Action Souls-like RPG Game for all platforms

Hey guys,

I wanted to share with you an updated video of my upcoming game for Windows, iOs, and Android. This is a one-man development effort heavily inspired in the Dark Souls series.

It will most likely be available for free for iOs and Android, and for a symbolic price for Windows. I’ll add as many platforms as possible i.e. nintendo switch, playstation, etc (if I get the proper licenses).

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IROP8Mme4rw

As i’m currently developing the combat mechanics, I’d like to know your comments on the video.

If you liked it, please let me know. And as I’m developing the core mechanics, you can even make requests for them (and I’ll try to develop them).

Thanks for watching!

Super kool!!

Thanks man! Just came up with the title, Sunless Chronicles.

Looks amazing!

Always looking for fantasy rpgs!

To be honest i am not big fan of that kind of combat and controls but that is personal preference. There are lot of people who like it.

I really love the characters and the backgrounds.

Did you make the art assets by yourself?

I really want to see more.

Hope you have a great success with your game!:slight_smile:

Looking great!

I love the dark atmosphere and music. Also the characters and combat seem to be well done! And the user interface looks cool too!

Great job, keep going!

Really impressive work.

I worked solo on my Sacred Swords project for 9 months (and one artist started to work with me as well mid-project) and it was a very nice experience. I feel it’s kind of the same journey you’re embarking for and I wish you the best for this, it’s an awesome feeling.

Here’s my thoughts while watching your video:

  • What did you do by yourself? what kind of working field you’re on?
  • What assets are you planning to make / to buy?
  • Marketplace assets for enemy skeletons right?
  • Where does the Boss model comes from?
  • Blueprint / CPP? A majority of?
  • Soloplayer I suppose (even if Dark Souls has multiplayer mechanics)?
  • Body awareness was really well done (the fact that you really feel your character as being part of the game world)
  • Body presence, attack feelings, pary and dodge all felt really physical - something that is often underlooked / not so well done
  • Chosen sound feedbacks (and their placeholder track) are nicely chosen
  • Nice mood overall that serves the theme of your game
  • Your jump broke the physical feeling I had, it wasn’t heavy enough (but you know that ;))
  • You can see the transition between AI states but I see the work you’ve already done to smooth it, keep up the good work on that point
  • Lovely aim offset on enemy’s head so that they look at you all the time, it’s a really nice addition
  • Camera shakes are maybe too disruptive sometimes
  • I would have loved to see fancier damage floating texts :smiley:
  • EDIT: And I forgot to mention the fact that the infinity blade map you’re using is the same I started with, I had a big nostalgia feeling :stuck_out_tongue:

You’re taking care of the details that matter to make the character a joyful toy to play with. It’s awesome.

Once again, I wish you the best and I’ll keep an eye on this.

Good luck and have fun everyone :slight_smile:

Looking great so far :slight_smile: I feel like playing it!

Thank you all for your responses!

Actually the showcased map was developed by Epic (It’s part of their Infinity Blade Collection). I’m using quite a few assets from the marketplace (such as kubold animation sets) detailed below.

Thanks a lot for your comments! I’ll try to keep this thread updated with further features :slight_smile:

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, I really appreciate it!

As for your questions:

  • I developed everything related to the gameplay: the combat system (combos, blocking, parrying, dodging, skills, attributes, etc.) AI (enemies have affinity groups and can fight each other, as well as dodge, block, use skills, etc.), item management (inventory, equipping weapons, armor), the character creation system (the game will have approximately 15-20 character customization parameters), UI set up, etc.
  • I’m using Mixamo Fuse for the characters and some animations. As for the rest of the art, it comes mostly from the Marketplace (Almost all the combat animations are Kubold’s, the skeletons were made by mister necturus, and the boss character was developed by Mordragos). I’m also using a lot of Epic Infinity Blade content. I’m not designing any art from scratch, but I’m adapting a lot of content from different designers (i.e. the main character is using an adapted version of mordragos paladin character)
  • It’s 100% developed in blueprint :slight_smile:
  • It will be single player at first. I would love to implement multiplayer, but networking adds a new layer of complexity. If this project has any success, I would start thinking about implementing multiplayer.
  • Thanks for your comments on body awareness/presence! Indeed, making the fights seem real and heavy was a real challenge, but I’m quite happy about the current results. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I think this is the right direction. Actually, this is were I need to make some adjustments to the camera shakes, sounds and particle effects to ensure that the combat experience feels real without being too distracting.
  • Indeed, the jump doesn’t look great at all! It’s just the standard third person jump :stuck_out_tongue: I plan to develop a complete jumping and ledge climbing system, but that will be much further down the road.
  • I’m happy that you noticed the enemies head-tracking! It is indeed a small detail, but before this, the enemies seemed less real and I couldn’t quite figure out why. This makes them a lot more natural.
  • The damage texts are quite crappy aren’t they? but indeed they’re just placeholders. I’m actually still deciding whether to use them or not.

I’m currently working on:

  1. AI System. Right now enemies can do pretty much anything the player does: use combos, dodge, block, parry, use skills, etc. They also have specific behaviors (i.e. aggresiveness), movement types (archers, for example, try to keep distance from the player), and affinity groups. I still need to work a lot in environmental awareness. The one they have right now is quite rudimentary. For example, they can try to get behind the player (like the teleporter skeletons) or stalk characters, but ideally they should be able to use the environment (for example, they should pick up rocks and throw them, hide behind walls, call for help, etc)
  2. Equipment system. So far I have about 5 different combat styles (swords, axes, greatswords, bows, flails, etc.). Ideally, the player should be able to complete the game using any combat style, but that will require huge amounts of balancing enemies and statistics.
  3. Storytelling. I will need to implement a modular approach here, as cutscenes are really time consuming and will be reduced to a minimum.

Again, thanks a lot for your comprehensive reply! By the way, Sacred Swords looks amazing. It reminds me a lot of Diablo II (Which was probably the first game I fell in love with).

Looks really, really impressive. As others have mentioned the animations and the weights and feel of every hit was well done. A question I have is, for the Mixamo animations, was it hard to work with? I mean as far as implementing and fine tuning towards your project?

Also main soundtrack playing matched the theme perfectly and the sound fx were done right too.

amazing work.

Looks fantastic!

Quick question: How are you handling hit reaction? Are they just animations, or are you using physics or IK or PhysicalAnimationComponent ?

Love the look and feel of the combat, and the little details of character movement, reactions, etc. Looking forward to playing this!

Amazing work !

Do you have a website \ blog with infos about the story etc. ?
The quality of this one-man development effort is impressive. Personally i am more a programmer as an artist ,so creating assets like 3D-Models, especially characters with nice animations, is a hard task.

Thank you all for your comments! They mean a lot to me.

Mixamo animations are great. As an example, the archers and sorcerer skeletons were all using mixamo animations (the archery and wizard sets) with little to no tuning. Some other animations require some adjustments, but it’s not a terrible pipeline. In addition, fuse allows developing beautiful characters in no time at all. And best of all: it’s 100% free.

This project is being developed with an extremely tight budget, so it’s quite handy :slight_smile:

For now, they’re animations + small movements (using either Set Velocity or Launch Character nodes). Some knockdown animations make use of root motion, but that’s just temporary, as it doesn’t allow any customization.

I still need to figure out the physics engine. I loved the Physical Animations twitch, so the actual game will definitely make use of it.

Thanks for your interest! I’m really happy about these early results. Indeed, I’ll be creating a website shortly as soon as I learn some html coding. I’ll be sure to share the website in this thread.

For the time being, I’ll be happy to share any updates in this thread and in my youtube channel, so please feel free to subscribe.

:slight_smile: Impressive Stuff!

will you make a tutorial for it?