Subterranea - Kickstarter & Greenlight Campaigns

Couchpotato

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I have good news for eveyone today as Cloud Nine Games has just sent me information their RPG Subterranea wil be on Kickstarter & Greenlight on Friday the 28th.

I'll post the link to the Kickstarter on Friday, and in the meantime here is a new trailer.



Exciting news – the Subterranea Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns have been approved and are ready to go! The campaigns will be running simultaneously, starting at Friday, 28th February, 5pm EST (New York time), and ending on Sunday, 30th March, 5pm EST.

To support the campaigns, here is the “Subterranea Teaser Trailer Number One”. Expect a few more of these to come before release day!
More information.
 
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looks rough but gameplay looks great. Will check it out Friday on KS, thanks.
 
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yeah definitely backed.
 
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Subterranea is a 3D, Fantasy, Computer Role-Playing Game, featuring:

•Create a party of up-to 6 adventurers.
•Adventure in towns, swamps and abandoned temples.
•Fully 3D environments, characters and items.
•Turn-based, tactical combat, where mastering cover, elevation and spacing is the key to success. Including attacks of opportunities, 5 foot steps, bull rushes and a host of other tactical combat options.
•Physics-based puzzles and traps.
•Uses the Open Game Content, under the Open Game License v1.0a.
•7 Player Character races – Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Halfling, Half-Orc and Human.
•11 Player Character classes – Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer and Wizard.
•Available on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Dunno about you but my wallet is already crying as I'm yelling: instapledge!
Let's just hope whoever holds d&d license won't notice races and classes are... Somewhat... Similar.
 
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Sounds great indeed, although NPC interaction is somehow missing. Hopefully they'll include information during their KS campaign.

The visuals remind me of Neverwinter Nights 2, especially the character models, the portraits, radial menu and the combat log. Not a bad thing though.
 
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Let's just hope whoever holds d&d license won't notice races and classes are… Somewhat… Similar.

I think they're using the OGL, so it should be ok.
Not that I understand the first thing about copyright.
 
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These races and classes aren't D&D registered, lots of RPGs use them (even Pillars of Eternity have almost all classes too...)
 
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Wizards of the Coast released Dungeons and Dragon 3.0-3.5 as an open games licence. I'm sure the developers pushed for this and the publishers probably regret it, as it has allowed for Pathfinder to exist and basically allows computer programmers to use old (that is 3.0-3.5) D&D rules without buying the licence.
 
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Wizards of the Coast released Dungeons and Dragon 3.0-3.5 as an open games licence. I'm sure the developers pushed for this and the publishers probably regret it, as it has allowed for Pathfinder to exist and basically allows computer programmers to use old (that is 3.0-3.5) D&D rules without buying the licence.

I suppose that's one way to look at it. The OGL does provide benefit for WotC by encouraging independents to produce many supplements and modules that have low margins, thereby improving WotC's own profitability.

Another way to look at it is that WotC shot off their own foot with the version 4 release. That, and the hiring of former WotC employees, is likely the reason why Pathfinder is doing so well.
 
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Hi guys, thanks for your (upcoming :)) support!

To answer all of your questions:

"looks rough but gameplay looks great": Absolutely. I have done most of the work on the game myself, and I am definitely a developer not an artist! The focus to this point has been on building gameplay systems, so there's the fun stuff like the turn-based combat and environment interactivity, but the environments themselves are still looking pretty sterile. For a megadungeon under a swamp, it should be a lot more grimy/damp/decaying and full of... stuff! This is all coming, and the funding from (modest) Kickstarter goal will go mainly into 2D and 3D art, with some on engine licensing, animation and a few required programming frameworks. So if the funding is successful, I hope to start showing significant graphical improvements and general polish improvements straight away.

"Looks suspiciously like D&D": Yes, it is D&D. I am using the Open Game Content (OGC) from the Wizards of the Coast, under the terms of the Open Game License. The OGC is an openly-licensed version of D&D 3.5e. As forgottenlor said, this is what Pathfinder is based on, and as Hastar said, what KotC used as well. I strongly considered using Pathfinder actually, as it's just a whole lot of improvements on D&D 3.5e, but the licensing terms weren't as clear, and it still wouldn't be well-known to a wide segment of the potential Subterranea-playing community. Under the terms of the Open Game License, I:

* Cannot mention officially that my game is in any way associated with D&D, WotC, D20, etc, though forum posts are OK I think! It is pretty obvious though, so that's OK

* Cannot use any trademarked D&D IP, like "Forgotten Realms", "Elminster", "Beholder", etc.

* I must expose all of the rules of the game in human-readable files (XML in Subterranea's case), that are read in by the game at startup. This is following the normal open licensing concept where any additions/augmentations of the content you create should be also made available for others to use. In relation to a CRPG, one immediate benefit is that it makes the game very moddable. I did a post a few weeks ago mentioning this, in regard to being able to change the "playable" flag for all monster races to true to be able to use them as playable races in-game, if you wish:

http://cloudninegames.net/dev-diary-1-enemy-customization-playable-races/

If you were determined enough, you could even convert Subterranea to use the Pathfinder ruleset! If you're interested in what's in the OGC, here's a great online resource that displays the contents of the "System Reference Document" which is the set of documents from WotC that describe the OGC:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:System_Reference_Document

"NPC interaction": Yes, there will be a lot of this. My main inspiration for the game was the original Pool of Radiance, in which I loved the political intrigue when dealing with the council of Phlan. There are parallels in Subterranea when dealing with the (sometimes competing) agendas of the cabal of merchant-lords who rule Gimlet Town.

I've had a huge amount of very helpful advice from Craig Stern of http://www.indierpgs.com In my original teaser trailer, I had a scene in the swamp after the party had returned from the sunken temple megadungeon where a merchant-lord was demanding that the party stick to their agreement to give the cabal first rights to purchase treasure recovered from the temple. The PC party leader attempts a Bluff, which fails a DC check, angering the merchant-lord. However Craig's advice was that the teaser trailer and Kickstarter pitch should be streamlined (they were too long), and that scene was one that got cut.

You'll see plenty of information on the KS page though about deep, branching dialogue and choice and consequence. You've given me a good idea for an early KS update though - NPC interaction. Thanks!
 
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Hope this one does well. It's sad to see great projects struggle because the funding goal is "too high". Like Zaharia :( From the sound of things, you'll have a fairly modest goal, which is good.
 
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Yes, games like this can be made surprisingly efficiently - I've got some good info on what the money will be spent on, on the KS page.

If this was a 2D game, every character and monster would need to be drawn with a list of variants - male/female, healthy/injured, clothing, etc. If I was relying on a 2D artist, I could easily be spending $100-300 on each animated sprite variant (notwithstanding some shortcuts for clothes and equip-able items if you make the characters all the same size).

In 3D, my characters (and bipedal monsters) can all be customized in-game for free, all the way down to nose length! I can share animations between all bipedal characters. That sword slash animation you see twice in the TB combat scene was bought from a professional online animation vendor called Mixamo for $15. I can get full access for 1 year to all of their animations, to use forever for $650. Great value!
 
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I'll float some cash towards this too. Sounds fun!
 
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I suppose that's one way to look at it. The OGL does provide benefit for WotC by encouraging independents to produce many supplements and modules that have low margins, thereby improving WotC's own profitability.

Another way to look at it is that WotC shot off their own foot with the version 4 release. That, and the hiring of former WotC employees, is likely the reason why Pathfinder is doing so well.

If they had directly profited greatly from the OGL, I think 4th edition would have also been open licence. I do think, though, it is interesting that athe number of D&D computer games has been drastically reduced since the 4th edition, and most of the 4th edition computers games have drawn more from the setting than the new mechanics. So I'm not sure if this has to do with the open licence, the new game mechanics, or something else.
 
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I should add to the post above that I've only needed to create male and female variants of all clothing and armor pieces - so a Dwarf and a Half-Orc can both use the same breastplate model and it will be scaled perfectly.

There are good value, professional clothing and armor packs coming for the character system I use, which will improve the appearance of PCs and NPCs by orders of magnitude.

If the KS is successful, I will be more respectful of spending any backer's funds in the best and most efficient way than I am of my own funds. I want a great-looking and great-feeling game to play like everybody else, but it's got to be done the smartest way!
 
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