Tortured Hearts - Development Update
 

Subbassman posted some interesting news about his RPG Tortured Hearts:

More information.

Thank you for the info, Subbassman!

I didn't realise they were still working on this. I remember the kickstarter from years back, it looked like it had potential.

I'll definitely check the crowd funder out when they do it. I can't quite visualise how the group level combat would work though, and it would be a key thing for me. It sounds like it might be a bit too simple. But if their pitch video is good enough I could be won round. The sccope of the game sonds huge.

So all in all, thumbs up to Subbassman to sticking with this and making it happen. Looking forward to seeing more about it.

Hey guys
I wanted to put everything in the game by the end of last year, but a few models are still missing. Not a big deal actually. Soon I'll start the final run: to make it a polished one. :)
You have no idea how glad we are already, hehe.

Keep us informed on the progress, SubBassman.

Anything particular you'd like to know?

Is this a retelling, continuation or something completely different to the NWN modules?


Thanks

SLIGHT SPOILER


I'd say, it's a continuation, but you don't need to play the mods to enjoy this game. Those, however, who played them will find familiar people which makes it even more interesting for them. Some of these old characters have completely changed. A few areas are also taken from the mods (Caer Maed, Ayr Marsh), but later stages of TH will take place on new continents or even other planes of existence. Sailing and teleportation are also part of the game.

Yaaay! You are my daags, Hungarians! :D Congratulations! Gratula fiúk, remélhetőleg készen lesz már vmikor. :D REady.. when ittts ready!

Nagyon nehéz ügy ez :)

This is a very problematic endeavour. :)

I'm a little disappointed by the reduction in combat (though it is understandable; btw have you seen thea which has an intersting but simple combat system ?).
-
What I am curious is if you consider using an engine like D:OS to write your (next?) game. I.e, I have not tried them but they have tools to do modules and use your own assests (art). I don't know how their tools compare to nwn but I do know they are making a major push to improve the tools with D:OS-2 (which is out in 2017). Also larian has traditionally been a friendly company when it comes to allowing the use of their tools.

Actually, the combat isn't as simple as it may sound. You can adjust the power of your attack intensity, mana and tactical trait usage, how mindful your characters are toward each other and you can balance item usage as well. Also, you can directly equip\unequip stuff between rounds or use special items, invoke helpers. Your characters will even use Coup de Grace when it's possible. If you select berserk mode, you can't stop the fight till one of the sides wins. :) (This actually speeds up lesser fights if you feel confident)
We used to want micromanaged combat, but dropped the idea because it would have made it very tiresome to play.

I think I'll stick to the Unity Engine for a good while. This is what I'm adept with. :)

Been awhile indeed

This happens when you are on your own. :)
The difficult part is done though.

HiddenX
You said I should keep you guys informed. Here it is:
Since the beginning of this project in Spring 2008, developer Zoltán must have spent over 30000 hours alone on making Tortured Hearts and it's still not over. However, we're excited to announce that there are only two creature models left and a little polishing that needs to be done on combat before we can state that we have an Alpha Version. It is due in a month or two. Then we'll start making builds and test the hell out of our lovechild!

https://scontent.ftsr1-1.fna.fbcdn.n…e1&oe=58FE2CA0

That is great news, congratulations! :D Looking forward to hearing how alpha progresses.

I wish these guys a lot of luck. I saw their kickstarter after it completed but loved their NWN mod; it was one of the best. They seemed to have poured a huge amount of effort into this game with little financial backing.

Btw do they plan on going early access or running another kickstarter ?

Some impressive numbers but of course size isn't everything and I'll gladly take quality over quantity. In other words, how many of the 113 quests are fetch quests or kill X number of Y monster quests? How many times will I have to grind through trash mobs of each of the 1016 creatures? Will there be any dialogue trees or interesting moral / plot critical choices to make?

I never tried the NWN modules partially because the description seemed overly preoccupied with how huge it was but nothing sounded particularly interesting or original. But they sounded like just another combat heavy action RPG in a generic medieval fantasy setting.

Now combat for this game is apparently automated turn-based… I like turn-based but am not sure how that is going to work. So far it sounds sort of like Dragon Age: Origins tactics except we cannot control even one character directly. Sounds tedious unless combat is a small part of the game. The parley option offers a glimmer of hope, assuming it isn't just a gimmick.

On a more superficial note, I recall liking the backgrounds art style of the game but the character models were this simplistic cartoonish guy that looked awful. From the new screen shots it looks like they're now going for more realistic looking characters, which is great. But mostly I'm wondering if there's anything interesting about the gameplay.

We'll possibly run another campaign, this time most probably on Fig.

Thanks for your interest. :)
In TH there are like 2 funny fetch quests for the sake of making fun of these and there are absolutely no "kill X number of Y monster" quests. The reason is simple: I hate those too. The rest of the quests are real ones.

These games are huge because I love huge games. Also, I prefer story to combat. The ratio of combat in my mods and this standalone game is about 30%. The rest is exploring, conversation and questing.

Without the automated nature of the combat it would have been really tedious. Now you can use your combat directives (Style, Anger, Power, Aid, Items) to instruct your AI and you can manually equip/unequip & use stuff between rounds. Parley is also an option between rounds you can use once in a combat situation. If it fails, currently you can't do it again in the same combat.

The original idea was a very cartoonish game, but lacking the necessary number of 3D artists, I decided to change the style a bit, in time. The shading is still colorful, has a slight toony outline and most of the textures are hand painted or something similar. When you have to do everything alone, this gets seriously problematic.

Seems I forgot about something.

"How many times will I have to grind through trash mobs of each of the 1016 creatures?"

Don't worry about that. :)
The ratio of mobs vs NPCs is about 30:70
I don't like plowing through trash, so I design my games with that in mind.

"Will there be any dialogue trees or interesting moral / plot critical choices to make?"

Certainly.
This is the main method that drives the story of TH.

Some update:
All objects are done.
Combat is practically done, but there are bugs to eliminate. (AI and Animation)
A few GUI elements are still missing.
Save/Load needs a GUI

Currently I'm testing gameplay.
Since the game is big, this may take awhile.
Hopefully, a crowdfunding campaign can be scheduled later this year.

Cool. I nearly started Tortured Hearts, the NWN module, recently. Ended up picking Swordflight instead, but TH is on my very short list of modules to play next. I was particularly interested in the huge scope and 100+ hours of content.

Great. I'm in.

Me too.

If you have any questions along the way, feel free to mail me. :)
Geez, even the 2nd one is already 10 years old :)

Thank you guys for your continued interest. I don't really have a life while doing this, but you know, this is a Quest for me. :)

A fresh screenshot while playing the game in the editor.

https://scontent.ftsr1-1.fna.fbcdn.n…11&oe=59684095

Hi guys

Some news: I've pre-tested all non-plot creatures in combat which eliminated lots of issues (there are still a few). This isn't trivial having more than 1000 creature instances and slightly more than 800 individual creature appearances. Actually this was a huge PiA.

This is a screenshot from a standalone build. I had to purchase a completely new and powerful hardware to be able to make builds at all. Another major PiA is making builds because many things that work perfectly in the Unity editor, don't work in the build AT ALL.

As for the pic…

The camera is always orbiting slowly around the currently acting combatant but you can manipulate this camera behavior with the mouse.

This is a critical hit, which works a bit differently in Tortured Hearts. On top of damaging more on the target, it also applies collateral damage to bystanders. (Only crits do that, there is no normal AoE.)

Everything works the same way, so if you Heal/Restore/Buff your party member and you roll a crit, other members of your faction nearby will get a normal effect too. Another example: if the enemy debuffs you and rolls a crit, a normal debuff will be applied to party members in a given radius. Critical buffs/debuffs last longer.

This is a HtH character (martial style) but you can make interesting cross-trained characters by adding a few levels of other archetypes like arcane caster and/or healer. These are the currently supported combat styles. Martial supports a single weapon combined with a shield. Depending on a successful crowdfunding campaign, we will add the Rogue, Bard and Psionic styles too and more martial styles like pole weapons, 2 handed weapons, dual wield, throwing and bows.

https://scontent.ftsr1-1.fna.fbcdn.n…50&oe=59B29583

Here's another pic.

Next to the Open Casque Tavern, in Caer Maed where a big battle took place in the second part of the NWN mod. This is where the story continues six months later. Newcomers, gold diggers, adventurers are coming from every corner of Eupherea to find their fortune around the ransacked castle of the nefarious Vynblud Clan.
You are one of them.
There's a little problem though: you lost your wealth and equipment at one of the gambling tables of the Open Casque the other day. You start your new life right next to a pile of dung. People don't even want to talk to you until you wash yourself.

https://scontent.ftsr1-2.fna.fbcdn.n…7e&oe=59B216FF

Crawling in the dungeons of the Vynblud Clan.

Unfortunately there were some Unity-related issues that had to be addressed. For instance, the "Resources"-based loading system that has been in the game for years without problems, proved to be absolutely useless in the actual build, because of its 32 bit limitation. (some textures became garbled) The automatically created resources pack became too big and Unity couldn't handle it. (it worked fine in the editor) This part had to be rewritten completely to use asset bundles. Guess what… it has the same limitation. A desperate idea saved the day, but still…

However, Tortured Hearts is starting to be more playable now. Don't forget, there's only one person working on this full time. Me.

Thanks for your continued interest and patience. :)

https://scontent.ftsr1-1.fna.fbcdn.n…b9&oe=59A70364

Thank you for the info, SubBassmann - the game looks better and better!

Hi, peeps

This is the office of Sylfeung Adventuring Inc in Caer Maed, in one of the run-down buildings of the Vynblud castle. It's up to you if you join their ranks or purge them out of existence for ruining your beloved Trade.

I'd say, I'm fairly close to Alpha. Need a few GUI elements and some combat issues fixed before that. Now the biggest issue is NPC voices. I don't think we can arrange that without a successful campaign.

https://scontent.ftsr1-2.fna.fbcdn.n…74&oe=59D463B0

Good progress! Looking forward to backing your campaign.

I myself can hardly believe that I have gone so far. I can't tell you how demanding this is, hehe. It's not just modding an existing and polished game like NWN, you have to address every single problem alone. Luckily, I have Unity, but it has its own limitations as well which can be very frustrating at times.

By the way, guys. Which crowdfunding site do you think is the best these days?

Yeah you've come a long way since your last campaign!

Kickstarter still works for me, but there have been quite a few Fig campaigns recently. Not sure which is the best really. I'll back it whatever site you use.

I personally do not do indigo but kickstarter and fig works for myself.

I'd forgotten about Indiegogo. I might back a project on that if it uses the Kickstarter target model, but I wouldn't back a "flexible funding" campaign or whatever they call it.

Is Fig any better than KS?

fig allows investment as well as backing (investment means profit sharing). As to being better - I'm not sure about popularity. The other factor is % cut. You should contact them and see how that compares to kickstarter (no clue myself). Some big projects have been backed there (poe ii, wasteland 2, phoenix point) so it is not totally obscure.