Berimbau is a multiplayer Source engine mod featuring fierce sword duels in a retro-future universe. The game features an open sword combat system that allows for creative use of combos, counter-attacks, and parries. This combat system encourages players to develop attack patterns and strategies to defeat their opponents, rather than random "knife-fight" melee combat. We plan to become a total conversion in the future, making this our own game, free to share with anyone who has Steam and the SourceSDK Base.

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5 comments by Jkupo on Aug 4th, 2008 digg this super bookmark


So got some news for you all noble watchers of our little game that could, we've gotten an official website for the project, complete with full developers logs, archives of previous news posts and lots of media and movies. Albeit still a work in progress, the boards are more than functional, so please feel free to leave us your opinions and comments there as well. The website is as follows...

www.ninjaworkshop.com

We've taken great care to have those up for ongoing discussions as well as any sort of feedback that you have. The dev logs are particularly amusing, as you can get a glimpse into the inner workings of the Ninja Workshop. This launch is also in conjunction with...

Berimbau's Intenal Alpha Launch
Thanks to some creative coding/file moving and plenty of help from our team and its consultants, we've succeeded in establishing our first Alpha test servers. I'll be setting up hosting of the actual install files this week and we'll be able to get all our alpha testers rolling so we can get some feedback from fresh players and new perspectives. This of course requires plenty of alpha testers, and the positions are still open, as we'd want players to be on there almost constantly, giving us bug reports, screenshots, and feedback on the forums and via email. So if you're interested, shoot us an email and we can get you the game files and into the duels. The contact info for becoming an Alpha tester is listed below, and you can contact any of the team via Moddb or email: TeamBerimbau at Gmail Dot Com.

Here's a rehash of the newest screenshots that are listed above, complete with new particle effects and random taunting.



Positions Still Open:
The following positions are available. While we do look for people with particular skills, a mix of many skills is even more valued than one niche. We definitely want people who are multi-talented. New listings are listed in red.

  • Alpha Tester. Responsible for helping in testing out early builds of the game and taking down notes and recordings of gameplay or experience in game in order to help with balancing and connectivity issues.

    • The alpha testers will work closely with the development team in finding bugs and issues in game. Once the Alpha version is issued, several playtests will be scheduled, however unscheduled playtests are encouraged to be arrange between the alpha tester community.
  • Prop Modeler. Responsible for designing environment details that go with our maps. Must have some experience building game maps with Hammer. Must know either 3D Studio Max or Maya, and have some prior game engine model export experience.

    • You'll have the opportunity of modeling the world if Berimbau, its locales, props and details. Ancient statues, cobbled roads, fountains are part of this game.
  • Texture Artist. Responsible for designing the look and feel for surfaces of all types in the game. Must be able to sketch out rough ideas and communicate these effectively with our lead charcter artists.
    • The texture artist will work on both character models and prop models (with UV maps completed) and will work on environment textures for maps.
  • Programmer. Must have experience in C++ and the Source SDK engine, knows how to author entities and edit network prediction code. Responsible for editing game rules, modifying combat, animation behavior, and author particle effects.
    • You'll have the chance to play an integral role in deciding the combat mechanics of the game, how sword attacks are handled, special attacks, combos, etc.
  • Sound Designer. Responsible for creating sounds of sword swings, blade hits, and other combat sounds. Also responsible for authoring ambient sound effects.

The people we look for should also bring some fresh ideas to the table. We definitely don't want to be slave drivers, telling you to make our mod for us. If you have an interesting idea to contribute to Berimbau, you'll be free to present it to the team where we make decisions as a group. The people have their ideas implemented the most often are the ones who are also able to do that themselves, so if you are both skilled and have many new ideas, here's your chance to try them out.

When you apply be ready to show work, portfolio, or examples of what you can do. A CV would also be required.


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Comments  (0 - 10 of 61)
xilef24
xilef24 Aug 4 2008, 4:01pm says:

I really like the idea and it these videos don“t look so bad, actuelly quite nice but for me the perspective is too far away from the player and a bit too high. The feeling that U r in the fight is missing, so pls, if it is possible and if u like that idea, change that ^^

+2 votes     reply to comment
Dra6o0n
Dra6o0n Aug 1 2008, 10:47pm says:

Will there later be some sort of special attacks? Like for every different class of swordplay, you get a special style attack when you fill some kind of special bar?

+1 vote     reply to comment
mflux
mflux Aug 3 2008, 3:35am replied:

Hi
We're trying to avoid any sort of "meters" or "bars" as a design choice. Instead, things will either be available or not, depending on the context (close to an opponent in front of you, etc).

We're playing with the idea of special attacks right now and we'll reveal plans for this in the near future.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Mutant1988
Mutant1988 Aug 1 2008, 12:52pm says:

Just a thought... Would it be possible to have the slash effect change color from when a hit is registered (So that it is white/blue-ish, then, at the point of impact and onward, it's red)? If that's possible, I'd like it replacing, for hit notification reasons (Besides the hit sound), the somewhat odd looking blood splatters that appear, which honestly just looks bad.

+1 vote     reply to comment
mflux
mflux Aug 2 2008, 6:46am replied:

The videos and screenshots are pretty old. The current versions of the game have spark and particle effects whenever you make a hit.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Terminal58
Terminal58 Jul 29 2008, 7:26pm says:

Can you add splines for the sword trails?

En.wikipedia.org

En.wikipedia.org(mathematics)

Adding it into one of my games right now :P

+1 vote     reply to comment
Dra6o0n
Dra6o0n Jul 27 2008, 1:09am says:

I also noticed you need to work on the animation after you get hit, because half life 2 has it so when you get hit, you don't even flinch.

Maybe having a short flinch for certain attacks can force people to avoid being hit, and learn countering and dodging more. It also opens up for combo opportunity.

Last but not least, If the idea is to have fancy swordplay, this means that damage should be set to a low, seeing how you'd kill your opponent before pulling off a wicked combo...

EDIT: For flinches, it may be better to have it set so 2-3 hits on a enemy deals a flinch on them for around 1 second.
An alternative is that the flinch occurs on the 2nd hit with 50% chance and the third hit is 100%, but that may contradict itself and extend the flinching process...

Also, will the blocking be like gunz where after you block a enemy attack they get stunned? In real sword fights, the enemy will still swing after you block his attack, meaning harder fights.

+2 votes     reply to comment
mflux
mflux Jul 27 2008, 12:02pm replied:

"I also noticed you need to work on the animation after you get hit..."

In current versions we have a flinch animation :) The videos are super outdated now. Sorry!

"Maybe having a short flinch for certain attacks can force people to avoid being hit..."

Yup.. we want to play around with stuns. We're going to code this in as an option for the alpha so we can play-test this feature.

"...have fancy swordplay, this means that damage should be set to a low..."

The idea is to have really heavy damaging attacks be easier to predict and avoid. These do 60 damage, so if you get hit twice you're dead! The faster, lighter attacks do 15 damage and don't knock you back as much, so you can pull off great combos with these.

Scoring a hit should be challenging enough to reward players with precise attacks. Also, fights shouldn't last more than two minutes since there are players waiting in queue.

"EDIT: For flinches, it may be better to have it set so 2-3 hits on a enemy deals a flinch on them for around 1 second..."

Probably not. We want to keep the system as simple as possible so it's easy to learn, but difficult to master. We'll see though, through playtests, if this feature would make sense.

"Also, will the blocking be like gunz where after you block a enemy attack they get stunned?"

As of now if you block an attack at right moment, you're allowed to execute a counterattack. Counterattacks deal "heavy" damage (60) and are very fast. They're risky to pull off because you might miss the block and risk getting yourself hurt.

+1 vote     reply to comment
foxatphoenixlabs
foxatphoenixlabs Jul 26 2008, 8:31pm says:

cool mod

+1 vote     reply to comment
bronxvirus
bronxvirus Jul 25 2008, 11:10pm says:

Looks pretty cool. Ive played gunz it a good game. How about some more blood? Like some kill bill thing. When all the blood just starts squirting out.

+2 votes     reply to comment
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