Yeah, I kind of agree. The terrain looks bland and the architecture, maybe I’m missing something, but it doesn’t look particularly Japanese either. The graphical differentiation between characters in the party seems very basic too. Obviously the portraits aren’t in yet but the movement styles/builds of a couple characters seemed identical as did their gear. Not a huge problem in M&B because the companion NPCs aren’t particularly a crucial element. They’re useful and add color but you don’t spend a whole lot of time looking at them. In Kenshi it looks like I’ll be spending lots, and lots, and lots of time staring at 'em.
Is there a strategic travel mode, are there mounts, or are we really going to be hoofing it everywhere?
That aside the idea of the game sits very well with me but I’m going to be in wait and see mode for now.
If the artist is creating a alternate world, it don’t need to be japanese. It can be interesting to re-use everything interesting from the japan culture, but make his own thing with his own style.
Deserts are places with few details, but are nice because the elegance of the curves of the dunes, the sound of the wind,… are rather big and interesting places. Sure, are almost empty, and may look bland to the untrained eyes.
I get what you are saying, but since the game lacks so many things right now, it’s hard to look at much more than its potential.
If I had to buy it now, of course the game would be horrible, no matter its potential. But if I look at it like for instance the M&B purchase I made around 8 years ago, it looks bloody brilliant.
Let’s just say I’m glad people are investing money in this. I’d like to see how it turns out. I too threw money at the early betas, maybe not the earliest, of M&B and it blew me away even in those very crude stages because the combat system was so visceral and fun. The strategic layer…really wasn’t yet.
Looking at the Kenshi combat I’m not so certain it looks very entertaining on its own merits. The animation is clunky and unconvincing and it seems to be more RPG than action style. Yes, it’s an indie game. Yes, it’s early days. But there needs to be a kernel of a game that’s engrossing before I’m ready to invest and cross my fingers it turns out well long term.
Mount & Blade is rather fascinating, to me, because it’s just about the only game I got all hyper-excited and optimistic about early on that actually turned out great in the long run. It developed exactly as I imagined it should, as I wanted it to, and now it’s a classic. That never happens. I usually get hyper-excited about an idea in some game, imagine the awesome directions it could evolve in, and then…pfft. The game dies or just veers off into some development ditch that I didn’t see, or maybe didn’t want to see, coming.
I like the desert aesthetic. Too few games are set in deserts, and of those games even fewer really try to capture the unique nature and difficulties of desert existence. So the bleak, sandy landscape is a huge draw for me.
Plus I always have Planet Caravan in my head when I see a game with trade and deserts, even though there’s absolutely zero association there, so it massively ups the experience for me!
I’ve been playing a ton of mb:Wfas recently, and I love the new caravan model they added, where you can pay for guards or accompany and protect the caravan yourself. It’s not as profitable as the older exploitable system, but fits better and has, for the first time in an m&b game, gotten me into trade. My only complaint is the lack of multiple caravans simultaneously, so I’m probably going to mod that in when I get home and enjoy creating a mercantile empire.
If this game captures the feel of trading in a desert I will spend stupid amounts of money on it.
On the web site he says that the art is placeholder, including the environment and the duplicated character art. He plans to hire an artist with money gained from the pre-release.
And, yeah, there’s way too many caveats at this stage for me to jump in. By the sound of things, it’s not really a game and won’t be for at least several months–and then only if the pre-release is successful enough to bring on additional staff.
This is what I was trying to communicate, yeah. Zomboid has enough gameplay to give money to. M&B at 6 bucks (what I paid) had the chewy combat center to go off of, even if the world was very sparse. Overgrowth, despite the lack of a “game”, has enough going on in it (and tools to spare) to warrant the price.
This, I’m not seeing it. Clunky looking combat, caveats about framerate/NPC presence and count and other stuff, and very barren (although admittedly original) world. There’s no hook (for me) yet.
It will be available for purchase, both on the developer site and Desura, as soon as Desura approves the build.
I haven’t tried the demo yet, but I think I might just jump on the alpha bandwagon, just to support the development, and to give myself a future present. :)
This looks like the type of game I’ll play up until the point I get ambushed and be in an unwinnable situation, only to flee at 2mph and walk 3 miles to the nearest place to rest or get patched up.
I just picked this up on gamersgate because it was cheap and looked cool.
It is definitely an ‘alpha’ build. But I hired a guy, beat up some bandits. Ran away from other bandits, who in turn got beat up by town guards. Looted them and bought some shit from a trader. Kinda fun.
I am reading the web and it’s hilarious how the “planned features” part. It’s bigger than the “already done features” part and some of them are generic and far-reaching
“Lots more factions and complexity to the world, improvements to the AI”.
“Ability to join factions and do dynamic missions for them. AI factions will also give missions to other factions and NPCs, not just you.”
“You will be able to build buildings out in the desert, and start your own outpost or fortress, possibly towns.”
“Building and town siege warfare.”
“The world map will be a lot bigger. Towns will be procedurally generated, meaning I can fill the whole world single-handed and it will be different every time you start a new game.”
“Dialog system that will be linked into the AI. Characters will say things at times based on their intentions, motivations, opinions and events.”
“More races are planned, other than just humans.”
It almost means “yeah, we still have to do the fuckin’ game!”. It reads like as wish list for his ideal game of some amateur dude which doesn’t seems to know the amount of work and talent needed to do all that.
and GOG has it at a sale price of 15 magic beans. I see it’s version 0.93x so it must be pretty close to done. Is it worth getting now, or should people wait a bit longer?
This hits 1.0 next week after only a dozen years of development.
I am resisting pulling the trigger because backlog (looking at you, No Man’s Sky) but I will probably succumb. It gets a rave review on the new episode of Gamers With Jobs, and it looks right up my alley – squad based, indie, RPG survival city builder with a Japanese aesthetic and cannibalism. What more could you want for twenty bucks?
