Umplix, I planned to use everyone whos art I use + OGA moderators + Danimal for his thread which caused me to make that game + that spambot who necroposted in his thread making me read it, who would be an annoying retired necromancer, who would force dialog with player whenever he's near similar to Noober from Baldur's Gate + some other OGA users like in that example with Bart in a basement.
But I'll have to change the whole idea, because after further development I realized that I can't design non-stupid, non-boring and non-repeative ARPG combat. Path of Exile also has this problem as it's dominated by 1-button builds who just walk from room to room and spam 1 skill. Then there's a problem with melee, again, same as in many other ARPGs, where you have to guess when enemy is in range, although in many ARPGs player character will automatically aproach the target.
I wanted to change game into sci-fi or post-apo and make it focused on ranged combat, grenades, stimulators (very short term strong self-buffs, like +move speed or +damage resistance) and cover. And without "skills" or "abilities" at all, since players will spam 1 anyway. And no, cooldowns is not an option, as they will only distract the player forcing him to constantly look at the skillbar, or just run away from enemy until CD is over or just do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 skill combo all the time, which won't change anything in the end.
So I'll need to change player's focus from combat to group management and make truly tactical ARPG where NPC placement is very important, and this is possible only with heavy focus on ranged combat, AoE (grenades) and cover, without melee. This will make combat non-repeatative and player won't need to spam anything. Because right now, at current stage, NPCs just run to each other and just swing weapons in melee range and there's nothing tactical about it. Even if I implement all kind of skills and spells, it won't change current situation, unless everyone is ranged.
But... the proplem is: top down view + ranged combat isn't good combination, as I already tried to do that in the past and it was terrible and felt clunky. It's also very weird with different screen aspect ratios and different players will have different game experience depending on how wide their screen is. Which means complete remake of a game and probably turning it into Fallout4 clone with ability to pause game and switch to strategic view where you can give orders to your NPCs at will. With a focus on settlement building, NPC management (farmers, laborers, scientists, guards) and territory control. I don't think I'll create a story and characters with dialogs, as it's too ambitious + I don't even have an idea for a story, but to make "Domination" game mode from unreal tournament on a huge open world map with ability to build/upgrade something on these domination points? Shouldn't be hard. So it won't be an ARPG or RPG, but rather strategic shooter with light RPG elements (inventory and stats).
And I want to make it open source project, which will be my very first open source project at all. So in case something goes wrong (I again abandon yet another project because of realizing that it's boring), it won't be wasted as someone else might find it useful, as it will have the code for movement, inventories, open world cells loading and off-screen simulation on distant nonloaded lands, settlement building, AI, etc. And it'll be a Unity project, so it's not really an open source, but essentially it'll act as open source, it'll simply require unity (which is free) to actually open/edit it.
There're no skills (only 1) implemented, the reason is... I've made a mistake with combat mechanics - damage/defense design was taken from Fallout1/2 and it's just very very bad for an APRG due to %based damage scaling. Not only this, it's also very confusing and user-unfriedly - too much damage types, then there're also damage threshold and damage reduction... it may be ok for TB game where you have only 1 armor slot, but not for an ARPG with multiple armor pieces. I already know how excatly I'll change it, but it requires a lot of time and I can't implement most of the skills before that, so I uploaded the "game" today.
The game is just arena where you spawn friendly NPCs, open chests with loot and fight spawned enemy groups. That's it, nothing else.
I simply changed color. to brownish/reddish. Health/mana orbs are animated and very beautiful, itsmars made really great work, you don't see it in his previews, but there're 2 textures in his zip file, which if slowly moved and half transparent, will make really beautiful animation and make those orbs look very 3D.
Also even though Unity speeds up things, I still do every feature from scratch, since Unity's built-in features are mostly awful. For example its built-in NavMesh pathfinding is terrible, I had to literally invent my own and spent whole day making only this one feature. Even its culling mechanics aren't perfect - you have to manually disable animators for characters who are outside camera, otherwise they're still eating resources. There're a lot of such issues.
After seeing this thread I started working on tactical ARPG for OGA 2022 Fall Jam ~3 days ago, I already made AI, pathfinding and basic mechanics like attacking with weapon, inventory managing & stats affecting things. It's ~15 more days left until end of jam and I'll release it, it won't have much content obviously, but hopefully I'll like the game myself and continue working on it, because my last game for OGA jam during winter wasn't good enough and I lost interest almost the next day after jam ended.
Currently the main idea for my game is to have a hybrid between Baldur's Gate (or Icewind Dale) and Diablo. You can pause game anytime you want with spacebar and during pause you can select your NPC companions and give them direct orders - like what ability to use and on whom or hold position or attack that guy, etc. Your NPC companions will have inventory and skill trees just like you and will gain XP with you, but if they die - they die forever and drop all their inventory. Other than that the game will be similar to diablo clone, but I want to have less mobs (no thrashmobs), but they will be tough, in other words quality over quantity, something like units in warcraft3 where they're few, but hard to kill. So fights will be mostly duels or small group vs small group. The game will also be more slow paced for an APRG and there will be no crazy flashing bullet hell abilties that turn everything on the screen into unreadable mess.
Another idea is to ensure there's no number bloat/inflation. The gap between "fresh level 1 character" and super-hero will be low. Your stats will improve very slowly and their starting value will be just below normalized "average", similar to TES3 Morrowind, where you start with ~40 stats with ~100 being max. The same true for health and mana.
For now the game looks like this, there're just obstacles and 5 angry NPCs who aggro on me to test pathfinding:
Blizzard hasn't become money shark nowadays, because Blizzard no longer exists. It's just name and nothing else. First it was bought by Activision? Now I don't even know who owns it. All these people, who took part in making all these great games under Blizzard, don't work there for a very long time. It's like comparing Bethesda's Fallout to classic Fallout and saying that new Fallout is crap. It's just name.
Also, Blizzard always started doing one thing and ended up with something else. Starcraft1 was sci-fi Warcraft2 clone at first, then they remade it completely from scratch. Warcraft3 wasn't even an RTS at first (and it had different name), but something like real time tactical RPG where you controlled a party of heroes, but then it turned out to be an RTS.
As long as you don't change downloaded file name, you can always 100% find it through google by simply typing site:opengameart.org and then that file name in quotes:
site:opengameart.org "objects.png"
For me the very first link in google was the same link MedicineStorm gave you.
An engine that gives false positive antivirus warnings is very very bad and shouldn't be even treated as usable. Even if dev says it's safe - no adequte person should believe it. Because such engines are perfect way to actually spread viruses. If I wanted to infect you all, I would intentionally use this engine, make some primitive game as excuse, and then tell you "hey it's false positive! google it! it's ok for this engine to be like that!" and then I would rub my hands and laugh.
Thank you, but in the end I decided to go turn-based and grid movement game just like classic Fallout, except my game also has full party control and much better modernized combat mechanic.
My goal is to recreate Fallout1 (particularly 1, not 2. They're very different, and, imho, Fallout2's only advantage over 1 is the size of content) in 3D as much as possible visually, atmospherically and gameplay-wise without violating copyright stuff and I realized that it'll be best to retain turn based combat, just improve it to make more tactical and less abusive towards AI.
So my question is no longer relevant. Although an ability to "aim" just like in FPS games with some button to move camera towards cursor probably isn't bad idea and could work.
Umplix, I planned to use everyone whos art I use + OGA moderators + Danimal for his thread which caused me to make that game + that spambot who necroposted in his thread making me read it, who would be an annoying retired necromancer, who would force dialog with player whenever he's near similar to Noober from Baldur's Gate + some other OGA users like in that example with Bart in a basement.
But I'll have to change the whole idea, because after further development I realized that I can't design non-stupid, non-boring and non-repeative ARPG combat. Path of Exile also has this problem as it's dominated by 1-button builds who just walk from room to room and spam 1 skill. Then there's a problem with melee, again, same as in many other ARPGs, where you have to guess when enemy is in range, although in many ARPGs player character will automatically aproach the target.
I wanted to change game into sci-fi or post-apo and make it focused on ranged combat, grenades, stimulators (very short term strong self-buffs, like +move speed or +damage resistance) and cover. And without "skills" or "abilities" at all, since players will spam 1 anyway. And no, cooldowns is not an option, as they will only distract the player forcing him to constantly look at the skillbar, or just run away from enemy until CD is over or just do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 skill combo all the time, which won't change anything in the end.
So I'll need to change player's focus from combat to group management and make truly tactical ARPG where NPC placement is very important, and this is possible only with heavy focus on ranged combat, AoE (grenades) and cover, without melee. This will make combat non-repeatative and player won't need to spam anything. Because right now, at current stage, NPCs just run to each other and just swing weapons in melee range and there's nothing tactical about it. Even if I implement all kind of skills and spells, it won't change current situation, unless everyone is ranged.
But... the proplem is: top down view + ranged combat isn't good combination, as I already tried to do that in the past and it was terrible and felt clunky. It's also very weird with different screen aspect ratios and different players will have different game experience depending on how wide their screen is. Which means complete remake of a game and probably turning it into Fallout4 clone with ability to pause game and switch to strategic view where you can give orders to your NPCs at will. With a focus on settlement building, NPC management (farmers, laborers, scientists, guards) and territory control. I don't think I'll create a story and characters with dialogs, as it's too ambitious + I don't even have an idea for a story, but to make "Domination" game mode from unreal tournament on a huge open world map with ability to build/upgrade something on these domination points? Shouldn't be hard. So it won't be an ARPG or RPG, but rather strategic shooter with light RPG elements (inventory and stats).
And I want to make it open source project, which will be my very first open source project at all. So in case something goes wrong (I again abandon yet another project because of realizing that it's boring), it won't be wasted as someone else might find it useful, as it will have the code for movement, inventories, open world cells loading and off-screen simulation on distant nonloaded lands, settlement building, AI, etc. And it'll be a Unity project, so it's not really an open source, but essentially it'll act as open source, it'll simply require unity (which is free) to actually open/edit it.
Hey, I've made it, if you're interested:
https://vrs1.itch.io/oga-fall-game-jam-2022-arena
There're no skills (only 1) implemented, the reason is... I've made a mistake with combat mechanics - damage/defense design was taken from Fallout1/2 and it's just very very bad for an APRG due to %based damage scaling. Not only this, it's also very confusing and user-unfriedly - too much damage types, then there're also damage threshold and damage reduction... it may be ok for TB game where you have only 1 armor slot, but not for an ARPG with multiple armor pieces. I already know how excatly I'll change it, but it requires a lot of time and I can't implement most of the skills before that, so I uploaded the "game" today.
The game is just arena where you spawn friendly NPCs, open chests with loot and fight spawned enemy groups. That's it, nothing else.
Yes, it's Unity.
No, I'll use free only and/or self-made stuff for this game.
The UI is partly from here:
https://opengameart.org/content/health-orb-11
and few small parts taken from here (free unity asset):
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/icons/gui-parts-159068
I simply changed color. to brownish/reddish. Health/mana orbs are animated and very beautiful, itsmars made really great work, you don't see it in his previews, but there're 2 textures in his zip file, which if slowly moved and half transparent, will make really beautiful animation and make those orbs look very 3D.
Edit:
Also for UI background I used this texture:
https://opengameart.org/content/dark-stone-tile
Also even though Unity speeds up things, I still do every feature from scratch, since Unity's built-in features are mostly awful. For example its built-in NavMesh pathfinding is terrible, I had to literally invent my own and spent whole day making only this one feature. Even its culling mechanics aren't perfect - you have to manually disable animators for characters who are outside camera, otherwise they're still eating resources. There're a lot of such issues.
I also use a lot things from game-icons.net.
And here's more UI :D
After seeing this thread I started working on tactical ARPG for OGA 2022 Fall Jam ~3 days ago, I already made AI, pathfinding and basic mechanics like attacking with weapon, inventory managing & stats affecting things. It's ~15 more days left until end of jam and I'll release it, it won't have much content obviously, but hopefully I'll like the game myself and continue working on it, because my last game for OGA jam during winter wasn't good enough and I lost interest almost the next day after jam ended.
Currently the main idea for my game is to have a hybrid between Baldur's Gate (or Icewind Dale) and Diablo. You can pause game anytime you want with spacebar and during pause you can select your NPC companions and give them direct orders - like what ability to use and on whom or hold position or attack that guy, etc. Your NPC companions will have inventory and skill trees just like you and will gain XP with you, but if they die - they die forever and drop all their inventory. Other than that the game will be similar to diablo clone, but I want to have less mobs (no thrashmobs), but they will be tough, in other words quality over quantity, something like units in warcraft3 where they're few, but hard to kill. So fights will be mostly duels or small group vs small group. The game will also be more slow paced for an APRG and there will be no crazy flashing bullet hell abilties that turn everything on the screen into unreadable mess.
Another idea is to ensure there's no number bloat/inflation. The gap between "fresh level 1 character" and super-hero will be low. Your stats will improve very slowly and their starting value will be just below normalized "average", similar to TES3 Morrowind, where you start with ~40 stats with ~100 being max. The same true for health and mana.
For now the game looks like this, there're just obstacles and 5 angry NPCs who aggro on me to test pathfinding:
Blizzard hasn't become money shark nowadays, because Blizzard no longer exists. It's just name and nothing else. First it was bought by Activision? Now I don't even know who owns it. All these people, who took part in making all these great games under Blizzard, don't work there for a very long time. It's like comparing Bethesda's Fallout to classic Fallout and saying that new Fallout is crap. It's just name.
Also, Blizzard always started doing one thing and ended up with something else. Starcraft1 was sci-fi Warcraft2 clone at first, then they remade it completely from scratch. Warcraft3 wasn't even an RTS at first (and it had different name), but something like real time tactical RPG where you controlled a party of heroes, but then it turned out to be an RTS.
As long as you don't change downloaded file name, you can always 100% find it through google by simply typing site:opengameart.org and then that file name in quotes:
site:opengameart.org "objects.png"
For me the very first link in google was the same link MedicineStorm gave you.
An engine that gives false positive antivirus warnings is very very bad and shouldn't be even treated as usable. Even if dev says it's safe - no adequte person should believe it. Because such engines are perfect way to actually spread viruses. If I wanted to infect you all, I would intentionally use this engine, make some primitive game as excuse, and then tell you "hey it's false positive! google it! it's ok for this engine to be like that!" and then I would rub my hands and laugh.
https://opengameart.org/content/t-t-free-cyberpunk-pack
Thank you, but in the end I decided to go turn-based and grid movement game just like classic Fallout, except my game also has full party control and much better modernized combat mechanic.
My goal is to recreate Fallout1 (particularly 1, not 2. They're very different, and, imho, Fallout2's only advantage over 1 is the size of content) in 3D as much as possible visually, atmospherically and gameplay-wise without violating copyright stuff and I realized that it'll be best to retain turn based combat, just improve it to make more tactical and less abusive towards AI.
So my question is no longer relevant. Although an ability to "aim" just like in FPS games with some button to move camera towards cursor probably isn't bad idea and could work.
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