Time to dig this up!

I want to spruce up a lot of work I did for this to see how it will look in GG Max

I really hope Max gives us radiosity, or some approximation of it, so these environments can really shine (no pun intended).

AE

Anything will be an improvement to the current system and I concur. I also hope for more in-engine post processing as I'm not too fond of third party tools like sweet fx and reShade.



-Wolf

Hey there, err.... well first, lets break out the title card.



Pam barramm! Now things feel official. Don't they just feel more official to you? the things I mean?

Anyway, I am now back to this after taking a break for a while as I was rather grumpy for having to cancel Shavra for the time being.
I was very motivated to make that shine but trying to polish up environments and lore is not worth it if the core gameplay ends up being awkward. So! Here I am back with Acythian.... a game I know I can make to also play fun.

When I made Amytric Pulse, I remember thinking that from now on, I will only make games smaller in scope that I will end up finishing rather than getting drawn into these behemoth projects that just end up being a work in progress section for ever. Unfortunately I got side tracked immediately as I really wanted to make this large fantasy game without having the means to do it properly. That is in the past now and I have gotten back to make this game here.

Now, Acythian already has a lot of content made and it was easy for me to get back into it. Although I did major changes to the story and GDD to be more engaging and various but at the same time a bit easier to do as I cut all the city parts.

If you browse the 9 pages of this thread you can see the game go through a few iterations and I think I finally got a good and do able road map laid out for this to work. Here are some of the biggest changes in over view:

- I stuck to the female protagonist for this. Her plot line is a bit more interesting than the tried and tested (albeit generic) retired spec ops soldier.

- The original GDD for Arielles Story had 1 Level in the open (the one with the giant statue seen before) and 7 within a complex. This has been changed for the majority of the game to take place in more open levels that are slower paced with an emphasis on exploration.

There are some horror elements thrown in the mix with the exclusion zone being envisioned to feel rather haunted and eeriee.

For the sake of stability and the fact that I can't code all scripts are contained within a level. That means there won't be an inventory, money system or states carrying over from level to level. I know this is true for the vast majority of FPS games and its easy to design around this.

Friendly NPC's can not be killed to avoid awkward situations based on player choice. Dialogues are mostly written yet some parts are also spoken.

And now some more impressions of that abandoned bunker area (don't worry, there is an in-lore reason why it has power) :

And that concludes this level. All it'd require now are dynamics, sound, playtesting and a second detail pass.

It will be great to see how this compares in Max as, even in classic, it already looks great! Strong sense of colour and lighting design, and I think I spot some cool environmental storytelling teased as well . I've been thinking I may need to make a Max-tester-level myself (even though I haven't actually bought into Max yet).

Keep up the great work!

AE

Looks gorgeous already.

I hope max lives up to the hype and makes this environment look even better.

Cheers.

As many of you know, this is now an UE4 project. Most of you that follow my work on discord have already seen some early screenshots of that, for everyone else, there will be a link here eventually. As soon as I have a working prototype and some screenshots of what the game will look like.