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Berimbau
Half-Life 2 mod | TBD
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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Latest News: Project Berimbau Playtest 2 Update
2 comments by Jkupo on Jun 3rd, 2008 digg this super bookmark
Another tuesday another round of updates. This week marks the first time in quite a few months that both founders of the Berimbau project are in the same country, so expect a flurry of new sketches and work within the next week or so until Flux heads back to Shanghai. This fortunate turn of events has let us get together in person to go through a solid playtest of the current build of the game as well as discuss storyline and graphic themes for the culture that persists throughout the World of Guardia. While a lot of the storyline stuff is being kept under wraps for now a lot of the game mechanics are ready to be revealed. The current build of the game seen in Playtest 2 includes the following:
- Double Jump
- Direction-based Sword movement
- Sword-chained combos up to 4 attacks
- Blocking
- Knockback
The key thing that Flux has gotten working is the blocking system which radically changes the dynamics of the gameplay. While in the earlier playtest we had the sword work and tracers in the game, it still felt a bit more than a flashy knife battle, with luck beating skill more often than not when it came to sword collisions and kills. The directional system made it a bit better, but we quickly realized weaknesses and strengths that could be exploited to make the fights lopsided and boring.
This is changed with the blocking system, as it creates a tactical sort of way of looking at the duels. In standard sword fights, swinging at your opponent obviously leaves you open (made worse if it is at the end of a combo chain), which is exactly what happens in Berimbau's universe. Swinging your blade has a slight recovery lag, at which point you are unable to throw up a block to defend yourself. A smart player that sits back and blocks all day could wait until an opponent attacks, exploiting the gap in their guard and scoring a hit. However, as in an attempt to make the dueling as skill based as possible, the blade actually can snake behind the defense if the defending player is not facing his opponent at all times. This change in the gameplay is quite evident in our fighting in the videos below:
With this mechanic in game we're getting quite close to running an operational Alpha to get a reaction from other players and for balancing issues. As such we're adding another listing for people that potentially want to help in the development of the game: Alpha Testers! Please see the listing below. As always we encourage any comments or critiques you have, so please feel free to leave us a note here on the site or on our email at TeamBerimbau at Gmail dot Com.
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.
- Conceptual Environment Designer. Responsible for sketching out the world of Berimbau, provide concept drawings for the rest of the team.
- The environments of Berimbau are rich with history and culture. You'll be designing temples, samurai training grounds, European churches and alleys, and more.
- 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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© 2002 - 2008 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 574 modders online.
© 2002 - 2008 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 574 modders online.
Add another watcher to the growing list. Looking forward to future updates
The levels are cool but I think there should be some water in some of them.Maybe a shallow(spelling?) pool of water or something like that.Also HDR would make it even better.
This looks really promising.
Saw Zatoichi the blind Samurai yesterday, awesome movie btw. As you have mentioned it as a inspiration for this project (in your interview) i have high hopes for this.
Keep up the great work!
Love the sword combat!
Congrats on your update guys.
I really want to help out, but I dont know how. If you know of software i can get my hands on to help with Props or doing texture work, id be glad to. For now im just about the ideas. (cries a little inside)
Anywho, character customization.
Will we be able to make our own characters in terms of asthectic appeal? And if not, the will it be possible to include that.
Also in term of your sword and shield, will they all look the same based on lvl or can we customize them within our lvl.
Thats the only question ive got for now, no new ideas right now, although it seems you guys have it pretty well down anyways.
"Will we be able to make our own characters in terms of asthectic appeal? And if not, the will it be possible to include that."
Yea! But that's way down the line. We're busy getting gameplay fun first.
"Also in term of your sword and shield, will they all look the same based on lvl or can we customize them within our lvl."
There are no shields, and no levels. There might be ranking (we have plans for a stats server), and achievements based on win-streaks, that sort of thing. You earn better looking swords that you can select from based on the achievements you've earned.
Have you sent us a mail for alpha testing? We are looking for testers right now, especially people who can give us critical reactions.
Hey I'm not dead.. yet..
Anyways, I dont think I got an answer to player customization: Different swords, armors, etc.(They all have the same stats)
And I still want to help, but I dont know how I could...
For focus moves, I was talking about going into an immobile position that would stay that way until you either do what that focus move is for or until you cancel it. All the focus moves would have the same immobile stance so it doesnt give itself away, then would be used when you use the set button to use the focus. If you dont know what im talkin about, then...umm....whatever, im not 100% behind that idea anyway.
Another thing I was thinking about was attack layout. I was thinking have attacks layed out on the mouse for what way you swing the sword.
For example,
Left button: swing left
Right Button: swing right
Scroll up: swing up
Scroll down: swing down
Middle button: stab
The defend button would be on the keyboard, E or something like that. Seems a little complicated now that I think about it, but always good to say somthing than nothing.
Also, if your match could be recorded by the game and then you have the option at the end of the match to save replay. That would be cool, because people could easily put their epic fights on Youtube or something without an outside recording program.
Id be glad to be an Alpha tester for this, a game that requires skill rather then shootemup or hacknslash is something we need more of.
Hey, thanks for your comments. Here's my response:
Combat styles: (Any other styles then the 3?)
I like your ideas, and it isn't that we haven't toyed with those ideas yet. Variable stances, procedural stances, mixing it up, that sort of thing.
There's a high need to keep certain things discreet, rather than totally granular. What you're proposing would be highly granular, meaning.. there are lots of gradations between the stances. While it may sound on paper, it's 1) too time costly for us to develop, balance, and playtest 2) makes the game overly complex, by adding too many variables. It's not that possibilities aren't good, but we want to keep the combat system simple from the outset, but deep by combining the simple elements.
Weapons:
I think that's where we want to set our game apart. It's almost like taking a step backwards in terms of game design. Most people want to add more weapons. We want to take them away!
One of the stated goals of Berimbau is to allow players to differ via their style, not their preference in equipment. Meaning, all players start out equal, equal weapons, equal moves. Where they differ is their play style, their aggressiveness, their skill.
I realize that not everyone would spent so much time perfecting this game, so if it becomes somewhat of a niche game with a niche audience, that's okay with us.
Maps:
If it serves the gameplay!
Focus Moves:
Is this a feint? I'm not sure what you're describing.
Umm... thats all i got for now. Whatever you do, dont put projectile weaponry into the game. Itll destroy it.
-Absolutely.
hey mflux, ive got a few ideas and just want to put in my 2 cents.
Combat styles: (Any other styles then the 3?)
Couldnt it be possible to have different branches of stances in a set stance? Say you have 1 and mid, 2 as heavy, 3 as light. Thats fine, now wouldnt it be better if you can have multiple stances for each style. Take mid, good all around with the sword in front. Now take the sword and flip in your hand. Now you can get different parries and dodges. Heavy, make a defence oriented that uses shields as weapons. Light, sneaky backhanded tricks. (Im just goin on and on at one point but still)
Weapons:
After a while, not everyone is goin to like goin into battle with the old shield and sword everytime. Mix it up a bit. Duel katana, halbred, great hammer, sickle, shields, and of different but evenly matched of each kinds. Have character customization truely be customizable. And dont let havin a shield force a weapon on the other, let the player have 2 shields. I know you guys are focusing the game around skill and strategy, but not everyone is gunna like fightin identical people.
Maps:
Destructible surroundings...thats all i got for that.
Focus Moves:
Get into a stance for a powerful slash or a good parry. Have all focus moves go into the same stance to allow deception. Im not 100% behind this idea...may lead to abuse and cowardice.
Umm... thats all i got for now. Whatever you do, dont put projectile weaponry into the game. Itll destroy it.