Comments - ChrisWilson

In laymans terms theres a number of ways to build an engine but they all generally do involve coding if you want it to do anything exciting or differant.

You can use engines like Unity that have alot of the work on the engine/editor already done for you, but its still extremely editable and can be used to make practically any game or you can create your own engine from the ground up which is what we have done. Engines around 10,000 lines of code and the editors a little more I am told, in hind sight it was a massive project for a team with one programmer.

I'd have to check with my programmer to be 100% certain but i'm pretty sure localized versions of the client are quite achieveable with some time and effort.

We'd love to see this also, however scope and time frames of the project will mean this is quite a bit beyond our capabilitys at this time.

So who is going to be our 100th Watcher!

Going to have to admit, I don't really follow hehe.

All the Main Game Map Sprites and Combat Animation Sprites are pre-rendered, the only none pre-rendered art for the characters is in the UI.

The backgrounds for both gameplay screens (map and combat) are all 2d hand drawn (or well thats a lie some are 3d models rendered out) but the majority are 2d. Is this what you mean by making it all 3d models?

I'm not really sure what benefit it would have to be honest, by the time the 2d artist has textured them they look like they have been drawn in 2d anyway. The only perk of us using a 3d model is so that we can swing it around and render it from lots of angles for items we reuse several times.

Or I could be completely missing what your trying to tell me :-)

Seems I missed this comment completely so firstly appolgises for the late reply and the UI isn't great I know. James and Andy our artists are working on a new one I believe and the text is tempory until we decide on one that we want to purchase.

I do like the idea of lowering the opacity however, will probably give that a whirl and see what it looks like. Cheers

Thanks Mike, the models are used to make the sprite sheets for the 2d stuff but unfortunately as we don't have a 3D game engine thats about the best we can do. For a future project we will perhaps look at something like Unity ect, as the prospect of writing a full 3d engine with a single programmer just isn't viable for a game of any real scope.

Not free, but not overly pricey either!

This time it really is the Riflemans Video! appolgises for the mix up last time around. Comments and Feedback as always most welcome and encouraged.

News now fixed with correct text with correct video, what a novel idea ehy? :-)

Somewhat of an error on my part, uploaded the wrong video! this one would be for Lilah Brightmore the Healer appolgises! the Rifleman Video will be released shortly along with a full description of the Healers abilities. Sorry for the mix up but for now just enjoy this video!

Love the concept, its something i'd hoped a big studio would sink their teeth into for a long time. You said the management side is abit like X-COM, will it have the long/grand campaign feel also? Is recapturing a city a big project? they are quite large or just a few of those gameplay screens you've shown?

Feedback on both the new combat engine and the duelist character or his abilities would be most welcome!

Thanks for the feedback Boogie, we have indeed made efforts to blend the map assets with the actors and buildings that are placed on top. The bottom image of the characters on the road is quite an old image from the University course build of the game, about six months ago now.

I think we've managed to blend them alittle better now so i've remade (to the best I could what the changes to the game levels) that scene to see what you think. Moddb.com

Content Out of Date - For up to date material on the duelist please check out the Hero Spotlight: Marcus Stannard news article.

That's should read www.teamcraftgames.com not sure who these teamgraft guys are but they are definitely not making Velisia.

While we are at it, what do you think of the new art style and the direction we are taking Velisia? some feedback would be well received!

Chris

Not the most exciting release ever I must admit, but for completion value I thought the poor town folk of Velisia should get their moment of fame.

The next major update will have a full set of Marcus's animations compiled into a video to show the new combat engine and a more details on hero customisation, starting with a full breakdown of how you can specialise Marcus's archtype the duelist into four new pathes.

Any questions or issues with use please post them here and we will do our best to get back to you asap.

Alternative e-mail us at contact@teamcraftgames.com for a more prompt reply.

When I last posted here TCGames was a collection of students finishing their last year at University and Velisia was the main submission for that degree course. Since TCGames and the Velisia project has been picked up by a publisher Merge Games, with the added investment of an established indie game developer SmashMouthGames assisting in the completion of the project.

We are now aiming to have the product ready for release in Q4 2011 in its new and improved format.

Looks pretty cool, nice retro title

That kind of is up in the air at the moment, that date was originally laid out when we had no expectations for Velisia. During development and production we have found outside interest in the project we never expected or dreamed off and it may push the development into a direction of full retail release.

This may push back the release date, i'll naturally keep people as informed as possible, but as I say its all abit up in the air at the moment as we discuss things with several differant parties.

Chris

Yes appolgises for the delays on getting a beta released for testing, this was partly due to a change in what we where going to release. The beta we put out for testing will be much more polished and playable, it should offer a better insight to the game and be far more enjoyable. Plus the information gathered from it will be far more useful in terms of game balance/fixing final bugs towards the final game build.

Stick with us, in the next day or so you should see a full game trailer and perhaps some other gameplay clips, followed very shortly by a closed beta.

Chris

Cheers, a few issues still such as all the guards doing their idle animation at exactly the same time (like above). We've made them a number of differant idle animations each and will randomise when/which they use them to make them as less clonely as possible.

A paper GDD indeed, naturally the working document for the final build is a digital one, but I'm affaird UK Universities have yet to adept to the modern age of digital and a hard copy submission is required for all documentation. That said we put quite abit of effort into making them look pritty and read well, so they are all nice portfolio peices going forward.

A Unique Voice! well better than a borring one then I guess :-)

Just had a look at Fire Emblem as I must confess i'd never played it, I can see where your coming from in terms of the "action" in the way they hit each other and stuff. We originally where going to have the sprites fighting on the game map but made the choice to go for the comic styled animation clips to push away from the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Being judged aginst Nintendo Kyoto will do me though! I'll inform Mike he needs to shape up his animations if hes going to bring the Nintendo empire crashing down.

Cheers for the Feedback

Looks nice, how long did this take?

Hey Andy, theres some what of a gameplay video up now, although its not the greatest, we kinda killed the AI when trying to fix the turn system.

As for the presentations, I think they will be on the 9th of May, but can't say that with 100% authority yet, i'll let you know when I know for sure.

Played this today during a focus testing session. Its really good fun, at the moment it is tuned for perhaps the more hardcore players, but I really think thats where these game fits. There was talk about making it easyer for players, and sure you may attract more casual players but you also alienate those who want a game to be challanging, making a hard but functional game is an awful lot more difficult than making something thats easy, brainless and unrewarding to complete.

I love it as it is, I strongly urge you to not tweak it too much just because half of that focus group clearly hadn't put in there hours on Mario as kids :-).

Chris Wilson

Wahay! About time :-)

Do like the werewolf model, certainly not generic which isn't a bad thing far too many copy and paste werewolfs around. Lets see some more content!

Chris

Hey Andy,

Firstly sorry for the late reply last two weeks have been alittle hectic, I promised gameplay footage about a month ago and in hindsight perhaps not the best plan. We are making strong progress with it but we hit a few glitches with the game editor that needed to be addressed before the engine could be brought upto speed.

Hopefully! fingers crossed this week things should start to pull together towards a fully working client.

In the mean time, i'm going to put up a bunch of updates as to what we've been doing in this dark period.

Chris