Coldfire Keep: First-Person RPG

[gemineye62]

I have been silently following the updates of your game .

Playing Eye of the Beholder and Black Crypt on the Amiga , years ago ,
gave me an appreciation
of just how fun these games can be. I spent more hours than I can remember
shooting arrows thought metal barred doors or closing doors on the enemies.

I, for one ,am looking forward to playing a good dungeon crawler again.

[Tyra]

Originally Posted by geppetto

Thought I'd share something a little different in the form of the WIP main theme for Coldfire Keep, written and performed by my friend Evrim.

Coldfire Keep Main Theme

Also, just a quick update. I've now consolidated all my "web stuff" into my main site http://www.stevejarman.com, so if you're after updates, that's the place to get them.

Reminds me a little bit of skyrim. Really cool, I like the theme!

[geppetto]

Originally Posted by Captive

Thanks for the update it sounds like its going well.People i think are just waiting for a good grid based dungeon game as we've not seen one yet that compares to past games in this genre,i'm really hoping yours does.Hope your dedication pays off.Definately looking forward to that video.

I think the key to these games is the atmosphere. Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, etc all had this amazing immersion - you truly felt like you were deep underground in a dangerous situation. And they did all of that with the simplest graphics and audio. Sometimes with video games, less is definitely more. Recreating the kind of feel that those games had is definitely not an easy task though...

Originally Posted by gemineye62

I have been silently following the updates of your game .

Playing Eye of the Beholder and Black Crypt on the Amiga , years ago ,
gave me an appreciation
of just how fun these games can be. I spent more hours than I can remember
shooting arrows thought metal barred doors or closing doors on the enemies.

I, for one ,am looking forward to playing a good dungeon crawler again.

Oh wow - I never played Black Crypt in my Amiga days. I'm going to run that up in an emulator and get stuck into it

[geppetto]

So holidays are over and, unfortunately, I was way too optimistic about the amount of progress I could make in two weeks. Still, I'm not entirely disappointed as I did manage to get some VERY major stuff done, including a great deal of code soul-searching and rewriting.

I'm now working almost exclusively on the environment; building each of the game's locations and working out puzzles, and treasures, and secrets. I'm feeling confident that the end is definitely in sight now, and that the product I'm building is going to be a lot more solid and stable thanks to the work I've put in over the break.

I've made some fairly considerable changes to the game lately too, not least of which is in the area of its story and general mood. I have a tendancy to write on the humourous side and then dial it back for fear of people not taking what I've done seriously. I decided to just drop those concerns and go with what my gut was telling me to do. The result is a much simpler, more "pure" RPG story with a lot more heart and (hopefully) a few more laughs. The result feels "lighter" somehow and definitely more entertaining.

So that's it. Back to work.

[geppetto]

I've been thinking lately that it might be fun to do a time-lapse video of the level creation process, for those that are interested in the journey... not just the destination

It happens that tonight I had to build a very small sub-level (Location 9b, to be precise), so I decided this was the perfect opportunity to play with the time-lapse stuff.

So, without further fluff, here it is! I'll definitely be doing more of these on some of the BIG levels.

Youtube link | Pop Up

[undeadcow]

Coldfire Keep looks very promising; I wish there was some possibility this could be played on the iPhone/iPod small screen. As an aside, I know reception to Descend RPG was lukewarm so I'm glad to see the developer is keeping at things.

[geppetto]

Originally Posted by undeadcow

I wish there was some possibility this could be played on the iPhone/iPod small screen.

Well, you never know your luck.......................

[MidianGTX]

I'm intrigued as to how this will look on retina iPads. I love low-res, old school gaming, but I can't stand the blurriness of non-native resolutions. I notice it's being made at 1024x768 so hopefully that will double up cleanly.

[geppetto]

Originally Posted by MidianGTX

I'm intrigued as to how this will look on retina iPads. I love low-res, old school gaming, but I can't stand the blurriness of non-native resolutions. I notice it's being made at 1024x768 so hopefully that will double up cleanly.

Actually the game's "native" resolution is 2048x1536. All of the artwork has been targeted to that resolution and it scales down for the 1024x768 screens.

[MidianGTX]

Originally Posted by geppetto

Actually the game's "native" resolution is 2048x1536. All of the artwork has been targeted to that resolution and it scales down for the 1024x768 screens.

Oh nice! Sounds like a definite sale here then. Looking forward to it