Naroth - 3D open world RPG

[EgonOlsen]

A few hours, at least three I'd guess, probably somewhat more. That said I don't play this kind of games regularly and I'm a somewhat conservative player.

That's quite cool actually. I used to play it "in order" in my tests well knowing that this isn't the way in which people might approach it especially because you actually don't know what that "order" is. The game tries to push you into a direction, but it doesn't force you to follow it. It's nice to know that some additional grinding actually makes it easier to tackle the main quest...that's how it's supposed to be.

The biggest thing separating this from a fully professional product is that the models and texture are a bit hit-and-miss and not everything fits together in the way it does when you've got several full-time graphics artists producing and touching up everything.

That's true. I tried to find stuff that matches at least somehow and I think that I could have done worse, but of course...it mixes the styles of maybe a dozen or more people. You basically get what you pay for (I paid maybe 500 € for the assets in total), which is part of the reason why I don't charge you for it...

I like how "complete" the game feels with a full skill tree, mini-map and map, alchemy, and lots of neat touches like the birds flying, leaves falling, book pages turning, and the characters "talking". I also like that the battles are fairly quick and that the game eschews any requirement to eat and drink which means that I don't feel stressed when I'm just wandering around exploring and looking at stuff. The sound and music deserve to be mentioned as well, I like them quite a bit.

Thanks. All these little touches are my attempt to compensate the lack of truly epic looking locations and such. I tried to make the world somewhat believable within the given scope and context. There are actually a lot of little details in the game. Most people might not even notice them, so I'll list them here:

• Shrubs are moving if NPCs walk through them (but not if you do, because I found that distracting)
• You can hit the shop signs with arrows, which makes them swing a little more
• Arrows get stuck in objects (if you are close enough). If they get stuck in a dungeon door and you open it, they'll fall to the ground.
• Leaves are falling from the trees.
• The birds that you are hearing are sitting in the trees, i.e. the source of the sound is always the crown of a tree.
• There a bees humming around (you only hear them from time to time, you don't see them)
• Above a certain height, wind might kick in. If it does, you'll hear some wind noises and the trees' branches start to move more wildly.
• NPCs can disturb birds if they come too close
• NPCs will start running around in panic if an enemy comes close to them (happens rarely though)
• You can shoot the birds with arrows. It will give you 5 XP while they are grounded and 200 (I think) if they are flying. But I never managed to hit a flying bird myself...
• The dungeons have two kinds of ambient sounds. Water drops and some scratching sounds. The scratching sounds indicate that there are still enemies left on that floor. Once the floor is empty, there won't be any scratching.

In addition, the NPCs explain some things as well to make the world more believable, if you chose to listen. For example, there's an explanation why the dungeons are all lit with torches...

And I'm guessing the amount and depth of the content but I lack the experience of similar games to fully assess those. But complaining about that would be completely unfair for a hobby project given away for free, I thinks it's pretty grand and I fully intend to find out what happened to the guys father!

The game cleary lacks "epic" battles against enemies with the size of a house and such things. Mainly because of money, time and memory constraints. It has 39 different and non-generic quests though. It has at least one quest that you can solve in three different ways (albeit with the same outcome), one quest that you can actually refuse to solve by keeping the quest item for yourself. It has quests with a well defined goal as well as quests with no proper description on where to find the actual solution. It has quests that are interconnected. And finally, it has a branching main quest...
I admit that I had more in mind when I started this project, but I had to make some cuts. After all, 4 years and 2 months are enough IMHO. But that doesn't mean, that I'm not going to add some more stuff after a short break...

[Irony]

Egon, the game's really impressive, especially for a solo project. There are limits on how much one man can do, especially with a small budget who also has a job, family and a whole engine to support. Half of that would be more than enough for most

Now for everyone reading this and using jpct for a while, I would say it would be fair if we, as a community, could give a little back to Egon for all of his work by collecting the money he spent on Naroth. E.g. 20 people give 25 dollars each, or 50 giving 10. Shouldn't be too hard I hope Please, guys, if you want to join in PM me.

[AGP]

Egon, thanks for the game. I've only played it for a couple of minutes so far, but I've noticed misspellings on the last screen of the introduction ("spring, u the time" and "montains"). A couple of grammatical details, too. I have to agree with the others that inverting y was necessary, and I'm glad you allowed for the option. If I may cast my vote, I would prefer Diablo-like combat. I will report more once I've played more. But good job, and thanks again.

[EgonOlsen]

Damn...thanks for finding these errors. The english version was proofread by a native speaker. I have to check, if I've actually copied his corrections for these parts correctly.

[EgonOlsen]

If I may cast my vote, I would prefer Diablo-like combat. I will report more once I've played more.

The problem with more action oriented combat is (apart from the fact that some people like it and some hate it), that it requires more physical interaction on both sides. It works best in a third person view and with lots of different animations for both the player and the enemy. I have neither of those, so I had to find a solution that's not turn based (didn't want that albeit some people really love it), not too easy (i.e. not simple button mashing) and not too much dependant on the availability of sophisticated animations. What I got is somehow similar to the combat in older Elder Scrolls games like Arena and Daggerfall, maybe even Morrowind, but with a little more oomph to it. 

[Thomas.]

For the beginning, great job! I have played the game for about 3 hours and I like it! Here are some of my ideas.

- First what I did was reverse y axis for camera. Second was looking for how can I disable 8 axis limits in player movement.
- At the beginning are everything very hard. I had to go through whole map and collected flowers which I then sold and bought sword and armor.
- Combats are very hard for me. Many times, I am tapping on "fire" button over and over again, but nothing happen. And these tapping also blocks player moving and also quick changing of move direction blocks "fire" button.
- Is possible to open doors by click? It looks like doors are opened in touch down and touch up events and even while rotating with the camera.
- Game runs probably at 60 fps all the time on my SGS6. Is possible to increase resolution of textures, increase density of the grass...? Maybe in some settings...
- And last little thing. Walking is very unnatural. I think, some small movement up and down of the camera should help.

Thanks for the game Egon! I do not like today's stupid games with micro transactions like "You lose to much blood, you have to wait three hours to regenerate or you can buy blood package only for 5 dollars!"...

[AGP]

I could potentially help with the animations. Let me know what you would need. By the way, are you exporting frame-by-frame or are you using Bones?

[EgonOlsen]

I could potentially help with the animations. Let me know what you would need. By the way, are you exporting frame-by-frame or are you using Bones?

The animations are all key frame animations. Thanks for the offer, but I'll leave it like it is for now. One has to make some cuts somewhere, or things never get out of the door.

[EgonOlsen]

- First what I did was reverse y axis for camera. Second was looking for how can I disable 8 axis limits in player movement.

That won't happen... I guess that's because I'm a PC and not a console player. On the PC, you have a mouse and a keyboard which actually 4 directions (which you might be able to combine to 8 )  and not one of these strange analog knobs or sticks that the console controllers have. I tried a lot of first person games with touch controls on Android just to see how it works. With fully analog controls, I always tumbled around like a drunk. IMHO, limiting the possible directions to 8 helped to lot to get rid of this.

- At the beginning are everything very hard. I had to go through whole map and collected flowers which I then sold and bought sword and armor.

That's a really interesting approach. I love it when such things happen. When people are playing the game in ways that I never expected that they would. Being able to sell the flowers was actually an accident. I never planed to add this but it came in with some other change and I left it in, because I thought that maybe somebody want to make use of it...which is obviously true.

- Combats are very hard for me. Many times, I am tapping on "fire" button over and over again, but nothing happen. And these tapping also blocks player moving and also quick changing of move direction blocks "fire" button.

Yes, moving blocks the attack button for a short time. It depends on the direction as well. The best combat strategy IMHO is, to move towards the enemy and stop once he noticed you. Then he'll usually start to move towards you. Then strike when he's close enough and move backwards a little. Not too far, because that might make him stop as well but not to close either, because then you won't be able to strike again in time when he's close again. What you shouldn't do is to move towards him until you are in range, because he'll usually start a preemptive attack on you if he notices that you are moving in range.
Another option is to buy a bow and shot him from a distance.

- Is possible to open doors by click? It looks like doors are opened in touch down and touch up events and even while rotating with the camera.

IIRC, they open on touch down. It shouldn't happen during a rotation because that usually doesn't cause a touch down or up event. It's a good point. I'll revisit that part once I find the time to do so and see if it's worth a change.

- Game runs probably at 60 fps all the time on my SGS6. Is possible to increase resolution of textures, increase density of the grass...? Maybe in some settings...

Until now, I tried to avoid an additional settings dialog, but given that more and more seems to creep into the dialog which is actually the load/save dialog, I might reconsider this decision. And if I do, I'll add some detail settings as well. But it won't happen tomorrow.

- And last little thing. Walking is very unnatural. I think, some small movement up and down of the camera should help.

Again, this is caused by my personal preference. I don't really like head bobbing. I can live with it, if it's there, but I don't prefer to have it. Yes, the head moves up and down when we walk, but what games make of it, just isn't realistic IMO. Because your brain usually compensates for that movement or otherwise, we would be motion sick all the time. If I add an additional settings dialog, I'll add that option too. But not tomorrow...

[msandin]

Well, I've found a couple of minor things that you might want to know about:

• At times I seem to get "stuck" in a position where I'm looking too far upwards/downwards and the look controls stop working correctly, they feel sort of inverted and unresponsive. It seems to happen mostly when I access the save game menu. The problem goes away if I force close the game and start it again. Has happened around five times.
• I've managed to back up and get stuck behind a chest at the end of a corridor (specifically at the end of the burial site dungeon) with no way to escape and due to a badly timed game save I had to back up a little farther than I would have liked to.
• I think that the dungeon mapping facility is a bit too conservative, I can clearly see that there is a solid wall but I need to spend time getting really close up with the wall just to make sure it's properly mapped.
• I'm a bit daft so it took me some time to figure out that I could click the mini map to make a full map appear. Up until that point I found it hard to find my way around. Possibly just my inexperience with the conventions of the genre showing. But some kind of first-time hint would have made a difference.
• On the same note I spent some time playing before I figured out that it was a good idea to tap on the fallen enemies to examine them.
• As with the previous poster I've accidentally opened doors quite a few times when I only meant to look around.

But these are minor niggles and I'm enjoying the game. Currently working my way down the old mines.

[EgonOlsen]

At times I seem to get "stuck" in a position where I'm looking too far upwards/downwards and the look controls stop working correctly, they feel sort of inverted and unresponsive. It seems to happen mostly when I access the save game menu. The problem goes away if I force close the game and start it again. Has happened around five times.

That's not supposed to happen. It's cleary a bug, but I never encountered it myself. I'll look into it.

I've managed to back up and get stuck behind a chest at the end of a corridor (specifically at the end of the burial site dungeon) with no way to escape.

That's not supposed to happen as well, but it's not really a bug. I know that it can happen...it's caused by the way collision detection works. The only solution would be offset the chest even more, but that would break your save games. I'll keep it in mind, but with low priority. It's annoying if it happens, but it actually doesn't happen that often IMHO. It never happened to me, but...

I think that the dungeon mapping facility is a bit too conservative, I can clearly see that there is a solid wall but I need to spend time getting really close up with the wall just to make sure it's properly mapped.

I know. Auto mapping for the dungeons came in pretty late and it's not very sophisticated. I'll put in on the todo list for later.

I'm a bit daft so it took me some time to figure out that I could click the mini map to make a full map appear. Up until that point I found it hard to find my way around. Possibly just my inexperience with the conventions of the genre showing. But some kind of first-time hint would have made a difference.

Agreed. I thought about adding a very basic tutorial, but I really wanted to get this thing out of the door. I'll put in on "the list" as well...

On the same note I spent some time playing before I figured out that it was a good idea to tap on the fallen enemies to examine them.

Again, agreed.

As with the previous poster I've accidentally opened doors quite a few times when I only meant to look around.

Noted as well.

Thanks for the feedback and have fun playing.

[Thomas.]

And one more thing. Could you add auto save system, please? It can be done as the first save slot without the save button. Game progress can be saved every five minutes when the player is safe.

[EgonOlsen]

Game progress can be saved every five minutes when the player is safe.

Well...the thing is: Saving takes its time, especially later in the game, when there are more and more dungeons to persist. And it's a stop-the-world-operation, so I'm not sure that blocking the flow all five minutes is a good idea. It might be feasible on a fast device, but on something crappy, it can be really annoying. What's the problem with the current save system? Do you forget to use it? How about a message box (like the one that comes up when you pick up something) instead that reminds you to save all 10 min or something?

[EgonOlsen]

I've uploaded an update (still not online at the time of this writing) that does this:

• fixed the spelling mistakes that APG mentioned
• improves up/down-looking. This *might* fix the problem that msandin mentioned. I can't reproce it and it actually can't happen...maybe except if you somehow manage to "overshoot" the view angle. This can't happen anymore...maybe it helps.
• worked on the doors and picking in general. It's still not really "onclick" but I hope that I found a good compromise.
• small GUI fixes

[EgonOlsen]

And I finally got myself an Intel based Android device with Intel HD GPU. The game works fine on it...maybe a bit slow, but it works...