Additional Information

Responding to my thread on MyDreamRPG, I got a bit excited and gave out some more information.

The game is progressing well, and is completely playable – if you enjoy running around on a tiny platform fighting an infinite stream of Korks. Basic combat is in (attack, critical strike and heal), basic crafting is in (make a spear!), and the monsters have advanced AI (hold a strategic position until there is x monsters there, then send out an unlucky scout, and repeat until they have captured the map).

That’s the current build situation. NPC dialog and quests were added shortly after this.

One of these days I’ll post some more information about gameplay and mechanics.

Torque Constructor Released

Torque Constructor 1.0 was released today.

Just got it, and I’m very impressed. Very easy to work out also, I was building stuff right away. At first impressions, I’m going to be usign this as my primary DIF tool, because:

- Very easy to size and place brushes
- It has DTS shape placement, which before was a huge pain in Torque
- It has easy vertex editing, which is the most important feature for me.
- It has a sphere primitive.

One of the biggest hassles in Torque development is the Art pipeline for DIFs ( the building and interior format ). I was using Valve’s Hammer editor to make simple platforms for Inspire, dreading the day I had to make final levels with it. Not anymore, after using Constructor for 5 minutes I was sold. Why? Because I could in those 5 minutes do more than I could in half an hour under the old pipeline.

Very easy to place and size brushes. The layout is much nicer than I was expecting, every section obvious as to it’s function, and behaves as you would expect it to, which is the most important thing in UI design. So far, this is Constructors biggest point for me – I can get work done fast as everything behaves logically. Selection, transforming, rotation, brushes, texturing etc.

DTS shape placement! DTS is the format for small complex models in Torque. Things like player and mob models, placeables, vehicles etc, which can be created in 3DS Max, Milkshape or Blender. The pipeline for DTS is easy with the exporter I use, but previously getting the placeables into a level was a pain. Now it seems static objects can be placed in Constructor and bundled into the DIF file. This should speed up level development a lot.

Vertex Editing! Brush vertices’s can be easily drag-selected, then transformed using the transform tools. I love vertex modeling, so this is a big feature which will give me finer control over level geometry. It’s also something I have found to be a big pain in other applications.

Sphere Primitive – DIF’s cannot have convex surfaces, so spheres can be a pain to construct. Including a sphere as a primitive is a nice touch. Plus it’s also subject to vertex editing.

I’ve only been using Constructor for about 10 minutes, so this opinion may change. But at the moment I am very happy with the editor, and it’s ease of use.

An Answer to a Question

On the MyDreamRPG forums, this question was asked:

What is light fantasy?
Is the game first or third person?
Persistent?

Light fantasy is PR talk I kinda made up. What I mean is, it has elements of high fantasy, may have elements of humourous dark fantasy, maybe some light steampunk – generally using elements in a bit more of a shallow way. It is lighthearted and doesn’t take itself seriously, putting the action first, and story and consistency second.

The game is a 3D fixed camera platformer, in third person. The camera is implemented, but I’m still fine tuning level design to work with it, and have a balanced game. The player has freedom to run around the level, and the camera is locked onto their position, but not rotation. Screenshots coming soon!

Inspire has some persistent elements, and some non-persistent ones. Character progression and items will be persistent, saved in a database. The game world will reset every 4 weeks, partly for story reasons, partly for maintenance, and partly from design.

Dream Games $10 000 Contest

Dream Games have a contest going, with a $10 000 prize. It’s judged over a year, but since the timing is right, I am entering Inspire. It will probably help keep me focused on updates for the game at least. There’s quite a few entries, and some promising looking ones already. It will be interesting to see how these pan out over and year, and I can’t wait to play them.

Welcome

Welcome to the developer journal for Inspire!

What is Inspire?

Inspire is a 3D, side scrolling platformer action MMO-Lite, which focuses on casual and simple gameplay. It invites everyone to play together and facilitates this with no levels, and no classes. Inspire uses a freeform feat choice system which the player can tailor to the situation and preference. The majority of items are crafted from resources collected throughout the game. The economy is based on the trade of tangible currency and items. Participate in repelling invading monsters, or seek out and raid their leaders. Capture locations and build defensible positions.

Backstory?

Demons overran the continents of the world. The remenants of the human kingdoms, helped by the divine Phoenix, escaped to airborne structures floating in the clouds above. The demons made portals to invade the humans’ new home. Join with other warriors to repel the invasion, collect resources to craft mighty weapons and armour. Collect the ancient relics to restore your immortal king to his former glory.

Cliched? Definately, but the game doesn’t take itself seriously, which is a good thing.

The official website is here. It’s the source of basic information about the game, media and downloads. It also hosts the official game forums. This developer journal is a regularly updated blog about the development of the game, design discussions and general ranting. Watch this space for weekly info about the game.