Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of MoonFall

[Magick]

I'll shill your youtube channel when you're ready to upload new reviews

[logincrash]

Hey, I was just thinking about starting a Sons of Anarchy watchthrough. Guys built like 80s action heroes and rad bikes - looks great so far.

[UltraFan123]

Honest answer: I have no plans for this, but if a backer pays me like $9k or whatever to put a character in the game, I won't mind either. Although, I'll still be writing those characters.

Imagine thinking progressives paying that amount of money for anything other than furry porn.

Yeah, if the recent failures of Concord and similar games have shown us something, is that these days the "progressives" either don't have the money to support their agenda, or don't want to spend their money hoping that someone else will.

[Element]

what is a porno asset flip doing on the front page of the rpg section?

[rusty_shackleford]

what is a porno asset flip doing on the front page of the rpg section?

nepotism

[Tweed]

"WARGGBLBL AI ASSETS!"



"ROBBLE ROBBLE STORE BOUGHT ASSETS!"

[logincrash]

This screeching about AI/store-bought assets is ridiculous. You can play a game that is a thousand times more complex and has an incredible reactive story with your buds using a set of dice and graph paper.
The graphics are not the main draw of a video game, the gameplay is. And if it's an RPG, then the story should be up there as well. So, as long as those are good, working on graphics can wait.

All of that said, the scope of the project seems far too ambitious for a single dev. Don't try to move mountains by yourself, @Brother Chad, lest you burnout.

[Element]

Who is screeching here?

The ten seconds of combat that we see is a clone of Colony Ship (a game reviled by many here). There's promises of backgrounds and classes but the trailer showcases chargen as playing dress up and picking hairdos. The rest is panning the camera around in Unreal environments, where the assets oscillate from triple A stuff to poojeet sweatshop turds (high fidelity characters cycling through low fidelity stock animations, environments ranging from phenomenal to terrible). The game is pitching 'immersive first person exploration' so I'm guessing this is a significant part of the experience. The one clip of gameplay in fp that isn't camera work is jank (jumping across the railings). Daz renders. $35...

"Graphics are not the main draw, gameplay is." Indeed.

[rusty_shackleford]

Who is screeching here?

The ten seconds of combat that we see is a clone of Colony Ship (a game reviled by many here). There's promises of backgrounds and classes but the trailer showcases chargen as playing dress up and picking hairdos. The rest is panning the camera around in Unreal environments, where the assets oscillate from triple A stuff to poojeet sweatshop turds (high fidelity characters cycling through low fidelity stock animations, environments ranging from phenomenal to terrible). The game is pitching 'immersive first person exploration' so I'm guessing this is a significant part of the experience. The one clip of gameplay in fp that isn't camera work is jank (jumping across the railings). Daz renders. $35...

"Graphics are not the main draw, gameplay is." Indeed.

He shows some combat in the trailer tho. I wouldn't have promoted it without actual gameplay shown.

[Vergil]

This screeching about AI/store-bought assets is ridiculous. You can play a game that is a thousand times more complex and has an incredible reactive story with your buds using a set of dice and graph paper.
The graphics are not the main draw of a video game, the gameplay is. And if it's an RPG, then the story should be up there as well. So, as long as those are good, working on graphics can wait.

All of that said, the scope of the project seems far too ambitious for a single dev. Don't try to move mountains by yourself, @Brother Chad, lest you burnout.

Graphics aren't the main draw, that's why 99% of the trailer is just showing off the graphics

[Finarfin]

@Brother Chad needs to show combat, extensive character creation and main mission/side mission gameplay, otherwise this really comes across as all those other blunders that tried to ride on the Kikestarter hype wave.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

@Brother Chad needs to show combat, extensive character creation and main mission/side mission gameplay, otherwise this really comes across as all those other blunders that tried to ride on the Kikestarter hype wave.

Agree.I like what I saw from the kickstarter information page and trailer but the budget he asking for such an ambitious project and being a sole developer is giving me major red flags.

[Nooneatall]

@Brother Chad needs to show combat, extensive character creation and main mission/side mission gameplay, otherwise this really comes across as all those other blunders that tried to ride on the Kikestarter hype wave.

Agree.I like what I saw from the kickstarter information page and trailer but the budget he asking for such an ambitious project and being a sole developer is giving me major red flags.

Making a game is really tough. It will likely take years if he's working a real job at the same time.
If he writes spaghetti code and buys all assets he might be able to do it in 2 years if he's focused and has no day job.

[Nooneatall]

One thing I'm curious about are the coding skills involved. How good is the Dev at C++ (they are using unreal). I know it has some visual scripting language but I'm sure buying every script will be expensive and there's probably limitations for the scripting engine you'll have to get around with c++ templates.
The problem is going to come in with how terrible C++ is to use when it comes to memory management (I think I read somewhere that unreal has garbage collection but not sure). Unless you are an expert it's easy to get a memory leak and have a game that runs like trash. RPG maker uses ruby which isn't going to translate to C++ at all.

I could be wrong and the dev is a Slav C++ master but I doubt it. Tying premade scripts together could lead to something being competed.

[rusty_shackleford]

One thing I'm curious about are the coding skills involved. How good is the Dev at C++ (they are using unreal). I know it has some visual scripting language but I'm sure buying every script will be expensive and there's probably limitations for the scripting engine you'll have to get around with c++ templates.
The problem is going to come in with how terrible C++ is to use when it comes to memory management (I think I read somewhere that unreal has garbage collection but not sure). Unless you are an expert it's easy to get a memory leak and have a game that runs like trash. RPG maker uses ruby which isn't going to translate to C++ at all.

I could be wrong and the dev is a Slav C++ master but I doubt it. Tying premade scripts together could lead to something being competed.

Quite a few games have been made mostly using their visual scripting tool now afaik. Not big titles, but smaller studio ones for sure.

[Nooneatall]

One thing I'm curious about are the coding skills involved. How good is the Dev at C++ (they are using unreal). I know it has some visual scripting language but I'm sure buying every script will be expensive and there's probably limitations for the scripting engine you'll have to get around with c++ templates.
The problem is going to come in with how terrible C++ is to use when it comes to memory management (I think I read somewhere that unreal has garbage collection but not sure). Unless you are an expert it's easy to get a memory leak and have a game that runs like trash. RPG maker uses ruby which isn't going to translate to C++ at all.

I could be wrong and the dev is a Slav C++ master but I doubt it. Tying premade scripts together could lead to something being competed.

Quite a few games have been made mostly using their visual scripting tool now afaik. Not big titles, but smaller studio ones for sure.

Last post since I'm going super off topic: it seems like visual scripting is for things like dialogue and quests (things that you might write in Lua then embed in your C++) not full on game mechanics usually. I'm skeptical you could make a game like this using just visual scripting. There's also a performance overhead with scripting instead of writing compiled code. Just my obese unemployed opinion. I'm going back to my pizza rolls and reruns of gun smoke.

[Brother Chad]

So, I'm a full-time dev.

My education was writing, not programming.

My knowledge of C++ is even less than javascript (which was what my version of RPGMaker ran on).

The project will use a lot of store assets as placeholders and for the final product. I'll commission some others and make some myself, like I did with previous games.

My previous games are pretty ugly, so if given a chance to be pretty, I'll take it.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

So, I'm a full-time dev.

My education was writing, not programming.

My knowledge of C++ is even less than javascript (which was what my version of RPGMaker ran on).

The project will use a lot of store assets as placeholders and for the final product. I'll commission some others and make some myself, like I did with previous games.

My previous games are pretty ugly, so if given a chance to be pretty, I'll take it.

I going to honest here. This has made me even more concerned. I’m not overly familiar with game development but I would presume that you would need to be a decent programmer when making a game double so when being a sole developer.


Second issue I see is the store bought assets as placeholders. Naturally there going to be there since making every asset is impractical and to costly for even the most experienced and well funded games. However it’s typically not used for a large chunk of the overall game since it becomes very noticeable.

[Brother Chad]

I going to honest here. This has made me even more concerned.

Oh yeah, nothing I said is meant to boost your confidence in the project.

I'm fully aware of how ludicrous my aims are. If it was anybody else doing this, I'd be super skeptical.

And my history of completing games and delivering on kickstarters is only halfway convincing because they were made in RPGMaker.

But I think after all this time I have a pretty good grasp on what I can do, and the scope of the game is not really that far from my last game, which was already a ~30 hour RPG with factions, tons of characters and stuff.

It's far from an impossible task.

[Statesman]

I was wondering, did you ever consider a non Top-Down/Isometric Perspective for combat? Between the effort spent on First/Third-Person and the inherent jankiness of the view switch, you better have at least a decent transition for it.

[Lord of Riva]

9. RPGMaker is too limited. I was getting to the point where I was using workarounds for bandaid solutions.

It's always impressive what people squeezed out of that Engine.

I am not keen on supporting KS or Early Access I'm sorry to say, even though it seems you are quite the successful but as always, I will always support any community developed project. Since I even have Redaxium (yes, one and two) you have one sale secured already by posting here.

[Brother Chad]

I was wondering, did you ever consider a non Top-Down/Isometric Perspective for combat? Between the effort spent on First/Third-Person and the inherent jankiness of the view switch, you better have at least a decent transition for it.

Not really, the first-person/third-person perspective was new and came with the engine switch. Originally the entire game was isometric (which was not a great idea since it made working on RPGMaker much more frustrating).

I think an overhead perspective with free and intuitive camera controls is what I prefer most for this kind of turn-based combat.

Unless we're talking about making a FPS or action RPG, which is out of my wheelhouse, and honestly would cost much more money.

[Finarfin]

Honestly I'd love it if you would do those old school jrpg transitions from exploration to combat. You know, the ones where the screen cracks into small glass pieces to reveal the combat.

[Stack of Turtles]

Honestly I'd love it if you would do those old school jrpg transitions from exploration to combat. You know, the ones where the screen cracks into small glass pieces to reveal the combat.

Make it play the gb-era pokemon battle transition sound.

[Orvas Dren]

@Brother Chad

1. Can you tell us more about how vampires in this world work/ the differences between the lineages?

2. Will there be a vampire nightclub?

Thanks

[Tweed]

Will there be kobolds?

[Vergil]

Can you use weapons with skill?

[Brother Chad]

@Brother Chad

1. Can you tell us more about how vampires in this world work/ the differences between the lineages?

2. Will there be a vampire nightclub?

Thanks

Yes to the night club.

This youtube playlist goes through the vampires and the different lineages, you might need to skip around:

Will there be kobolds?

No.

Can you use weapons with skill?

Yes? As much as turn-based allows.

[Tweed]

No.

Lame.

[Finarfin]

@Brother Chad

1. Can you tell us more about how vampires in this world work/ the differences between the lineages?

2. Will there be a vampire nightclub?

Thanks

Yes to the night club.

This youtube playlist goes through the vampires and the different lineages, you might need to skip around:

Will there be kobolds?

No.

Can you use weapons with skill?

Yes? As much as turn-based allows.

I was curious if it's on steam and guess what. I can't even go to the steam storepage because it ain't available in my country or rather "This item is currently unavailable in your region"