Driftmoon - New Indie RPG Under Development

Corwin

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It has recently come to our attention that a new Indie RPG called Driftmoon is under development. It has its own website and appears to be making good progress. Here's a little about it from one of the developers who visits our forums:
Our humble goal is to make Driftmoon a very good RPG, as good as we simply can. When you try it, you'll of course have to form your own opinion on whether we're anywhere near to that goal.
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We've put a lot of our own (slightly twisted) personalities into the game, and have really tried to bring the world and it's habitants to life. Driftmoon is filled with quite a lot of things to find and discover, and there's usually various ways to go about solving our quests. The dialogue options you select make a difference in the outcomes, and you have the possibility to gather a party to travel with (you do not have complete control over them, though).

We've also put a lot of thought into the story behind Driftmoon: The story we ended up accepting was actually the third major storyline we tried for the game (and we went through about a hundred ideas before it
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). The player also has the chance for quite a lot of interaction with many of our NPC's, and the NPC's are definitely not copies of each other. So yes, it's been a lot of work, but we're excited, and happy to be working together!
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We wish them well and will be following their progress in the months to come.
More information.
 
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That's true, counting from when work on Driftmoon was started, we're not really newbies at all. :) The first version of Driftmoon has been under development since Autumn 2009, but the engine is even much older than that, Ville started programming it already in 2005. Making an RPG from scratch is a long project for two people working normal jobs on the side, and taking care of two lovely kids.

Then again, the current plot behind Driftmoon is actually relatively new, from earlier this year. So, if you ever got around to playing our ancient 2beegames-competition preview in 2009, Driftmoon is actually a whole new game now. :)
 
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I bought the game around the time I posted that newsbit and liked what I saw. The viewpoint was my main concern, but playing just a few minutes of the game squashed those concerns. You get used to it really quickly and it's not really that bad in the actual game itself. The screenshots never really did it justice.

I've been waiting for the actual release to post anything more on it or play it again. When you pre-order you get a small slice of the full game that will be released. I guess not going back to the website till I got an email from you guys telling me it was released and can download it was a mistake. Seems like you've been busy bees :)
 
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Glad to hear you liked it skavenhorde! We've certainly been busy with the game. I'm glad we're finally starting to get near the release. There's a new alpha coming out in a few weeks, so don't forget to check it out. And our modders have been busy as well, there are already two mods available, although I can only suspect both modders have very twisted imaginations... :)

Now that I've said it, I better go write some of this down to our blog!
 
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They had me at:

It's a game for people who love to explore and find things
 
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They lost me at:

"I believe it will be about 7-10 hours of high quality playtime when completed."

I won't waste the time to download a game this small. I need at least 30 hours to even consider a crpg. $15 for a 10 hour game would never happen for me either. I'm on the bubble with Frayed Knights because of this. If the demo absolutely blows me away, I might purchase it. I guess I like my games to be epic. I still wish the folks all the best.
 
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Thanks TheMadGamer, and crpgnut as well, for your comments!

I just wanted to clarify that the smallish time estimate is derived from playing the main game only, and not counting the game time available in Driftmoon mods. There are already some available, even though the game is a few months from being done.
 
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For those who may ask, are the mods a free download with the main game, or do they cost extra? Roughly how many hours do you expect each mod to last? Are they add on's, or add in's?
 
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I really lost hope in indie RPGs, I guess a really good RPG costs way too much these days to be built by an indie team. But as long as there are people who enjoy them...and besides, it's nice to have a choice at least.
 
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For those who may ask, are the mods a free download with the main game, or do they cost extra? Roughly how many hours do you expect each mod to last? Are they add on's, or add in's?

The mods will be free with the game. I'm open to discussion if someone is making a commercial mod, but mainly I see the modding system as free mods.

Currently we apparently have two playable mods. Scavenge! took me about two hours to complete because the designer apparently has a very twisted imagination. I'm not sure you can complete the Trials mod yet, it's still work in progress. But it looks to be pretty long and complex. These two mods are total conversion mods, they're not related to the main game at all.

Driftmoon has a single click interface for installing any available mods, so it's easy to test them.
 
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I really lost hope in indie RPGs, I guess a really good RPG costs way too much these days to be built by an indie team. But as long as there are people who enjoy them…and besides, it's nice to have a choice at least.

Actually, I have the opposite opinion. Big studios don't create great crpg anymore. They put so much money on graphics, voices but the game itself just keep getting simpler and simpler with ports to X-Box and PS3. Indies are pretty much my last hope with games such as Eschalon, Mount and Blades.

As for Driftmoon, it looks great but sadly, I tend to agree with crpgnut about the length being too short. Perhaps with the mods it get a couple of hours longer, but still… I might still purchase it, to support the developpers, but the short length disapoints me.
 
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For me 16 dollars or 11.99 euros is worth 7 - 10 hours of gaming. Especially if it is moddable.

I never understood this stubbornness over such low dollar amounts. For idiotic DLC I can understand, but for a game that lasts 7 - 10 hours then it just seems silly to quibble over a few dollars. I feel I got my money's worth if it is something that I was interested in like Driftmoon.

But that's just me and I'm just weird like that in thinking that 16 dollars isn't that much money ;)
 
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@skaven-$16 is no money. It's more of a principal thing for me. I tend to get emotionally invested in my games, but a game that's only 15 hours long never succeeds in hooking me. It's one of the reasons I play crpgs. I like forming attachments with my character/the world and, for a game to be over in 15 hours, it would leave me disappointed. I just don't bother playing short games. The mods won't help either because they're separate from the core game and not something that extends the main game.

If many of the Watch purchase this, perhaps they'll make a real (where real = longer) game. I'm not going to run out of crpgs to play for the rest of my life. There are too many games that I love replaying; (Oblivion, FO3, FNV, 2W2, MM3-8, etc). I've heard Morrowind has been updated also, so that would add to the list. Note every game I listed lasts well over 100 hours. Some find the content in these types of games shallow, but they work for me.

Finally, short games just feel like a money grab. I absolutely loathe the newer model of "quickie-games". Then again, I'm a curmudgeon and glad to admit it :)
 
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Oh I agree about some of the short games feeling like money grabs because they are money grabs. I hate junk food type games or DLC for that matter, but the game length doesn't equal quality as I have found out. You know when a dev just mashed out a game in a month and when one was made with quality gaming in mind. This happens to be one of the latter, imo of course. I've played the beginning and didn't feel it was a rip off at all. Sixteen dollars is a fair price as far as I'm concerned.

But that's just me. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with your viewpoint and can see why you wouldn't want to play a shorter one, but I wouldn't lump all shorter games in the same category as those money grab types you would find on sites like Big Fish. Huge difference between the two.

I bring this up because people seem to think that indie = cheap - I blame those freaking junk food games for this trend - People cry holy hell if it's not 5 dollars or even 10 and that's pushing it. Of course I'm over exaggerating, but it seems that way to me when people say that 16 dollars is too much.

Also when I say people I don't necessarily mean just here. You should see some of the comments at the more casual sites.
 
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Just posting to express my view that a short game is fine by me if that's appropriate for the content. There are plenty of long games and plenty of padded-out should-have-been-half-the-length games, as well - shorter with no filler is fine.
 
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I see your point definitely, a roleplaying game is an emotional investment. I too used to love long RPG's, the longer the better. But after I got a day job, a wife, and a few kids, I've begun to see the merits of shorter games. So we've tried to pack all the good bits of a longer game into a shorter one. :)
 
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just posting to express my view that a short game is fine by me if that's appropriate for the content. There are plenty of long games and plenty of padded-out should-have-been-half-the-length games, as well - shorter with no filler is fine.

+1


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I also agree with the sentiment that there is something to be said for shorter games. When I was a teenager I could do very long marathon sessions. As an adult, I don't get anywhere near that time. Maybe I can get a few hours a day if I am lucky and often far less than that.

When playing only bits at a time, longer games can take me a very long time to complete. During that time, they can seem to drag on and I may get distracted by another game or real life; any number of things.

I like to feel a sense of completion but unfortunately in the days of digital downloads and 'Hey look! Game X is on sale!' more often than not I start a game but don't complete it. I am far more likely to complete a shorter game.

I do get attached to games and their worlds so ideally there will be some further content to play at some future date. It could be a sequel, expansion, DLC or even a mod that takes place in the same world. For successful games there is usually more content forthcoming after the original release. Hopefully this will be the case with Driftmoon as well.
 
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