Kenshi - Preview @ RPS

I can't remember if we've featured Kenshi before, an indie “free-roaming squad based RPG”. Either way, Rock, Paper, Shotgun has collected a trailer and some dev quotes together in an article. Here are a couple of those quotes:

“Be cautious and grow. You don’t have to win all the time, if a character loses a fight, he actually gains more experience from it. After all you never forget a lesson if it involves getting stabbed.”
A brilliant idea. Give me a reason to survive a fight that is going badly rather than making it an excuse to reload. In the words of Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried? Ever failed? No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail harder. Fail better”. Yes. If mistakes lead to a failure state, or to a more undesirable place, then freedom becomes the choice of different kinds of success. True freedom shouldn’t simply allow different approaches to a goal but different ways to accept missing a goal.
“You are not the chosen one. You’re not great and powerful. You don’t have more ‘hitpoints’ than everyone else. You are not the center of the universe, and you are not special. Unless you work for it.”
I don’t think this is inherently better than being the chosen one but it’s certainly not as common. I suspect a large part of my excitement about not being the centre of the universe is linked to the fact that it requires a more detailed and simulated universe. Other things must be happening without me nudging them into action. In many games, one of the reasons the player is powerful or important is because nothing can happen without him/her. It’s heroism by default, to hide limitations.

More information.

Well, that looks cool as hell. Certainly ambitious, and it sounds like he's got many miles to go before he sleeps. But if he's asking $10, I think I'll throw him a sawbuck just for having the balls to go for it. If it never gets off the ground, so be it. I've wasted way more money than that on so-called AAA titles that turned out to be unambitious and derivative steaming piles of feces.

Sounds like he has far enough to go that I probably wouldn't ever try to play it for real. Bad pathfinding, framerate and load times? Think I'd just wait until it gets much closer to being finished, if ever.

looks amazing! really hope they can finish it though. less ambitious work has taken ages and this one looks like it might get released 2020, if at all.

I want to be excited by this project, but I really don't want to get my hopes up for a potentially over-ambitious game that might not ever see the light of day…Then again, I said the same thing during the development of the fantastic Mount & Blade, so I guess I'll just have to put this in the "keep an eye on it, but maintain reasonable expectations for a release" category. So far, it definitely looks like it has some real potential.

Registered just to say this: I LIKE everything the guy is saying. If I had the chops to make an RPG, it is pretty much how I'd design one, one that bucks the trend in terms of you being the chosen one without earning it, etc.

Really hope this'll come out one way or another

Could be all my RPG wishes coming true! I would hope Chris can pull off a Witcher with this one, although obviously his game will not have the same kind of backup resource wise.

On my to watch list.

Well, actually my 'to watch list' is only stored in my brain and currently games are very low in my list of priorities due to lack of time… Maybe the Watch can make another post when the alpha becomes available? I would like to support this guy by buying the alpha!

I'll buy the alpha-release, no doubt about that. This is the sort of development I want to support, and the release of Mount & Blade shows that it can be done…. Lets make sure there is a marked for something other than crappy EA releases.

The main problem with many indie devs (and quite a few modders) is that they get way too over-ambitious and the project just dies off instead, been involved in a few such projects. I wish him all the luck though, i was really impressed with the trailers.

Originally Posted by vurt
The main problem with many indie devs (and quite a few modders) is that they get way too over-ambitious and the project just dies off instead, been involved in a few such projects. I wish him all the luck though, i was really impressed with the trailers.

You are obviously right, but one of the major problems in those cases is the lack of funding. If you have to work at your day time job 40 hours a week to support the project and your family, there will not be much left to develop the game. Your motivation would obviously suffer.

If a few people can buy the alpha release, and he can manage to create a community around his game, I am sure that will do a lot to make sure the motivation remains… And as long as he can make visible progress I am sure more people will buy future releases.

Looks good, I also like this statment:

“Absolutely no Level-scaling. The world does not level up along with you, and the shops don’t change their inventory to only items matching your level.”

It seems like my future with CRPGs is going to mostly involve indies.

Add me to his list of supporters. This project is just what I would do if I had the resources and dedication.

To the eventual (pre)purchase list this goes---when money avails for the lot of them.

If he can get out regular, incremental builds after the Alpha release---odds are good a community can be cultivated that'll help push things all the way. This isn't the sort of project that'd do terribly well with sparsely sprinkled releases throughout a year.

Originally Posted by Ithilien
You are obviously right, but one of the major problems in those cases is the lack of funding.

Absolutely, if they had the opportunity to be funded from the very start then it would be a lot easier for those really ambitious indie games. In reality i think most publishers wants to see a fairly finished game before they risk funding it, at least for a indie game, maybe it's their first game even.. It can be a big risk for the publisher.

I think this game could take time to reach a state where it can really show off its true potential and gain interest from a publisher. But i really hope he succeeds.. I made small contribution and asked if he's interested in a environmental artist hehe.

Looks oddly reminiscent of Starwars Galaxies(pre cu) for some reason. Wonder if he is using parts of the swg emulator code?
That aside this could very well be everything ive wanted in an rpg for far to many years now. Asian setting, no neo-esque protagonist, some original ideas and hopefully some tactical party based combat.
All in all its hard not to get exited about this one. Definetly one for the watch list.

Interesting!

Like what he says there isn't going to be any Oblivion style level-scaling but I wouldn't be surprised if there is level-scaling of some form but normal level-scaling is totally unnoticeable unless you were specifically looking for it. Level-scalling has been in most rpgs and until Oblivion was virtually never really noticed (like it should be) and was a normal part of the game. If Oblivion had either got it right or not existed you would never have seen one mention about level-scaling pretty much anywhere (unless you were looking for it) like before Oblivion came out.

It certainly sounds interesting and may be a good game in a couple of years. I may be willing to put down a $10 deposit or some such to help the game get made.

I think its a bad business model to give away the game free after that initial payment. But I suppose they will have higher probability of early investment if they offer the free updates. I certainly believe that a discount of $10-20 on final product should have made up for the initial investment the would eventually make more money on the product if its worth it. Alpha testing isn't exactly a reward for early investment but might help a modding community form early like minecraft.

Perhaps I was lucky, buying into M&B when it was REALLY cheap, but I admit that that very positive experience makes me a bit more relaxed about taking chances like this. I'll be buying in at $10.

Figment: it's not "they" it's "he"