Author Topic: Updates from the Forge 31: November 2018  (Read 3570 times)

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Updates from the Forge 31: November 2018
« on: November 30, 2018, 11:18:45 PM »
Issue 31: November 2018

EDITORIAL

Another month goes by, and we've got far more to write about than this column can fill, and only one writer and an imaginary llama to do it. We've produced new music, poems, game modding, and more this month! There's also just a few hours to go on the Epicinium Kickstarter, so do go and chip in on that before it finishes.

Next month we'll also have staff elections, and we're very much looking for new people to take on some of the workload and ensure we can keep doing this column and regular articles through into 2019, so if you're able to volunteer more time please do get in touch.

With that, here's just five of the spectacular projects we've had updated this month - read on and discover everything from old TVs to travel in space in this month's updates:

CONTENTS:

  • Introducing: Sidereal
  • CG's crafts - restoring an iconic TV set!
  • Terminus Cyberstar takes shape
  • Chat with taverngoers in Innkeep
  • Birds and Beasts in Windy Meadow



Introducing: Sidereal

Vrosivs Avgvstvs Rakvs follows some other members of ours in taking a jump from the Rome TW modding world, where he was known as a contributor to the great Rome Total Realism series to independent gamedev, with the announcement of mysterious new game Sidereal! Sidereal will be a single player 2d side-scroller with a strong storytelling element and a "spacepunk" setting of terraformed future worlds, quirky robots, mysterious occurrences, and possibly also if you're very lucky a cup of tea. In what is set to be a triptych, part one is entitled "The Wretched Pioneer", and hints as to the dystopian future that the player character will exist in have been dropping tantalisingly through Sidereal's social media accounts. They're well worth following, especially for the magnificent artwork - see left for one cracking example.


So... who are the 1st SPOTAL division? What are the experiments of the mysterious Dr. Sculler aiming at? And what are the "deceitful contraptions" known as Scourers really up to? Who is the eponymous wretched pioneer, and what will their fate ultimately be in the futuristic darkness that they inhabit? So far, only the Sidereal team knows, but we're all looking forward to finding out more...





CG's crafts - restoring an iconic TV set!


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Over in the arts and crafts section, Exilian's master craftsman Comrade_General has at ever been hard at work on some home projects, including recently restoring a 1950s General Electric television set, not only restoring the woodwork but retrofitting it with an LCD screen ready for modern day use. Including the technical work of hooking the new TV into the old classic speaker system, the craft of restoring the finish of the outside of the set from its previous "found in the back of a barn" aesthetic to something more like new, and the madcap bits of inspiration needed to get the project done (wet t-shirts made an unexpected appearance), this like many of CG's other projects is well worth reading through, and the very nice looking results very much speak for themselves. You can find out more at his thread:



Terminus Cyberstar takes shape


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We've had more video updates this month from Silverspook's Terminus Cyberstar, a gritty cyberpunk RPG that's built to reward tactics and problem solving. It's going to have a particular emphasis on having multiple routes - both physically and in game terms - to achieving your goals throughout the game. Disguise, smooth talking, computer hacking, survival skills, and well placed explosives may all be just as important as how you handle a gun, if not more so, in making your way through the alleys, streets and towers of the game. This month, the core city map of Terminus is really taking shape, with vehicles and characters beginning to populate the streets in a clean mid-level graphics style. Silverspook has also done video demos of various aspects of the game, including the combat (where he discovered he was on infinite health mode at a very opportune moment), AI perception, and exploring the environment.



Chat with taverngoers in Innkeep

Daniel O'Burke's fantastic looking game Innkeep is further taking shape, with recent updates covering dialogue and how your character interacts with the inhabitants of the inn. In the game, you'll play the eponymous innkeeper, with a range of medieval and fantasy types rolling up to an inn that you find abandoned and must rebuild to prosperity. Simply selling drinks won't be enough to make ends meet, though - a successful innkeeper is a fast talker, keeper of secrets, and a masterful pickpocket every much as a puller of pints and provider of lodgings.


Is this guy worth robbing? How principled are you in the first place? Only you can decide...

To ensure that you can relieve your customers of a few extra valuables, of course, you'll need to talk to them, but it's a difficult business to keep up all those conversations whilst everyone still gets served. Unlike in many RPGs, going through all the dialogue options simply isn't an option, adding some more mystery to the game as you never quite know what else there was to find out. With a great new blogpost and video dev diary from this month outlining more about recent changes, do have a read/listen of those and pop over to the Innkeep Exilian thread to have a pint and discuss the game. Watch out for your valuables, though...



Birds and Beasts in Windy Meadow


That gryphon actually just loves picking flowers.

The slideshow gif above shows just some of the lovely background creatures featured in Tales from Windy Meadow, one of our most regular entries in this newsletter - their pixel art is just so much fun to feature! The team are hard at work fixing dialogues and updating artwork in this story-driven choose your own adventure that sees three youngsters from the same village make difficult choices and choose their paths as they work out whether they can navigate the worlds of love, interest and ambition in a fantasy world where monsters lurk in the woods and life is always a little on the edge. You can always find great latest updates at their Exilian thread:



And that's all for this month! Join us next time when another year of our updates from the forge will finally draw to a seasonal and snowy close...
The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...