ArtAs we continue to work through the Project_N “Proof of Concept,” we’ve been experimenting with our art direction.
This includes, concepts and texture work that’s being iterated on by a couple of concept artists we’ve contracted.
Art is an area in which we have some very strong ideas for the direction, but will likely be iterating on from both stylistic and technical standpoints throughout the process (note: see the previous newsletter for a sample).
So, keep in mind that the game’s visuals (posted here and on the stream) should still be considered placeholders for gameplay & technical testing, along with random aesthetic test cases.
Despite there being textures, FX, etc… we still just refer to this as “GreyBox” (okay, maybe BrownBox).
And pretty much everything you’ve seen to date are our own handcrafted assets, as we are not currently making use of resources like the Unity Asset Store.
Ali has also been creating some of our own textures in-house, while Shawn has been creating Environment Art in Blender and placeholder FX in Unity. |
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| | Two orc centurions stand guard in an alternate version of our Mini-Crypt Dungeon |
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Initial Placeholder UI FunctionalityWe’ve implemented:
- Functioning Chat
- Combat and Status Text
- Targeting Window with Health and Mana
- Player Window with Health, Mana, and Experience
- Abilities Bar and Cooldown Indicator
- Moveable Elements
Shakabrah helped us with the UI, and was able to provide us with an initial placeholder framework.
It features moveable UI elements in the form of a chat log, player frame, target frame, and ability bar.
As far as UI Design goes, we’re still talking specifics.
What we don’t like is extremely cluttered screens, excessive sound effects, or on screen instructions to tell you exactly what to do to play the game.
However, we want to give players the flexibility to customize their UI layout and appearance through skinning.
Stay tuned for more information regarding our User Interface. |
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| | Project_N Initial Placeholder UI Elements |
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CombatWe’ve implemented:
- Tab Targeting
- Classic Era and Pen & Paper inspired Combat Formulas
- Auto Attack
- Crunchy Abilities with Cooldowns and Global Cooldowns (yum…)
- Warrior, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, and Paladin Classes (initial playables)
- Experience Gain & Leveling
- Skill-ups for Hand to Hand Combat, Offense, and Defense skills
- Sit/Stand and Regeneration Rates
- Death & Respawn
- Aggro
- Initial Faction work
We’ve got the foundational elements in place for combat. This enables us to target NPCs and play through the combat loop in a natural manner.
We’re already finding combat fun and engaging, and will be further elaborated on in future updates. This and similar work is moving fast enough that we’ve decided to save the last couple of weeks' work for future newsletters.
A major focus for us has been tooling for Class Balancing and Combat Scenario Balancing.
As always with Project_N, the tools are designer focused and data-centric.
The goal for combat and the tech behind combat is to bring back the intricacies of old-school MMO combat, which we believe have been mostly forgotten since the initial days of MMOs, in favor of streamlining and/or a more action-y feel. |
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| | A ghoul patrols through our Mini-Crypt Test Dungeon |
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Foundational TechWe’ve implemented:
- Client, Server, and Networking
- State persistence
- Zoning (we are zone based)
- Day/Night Cycle
Progress on Netcode and the foundational tech has been rapid. We are super stoked with the core systems we have in place so far!
At the heart of the tech is a central queuing and messaging system. This has allowed the individual systems to be very loosely coupled, with thin lines of communication.
The hope is that such an architecture will allow us to scale rapidly and easily add new systems and functionality.
We look forward to posting a Tech-focused newsletter in the near future! |
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| | Project_N Spawn Editor and Spawn Visualization in action |
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Design ToolsWe’ve implemented:
- Data-driven tools & visualization integrated into Unity
- NPC Definitions & Placement
- Spawn Points & Spawning Volumes (for mob fields)
- Spawn Commands: Gotos, wander, repeat commands, etc.
- Spawn Timers with Several Available Presets (including Zone Based Timers)
- Currently supporting 5 unique and persistent zones for testing purposes
And what’s combat without NPCs? A strong focus for us is the ability to efficiently build out a large world with varied biomes, NPCs, and other content.
This content needs to not only operate at scale, but also be easily maintainable over the years.
With this in mind, we’ve designed and started implementing our own data-driven tools.
They allow designers to easily familiarize themselves and quickly become very effective in making content without the explicit need for direct programmer support.
Shawn has drawn heavily from past experience in this area, while Ali and Nick have used their more recent experiences in the emulator community to drive these efforts forward at a fast pace.
This has allowed Nick to steadily implement and iterate on zone populations (for multiple zones), create classes and abilities, tweak player and mob tuning, and more… while also providing valuable feedback (and a ton of bug reports), which helps Ali expose properties in the editor, clean up code, and tighten things as we go. |
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| | An orc pawn approaches as The Moons emerge over Night Harbor |
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LoreShawn and Astra have been going deep into the history of the world of Project_N and we think you will love where our Lore is going.
There’s a heavy emphasis on history, factions, and other elements that feed a sense of discovery and place.
Our focus is on worldbuilding that’ll allow you, your communities, and us as creators to experience the story of our time together in this world - rather than strict linear narratives with far-reaching deterministic outcomes.
We want to create a world, not a fantasy novel.
Our stories should add to, not overshadow, yours.
We’re also really excited about how well our World Maps have been coming together. It’s been fun for us to see the world and its eras take a more tangible shape.
The maps are being drawn in Inkarnate (and we can’t wait to have cloth versions in our hands) and the lore is being developed in World Anvil. We’re not affiliated with either app, but we do think they’re badass so far.
Unfortunately, Lore and World Development are areas we can’t share a lot about yet, because we want to preserve the mystery, and several aspects are still in flux.
We are hoping to get to a point in which we can share more Lore information in the near future. And as we’ve just gotten started, we still have plenty of time. |
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Closing ThoughtsThanks from all of us for taking the time to read this. We’ve only been at this for a couple of months, but we’re really excited by the progress so far.
This project is a huge point of passion for us, but we’re also taking it very seriously. This is a game that we really want to make, and we take a lot of pride in being open with you and in having you along.
Please keep checking our progress on the stream, we love hearing from you! The discussions thus far have been extremely helpful. Nick is also hoping to start doing some design and gameplay streams soon, so be on the lookout for that!
Again - a huge thanks goes out from the 4 of us - with a special thanks to Shaka for the help with the UI!
Looking forward to sharing more soon... it's moving fast. |
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