Early Kickstarter prototype reappreciation

[lvk]

With the Combat Alpha's release, I couldn't help but share my excitement with a friend, and in order to fully explain what the game was about, I thought it'd be better to show the Kickstarter pitch video first, as it explains the core mechanics and design philosophies better than I can. I rewatched it myself as well, and I couldn't help but be really impressed, again. Since it's been a while, I thought it'd be cool to highlight some of the features shown off in the pitch video. The following two quotes from the video are relevant for the rest of the information that follows (with highlighting):

"You might take a lot of what you see for granted, but consider that I programmed everything myself. There's no third party technology; the graphics, physics, audio, user interface, all the backends - I wrote every single line of code. [...]" (As a software engineer, during development relying on libraries saves a whole lot of time at the cost of flexibility and fine-grained control - actually writing every single line of code is a lot bigger of a deal than it sounds, and it already sounds like a big deal)

"So, that was pretty cool, right? We did this while working full-time jobs and we've also been separated by long distances."

With that in mind, here's a non-exhaustive list of all the stuff featured in the video of the early prototype:

• Very accurate physics and collision models generated from the mesh, rather than using primitive hitboxes such as boxes, cylinders, spheres, etc. If you're familiar with traditional game physics, this is especially impressive, considering it's happening in real time.
  
  This closely ties in with the combat, whereas usually physics and combat aren't interactive (such as in Elder Scrolls games, though I only played 4 and 5). Rather than a pre-programmed knockdown mechanic, getting hit hard throws your character off balance.
  
  You could write a separate thread about why this is impressive and what the full implications are, but this is easily one of the most revolutionary things.
  
• Lighting, whether direct or indirect, and the resulting shadows, are fully dynamic and real-time. This includes things like small fires, lava, and thaumaturgic powers that emit light
  
• Character animation based on muscular contraction, which allows for all kinds of non-preprogrammed situations (walking uphill would traditionally animate a character's bones, and generally clips through everything). This is also what allows for the physics to have real combat implications - physical forces, not bone animation, is what drives the character to begin with
  
• Advanced content stream that allows for a practically limitless landmass without any loading times (overworld)
• Landmass is procedural, and as such can be easily edited with their in-house tools, both on larger and smaller scales
• Water featuring murkiness, caustics, refraction and reflection
• Very extensive weather and time of day system, featuring sunlight colour, sun altitude and azimuth, ambient light, global tint, sky, colored fog and fog distance, cloudiness, wind strength, rain - note that this is an isometric game, making the attention to detail impressive

Then there's also cool smaller things, like functional cloaks with physics applied to them (along with everything else being simulated), given physics-interactive cloth is usually standalone and in graphics card demos. Also not mentioned are the tools demonstrated in the video, and how they allow for rapid plug-and-play development other games couldn't even dream of.

Since it's been about 1,5 years (a bit less) since the Kickstarter funding ended, the amount of work that was put in on virtually no funding is insane, likely exceeding some fully commercial projects. To top it off, it's been done next to full-time jobs. The Kickstarter pitch video blew my mind 1,5 years ago, and it just did again.

Things have without a doubt improved since that time, and with a lot of backend in place to speed up content creation, the game will likely end up vast and truly mindblowing.

"But what's the point of reciting an old, publicly available video", you might ask? I just hope everyone can keep in mind that everything we're seeing and playing is from scratch, so that every aspect of the game can be fully appreciated. It's easy to forget when you're immersed (or immensely frustrated by some of the alpha's tough opponents), but remembering from time to time really puts everything into perspective, and it's increased my appreciation for the game even more. It would be cool if this reminder could increase the value of the game for someone else, too.

Sui Generis is tangible now, and it's happening.

 

[turtleman155]

i agree that only great things can come from this.

 

[Tony]

Thanks for the well written and thought provoking post, @lvk I think the entire Bare Mettle team has reached legendary status! They've accomplished so much by pioneering new and innovative ways to do things instead of just rehashing the same tried-and-true methods.

And not only are they doing it, but they're doing it exceedingly well! The physics being applied to all objects; including chairs, tables, weapons, the player character and NPCs, clothing, hair, water... It just boggles the mind. Especially considering the amount of fine detail everything has while still running at 100+ FPS. The soundtrack also flows very well with the gameplay and is equally impressive.

Bare Mettle is creating next generation technology and setting the standard for future RPGs. It is a huge achievement and I'm proud to be a supporter of Bare Mettle from the start.

 

[Poza1010]

Good post. It is important to keep in mind the great things Bare Mettle have come up with so far, and in which circumstances.