Astral Terra - A New Voxel Sandbox RPG

Couchpotato

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Good morning my fellow watchers I have another kickstarter that just went live today. The game is called Astral Terra and described as a "Smooth Voxel Sandbox Fantasy RPG".

The game is asking for $52,000, and I have the usual pitch video to share also. Give the project a look, and discuss what you think in the comment section.



Astral Terra is a fantasy-themed sandbox survival RPG in a beautiful smooth voxel world that’s generated on the fly and completely editable. No two players will have the same experience as everything from the skills you learn to the world you play in is fully unique and customizable. Gather resources for crafting and building, journey among the planes to find lost temples or libraries full of knowledge and power (scrolls and tomes) or just explore for the sake of discovery. From character progression with experience points, levels and skills, to the terrain and environment, every inch of the game is procedurally generated and fully editable. Shape your world and your character the way that YOU want. Fantastic creatures and epic adventures await you in this magical journey in a world limited only by your imagination – Astral Terra!
More information.
 
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Man... Why noone kickstarts Outcast2?

I'm not really sure what is this game about so will wait for an update or two before I back it.
 
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Good morning to you too Mr. Potato.

Man, there seems to have been a lot of rpgs coming to kickstarter these last few weeks. My wallet is hiding in the corner, shaking with fear.
 
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Very interesting.
At least the part with the procedurally generated world is similar to what we will be doing (except the editing of the world).

Definitely pledging, I'd love to see how a game turns out in which even the skills are randomized like that.
 
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Man… Why noone kickstarts Outcast2?

I'm not really sure what is this game about so will wait for an update or two before I back it.

Outcast 2, now that is something i really really like to play.

This game however looks and feels not that great for me. Perhaps in a week or two..
 
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Lots of this kind of thing seems to be appearing, probably because it's so easy to knock up a first person character and some basic terrain in Unity. Not convinced that it's so easy to go from there to a compelling game though. This one has a bad attack of Spock Ear syndrome too.
 
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Backed, for procedural generally landscape + voxel it's actually quite pretty.
 
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I don't know how 'RPG' and 'voxel - make your own landscape' match together! Normally stories and characters are created, located spatially and associated with places/towns - so how the stories and characters are created in this case?

This looks like a big playground with monsters roaming around - I thought you could do that with any game editor including the Farcry 3 editor!
 
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I'm glad a few here like it as I wasn't sure if anyone would. As for me I think we can blame Minecraft for the surge in voxel based games. I'll pledge the minimum just to see how the game turns out because I'm curious.
 
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MeshXel

This ain't no voxel engine, it's a Mesh-Xel engine. Cubicles of mesh have taken up the meaning of "voxel" in the developers mind. Probably after having a nightmare about Minecraft, the terms mesh and voxel melted somehow..

Pro: environment can be destructible, but how will it look like? :-/
Cons: Looks not really good. Consider the applications. If everything in the game must appear blobby, go for it!

This has limitations, as you see: try to increase "voxel"-poly-blob building block resolution so everything NOT looks like green insulating foam sprayed all over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFcrYdfY4Ms

For a true voxel engine there are very disappointing limitations: no destructible environment.

Here is how an actual voxel engine looks like:
http://www.atomontage.com/
 
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The kickstarter page calls it voxel based so thanks for the explanation. Still somewhat interested in the project that hasn't changed.:)
 
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I picture this as playing kind of like Terraria, in full 3D, with better graphics, and having more robust RPG elements / character-building. Which could be a lot of fun... and being a fan of roguelikes I'm totally into the procedural generation stuff. Plus the world is infinite - which is pretty cool in my book. I like the lush and kind of alien art style too.
 
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Greetings ladies and gents! Gratitude for the feedback!

@MeshXel - A: You are incorrect about Astral Terra and it's engine. B: That video is not our engine nor our game. ;) If you want to understand what we are doing here at least watch OUR video first please. :)

@Spoonful - The engine you refer to, as well as no other game engine we are aware of, does destructible procedural voxel terrains, built into the software. You can pay 60K for ProcWorld plugin or you can code it yourself. This uses the same technology that Minecraft uses but in a different way. Also, RPG stands for "Role Playing Game". That doesn't mean a static world full of static quests - it means "be whatever role you want to be, do whatever you want to do, because you are ROLE PLAYING" I don't understand where the lack of static quests ruins the players ability to pretend they are somewhere and someone else. For Astral Terra we are trying to do the very opposite of what you are saying. Make a character, do what you want - the adventure is what you make it, not a connect the dots hold-your-hand every step of the way on rails system. I understand though some people want that, if you do then obviously this is not the game for you.

@Roq - If it was so easy the AAA studios would have been doing it a long time ago. Think about it, really. Sony is the first company to jump on board this voxel thing, it took Indies pushing out games like this for them even to consider the challenge. Yeah its trendy now, but 2 years ago it was also risky since the tech was not easily obtainable (i'm not referring to the minecraft style that we see many clones of but our smooth voxel, or the smooth voxel you see in Everquest Next: Landmark). If you follow developers who are trying to do smooth voxel engines, and read their blogs you will see - it is no easy task to code something like this and keep it stable and running smooth.

Gratitude for the input guys - if anyone is really interested in getting involved you can feel free to back and you will get forum access to help us craft and shape this game out to be the best it can be! Oh, and here is a higher res video (YouTube kills our videos).

http://www.indiedb.com/games/astral-terra/videos
 
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I'm interested. I like the sandbox approach, and think the modding community could add a lot… and perhaps create my own. But barring that, I wonder how long I could stay interested with allegedly no story.

So are you saying no story/quests/npcs to speak of? Or by no hand holding do you mean no fast travel/quest markers/etc… ?
 
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I'm interested. I like the sandbox approach, and think the modding community could add a lot… and perhaps create my own. But barring that, I wonder how long I could stay interested with allegedly no story.

So are you saying no story/quests/npcs to speak of? Or by no hand holding do you mean no fast travel/quest markers/etc… ?

Hi Mbuddha - We have a back story and one long over reaching quest chain that gives the player purpose beyond them just "chillin' in the Vale". We are discussing with our backers some ideas on how to include either a quest mod system that would allow players to create and add their own quests, or a procedural side quest system that would be tied to the players actions and them building up settlements that then fill with NPC's (who give new quests). With Astral Terra being a dynamic procedural world we have some technical and aesthetic challenges that make adding a quest system something that has to be thought out and developed step by step - which brings us back to why we are on KickStarter. Gratitude for the question and opportunity for me to elaborate Mbuddah!
 
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@Roq - If it was so easy the AAA studios would have been doing it a long time ago. Think about it, really. Sony is the first company to jump on board this voxel thing, it took Indies pushing out games like this for them even to consider the challenge. Yeah its trendy now, but 2 years ago it was also risky since the tech was not easily obtainable (i'm not referring to the minecraft style that we see many clones of but our smooth voxel, or the smooth voxel you see in Everquest Next: Landmark). If you follow developers who are trying to do smooth voxel engines, and read their blogs you will see - it is no easy task to code something like this and keep it stable and running smooth.

The graphics technology is one thing, using it to make a decent game by July next year, on a tiny budget, is something else entirely. That's the part of the kickstarter presentation that I don't find entirely convincing. The presentation looks more like a technology demo than a game, as things stand.
 
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