featured in the game It is made by Erik Lauri Kulo who will be making the thrilling soundtrack for the game. Check in his website for more music and his great photos. http://eriklaurikulo.com/