The Terminal Angel Disease - 2D Indie RPG (Greenlight and Trailer)

WIP games, tools & toy projects
#1

Hello fellow Java Indie-Devs! :slight_smile:

After a long time (=years) of development, my hobby game “The Terminal Angel Disease” is approaching the release deadline :slight_smile:
It is a typical 2D RPG with elements of hack’n’slay, story-driven, item looting, and a sack of self irony.

Background
I developed this game initially starting from 1998 in an obscure language called “Visual Basic” and released it in 2005 in Germany only. I was finishing university at that time, and after spending years with the game I lost interest in pushing it further once it was released. I continued working as a full time pro web developer, architect and team leader for customers. Missing the pure coding in those positions, I re-wrote the game in Java as a hobby project. 95% of the stuff is untouched: graphics (I introduced new tree graphics), gameplay, design. It was then and now a lot of work and I decided too re-release it again!
The game is inspired by mid-90 games. Today, games tend to be short and accessible, and my game is nothing like that :wink: Fights are frequent and hard - most people complain about that. But puzzles are fair, and NPCs are friendly :slight_smile:

Story
In an former RPG city (used a long time ago for real RPG games), everybody is unempoyed, since their graphics went out of style. All monsters have been beaten, all heroes became lazy and fat. Suddenly, new monsters roam the city, and our party are the only ones who can move around (because they’re controlled by you, the player). It seems the guardian angels - the so-called “scripts” - have been been kidnapped! And so we drink up our cappucino and start the adventure…

Technique (this we can discuss here in detail :wink:

  • The game runs on Java, obviousley, without any support from a 3rd party framework. Everything is programmed using Java2d/Swing, and a custom game framework using BufferedImages. Why? Because it is foremost a fun, coding project, and creating frameworks is a lot of fun :slight_smile:
  • The map structure is a 99x99 array of tiles. Tiles have a 40x40 pixel ground iamge, and optional an item and overlay image.
  • There are 20 maps in the game, with half of them have unique graphics.
  • Events, like puzzles, talks, shops, and fights are also placed on the tiles. I hade a really nice editor for evreything abck then!
  • When fighting baddies, the fight screen appears with a semi-real-time fight modus.

What’s next?
I’m working on a demo! I already bought chocolate to handle the critics, and then I’ll see how much of the input I can incorporate into the game. The final release is scheduled after summer (i want to spend some of the summer time outside!) After that - depending on if at least some people like it - a complete remake is planned :slight_smile:

Video :point:
So enough talk, let’s watch a video. This is raw, compiled footage of representive scenes of the game and shows the basic things to do: walking, fighting, looting!

Support
If you like theprojects pleeeease support it via the usual suspects:
IndieDB: http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-terminal-angel-disease
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheTerminalAngelDisease
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KurtisTheBlob

I love to hear comments and questions! :slight_smile:

Enjoy!
Mathias

#2

Lovely concept. Can’t wait to see where this goes :slight_smile:

#3

Interesting concept… although I have to admit I’m not digging the graphics. Everything seems out of place. :frowning:

#4

word.

#5

I still prefer the graphics over the common pixel art/retro look.

A demo would be great.

#6

seems quite interesting.
i think it would be much interesting with some music in the background, at least Guile’s Theme (:

#7

Thanks for the replies :slight_smile:

The graphics… the thing is, I did everything by myself… and thats just the way they look… i know it is not fashionable. Music is planned, I also play the guitar .)

#8

Well, it is optically actually kinda ugly, but still a very interesting funny concept!

#9

Graphics look fine!

#10

Thanks, man! :slight_smile:

#11

[quote] optically actually kinda ugly
[/quote]

[quote]Graphics look fine!
[/quote]
Yea. Ugly but fine.

#12

The graphics remind me of And Yet It Moves. Looks like an interesting game in the video. :slight_smile:

#13

I played a bit with IrfanView filters:

Better or worse? :slight_smile:

955×627 241 KB

#14

It feels a bit cubist. Which is not a bad thing, you could develop it into a style.

#15

I like most of the art, when considered individualy, but none of it fits together. The chair is isometric, but the character is not. Also, the varying levels of detail in thr images make it look un-unified (If thats a word?).

#16

Demo Version 0.2 :slight_smile:

Yes, I worked on a demo version of the game! The first 5 maps are included - and even the intro! :slight_smile:
There is no manual yet, so please check the help screen via “F1”. Most of the controls can be found out I hope. And pleeeease save early, save often :wink:

http://captainsoft.net/demo_en/tad.zip :point:

Everybody have a lot of fun, and tell me what you think about it :slight_smile:

Enjoy,
Mathias

#17

Puhh… i now refurbished all the graphics to the new style… seems that people (esp. girls) like it:

(and that brings me a big leap closer to the release-date) :point:

More screenshots here:


http://i.imgur.com/mgBcrLh.png

#18

I played the demo for maybe an hour. I think it’s quite charming in it’s very own, somewhat strange style. I like it. However, i do have some issues, mainly with the controls:

  • Keyboard movement seems to rely on key pressed events, which leads to jerky movement if one hasn’t tuned the system’s key repeat delay. It would be better to use key up/down events and just set some flags accordingly instead.
  • The usage of the right mouse button to collect things and to move them around in the inventory is counterintuitive to me. If you want to keep that for whatever reason, please add at least the option to use the left mouse button to read the item descriptions (in game and in the inventory). The way it is now, the left mouse button has no function on items, but i’m still forced to use the right one instead.
  • If you hit a wall or another obstacle, the character plays some animation and i have to wait for it to finish before i can move again. That, combined with the jerky movement, is quite annoying.
  • I’m missing a “take all” button when opening chests and stuff.
  • I’m missing a quest log. I remember that i’m supposed to visit the wise guys, but i can’t remember where to find them.
#19

Thanks for the feedback, man! :point:

I will work on it for sure… and for the wise guys… yeah nobody seems to find them, but the manual will include a map of the city :wink:

#20

At least i managed to cross the bridge now… :wink: