Antharion - Indie, TB, party-based Kickstarter

Dhruin

SasqWatch
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
Antharion is an indie 2D RPG with turn-based combat, a party and an open world inspired by Ultima, among others. The team are looking for a modest $15k from their Kickstarter, with $2k already pledged:
Antharion can best be described as a fusion of various elements from classic series like The Elder Scrolls, Baldur’s Gate, and Ultima into a single player old-school RPG experience. We wanted to combine an immense open-ended living-breathing world where the player is free to go anywhere and do anything, with a deep tactical turn-based combat system, a rich skill set and character creation system, and the distinctive feel of old-school classic RPGs.
Features


  • Open World: Go anywhere and do anything in Antharion’s vast open-ended living-breathing hand crafted world.
  • Turn-Based: Antharion features a deeply satisfying tactical turn-based combat system beneath a sleek and intuitive interface.
  • Party-Based: Create and control a party of up to 4 characters. Choose each of their races (each race with it's own characteristics) and customize all attributes, skills and equipment.
  • Epic Story: Antharion features a dark and mysterious world of magical mystery and political intrigue.
  • Meaningful Decisions: Save the kingdom and become revered or destroy it and become reviled. In Antharion your actions matter and are reflected tangibly in the world around you.
  • Freedom: The world of Antharion is fully interactive: go inside of every room of every building, open every drawer and steal any item. Explore over 100 dungeons ...all at your leisure.
  • Magic: 3 schools featuring 45 unique spells.
  • No Level Scaling: Antharion does NOT scale loot or monsters.
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
The environments look nice, but the characters walking without their legs moving just looks too weird.
 
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
157
It looks so silly and I actually like it.
If I find out it doesn't have endless mobrespawning, I'll back it.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Probably the first thing they should fix is if they get enough money is the animation!
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
Joined
Apr 17, 2007
Messages
5,749
Joined
Feb 20, 2009
Messages
635
Location
Germany
Joined
Apr 17, 2007
Messages
5,749
What does that mean?

ACK is a replacement for GREP, a command prompt mode for EMACS. Full ACK is one of the front end options for it. Also, it's written in PERL if that matters.

So err... no idea what they mean by that either.
 
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
1,710
hahaha, man I thought I must be tired but I have no idea what he means. it means full acknowledge..other wise totally agrees with opinion.
 
Joined
Apr 17, 2007
Messages
5,749
hahaha, man I thought I must be tired but I have no idea what he means. it means full acknowledge..other wise totally agrees with opinion.

That does seem to make more sense than some obscure EMACS reference.
 
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
1,710
I think the environments look ok, but I´m finding the character art and lack of animations grating.
I´m not particularly "graphic whore-y" when it comes to graphical fidelity, but when a game comes with art direction/presentation I dislike it´s pretty much a show stopper for me, even when other game´s features sound good (like in this case).
Toning down the characters´ exaggerated look and adding more animations (even though that´s quite a significant workload increase) would go a long way at making this game more appealing to me and, I guess, bigger audience.
 
Joined
Apr 4, 2008
Messages
2,437
Location
Prague
Can't decide if the lack of walking animations is actually an advantage in this case, because it looks rather funny in a South Park kind of way. It's not like it's supposed to look super realistic (or scary) anyways.
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
3,263
Location
The land of rape and honey
I'm looking at this as sort of the FTL idea for rpg's. I don't need high end graphics for some entertainment. For instance I am playing underworld gold and no one can say that looks pretty.
 
Joined
Apr 17, 2007
Messages
5,749
Can't decide if the lack of walking animations is actually an advantage in this case, because it looks rather funny in a South Park kind of way. It's not like it's supposed to look super realistic (or scary) anyways.
But the game seems to go for "serious" tone otherwise.
I mean,
Antharion features a dark and mysterious world of magical mystery and political intrigue.
or
As part of a poor group of peasants from a small quiet town on the outskirts of the Kingdom, you suddenly found yourself swept up in The Purge when a group of Zeverith’s men stormed your town, murdered the townsfolk, and burned every last house to the ground. Taken deep into an underground dungeon for a torturing and execution, you somehow manage to overpower your captors.
doesn´t sound much South Park-like to me :).
 
Joined
Apr 4, 2008
Messages
2,437
Location
Prague
@ DeepO, a lot of South Park episodes have dark themes with murdering or even torture, it depends on how you read it i guess. I don't get a very serious vibe from it :) But it could also be that the game isnt finished you know.. He does say money will go to more pixel art.
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
3,263
Location
The land of rape and honey
@ DeepO, a lot of South Park episodes have dark themes with murdering or even torture, it depends on how you read it i guess.
Of course, but I consider general vibe of SP to be that of comedy, whereas Antharion gives an impression of a "serious business" game when it comes to its story and setting.

But it could also be that the game isnt finished you know.. He does say money will go to more pixel art.
Yeah, let´s not provide them any feedback till the game is finished then ;).
 
Joined
Apr 4, 2008
Messages
2,437
Location
Prague
What do you mean by that? Isn't this feedback?
It is!
I just didn´t like the perceived notion that my superinsightful comment might be irrelevant since the game is not finished yet :).
I read the "But it could also be that the game isnt finished you know.." bit as a "let´s rather not offer any feedback yet", which it seems was an unfortunate misinterpretation.
Sorry if I read too much into your post and/or came off as too snarky.
 
Joined
Apr 4, 2008
Messages
2,437
Location
Prague
I think it looks quite decent even without walking animations if they make the camera smooth scroll. Some nice lighting and other effects can be seen. I think it looks about as good as the latest Spiderweb games overall, if not better. Sure, some aspects are worse (like the per tile camera movement), but others are better and overall it's solid.

Having funny looking graphics with serious themes in the story is nothing new to video games. Warhammer anyone? Or games in general even. Lots of funny pen and paper RPG art around. Same for all the wargames using super deformed art style for the unit figures. Adventure games also often look funny with serious stories. Serious or not it's the text that will give off most of the mood when the graphics are this low-fi.

Anyway, it looks like they've already developed a lot of the game. Their Kickstarter page has lots more information than those bullet points too, they mention having 20 cities, 100 dungeons, NPCs with daily schedules and AI that has them report you to guards or attack you when appropriate, loads of already implemented spells in three different schools, hand crafted everything rather than generated environments, etc.
 
Joined
Apr 11, 2010
Messages
62
Back
Top Bottom