Hey guys - I'm in such a happy mood because I (finally!) finished the first public release build (pathetic, I know) of an ambitious game I've been working on for some time now. Sharin' the indie love.

I actually discovered Cortex Command through other indie developers, just to let you know.

PLEASE DON'T HATE ME BECAUSE I POSTED THIS HERE. I'm not shamelessly advertising - I joined here awhile ago because I liked cortex command and played mods on a regular basis. (I don't post much though. tee hee). FYI, I started playing CC around build 21, which isn't too long ago.

So,
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO,

BLEARE KINGDOMS

Game Website: Bleare Kingdoms: Official Devlog

ULTRA QUICK DESCRIPTION:
This is a strategy RPG game - You have soldiers and you move them on your "turn", attack with them, etc.
It takes place in the medieval times, but in a fantasy setting (as we see in most games) with wizards and magical items etc.
The Strategy/RPG part is in the battle engine, after the battle is over, the game resumes in the world map, where you move your character/party. This is where the game gets more interesting: The game world will be self interactive, meaning that empires will really fight for control of the world, using their resources, plotting assassinations, etc. You are just dumped into the huge game world.

LONG DESCRIPTION: What is Bleare Kingdoms?

Screenshots!




Notice the unique move field concept.

The first build (which is free) contains ONLY THE BATTLE SYSTEM, and it will be missing *some* features.


The best part about this game: It is easily moddable. All units, stats, armors, weapons, other items, houses, effects, battlefiels, are stored in easily editable .ini files inside of module folders that are easily switchable. You could change the whole game to some crazy zombie mod in only a few hours. This gives the mod community HUGE flexibility. We will have forums set up and have documentation available so modders can go at it with this very powerful and flexible engine.

Download here, guys!
BUILD 1 DEVLOG POST
(direct)

Thanks for reading,
SunnyKatt

Ah, sweet.
My bro loves RPGs and I'd love to play a game with him. (Is it multiplayer? Will it be?)
(He is really big on plot though, I'm expecting great things!)

I'll try this out!

(PS: The graphics from the screenshots look very simplistic but very slick. Have to try it out to see.)

Looks interesting. Will check.

The graphics are a bit sloppy on this first build, they're the #1 complaint we have right now. D:

We DO plan on having physical (eh, forget what it's called, you know, switch seats play?) Multiplayer for two armies. Online is something I may or may not plan on putting in.

The plot? I dunno, it's more of a functioning sandbox type world with a player dumped-in (later builds, outside of the battles). The large world maps, kingdoms, etc. Will be procedurally generated though, so hopefully lots of replay value!

Hotseat?
Sounds neat, will have to download and try out.

Hotseat! Yeah!

Why couldn't I remember that?

Interesting game. I always though a movement system like this would be neat. It does end up being a lot more work to do it this way, however.
Exhibit A:

Can't get out of that spot even though there is plenty of room. Also, there was a crossbowman in there that was stuck and forced to shoot this poor bugger point-blank in the forehead to dislodge himself.
There was only one enemy left, too. He was a crossbowman as well. He got stuck in a wall, just like Keith here. Unfortunately, this made it difficult for everyone to finish the battle and go home for lunch.
All in all, interesting premise for a game. Good luck.

Yeah, there are still some collision glitches causing people to get stuck in rocks.

We're going to try revamping that for the second build so we won't have any collision glitches.

Glad you guys like it, though.

Looks good so far.
Will there be some kind of campaign as well?

Thanks! And yes, the "World map" Concept will run like a campaign, but as for an official scripted one, no (but who needs it?).

You might want to rethink this.

From a marketing standpoint it doesn't make much sense to make a fully-featured game engine without putting any game behind it. Vanilla content is the perfect way to show off the capabilities of your engine, show modders how to do things, and attract potential players who might be turned off by the lack of "official" content.

Gameplay-less sandboxes for loading content are about as enticing to your average, casual gamer as a swift kick in the ass.

Sorry, I don't think I was clear - there will be a game behind this!

The "campaign", as it is called, will start with the player making a character. After that, the player will determine the size of the map the campaign will take place on. From there, the world map is procedurally generated from a continent and split into nations with a simulated history. (Think of it like mount & blade, but on a MUCH deeper level and with a different world for every game).

You can train with elite mages from some faraway land (Regions will gain/lose proficiencies at talents that they find useful. So a nation in a secluded forest will naturally form into a stealth and archery expert nation, where a nation growing up on rolling plains will grow into more of a calvary type.), or travel to a distant country where the metal is better to get the highest quality armor (Weapons pre-loaded into the engine will have prefixes re-arranged and made available to only certain nations as their proficiency in forging increases).

What I'm saying is that this will be totally fully featured - sorry if I confused you into thinking it will be pure sandbox.

Natural objectives and goals will emerge to the player, and plenty of great vanilla content (weapons, items, rare spells, monsters) will gradually appear and develop over the life of the campaign, presenting new goals and challenges to the player and ways to deal with them.

We aim to hit a high replay value with a level of initial awe (when you first get a game and the excitement is high because you don't know everything yet) that stays high for as long as possible and can renew itself.

And under all that is a great engine that modders will have flexibility with.
Hope that helped!

PS: We don't plan anything that we don't think we know how to do.

Thinking of Dwarf Fortress, actually.

Yes! That's more along the lines of thought, but it's turn based, doesn't make your eyes bleed (I've always tried to live by the "gameplay before graphics" theory when judging a game. But I could never play dwarf fortress. I never knew what I was looking at.), heavily magically influenced, and with a few other differences.

So would modders have the capacity to make non-procedurally generated campaigns? If you get an active enough modding community going I can guarantee you someone will want to do it.