I love the music! Fits your game perfectly. It was exactly the kind of music I was intending to hear here haha
Glad to know you like the music Kami and J0! I really liked it too the first time I heard it, very glad with our choice in composer 
And it’s pretty impressive that you noticed ShadedVertex, if you want the long explanation then —
I created a version that didn’t load in any shaders since one of my team-mates didn’t have a computer that could run shaders on it and I haven’t gotten around to programming a version of the lighting that didn’t use shaders. I had the version running with no shaders at the time I took the screenshot so there is indeed no lighting. Later on I’m going to add in an option whether or not people want to run the game with shaders and there should still be decend lighting working without them. ;D
Oh, that explains it 
That’d be cool because even in the age of GLSL people still have computers with ancient GPUs which don’t support shaders.
EDIT: I am ShadedVertex after all. You know…GLSL…shaders…vertices…vertex shaders…get it?
Welp. What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Your game looks beautiful. You seem to be progressing. There’s a shot for success in here and it isn’t hidden. 
From a fellow libGDX developer to another, godspeed!
[quote=“purenickery,post:42,topic:55660”]
What OGL version are you using?
I have programmed the game so far to work with OpenGL 2.0. I started adding support for OpenGL 1.0 last week since one of my team-mates was one of the few people whose computer can only run 1.0, but I’m going to have to refactor quite a bit to get it to work. (So, I might hold off on that for a little bit and just focus on making the game itself for a while. Much more fun that way ;D)
I can’t imagine a good reason to add support for OGL 1.0… It’s such a small base yuor effort is better spent elsewhere. If you need to refactor heavily to add OGL 1.0, then you are just running the risk of introducing multiple bugs to your OGL 2.0 implementation only to increase your base by a couple of percent.
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. The main reason I was considering it was my laptop fried AGAIN (it turned out to be the power cord’s fault) so all I could use for a week was my 12 year old desktop, which coincidentally, can only run OGL 1.0. However, even when I got the game to run with it that computer could only handle a few frames per second so I decided to spend some time working on the website instead (http://www.questica.net check it out ::)) I know there’s only a fraction of a percent of computers that can’t use 2.0 anymore so I’ll probably call it fine.
In other news, me and the pals are heavily considering running a Kickstarter campaign for the game in a few months after we have a demo for the game ready. We’re all pretty sick of working at grocery stores and would much rather work on this full-time. Any ideas, criticisms, or suggestions are greatly appreciated as we try to figure out what the best course of action is ;D
You could also consider Patreon.
If you’re not familiar, it’s sort of like a Kickstarter, but instead of a month-long, make-or-break campaign, its a subscription based service.
It has differently tiered packages like Kickstarter, so you can give out monthly builds to your backers to keep them entertained.
In my opinion, Patreon is much more suited to the game development cycle, as its often hard to estimate costs from the beginning of a project.
However, it is harder to convince people to commit to a monthly payment for an indefinite time.
This is the part that I’m worried about. I think people are much more likely to donate to a one-time kickstarter deal than join in on a monthly subscription to something. I tend to actually have a few reasons to prefer Kickstarter:
- It’s an easy way to gauge large-scale interest in the project
- (I think) people are less reluctant to support Kickstarter campaigns and feel more like they we’re a part of making the campaign successful
- I want the game itself to be a pay-once and update forever kind of game, and a Kickstarter campaign would better reflect that payment model
Just a few thoughts and we’re going to make the game whether or not it ends up getting funded, it would just be great to be able to work on it full time.
I don’t think I chimed in yet here, but keep it up; I like what I see.
Regarding OGL1 support and stuff; just don’t… We’re well past that point; even on mobile we were past that in ~2010 easily.
As far as a Kickstarter is concerned having done one myself which didn’t tip where I spent a considerable amount on presentation / promo video I can say it’s really important to make contacts in the press in general before launching a Kickstarter. I had to hunt down respectable bloggers and show them in person what I had done before anyone wrote about it. Heck I ran into Robert Scoble and he gave me a glowing review + posted an impromptu interview to 650k Facebook followers which only netted maybe 20 backers; it’s tough. Since we’re talking about a game in this case putting together a basic playable demo that is fun! and that you can send out to as many gaming press contacts as possible a month or so before the Kickstarter launch is pertinent. Maybe a starting town and surrounding area for essential game play. Send the playable demo and a nice video + overview to as many gaming press contacts that you can collect and even game / live streamers and make it clear that you are doing a Kickstarter to fund an effort that is well underway. Of course make a nice presentation for the Kickstarter assets, but what is going to bring attention is the pre-prep work you do with any gaming press prior. I learned the hard way starting with all cold contacts before Kickstarter launch. I think you got something here, so give it a shot!
Best of luck!
I don’t want to derail op’s thread. But unless you require features from OpenGL 3+, just use 2.0. That “couple of percent” is still a big percentage. Steam’s surveys are bull-hockey because the only ones who did the survey were hard-core eurogamers. Truth is, lots of cards are going to support OpenGL 3+. But If your game gets big, there’s going to be quite a few angry paying customers.
OpenGL 2 has shaders, VBOs, and even framebuffers with the old extensions! People just want to play their game and adding complications like having a to-date computer is not really a priority…
It’s up to OP though, just putting in my 2 cents. (Haha, get it?) Coming from a person who has had OpenGL version headaches.
This is what I’m advocating. Considering a mobile port I’d keep things to OpenGL / ES 2.0 min.
Whops, I haven’t touched OGL in a few months… I thought 1.0 = 2.0 lol
Oh yeah, I’m certainly staying away from requiring OpenGL 3.0, I have no need for it really.
Thanks so much for the advice Catharsis ;D It will definitely help out. We’re not planning on launching anything for another couple months still so it gives us some time to build up those connections.
Hello everyone! This is going to be a pretty significant update that’s going to really change how I’m going about this project and how this devlog is going to operate. First thing’s first, lets get to what
I’ve Been Up To
I came up with a neat little idea for how to build things in the world quite a while ago, so I’ve gotten around to adding it in to the current version of the game. Many things in the game revolve aroung the idea of obtaining a “scroll” that is essentially a blueprint teaching the player how to build or craft a certain item. For smithing, in order to smith a specific helmet, you would need to get the scroll for it from a smith you meet in the town or from a monster drop etc. There will also be scrolls for objects you build, like carts, chests, or castle walls. With these scrolls you will be able to place a frame of the object in the world that will list the required items needed to build that object. A castle wall might need 10 stone and 2 mortar for example. You and all your friends (if on multiplayer) can together add all the required items to the frame, and once they are all there the object will get constructed.
I also finally made a custom launcher and updater for the game so anyone can just launch an exe from their desktop and play the latest version of the game!
I am Changing the Direction of the Game Significantly
Before, I wanted to get a nice, stable demo together with examples of all the features that will hopefully be in the full game. I wanted to get most or all of the core game done so I could show off everything in its nearly-complete form. This project is turning out to be absolutely enormous, however, especially for the amount of time that we were able to put into it.
For some personal and motivational reasons, our artist has had to step back from the project. I am currently the only one working on this game as a sole project and I do not see myself being able to complete the game to what we wanted it to be originally. Ignoring the fact that my art skills are incredibly lack-luster, even if I was great at pixel art it would take me forever to finish this game alone. So, I’ve done some pretty intense soul-searching about what I really want out of this game and making games in general.
I wanted to do a kickstarter earlier so that I could gauge interest in the project and hopefully make enough money that I could work on the game much more than I currently can now. I am realizing the thing that excites me the most about this project is the idea of gathering around with your friends and playing through a random adventure that can include items, objects, and monsters that you designed yourself and put in with the modding system. I don’t really care as much about doing this as a full-time job (and I know the success-rate for that is incredibly low anyways), I want to know that people are having fun playing something that I created and building a community off of that. So, that leads me to
What I am Going to do Now
I do not have an artist, but I do have a pretty great and simple system for adding nearly anything to this game. I am going to release a demo in about a week (it’s not going to be incredible but it will be SOMETHING). Anyone who wants to will be able to play the game as it currently is. I’ll open up the forums for anyone to suggest anything to add to the game. Anyone can make art for an item, object, or monster and if people like it I will happily add it in to the game. Ideally, I’ll get a group of passionate people together all helping to make something incredible that we can all enjoy. I’ll get on and play multiplayer games with anyone who wants to and discuss what could go in the game (as long as not too many people are interested, which is what I’m expecting).
If people seem to be interested then I’ll keep this up as long as people are. If not, I’ll probably go back to just doing game-jams while working a software job. Please let me know what you think about this, if it’s stupid just shoot me down now so I don’t get too much hope 
If this is something you would be interested in seeing then let me know! I would love to hear that as well. I’m going to get back to busting a few important bugs before I release the last two years of my life to you guys (it unfortunately doesn’t amount to too much, but I learned an incredible amount).
Well that seems to be something worth working for! As soon as I finish my own little project, which should not take too much time, I’d be glad to help you on Questica!
Hey everyone! I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days and I’ve come to the decision to just look for another artist. I do still plan to release a demo here really soon (just to you guys ;)) with the auto-updater so you can get all the new updates as I release them as well.
If anyone is really interested in seeing the code or wants to help out in that end (thanks for the offer J0!) I’ll be happy to give them access to my repository so they can make their own branch. Still working on adding the last few usability tweaks to the game so that people other than me will be able to play it. It will be little more than just a walking simulator at the moment but I’ll be adding loads of content here in the coming months (more if I’m able to find an artist really quickly).
Take it easy guys ;D
Can’t wait until you release the frist demo I’d love to help you out with the game but unfortunately university is currently taking up more time then it should :-\
tell me about it :clue: I feel like I spend all my time doing homework these days.
Winter break coming up though! ;D However, I’m planning on spending most of it doing the LibGDX Jam