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Ferrum - a sandbox RPG in a magitech setting

Nosmer · 2022-07-29T09:28:58Z

Hello everyone, my name is Nosmer. I am developing an RPG where you will be able to immerse yourself in the world of Ferrum while developing your character and exploring the game world. In this game, you will take on a character that is no better than anyone else. There will be no heroic struggles or epic quests, no damsels in distress or epic adventures, just you against the dangers of the world. You will be able to develop your character through the branching class system, where you will have to achieve some sort of feat to develop your class further. Ive been developing this game for quite some time in Unity engine, starting in February, 2021. During that year i've been accustoming myself to the gamedev in general and the engine. While doing so, i've been working on lots of game features, like menus, inventory system, stat system, combat sysem , AI and others. Also, I was using blender to learn how to make your own models and textures. Thats right, I'm not using any pre-built assets from Unity store, everything in this game is going to be made by me. Exept sounds and music perhaps, that part looks very complicated and it probably is going to take a decade to learn. First thing that i've done was the codebase. Here is what i've coded so far: - general game flow, like starting the game/exiting the game - menus behaviour logic - general graphics options, like changing texture quality, screen resolution, and other basic graphics QoL - a way for a player to control the character and camera, mouse and keyboard - character inventory and equipment system and a way for a character to interact with the world -character stat system, with six main stats and eight secondary stats - character combat, you will be able to use melee and ranged attacks depending on the weapon you use, as well as magic with the help of spell tomes - some basic AI, that can distinguish friend from foe and can decide that you are not a friend anymore if you try to attack it too much - character classes, that are applied both to player and NPCs - ability system, with three types of abilities - instant, castable and channeled - a crafting system, nothing fancy - just cooking, alchemy and some scrolls scribing perhaps As i'm wrighting this post , I am in the process of preparing the assets for the game: - Models, which I make with Blender, for characters, their equipment, and all the stuff that will inhabit the game world, along with trees, rocks, buildings and whatnot - Textures for said models - Interface textures, gotta make the thing you will look at for most of the time as interesting and pretty as I can - Animations for everything i've made in blender - Special effects for spells and abilities, and maybe some characters - Sounds and music, gotta make the resulting world as lively and immersive as I can With all preparations complete, I will start creating the game world: - First thing created will be a village with a forest surrounding it. The village is going to be a starting place for your character with all the info you will need to comfortably play the game. It wont be a small village by any way, im planning on making it quite big, with the player being able to enter any building. The forest around the village will have simple enemies wandering around for you to level up and small locations to clear - maybe it will be a small cave with some wolves, maybe a clear field with some ingredients for the player to pick for crafting, maybe a bandit camp that will put your skills to a test, maybe something else. - After that done, I will expand the forest part of the game, adding a deep forest biome with more dangerous enemies and bigger rewards. It will probably have some villages smaller than the first one with neutral NPCs for the player to interact. There probably will be a river or two, and deep forest is going to connect with the mountains which the player will be able to explore a bit. Also, there will be some small dungeons, or microdungeons, as I call them, for the player to explore. Now, dont let the name fool you, there will be more that two rooms to explore, probably up to ten rooms for one micro-dungeon. - Then I will start working on the third part of the game, that will have a mountain peaks biome, and something I call megadungeons. Have you ever read Blame! manga? Well, megadungeons will be sorta inspired by this manga. The will go very deep beneath the mountains, and are going to be a biome on its own, with different enemies, challenges and even neutral NPCs living there in their own settlements. This part of the game development is going to take the most time, I believe, but once I finish it, it is going to mark a completion of the entire game! (Or maybe just the base game?) Now, this is the initial plan for my game. There is no demo available at the moment, since I'm only creating assets, but once I'm done with creating the village with a forest around it, I'm going to release it for free for you people to see. I am very interested in your feedback, so please dont hesitate to call me out on something you do or dont like. How often should I make development updates? Should I open a donation box? Is there something you would like to know about the game that i didnt mention? Questions like this will help me a lot. With all that said, cheers!

A topic by Nosmer created Jul 29, 2022 Views: 3,287 Replies: 38

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Nosmer2 years ago (1 edit) (+2)

Hello everyone, quite some time have passed and its time for another update.

Things are coming along swimmingly, however making a distinct and convincing shoreline have proven to be trickier than I thought. I've made some progress in fleshing it out of course, but it still feels like something is missing here...

On the bright side, I've added a few more maps to the game world, like this second version of a river camp.

Or this version of a Ranger's shack. I've also tweaked the color palette for the treated wood, which you can see on the roof here. Let me know what you think about it!

Overall, it feels like I need some sort of new inspiration to make more substantial progress (the shoreline particularily), so the next update might come out delayed. With all that said - cheers, and see you next update!

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Nosmer2 years ago

Due to ongoing health concerns next update will be postponed untill said concerns are resolved.

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TheLastYuriSamurai2 years ago(+1)

Don't give up this looks awesome!

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Nosmer2 years ago(+1)

I will never give up =)

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Nosmer2 years ago (1 edit)

Hello everyone, just letting you know that I'm back and working on the next update. Stay tuned!

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annooshie2 years ago(+1)

This is looking so cool! Are you using Unity to make your game? How long do you work on it per day? Keep it up! Im going to subscribe to your thread for future updates!

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Nosmer2 years ago (1 edit)

Thank you! Yes, this is Unity, coupled with Blender to create the models. Before I got burned out I was working on it Monday to Saturday all day till I ran out of ideas, I never counted the hours. Now I see that this was the wrong way to do it, so I'll try to moderate it to 8 hours a day tops, Monday to Friday.

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Nosmer2 years ago (2 edits)

Hello everyone, its been quite a while wasnt it? In this update I'm going to talk about some basics in map making.

You see, previously I was making the map while looking at it from quite a distance - you can notice it in previous updates by how many trees there are in the picture.

However, what I completely forgot is that the player wont be looking at the map the same way I do - in fact, the camera distance is going to be much shorter, and the player will have a completely different perspective. And so, I realised that I will have to make the map from the player's view, something that I have neglected so far. It's going to look like this:

The camera is much closer compared to what I previously had. I've made a few maps with this new paradyme, if you may, in mind:

It takes a bit longer to make a full map now, but the result is far more pleasant to the eye and much closer(no pun intended) to what I consider a perfect result. So, for now I'll have to go back to the older maps to remake them (again, but I think its totally worth it) in order for them to fit this new paradyme. Feels like every time I find a new and better way to make a location I just have to update older maps, a good feeling actually.

With all that said, cheers! And see you in the next update.

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Nosmer2 years ago

Hello everyone, its time for a progress update.

The work is coming along swimmingly, I'm updating the old maps with my new ideas, and I'd love to say that I'm satisfied with the results. The river looks so much better now:

And the campsites got a refreshing new look:

Overall, the work is still in progress, since there is quite a lot of new stuff that I have to add on each old map. Sometimes it feels like I'm making an entirely new map on the bones of the old one.

I'm not shure about the roads though - whether should I keep the old look or this one:

With all that said, cheers! Next time I might show something completely new, not just reworks of old stuff.

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Nosmer2 years ago (2 edits)

Hello everyone, today is the day I show you something entirely new.

With the maps rework done, I have begun developing a new set of models with a certain theme. Can you guess what it is?

Why Its castle ruins of course! I'm planning on creating a whole lot of assets for this - all kinds of walls, intact and not, piles of rubble, wall torches, you name it.

And, of course, towers. Towers seem to pose the biggest challenge for me now - not only I have to make assets for all kinds of variations for them, which is a lot, I also need to extend the interior system to accomodate the multiple floors inside. I'm also going to add a round tower type in the game - so that doubles the amount of work I have to do.

Not all ruins are going to be completely abandoned - after all, even a single wall can provide adequate protection to some. You will be able to meet just about anyone in there - wild animals, poachers, rangers, maybe even a friendly expedition working on revealing the history of the place.

On a side note, I'm working on the world map - I have decided that its going to be node based map.

With all that said, cheers! And see you in the next update.

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Nosmer2 years ago(+1)

Due to changes in the Unity pricing scheme the project will migrate to Unreal Engine. There will be no more updates here.