Daggerwind random Pic

This is a totally random Daggerwind pic, nothing much update wise has been happening in the last few weeks due to work pressures and RL (Real Life) in general.

This is quite normal in the life of a part time hobbyist game programmer, and is to be expected. One of the great things is that there are no real pressures, deadlines, or bosses constantly banging on about things.

It recently dawned on me that I will eventually need to release something tangible, that is pretty cool and joined together, kind of like a real game that you can pick up and play for a good 15-20 minutes or so at least without noticing that it isn't really finished. Before I die at least.

Not that I am planning on doing so anytime soon, but is a sobering thought. What if, and have this thing sitting on my hard-drive (and backed up of course), but is so close, and yet so far. Umm.

The focus now is to just join every frickin thing up as it stands, warts an all so that at least I can get something that vaguely resembles a finished game out.

Read more »

Daggerwind Dungeon

Back in the dungeon, tweaking the random dungeon generator for Daggerwind. Nothing that drastic has changed but haven't posted  a recent dungeon shot in a while, so is kind of an excuse to add one really.

Looks deserted in the screenshot, but danger lurks just around the corner. Only have spiders and skeletons at the moment, however many more to follow.

Have added some more random placements, banners, barrels, crates and various other dungeon like props. The wall and floor textures are also randomly generated, some combinations looking slightly odd, but then again re-playing Elder scrolls Arena and Daggerfall, some of those interiors kind of clash as well.

I've added some volumetric fog that drifts and swirls around which adds to the atmosphere a little, and also some random eerie sound effects for good measure. 

Read more »

Anvil of Dawn Mac

Anvil of Dawn is one of the last non-3D first person role-playing game that relies on sprite animations. It skillfully uses transition effect to create a smooth grid based movement. One of the strong points about the game is the auto map implementation. You can choose one of the five characters to start with, each carries a different characteristic. The spells are categorized into four categories, which you have to pick the category at the start. Similar to magic, the weapon skills also being categorized into a few areas.

DreamForge Intertainment, (later Dreamforge Games) was founded as Event Horizon Software by James Namestka, Thomas Holmes and Christopher Straka. The company produced several well known award winning games, most of them in the genre of role-playing and strategy games. The company was shut down in 2000 after difficulties with the publisher while developing the never finished game Werewolf: The Apocalypse - The Heart of Gaia, which eventually led to the closure of the company.


Download Anvil of Dawn Mac

Read more »

Lands of Lore Mac

 Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos is the first installment of the Lands of Lore series, It was developed by Westwood Studios and distributed by Virgin Games, Inc. The game presents a real-time, three dimensional view from the character's perspective that is similar to the interface used on the Dungeon Master game and the Eye of the Beholder series.

When Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos came in 1993 or 1994, people were amazed. Not only did the game have an intro that was one the most beautiful to that date, it did also incorporate a good and interesting game-play. A funny side-story to this whole game was that Lands Of Lore originally was the game Eye Of The Beholder 3. But Westwood (who made Lands of Lore) lost the rights to do it, even though they had made much of the game. The remains of Westwood's Eye Of The Beholder 3 were converted into Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos. A good story about the evil witch Scotia taken possession of the enchanted ring "The Nether Mask", which she used to cover the lands in darkness. The Dark Army where on the move, and succeeding in smashing Gladstone, the symbol light of the lands, and poisoning King Richard.

In the game your job is to slay Scotia. In the new version of this game King Richards voice where played by Patrick Steward - who did a good job. Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos where so successful, that it where succeeded by two sequels. I love this game. It is one of my most fondest memories of the mid-nineties.

Lands of Lore Speedrun

Lands of Lore Mac Download

Read more »

Random Quest System

Been working on the random quest system that will end up in Daggerwind eventually. Have created a separate project, but will be easy to re-implement back in as I can export it as a package. This way I will be able to concentrate on the quest system itself, be able to refine and refactor as it progresses.
The aim is to create something similar to the Radiant quest system that Elder Scrolls Skyrim uses. (Maybe not so ambitious to start with, will just see how it evolves)

Initially I have defined the following states that represent the main stages of your standard RPG quest.

• Initialise - Initialise quest 
• Offer - NPC Offer quest to player 
• Accept - Player has accepted quest 
• Decline - Player has declined quest 
• Objective - NPC given player the objective, Kill, Speak, Find etc 
• ObjectiveInProgress - Quest objective has been spawned 
• ObjectiveComplete - Player has completed objective, ie Killed MOB, Spoken to NPC etc 
• End - End Quest, NPC gives Player reward 

As the player progresses through the quest, the state changes in the order above. (Object and Objective are interchangeable in the context of the states I've defined)

As it progresses will edit this post to add some of the technical details, research, patterns etc

Read more »

Endless Terrain

Daggerwind endless terrain, seamless world without bounds which will one of the cornerstones in my quest to create an Elder Scrolls style indie RPG . The terrain is generated from a World Manager that creates a 1024 x 1024 array of 1024 x 1024 terrain tiles. The tiles are selected from a set based on a seed passed into a random number generator. This creates a seemingly random world, but will be exactly the same every time (So long as the seed is the same) This allows for persistence. I guess technically it's not endless, but just very, very big. Only a 3 x 3 grid around the player is rendered at anyone time, adding and removing tiles as you move around the game world.






Cities and Towns are walled as in Elder Scrolls Arena and Daggerfall allowing me to swap scenes entering and exiting. The load time is pretty quick each way, and with the scene fading in and out isn't that obvious or intrusive. I will be able to create custom terrain tiles with small Farms, homesteads or village huts so that it feels more natural and seamless.

The Procedural terrain starts as a randomly created heightmap, black being low and white the high areas. I then make them seamless by copying the original heightmap, rotating it 90 degrees and moving it adjacent. Then repeat 3 more times by copying and rotating using Gimp. Pretty low tech but no other tool needed.

I've also got a scrollable/drag-able over world map that is stitched together using 36 1024 textures (6 x 6 grid) Have yet to make it interactive with click-able pins and stuff but is a good start.

Also see the Random Town Generator

Read more »

Game Title Screen

Have re-visited the title screen as the first attempt wasn't particularly good. The camera pans in along a spline, the candle flickers and there's a little movement from the female model's idle animation.

The title text is a little better also. Will leave it alone for now as I think it works quite well, and don't really have the luxury of spending large amounts of time making it look perfect.

Although not that crucial to the game at this point, the plan is to create a tech demo that will have everything from start to finish. Splash, Menu, Character Creation, Character Customization. Then Random Dungeon, Random Town and Endless Terrain making the full game start to finish, albeit with very short game-play to start with. 15 minutes or so until content is expanded upon.
 (Content being more random tiles and stuff)

Read more »

Daggerwind NPC's

The NPC Quest and Dialog system I was planning on buying in from the Unity asset store. Wheels do not need to be re-invented, and if I have any chance of actually finishing this project, picking my battles is definitely key. However, off the shelf quest systems seem to be geared towards hand crafted NPC's, not randomly generated at run time.
I've started to create my own NPC quest and dialog system that will fit better into the randomly generated world that I'm creating.
From the screenshot you can also see real game time being tracked with the day/night cycle and timed lights from the Tavern to the right.

Torem Kelg - Evil Alchemist 

“Here you go, lad! Drink up, it’s on the house!”

Appearance: A short, stout elderly man with a bald scalp and full white beard, Torem wears a number of charms around his neck for various travel deities, all gifts from travelers. Torem wears an apron and, when not serving patrons, is constantly wiping glasses.

Roleplaying: Torem acts as if every patron is an old friend, even if meeting one for the first time. He is always cheery and upbeat, consoling hurting patrons that nothing is as bad as it seems.

Personality: He is almost giddy, but that’s because of what he’s secretly doing to transient patrons.

Motivation: Torem wants to create monsters in order to make his tavern a more popular destination for adventurers.

Background: Torem is a frustrated alchemist who was unappreciated by his previous employers due to his lack of ethics. He settled down as an innkeeper in a new land. His inn is located in a quiet village that did not sit on any main roads. Torem has decided to drum up business by poisoning travelers with magical beverages, turning them into monsters. e monsters have attracted adventurers from all around and have made the inn quite popular. Torem drinks are harmless unless the second component, a morning beverage, is taken the next day. As the two drinks are inert otherwise, Torem has managed to fool the few investigators who took notice of the drinks.

Traits: (WC) Abhorrent, business, criminal, magical, merchant

Read more »

Daggerwind Random Town

Here are some older screenshots of my Daggerfall remake project, Daggerwind. This is the game I've always been trying to make ever since first playing it. (Or perhaps Elder Scrolls I Arena) Many have said it looks more Arena-ish than Daggerfall. Either way, it's a game inspired by a combination of them both. Old school RPG, Massive randomly created world, Random dungeons, Towns, everything.
Will update the main site when I can remember the password, but until then here a couple screenshots of one of the towns, completely random, and in the style of Arena/Daggerfall, totally massive.
The Town can be easily as large as Daggerfall towns, it's comprised of an array 12 x 12 grid of tiles (can be more if required), each tile containing between 8 to a dozen separate buildings. The Random Town generator creates a 3 x 3 grid around the player, adding and removing tiles in the same way as the Infinite terrain generator.

More Daggerwind updates: http://www.paulrowlandapps.com/2014/02/daggerwind-npcs.html

Read more »