Bare Mettle has released a public update for Sui Generis which can be found here (click link if you want to see more/larger screenshots; I was limited to only 5 in this post): Update #28: Update #28
....
So it's now June and some of you were expecting a prelude release. We've been communicating our progress on our forums but we haven't done a Kickstarter update in some time. We're not quite ready for a prelude release yet but we have been hard at work!
We know many of you have high expectations and you've encouraged us to take the time to make a great game rather than rush to release something mediocre. We are putting a lot of care into those things that will make Sui Generis a truly unique game. Of all the games we've played it's those that pay attention to detail and have layers of subtlety that have really engaged us. While we can't satisfy your every request we do understand the importance of making something good, not just "good enough".
THE UNDERWORLD
Until recently we focused mostly on outdoor environments which in many ways are the most technically challenging. Because we're such a small team with one programmer we generally have to focus on one thing at a time and the underworld had taken a back seat. Developing the prelude we found ourselves confronted with some issues that had been neglected and reviewing things that we weren't satisfied with.
You might remember we promised a vast and sprawling underworld, it's all interconnected rather than being many distinct environments. It's also very deep and it changes as you go deeper. The concept remains the same but our early design now seems too basic and not to the standards that the game is shaping up to.
Our first goal was to introduce more variation in the common structural graphics. We improved the modular system through which the environment is constructed and developed a tool that allows us to create these environments extremely quickly and interactively while providing an intuitive workflow, this means that we can focus on and experiment with design rather than getting bogged down in the work itself. We've improved and adapted our existing assets to this new system and we're developing new ones with fresh insights.
View attachment 4172
Unlike the terrain the underworld is not a single streaming environment and there are some very different travel mechanics. The underworld regions are quite large and complex, the first "level" of the prelude contains almost 10000 meshes, 100 shadow casting dynamic lights and many characters so we need some important engine features to be in a very much finalised state to drive all this. A lot of this work is done now but there are still a few important issues to resolve, especially for lower end systems.
One really important issue we struggled with for this type of environment and the isometric style view is visibility. Being able to see past walls is very immersion breaking, it removes depth from the environment and also causes difficult problems with balancing line of sight for the player and AI. This is especially true when AI has complex behaviours and may be interacting with the environment. The approaches we've seen used in other games would either not work or be visually disturbing.
Finally we had a promising idea, prototyped it and instantly loved it. What we're doing is dividing up the environment based on doorways and only allowing you to see the room you're currently in or any room that you're on the threshold of. The rooms fade in in such a way that as you move around you barely even notice it happening, the visual impact of the environment and exploration are much more immersive.
AIs can be subjected to the same exact visibility rules as players putting them on a level playing field. As a byproduct we've achieved a sort of old-school encounter mechanic which we really like. As you approach a room you are able to see what's inside and what's inside is able to see you.
This just naturally ties in with other mechanics and how AI understands and navigates environments. For example if you were being pursued we can accurately determine where AIs see you go and where they might search if they lost sight of you.
View attachment 4173
THE DEAD
One of the things we care about most is persistence, we want everything in the game to feel substantial and real. Everything can be interacted with and the results of every interaction are lasting. To support this the bodies of the dead must not just dissapear but remain in place until someone moves them. These bodies must therefore slowly decay. Necromancers must also find real bodies to raise, they can't just will them out of thin air.
We're leveraging the power of our recently improved procedural character system to make bodies gradually decompose, that of our procedural animation to make their movements uncoordinated by various degrees. Combine this with some great voice effects and unusual AI and you've got some pretty compelling undead.
View attachment 4174
DAMAGE AND EQUIPMENT MECHANICS
All the mechanics for armour and weapons are now in place and working as we wanted and better. There are four basic damage types: slash, pierce, crush and impact. All of these behave differently in terms of how the forces of collision translate to damage, for example slashing damage is effective when cutting and even with weaker forces whereas crushing damage requires significant impacts. Base weapon stats include these damage types and also various properties which control how they behave physically. Weapons are not just more or less powerful but each weapon feels and behaves differently in combat having a huge effect on how you play.
Armour has mitigations for the four basic damage types and also other properties. We are going for very realistic behaviour for armour, plate armour is effectively proof against bladed weapons and extremely resilient to all damage types, chain offers great protection against some damage types but not others, common leather apparel is pretty useless as armour. There are various other types of armour each with distinct qualities and things get interesting when you realise they complement eachother. It is entirely possible to wear chain under plate, or a gambeson to absorb some impact and effectively reduce the force of blows to a point where the plate can mitigate them completely. When you equip some armour you really get a sense of being armoured and protected, you will even hear the plates sliding over each other, the chain jingling and the leather creaking as you move.
We've extended our inventory system to support 8 layers and over a thousand slots, we don't use them all but they give us the flexibility to model the complex interactions of our growing repertoire of wearable items. All armour is locational, it covers different parts of the body and with different efficiencies, layers of armour interact locally on what they cover. Each part of the body also has varying base vulnerabilities to damage types with different effects. Head blows can disorient you, leg blows can throw you off balance, vital organs, bleeding etc. are all taken into account.
The best thing is that you can see, hear and basically feel all of this happening as you play the game. Weapons have realistically distributed mass, swings make swooshing sound based on the weapon and its current velocities, there are dynamic collision and other sounds, procedural animation behaviours, different cries of pain and sprays of blood which all accurately reflect what is happening. All these things are possible because there are measurable physical forces and interactions behind everything. They're not just effects on top of some simple mechanical system but a result of the simulation.
REVISITING COMBAT
The combat and animations have been evolving constantly, they are the thing the game has been most praised and criticised for. Making notable improvements has been extremely challenging, it's a hugely experimental and difficult technology and we're often shooting in the dark, sometimes missing and wasting time.
Originally we designed the combat with a big focus on the physics, the force of blows and movements of your character being very dependent on the fluidity and timing of inputs. We'd had a lot of practice with this but when we released the combat alpha we saw it wasn't always well received. Many people perceived it as somewhat unresponsive and clumsy, watching videos of others playing the game we saw that even skilled players weren't easily achieving the same harmony with the physics, their character's motions often looked ungainly. Elegance and effectiveness didn't necessarily go hand in hand. We quickly made changes to improve the responsiveness of the controls based on feedback but these hurried changes came at the price of some unrealistic behaviour.
So, having received a lot of feedback on the combat and prototyping various suggestions in several rapid releases, we then went back and revised some of the earliest and most fundamental aspects of the animation system. We shifted the balance away from pure physics towards player control, completely redeveloped the input system and fixed numerous issues that were present in the combat alpha. We also made improvements to the AI which was still incomplete, giving the AI more tactical and human similar behaviour and trying to counter potential exploits. Our redesigned AI proved extremely difficult to beat which is what we were aiming for when considering the best possible AI opponents.
View attachment 4176
This took some time but as it all came together we finally found ourselves before what feels like a new game. The many changes to animation systems and a new asynchronous processing of inputs led to very responsive character control, characters move fluidly and remain balanced even under the most extreme conditions, allowing for precise control over new attack combinations and very fast dodges. Our almost unbeatable AI became easy to defeat and we had to add a whole new layer of cleverness and precision to it, finally making it challenging again and then introducing skill levels to reduce and control it's effectiveness.
View attachment 4177
The final result is fantastic, it looks great and it's incredibly good fun. The foundation is now more solid allowing us to do more, we see ways to improve it further but already we've achieved better results than we initially thought possible. Looking back and seeing how far we've come since the early animation we wonder at what the future could hold!
These are just some of the most important things we've been working on, we have been consistently achieving our goals and the results keep exceeding our own expectations. The prelude is still in the works but we're very close to a first alpha release, we need to solve a few issues but further releases should be close behind. We're extremely pleased with the core combat in general now so after a quick final alpha test we plan on also releasing a beta combat demo. This kind of gameplay will also feature in the prelude in the form of an arena mode.
Best,
Bare Mettle
....
So it's now June and some of you were expecting a prelude release. We've been communicating our progress on our forums but we haven't done a Kickstarter update in some time. We're not quite ready for a prelude release yet but we have been hard at work!
We know many of you have high expectations and you've encouraged us to take the time to make a great game rather than rush to release something mediocre. We are putting a lot of care into those things that will make Sui Generis a truly unique game. Of all the games we've played it's those that pay attention to detail and have layers of subtlety that have really engaged us. While we can't satisfy your every request we do understand the importance of making something good, not just "good enough".
THE UNDERWORLD
Until recently we focused mostly on outdoor environments which in many ways are the most technically challenging. Because we're such a small team with one programmer we generally have to focus on one thing at a time and the underworld had taken a back seat. Developing the prelude we found ourselves confronted with some issues that had been neglected and reviewing things that we weren't satisfied with.
You might remember we promised a vast and sprawling underworld, it's all interconnected rather than being many distinct environments. It's also very deep and it changes as you go deeper. The concept remains the same but our early design now seems too basic and not to the standards that the game is shaping up to.
Our first goal was to introduce more variation in the common structural graphics. We improved the modular system through which the environment is constructed and developed a tool that allows us to create these environments extremely quickly and interactively while providing an intuitive workflow, this means that we can focus on and experiment with design rather than getting bogged down in the work itself. We've improved and adapted our existing assets to this new system and we're developing new ones with fresh insights.
View attachment 4172
Unlike the terrain the underworld is not a single streaming environment and there are some very different travel mechanics. The underworld regions are quite large and complex, the first "level" of the prelude contains almost 10000 meshes, 100 shadow casting dynamic lights and many characters so we need some important engine features to be in a very much finalised state to drive all this. A lot of this work is done now but there are still a few important issues to resolve, especially for lower end systems.
One really important issue we struggled with for this type of environment and the isometric style view is visibility. Being able to see past walls is very immersion breaking, it removes depth from the environment and also causes difficult problems with balancing line of sight for the player and AI. This is especially true when AI has complex behaviours and may be interacting with the environment. The approaches we've seen used in other games would either not work or be visually disturbing.
Finally we had a promising idea, prototyped it and instantly loved it. What we're doing is dividing up the environment based on doorways and only allowing you to see the room you're currently in or any room that you're on the threshold of. The rooms fade in in such a way that as you move around you barely even notice it happening, the visual impact of the environment and exploration are much more immersive.
AIs can be subjected to the same exact visibility rules as players putting them on a level playing field. As a byproduct we've achieved a sort of old-school encounter mechanic which we really like. As you approach a room you are able to see what's inside and what's inside is able to see you.
This just naturally ties in with other mechanics and how AI understands and navigates environments. For example if you were being pursued we can accurately determine where AIs see you go and where they might search if they lost sight of you.
View attachment 4173
THE DEAD
One of the things we care about most is persistence, we want everything in the game to feel substantial and real. Everything can be interacted with and the results of every interaction are lasting. To support this the bodies of the dead must not just dissapear but remain in place until someone moves them. These bodies must therefore slowly decay. Necromancers must also find real bodies to raise, they can't just will them out of thin air.
We're leveraging the power of our recently improved procedural character system to make bodies gradually decompose, that of our procedural animation to make their movements uncoordinated by various degrees. Combine this with some great voice effects and unusual AI and you've got some pretty compelling undead.
View attachment 4174
DAMAGE AND EQUIPMENT MECHANICS
All the mechanics for armour and weapons are now in place and working as we wanted and better. There are four basic damage types: slash, pierce, crush and impact. All of these behave differently in terms of how the forces of collision translate to damage, for example slashing damage is effective when cutting and even with weaker forces whereas crushing damage requires significant impacts. Base weapon stats include these damage types and also various properties which control how they behave physically. Weapons are not just more or less powerful but each weapon feels and behaves differently in combat having a huge effect on how you play.
Armour has mitigations for the four basic damage types and also other properties. We are going for very realistic behaviour for armour, plate armour is effectively proof against bladed weapons and extremely resilient to all damage types, chain offers great protection against some damage types but not others, common leather apparel is pretty useless as armour. There are various other types of armour each with distinct qualities and things get interesting when you realise they complement eachother. It is entirely possible to wear chain under plate, or a gambeson to absorb some impact and effectively reduce the force of blows to a point where the plate can mitigate them completely. When you equip some armour you really get a sense of being armoured and protected, you will even hear the plates sliding over each other, the chain jingling and the leather creaking as you move.
We've extended our inventory system to support 8 layers and over a thousand slots, we don't use them all but they give us the flexibility to model the complex interactions of our growing repertoire of wearable items. All armour is locational, it covers different parts of the body and with different efficiencies, layers of armour interact locally on what they cover. Each part of the body also has varying base vulnerabilities to damage types with different effects. Head blows can disorient you, leg blows can throw you off balance, vital organs, bleeding etc. are all taken into account.
The best thing is that you can see, hear and basically feel all of this happening as you play the game. Weapons have realistically distributed mass, swings make swooshing sound based on the weapon and its current velocities, there are dynamic collision and other sounds, procedural animation behaviours, different cries of pain and sprays of blood which all accurately reflect what is happening. All these things are possible because there are measurable physical forces and interactions behind everything. They're not just effects on top of some simple mechanical system but a result of the simulation.
REVISITING COMBAT
The combat and animations have been evolving constantly, they are the thing the game has been most praised and criticised for. Making notable improvements has been extremely challenging, it's a hugely experimental and difficult technology and we're often shooting in the dark, sometimes missing and wasting time.
Originally we designed the combat with a big focus on the physics, the force of blows and movements of your character being very dependent on the fluidity and timing of inputs. We'd had a lot of practice with this but when we released the combat alpha we saw it wasn't always well received. Many people perceived it as somewhat unresponsive and clumsy, watching videos of others playing the game we saw that even skilled players weren't easily achieving the same harmony with the physics, their character's motions often looked ungainly. Elegance and effectiveness didn't necessarily go hand in hand. We quickly made changes to improve the responsiveness of the controls based on feedback but these hurried changes came at the price of some unrealistic behaviour.
So, having received a lot of feedback on the combat and prototyping various suggestions in several rapid releases, we then went back and revised some of the earliest and most fundamental aspects of the animation system. We shifted the balance away from pure physics towards player control, completely redeveloped the input system and fixed numerous issues that were present in the combat alpha. We also made improvements to the AI which was still incomplete, giving the AI more tactical and human similar behaviour and trying to counter potential exploits. Our redesigned AI proved extremely difficult to beat which is what we were aiming for when considering the best possible AI opponents.
View attachment 4176
This took some time but as it all came together we finally found ourselves before what feels like a new game. The many changes to animation systems and a new asynchronous processing of inputs led to very responsive character control, characters move fluidly and remain balanced even under the most extreme conditions, allowing for precise control over new attack combinations and very fast dodges. Our almost unbeatable AI became easy to defeat and we had to add a whole new layer of cleverness and precision to it, finally making it challenging again and then introducing skill levels to reduce and control it's effectiveness.
View attachment 4177
The final result is fantastic, it looks great and it's incredibly good fun. The foundation is now more solid allowing us to do more, we see ways to improve it further but already we've achieved better results than we initially thought possible. Looking back and seeing how far we've come since the early animation we wonder at what the future could hold!
These are just some of the most important things we've been working on, we have been consistently achieving our goals and the results keep exceeding our own expectations. The prelude is still in the works but we're very close to a first alpha release, we need to solve a few issues but further releases should be close behind. We're extremely pleased with the core combat in general now so after a quick final alpha test we plan on also releasing a beta combat demo. This kind of gameplay will also feature in the prelude in the form of an arena mode.
Best,
Bare Mettle
Attachments
Last edited:
*Chokes on a cloud of dust as he enters this deserted thread*
Just a heads up to anyone who might be following the game... The prelude (titled Exanima) alpha should be released soon and it's looking like a lot of fun. I've been having a blast playing/testing the previous versions released but Exanima will add quite a few more features and mechanics to the gameplay; the ones I'm most excited about are some of the RPG mechanics, which Sui Generis is approaching in new and innovative ways (adding depth and complexity to the gameplay).
Anyways, here are a few screenshots of actual gameplay:
Just a heads up to anyone who might be following the game... The prelude (titled Exanima) alpha should be released soon and it's looking like a lot of fun. I've been having a blast playing/testing the previous versions released but Exanima will add quite a few more features and mechanics to the gameplay; the ones I'm most excited about are some of the RPG mechanics, which Sui Generis is approaching in new and innovative ways (adding depth and complexity to the gameplay).
Anyways, here are a few screenshots of actual gameplay:
Last edited:
I have a question:
It all sounds interesting but it also looks quite barren and desolate. Places pretty much seem deserted minus the occasional NPC and foe. Is that how the final game going to be? Is it on purpose, part of the story/plot?
That font is peculiar...
It all sounds interesting but it also looks quite barren and desolate. Places pretty much seem deserted minus the occasional NPC and foe. Is that how the final game going to be? Is it on purpose, part of the story/plot?
Can you give examples of those innovative RPG features or are you under some sort of NDA?
That font is peculiar...
Last edited:
The first three screenshots were taken over a year ago when most places were just barely being created in the game. The last two are more recent but things are still very much a work in progress. The final game will not be barren or desolate. In fact, just the opposite is planned. The devs prefer smaller areas filled with a lot content as opposed to large areas with nothing to do. They estimate the main world will be roughly the size of something like Skyrim and the Underworld will be almost inconceivably vast. A large part of the game will be discovering what the Underworld is, how things function in it and what the purpose of it is. Here's a quote taken from their homepage about what their main goals are for SG:
One of the most exciting features of the game will be the dynamic story. There is not a single linear story like in most RPGs. NPCs will have their own goals and objectives, they'll be capable of reacting to what is occurring around them, capable of making their own decisions and choices. No one is invincible in the game, everyone can be attacked or killed. All objects in the game aren't just visual props but actual objects that can be used and interacted with. All objects have perception modifiers applied so that NPCs will be able to recognize what the object is and be able to interact with them appropriately. This also applies to clothing; NPCs will be able to recognize what you are wearing and the condition that it is in (useful for attempting to deceive NPCs or for disguises/stealth). Because of these features how the story plays out will be different every single time you play the game. Who lives, who dies, who is successful and who fails, etc. will all change every time you play the game.
The dialogue system is also developed to be completely interactive and reactive. Here's another quote about how it works:
Then there's the fact that physics is applied to everything; combat, character movement (all movement is procedurally generated based upon physics instead of using static animations) and all objects in the game. This makes every single fight unique and also offers interesting gameplay possibilities. Being able to roll a boulder off of a cliff to kill someone, creating your own traps, moving an object over fire to prevent yourself from being burnt by the flames, etc.
The magic system is also quite unique. In Sui Generis magic is referred to as "thaumaturgy". Here's a quote about it:
Basically, the devs are attempting to create one of the truest role playing games to date. You choose what type of character you want to play as -- where you go, what you do, who you help or hurt and what your objectives are -- all while the world and NPCs around you react accordingly. You aren't the center of the universe so people don't just stand around waiting for you to come up and talk to them to trigger events; you're just one person among many, all with their own goals and objectives. The world is filled with mystery, intrigue and things to discover.
This post is getting rather long but I hope that helped! If you have any other questions feel free to ask
.
Last edited:
Got to admit i'm keeping my eye on this, looks stonking, whether that translates into a great game you never know but it's definitely got me attention. Think I might stick some cash in next payday, have a goosey.
That castle looks a bit like Krak de Chevaliers, gets my vote. That dungeon i'm a bit worried about, hope it's not just endless rooms full of monsters, with no rhyme or reason, prefer a theme, a use, a background and a logical reason for existing. But it might have them, just so many games don't.
That castle looks a bit like Krak de Chevaliers, gets my vote. That dungeon i'm a bit worried about, hope it's not just endless rooms full of monsters, with no rhyme or reason, prefer a theme, a use, a background and a logical reason for existing. But it might have them, just so many games don't.
The devs consider it to be very important that everything has a function, purpose and is designed in a realistic and believable fashion. Here's a quote from one of the devs about the Underworld:
The Underworld will have a lot of complexity and it plays a very significant role in the history/lore in the world of Sui Generis. As you can see in one of the previous screenshots, there is a skeleton sitting at a desk next to a bunch of scrolls and books. Figuring out what the purpose of the Underworld is, its history, and how things function in it (they've given examples of some pretty weird things occurring in it) is going to be quite significant in Sui Generis. Over a year ago one of the devs wrote a few short stories to give an example of how adventuring would work in Sui Generis and it just so happens to involve the Underworld. Here's the stories:
Since I've noticed you're a fan of Severance: Blade Of Darkness, Bloth, you'd definitely enjoy the combat system in Sui Generis. The combat is very player skill driven and is quite engaging. You have control over every aspect of what your character does and it requires proper timing, footwork and use of feints (and other tactics and strategies) to be successful. It is like a much more advanced version of what you see in Severance but with actual physics applied to everything.
Last edited:
I hope it does well and they achieve most of the things they want to do. It is time to reform the RPG genre and finally put more of the RP into the G.
Even if it does not fully work out, their ambitions could help others changing how they create RPGs and maybe start a new approach to that genre.
Even if it does not fully work out, their ambitions could help others changing how they create RPGs and maybe start a new approach to that genre.
How they are going about creating Sui Generis is one of the most hard and difficult ways of doing it. Basically they're reinventing the wheel; almost all aspects of the game are done in a new and innovative ways. They created everything from scratch; the game engine, the toolsets, etc. No existing game engine had the capabilities to support the features they wanted. This requires a lot of trial-and-error and lot of prototyping to discover efficient and realistic ways to achieve their goals. Very few game developers are willing to go through this much trouble in order to create a game. Usually developers use the easiest and least time consuming approach in order to maximize profits.I hope it does well and they achieve most of the things they want to do. It is time to reform the RPG genre and finally put more of the RP into the G.
Even if it does not fully work out, their ambitions could help others changing how they create RPGs and maybe start a new approach to that genre.
Now why go to all this trouble one might ask? Because they're creating the game that they themselves want to play. They want features in an RPG that no game developer has yet to create. They're a group of hardcore gamers that got sick of waiting for someone else to make the game they've always wanted to play so they're creating it themselves. Their goal is not to become wealthy; they simply want to generate enough funds that they can finish the game and continue to work on it even post release, adding features, content and constantly improving things.
The game is a dream for them, not a job. They started creating the game all while working separate full-time jobs but realized that progress was being made much too slowly. This is when they launched their Kickstarter campaign in order to secure enough funds to quit their day jobs and work on the game full-time. They are literally devoting their entire lives to the creating the game, living in the studio they work at in order to not waste money on separate living quarters. None of the developers are being paid to do what they do, all funds earned go towards making the game.
This is why I have no doubts that Sui Generis will be a success. The devs are all heavily invested in the game and they will do anything it takes to make it a success. They've already proven themselves capable developers by the alpha/beta versions currently released. They've successfully achieved many of their goals and I believe they'll continue to do so. It is really a rather inspiring thing to get a behind-the-scenes look and witness such a unique game being created by such passionate developers. What they've already created is quite revolutionary and unique. It is impressive that such a small team is capable of creating next generation features that no other developer has been willing or capable of doing as of yet. Many people claim that what SG is already capable of is impossible for a game because it would be too demanding; yet SG is already well optimized and performs well even on lower end machines.
Last edited:
I don't doubt their passion and I knew that. Thing is, even with the most passion, you might not be successful with the game. But you are right, they will try to make the game they always dreamed of. I hope to one day do the same, even if it not profitable. (And actually there is a bit of overlap between their ideas and mine.)
(And actually there is a bit of overlap between their ideas and mine.)This is definitely true; passion alone is not enough to be successful. Developers must also be capable of creating and achieving their goals in order to deliver a quality product. And this is what I consider to be even more impressive than the passion of Bare Mettle: their ability to create things which most other developers consider impossible. They've proven time and time again that they are more than capable of delivering on their promisesI don't doubt their passion and I knew that. Thing is, even with the most passion, you might not be successful with the game. But you are right, they will try to make the game they always dreamed of. I hope to one day do the same, even if it not profitable.
.Usually they promise an amazing feature, which by itself would be quite impressive. However, while creating and designing said feature they have new ideas and discover ways to further enhance said feature so the end result is better than originally planned. This means they promise something good and end up delivering something that is mind-blowingly amazing. Their creativity and ability to do things in new and innovative ways never ceases to impress me.
In order for SG to be a success it does not need to be the #1 selling game. In order for it to be a success it simply needs to be completed; it needs to become a product that sells well enough for the developers to keep working on it. That is their goal with Sui Generis, simply to create the game and keep expanding it for as long as they desire to do so.
Something interesting that people might not know is that Madoc (the programmer who created the engine/toolsets) has already licensed the engine out to other companies because it offers advanced capabilities that other engines do not. In this way the engine itself is already a success
.@Mataresa do you program? If so, have you created anything game related in the past? I'd love to see/discuss it if so. I program a bit myself and find it rather interesting and intriguing. I believe it is difficult to appreciate what Madoc has accomplished in SG unless someone understands programming; what he's done is the equivalent of moving mountains with your bare hands. He's created everything by himself (he's the only programmer on the Bare Mettle team) and he also taught himself to program (no formal education for it). He's using very advanced techniques; the procedurally generated character movement uses advanced algorithms similar to those used for robotics. The complex nature of Sui Generis allows fun, engaging, realistic and immersive mechanics that are not possible in games that lack such complexity.
Last edited:
Well I study Computer Science. I am not a great programmer, but I have a thing for Project Management and already managed a few student projects in conjunction with industry partners, as well as having been Lead QA with a team of a couple of people for a project at a games company before my Masters. After finishing that now, I will try to get back into the industry.
Last edited:
Ah, interesting! I wish you the best of luckWell I study Computer Science. I am not a great programmer, but I have a thing for Project Management and already managed a few student projects in conjunction with industry partners, as well as having been Lead QA with a team of a couple of people for a project at a games company before my Masters. After finishing that now, I will try to get back into the industry.
. It is great to be able to do something you enjoy in order to earn a living.I'm not sure if this would count or not but Bare Mettle is such a small development team that things sometimes take a while before being completed/implemented. If only they could all clone themselves things would progress much more quickly! Though to be fair they've been working on the game full-time for less than two years so what they've already accomplished is still impressive.
Another one of the more obvious weaknesses could be the animation. It's up to the player to control every movement (instead of having pre-recorded static animations) so sometimes during combat it might look like the character is a bit drunk. However, they've made quite a bit of improvement already on the animations and they plan to continue to work on them as time permits. Since everything is based upon physics, having the characters move properly and naturally is a very complex and difficult process, especially when many crazy things can happen in combat; there are realistic collisions so it's possible for things to become entangled with each other and it's also possible to knock someone over or trip them. However, this is also what makes the combat so entertaining and every fight unique; you're not just watching the same few animations over and over and your character movement isn't restricted. To summarize: animations currently aren't perfect (not as natural looking as motion captured static animations) but they're good enough to not distract you while playing (and they're still being improved upon).
I'm having troubles thinking of anything significant to list! The devs pay so much attention to detail that there really aren't any major complaints that I have with the game. Perhaps when more complete versions of the game are released I'll have more things to complain about. I can directly communicate with the developers so anything I dislike, or any improvements/suggestions I think of, I make sure to pass along to the devs. They've already implemented some of my suggestions into the game
.
Last edited:
The team has been releasing info on a regular basis about their progress on SG in the insider forum; however, today they finally released a public update which I found to be very exciting and interesting. Here it is:
You gotta love natural language coming from devs to their customers, it carries with it honesty that imparts respect, and respect is a reciprocal force. My respect for this dev increases with every update.
If he pulls this off... I think we are going to have to start calling him The Mad Doc (in reference to the old venerable Docs of BW who are no more).
Disconnect all PR robots and send them to the game grid for derezzing immediately!
Yes, I find the direct communication with the devs in the insider forum to be very refreshing. They are a very open and willing to speak about almost anything concerning the game as long as it doesn't include spoilers. This also applies to subjects that are not game related at all, such as the devs have helped people with PC builds and what not. It is quite different from what you see in most forums dedicated to games where the only interaction is done via a PR manager who spouts generic answers and shares very little useful information. The insider forum will always remain a private forum for the developers and original backers even post game release so once the game goes live and the forums explode with new members the insider forum will not be affected.You gotta love natural language coming from devs to their customers, it carries with it honesty that imparts respect, and respect is a reciprocal force. My respect for this dev increases with every update.
If he pulls this off... I think we are going to have to start calling him The Mad Doc (in reference to the old venerable Docs of BW who are no more).
Disconnect all PR robots and send them to the game grid for derezzing immediately!
As far as the name "The Mad Doc" goes I find it to be quite suitable! I'll have to share that with Madoc to see what he says
. While he is a very talented programmer (and the only one on the team) I suppose he can't take all the credit for making the game since the Bare Mettle team does consist of six other people currently. The latest update I posted above was actually written by the developer Kieran .While I can understand why people are skeptical about the game and what they're attempting to do (admittedly I was too when I first discovered the game several years ago) I have since lost all doubt about Bare Mettle being capable of delivering what they've promised. They've done nothing but impress by delivering above and beyond what they originally promised and they do this time and time again. An example: they recently had an issue with some of their dynamic lighting and within a week Madoc not only had everything working properly but he also enhanced how the dynamic lighting worked, improving upon how it originally functioned. They will promise something that sounds great but when they actually start working on the mechanic they are inspired by new ideas so the end result ends up being much better than what was originally promised. They did the same thing with their slotless inventory system. Originally they promised over 200 virtual "slots" to equip items on your character and currently in the game there are over 1,000 slots, all of which seamlessly work together (ex: pants tuck into boots, a leather vest can be worn underneath plate armor, etc.).
The Bare Mettle team has the passion, drive, creativity and skill sets necessary to be successful and I have no doubts that they will, indeed, succeed. Once the game is released I am confident it will revolutionize the RPG; it will be the new standard which other games attempt to imitate.
Last edited:
Damn, I wish I could join the insider forum. ^^ But I don't kickstart, preorder or anything like that on principle. I will only pay for a released game.
Though I heard, that even the current version is already very playable. I wish there were more updates for the general public. :/
Though I heard, that even the current version is already very playable. I wish there were more updates for the general public. :/
That's a very practical and generally wise approach. However, concerning SG it is like a dream game for me. I wanted to be involved in the creation process and also get a behind the scenes look during the creation process while having the option of directly discussing development with the devs. This, to me, is equally as important and exciting as the actual finished game will be. Paying a small amount to support something that otherwise wouldn't exist I have no problems with, especially when I'm gaining so much from it
. Though I rarely preorder or donate money on Kickstarter (only two games so far).And yes, the current version is already a lot of fun (I've spent over 100 hours already playing it) and the prelude alpha being released shortly will be even more so!