Questica -- Another Gosh Darn Pixel Game

WIP games, tools & toy projects
#1

Hey everyone!

I decided to share with you all my current project and information about it. Currently me and a buddy are working on a game called Questica. Although still in early development, we are mainly focusing on developing the core overworld first before any major content. Our plan right now is to make this pretty ambitious game strictly on our free time. Planning through our development we did not want to use Kickstarter, Patreon, or any other means of early funding until we actually have a product that is worth funding and, more importantly, is playable. With nothing holding us two developers back we are going to try and create our dream game!

To avoid ‘Development Hell’ we have the entire game planned in chapters of major development all the way to a final finished product. That not only we are sure we can make in the first place, but are super excited to play in the end.

We have a lot of exciting concepts yet to share with everyone, But in good time of course. We don’t want to go promising a bunch of features that may or may not make it in to the final game. We’re just going to show you what we have so far and then update when we can.

We can say that right now we have working more or less a random island generator, custom lighting, multiplayer (that’s right!), basic combat, saving/loading, and some other super-secret (for now) features.

If you want to follow how the game is coming along there are a few different ways to keep up:

Here: I’ll be posting updates here hopefully from now on
Twitter: @purenickery
Website: http://www.questica.net

#2

This looks really fantastic! The art and eyecandy is especially nice. It’s cool to see you be committed to this game for so long.

Btw, what engine/framework are you using?

#3

Thank you so much for the response! It can get pretty tough working on one project for almost two years but the fact that it’s starting to go somewhere is really motivating.

As for the engine we are using LibGDX :slight_smile:

#4

This is looking really promising!
Do you have any estimate on when you think you’ll have something ready for us to try (in a week, a month or a year)?

#5

Those graphics! :open_mouth:

Nice work! Really looking forwars to more.

#6

Very pretty - I love the water reflection, always wanted to do that in a game. If you’re in need of Steam integration let me know.

Cas :slight_smile:

#7

We’re hoping we’ll have something nice to show in around a month or less ;D We’re going to try and set up a little semi-private beta for people to test out the game and multiplayer.

Thank you! It’s always great to hear that :slight_smile:

Right now we’re hoping we can just release the game on our own website, but if it comes to it we would consider using Steam as well. If we decide that I have no idea how to integrate it with Steam so your help would be greatly appreciated :smiley:

#8

You might as well try and put it on Steam, they do take care of an awful lot of stuff for you. The Steamworks APIs are dead easy to use and add a bunch of farkle and sparkle to a game that players seem to like without costing you a whole lot of effort (cloud saves and achievements being the big ones, but there’s also subtle stuff like trading cards and badges etc).

Cas :slight_smile:

#9

The art is fricken beautiful. Great job!

#10

Damn that looks nice! You guys will see much success with this kind of beauty. Look forward to seeing this playable. :slight_smile: Keep up the good work!

#11

We will definitely have to consider it! There’s still definitely the appeal of releasing the game completely on our own with our own website and everything though, it will be a tough decision. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you so much for the replies! I spent a lot of time trying to make the game look as good as possible so I’m glad it wasn’t all for nothing ;D I’ll be posting videos of us playing the game here soon and let you guys know once we’re unleashing other people on it as well!

#12

I’ve heard that LibGDX is great for 2D graphics. I’ll try learning it one day :smiley: Maybe after my Marionette Cards project.

Anyway, your game really does look great! I’ll definitely give it a go when I get the chance. Good luck, you’ll need it!

#13

LibGDX is pretty great in a lot of ways but rather frustrating in others haha! If you have any questions once you get started I’ll be happy to help out; after wrestling with it for 2 years I think I’ve got it pretty well figured out :slight_smile: and thanks for the luck, getting your game out there is definitely one of the hardest parts about game development, I’m just glad it seems to look good enough to get a bit of interest

#14

A bit of interest? What an understatement; you definitely spent a lot of time getting the graphics right! And thanks for offering to help with learning LibGDX. I have actually tried out LibGDX, but not that much. I only tried 3D in LibGDX, before realising that JMonkeyEngine would be a much better choice (for 3D graphics, of course). And you’re right, making the game and releasing the game are two completely different things. Sometimes I think it’s easier to develop the game than market it.

#15

You have to do that as well - Steam isn’t the panacaea of discovery it once was, it’s just another closed marketplace which has captured most of the low hanging fruit in the target market. “Millionaires* think both” I like to say :slight_smile:

Cas :slight_smile:

  • Disclosure: still, uh, some way off of achieving certain financial goals here
#16

Your project looks great, good luck! :slight_smile:

#17

It is sounding much more appealing, as I might be a little ways off from achieving certain financial goals as well :wink: I just got a little scared off by things like this. I don’t know if steam still operates this way but I would like to keep full control over mods and what we can give to our players. One of my primary goals was to have it so when people bought the game it would give them an account to post on our forums as well, so if we can get that to work with selling it on steam then I’d be all over it :smiley:

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#18

These graphics though :o
I hope your game is as enjoyable as it seems to be! :wink:

J0

#19

Thanks! That’s one of the things I’m the most worried about personally; I know the game looks really good but I really hope other people find it fun as well :clue:

Speaking of which I think it’s about time I share what the actual goals are for the game! I’ll just quickly list all of the current/planned features:

Procedurally generated maps: The maps will be in the style of Castle Crashers where it’s a long strip of map for you to walk down, this will give players direction as well as make it way easier to generate. Along this strip there will be many biomes, cities, towns, and other things to explore. Caves also generate under the ground in levels going very deep in to the earth. Inside the caves and on the ground level dungeons will also be there for you and your friends to rummage around in.

Loads of weapons, armor, potions, ingredients, animals, and other things to find. We want the world to be full of life with something in every corner for you to use for survival if you know how. Everything is going to have a practical use for something in the game, and if you don’t know what something does just ask around in the town nearby, someone’s bound to know!

Online multiplayer: This is one of my main focuses lately. You can set up a server if you want to and allow your friends to join in for you all to go on a randomly generated adventure. Or, if you so desire, the person running the server can take full control over the world and it’s inhabitants crafting a story/adventure in front of the players for them to go on. The generation tools will be there to help if you want to generate a dungeon in a certain area or place a small town in the middle of a forest. Everything will be completely editable as well!

Mod support: This is also another one of my main focuses. I want anyone who knows how to use MSPaint to be able to add what they want into the game. Anyone who knows how to code will just be able to go many steps further. All of the assets for the game are stored in an internal folder with an image and a data file associated with it. If someone wants to add a new object to the game all they have to do is place an image file and a data file into a Mod folder in their user directory, put their object into the object map, and it will automatically load into the game! It will work on multiplayer as long as everyone is using that same mod folder.

Complex crafting: Most games these days have a pretty simple A+B=C method of crafting, and try to make that interesting by having thousands of different things to craft. We’re going to try and make that more interesting by changing up the method of how crafting is done. For smithing metals you will have to melt down alloys, pick up the bar with clamps, carry it over to an anvil, and then hammer with the action key until the weapon is made. If the bar cools down too much you can reheat it back in the furnace. Based on how well you craft the swords and the temperatures you smith it at the stats for the sword will also be different.

I think that’s about it for now, let me know what you think about it all and if you have any other things you’d like to see in the game! I’ll leave you with a few more fun little gifs of the game

http://fat.gfycat.com/FirstAthleticCur.gif

and here’s how the latency interpolation for multiplayer looks:

http://giant.gfycat.com/WealthyReliableJaguar.gif

#20

This looks very nice :point:
I implemented interpolation recently in my game but i had the problem that packets could come in at frequently varying intervals (from 0.05s to 0.6s)
and it would either cause stopping or slinging, but i think i kinda got it now.
Are you also doing some kind of extrapolation to counter packet loss and jitter?