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| Thread: Remnant Realms - high concept of my personal game project inspired by Hm&m | |
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lantranar
Adventuring Hero
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posted August 01, 2018 06:59 PM |
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Remnant Realms - high concept of my personal game project inspired by Hm&m
Hello everyone, I have always been a loyal fan of HoMM series ever since the first game. However, it has been 10 years that we haven't seen any positive progress franchise, so I have given up on hoping a new Hmm game that is worth playing. I have been brewing an idea for a new game IP to work on free time. This game will be an accumulation of several mechanic ideas from several game. In a nutshell, I should have:
- heroes 1-4 rich and free fantasy world, multiple factions (at least 9) and interactive adventure map
- 2d artistic direction and game performance (Hmm 1-4, age of wonder 1-2)
- campaign/map editor of Warcraft 3, paired with mod manager
- buildable and convertable towns, together with diplomacy system like Age of wonder
- faction divided by ideologies (Hmm4)
- ATB battle mechanics, similar to H5, but visually presented like Child of Light
- hexagonal grid, flanking and positioning system like Heroes of might and magic online
This will be a time-consuming project and i still cant see how long it would take for me to finish it, but first of all, I want to share the high concept that I have been working on so you guys can tell me your opinions. I ll update this thread once in a while to show the progress.
About me: I am a game artist, currently working for a mobile game company in Finland. Before that, I have been working on a few student and indie projects regarding mobile games but a TBS game for PC has always been my dream. Unfortunately, Finland game industry is more about mobile gaming, so it will be very challenging for me to find partners and publishers for this project. I ll work on that later.
Here is a TBS mobile game I used to work on a few years ago. I am also quite confident in my watercolor skill, so as you can here how I apply it to the graphic style
This will be the art direction I will go for, to recreate the aesthetics of medieval manuscripts. Art quality of 'child of light' is totally within my capability. (the pirate town scene in the middle is my work)
I am not overly fond of the recent graphic trend for TBS games that overuse 3d graphics. The characters' silhouete and color schemes are unclear, adventure map are poor in content and hard to navigate. Performance is also a huge set back. A 2d game would make the game much faster and easier to mod. Ofc I dont have time and resource to make 3d game to begin with.
Next post : Factions
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lantranar
Adventuring Hero
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posted August 01, 2018 07:33 PM |
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(bottom right image is the adventure map I made for the game Riverian pirates)
BACKSTORY
The world is divided into multiple layered planes that exist in parallel. Each world has its own ecosystem, technology and civilization. One day, a crisis happened : a breach has split the walls that separate worlds apart. This event was forever remembered as 'The Great Collapse'.
As worlds merge into one, dimensional rifts appear everywhere, all races have to struggle to cope with a whole new world currently in ruin. Hence the title: Remnant Realms, the realms that are left.
FACTIONS
everyone may feel familiar with how factions in H4 works. That is the base of my faction concept, i also borrow some ideas from alignments in D&D. The factions are divided based on 4 main ideology: Life/Death, Order/Chaos
Life: growth, prosperity, longevity
Death: destruction, consumerism, life cycle
Order: discipline, automation, control
Chaos: freedom, individualism, spirituality
However, there is no civilization that is dedicate to a single ideology. To form 1 faction, at least 2 or more ideologies combined are needed.
Alignment: Similar to H4, the main faction is alwways friendly with the two adjacent factions, while being hostile to the 3 opposite in the circle. There are 9 (at least) factions in total :
- Alchemy
- Divinity
- Druidry
- Sorcery
- Shamanism (Voodoo)
- Demonology
- Necromancy
- Runology
- Anarchy/Eternity
To start with each faction, one by one
ALCHEMY
Town: The Tower
Hero: Sage
With Order as the top aspiration, Life as second, slightly influenced by lifeless industrialization of Death, Alchemy (or as human prefer to call Science) care about rational thinking and inventions. Alchemist societies aim to gain dominance through advanced technology and complete control of natural phenomenons.
Friendly to Runology: alchemists can sympathize with the urge to gain knowledge to subdue nature.
Friendly to Divinity: both societies are elitist that prioritize prosperity, despite the difference in social structures
Extremely hostile to Voodoo: the so-called animanism is a hoax, it is inexplainable and unreliable. The tribalistic shamans together with their witchcraft must be eliminated.
DIVINITY
Town: The Sanctuary
Hero: Inquisitor
Aspire for LIFE, but use religion to control society (ORDER) while relying on spirits (CHAOS), DIVINITY is a society that rally all races as long as they can contribute to the common growth. All resources and distributions are controlled by the religious organizations and the Holy Leaders. The medical advance thanks to benevolent spirits and technologies is considered a gift from gods and thus they are heavily monopolized.
Friendly to Alchemy: as both factions highly regard social order and discipline, both only accept the most competent individuals into their ranks.
Friendly to Druidry: this faction nurtures the best spirits that contribute to the healing and blessing capability of the churches. Thus, they are also idealist about social harmony.
Extremely hostile to Demonology: an existence that consumes everything on its path, leaving nothing behind but havoc is unforgivable.
DRUIDRY
Town: The Grove
Hero: Warden
The protector of the wild (which represent LIFE and CHAOS), the newly sentient beings of the forest strive for harmony and everlasting ecology. They learned how to structure their society based on other civilization. Their power comes from harnessing the power of nature.
Friendly to Divinity: the power to preserve and prolong life span, increasing population is one that druids considered the most sacred.
Friendly to Sorcey: share a similar interest in the wilderness, despite the difference in how they perceive unknown spiritual beings.
Extremely hostile to Necromancy: perpetual and lifeless beings are the most horrifying existences. It is a threat to all life forms.
SORCERY
Town: The Temple
Hero: Archmage
the wizarding society always want to seclude themselves to learn about and communicate with spirits and higher beings. This grant them the ability to bend realities using 'words', an intricate language that can evoke spiritual powers. This ability, however, tends to be unstable and it brings havoc everywhere it goes. The pursuit for such knowledge is still unknown the the rest of the world and is considered as madness.
Friendly to Druidry: they are the alliance of the wild, not very fond of tightly structured hierarchy and technology.
Friendly to Voodoo: due to the close relationship with spirit and higher existences.
Extremely hostile to Runology: they despise the mindset that only want to take advantage of the dead and dishonoring the legacy of the ancestors. The act of enslaving spirits is unforgivable.
VOODOO
Town: The Dungeon
Hero: Shaman
Their societies are all about conversing with spirits and ancestors, which often comes along with unexplainable rituals and traditions. Due to the chaotic nature of spirits, they often bring harm to themselves but they always believe that honoring the dead is the highest aspiration of life.
Friendly to Sorcery: both draw their strength from their close relationship with spirits
Friendly to Demonology: they believe that prosperity and destruction are just two sides of the same coin, but the unstable and competitive life styles of the demons are better to nurture the strongest and smartest beings.
Extremely hostile to Alchemy: Those so-called scientists are just arrogant people who believe that they can control nature only by using tools and innovations. It is absurd to demand everything to be explained and recorded by words and sounds. Even worse, they are the people who initiated the witch hunts because they fear what they don't understand.
DEMONOLOGY
Town: The Alysium
Hero: Doombringer
First established by demon, a race exists as a natural cure for overpopulation. They emerge when life becomes abundant and kill everything until only the strongest and most fertile individuals are left, then they go to slumber waiting for the next cycle of civilization to rise and come to an end.
Eventually they attract those who believe that life is unavoidable misery and death is the ultimate salvation- the nihilists and doomsayers who stop at nothing to watch the world burns, believing that they are the true justice.
Friendly to Voodoo: the destructive tendency of the wizards is fascinating and desirable. They, and the demologists share the same interest in communicating with spirits using 'words' and rituals.
Friendly to Necromancy: they share the same mindset to bring death and destruction, but their purposes are a bit different.
Extremely hostile to Divinity: they are branded as the most despicable existence by the religion of DIVINITY. Even though they want to destroy everything indiscriminatedly, those holy warriors are the most annoying opposition.
NECROMANCY
Town: The Necropolis
Hero: Dark Lord
Believing that eternal servitude after death is the fastest way to advance societies, and the most stable system of control is to unify all individuals under one mind and one will, the necromancers are always fascinated with turning the majority of life into tools that serve the chosen few. They achieve that by combining corpse animating skills (order) and soul channeling rituals (chaos).
Friendly to Demonology: there is nothing more convenient than a force that bring death to anywhere it can reach. The more they kill, the more souls and corpses can be harvested and turned into tools.
Friendly to Runology: both don't care about committing blasphemous act which is violating dead people to bring out the most values from them. Emotions are considered a hindrance to their growth.
Extremely hostile to Druidry: souls (or life forces) are believed to be limited as they are scattered all over the world. Contrary to NECROMANCY's aim to stabilize souls into one place, the druids redistribute them by breeding new lives and prolonging the life-death cycle by extending their own life span.
RUNOLOGY
Town: The Academy
Hero: Loremaster
These people are in search for the ancient knowledge from an extincted race, which is rumored to have been so advanced that they can build carts that fly, metal arrows that can traverse into space, tablets of light that can communicate distances, or sentient golems that can do all kinds of labor. The runologists use any method as long as they recover such technological height.
They found a method to extract parts of this power by studying and excavating tombs buried deep in the underground. This act is criticized by some other factions to be blasphemous and disrespectful.
Friendly to Necromancy: both don't care about any moral value nor harmony. Utilitarism is the best way to bring forth order.
Friendly to Alchemy: both are structured societies that tighten social control and aim for knowledge, ultimately to force their will on nature.
Extremely hostile to Sorcery: its hard to understand the tribal traditions that vary from individual to individual. Spirits are not friends, they are mere energy that exist only to serve. Enslaving, not befriending them, is the true way to reclaim the greatness of the past.
ANARCHY
Town: The Bonfire
Hero: Bard
They are the essence of freedom spirit, yearning for glory and materialist satisfaction. They wander from places to places, offering helps to anyone who they see fit as mercenaries and adventurers, or they can just destroy anything in their path to prove their own worthiness. They don't have a clear social hierarchy and rarely anyone can rally them to his cause. They also care little about their own survivability, as long as they can enjoy their lives to the fullest. "You only live once", they said.
Neutral to all
ETERNITY
Town: The Castle
Hero: Overlord
They hate the cycle of life and death, admire the beauty of all existences that they want to preserve in a stagnate, unchanging state. Also known as the league of immortals, the holy grail holders, the unholy champions, ETERNITY faction is often indifferent to mortal conflicts. Sometimes they intervene only to remind themselves of their own existences. The longer they live, the duller their senses become, thus making them thirstier for stimulants. They either wreak havoc on a whim or go to slumber as they get bored with living.
Neutral to all
Next: Creatures dwellings.
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bitmaid
Adventuring Hero
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posted August 02, 2018 12:58 AM |
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I saw this post earlier today but didn't comment so as to not disturb the flow. Just want to say this is a very interesting concept and well thought out. I like the idea and reference behind the worldview, it's something I'm really fond of but rarely see in games nowadays. I guess you'd call it "old-school". Your watercolor has a unique style and is very memorable. I for one am always rooting for M&M inspired projects and it's even better when the inspiration is drawn from the best parts of multiple games.
btw lantranar I don't know if you're familiar with someone called Quantomas, he's done quite a bit to salvage h5 and probably working on better AI atm to make a Heroes-like TBS game. I think he's also from Finland?
Anyway thanks for sharing with us and please keep us posted!
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted August 02, 2018 03:54 AM |
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I didn't read it all but reach for your dreams, if you want to collaborate I am a modder and proficient in 2D graphical editing too.
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verriker
Honorable
Legendary Hero
We don't need another 'eroes
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posted August 02, 2018 12:23 PM |
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you got some very gorgeous artwork there, really beautiful and a more than competent pitch, I do not know if Quantomas still exists somewhere but if you can make contact with him he could possibly sort you with a high-quality AI cheers lol
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lantranar
Adventuring Hero
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posted August 02, 2018 04:51 PM |
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bitmaid said:
btw lantranar I don't know if you're familiar with someone called Quantomas, he's done quite a bit to salvage h5 and probably working on better AI atm to make a Heroes-like TBS game. I think he's also from Finland?
I am new to this community so i don't know him, but i ll try to contact him if I can. I am living in a backwater city in the North so its quite hard to find a partner here. Most companies and people that are interested in making PC games are from the south, or Sweden. Firstly I ll need to write a concept document, after that hopefully I can convince a few more people to join.
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LordBoogieBlue
Tavern Dweller
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posted August 06, 2018 10:01 PM |
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Sounds like it would be very interesting. I hope you finish the faction descriptions was loving reading it 
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted September 08, 2018 11:28 AM |
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lantranar said:
Firstly I ll need to write a concept document, after that hopefully I can convince a few more people to join.
IMO your chances for getting folks to join you only with ideas is very scarce, if not null. You need to start to build your project for real, and once some work is done, showcase it. Then maybe you can get people to help you further.
Everybody has ideas and often everybody disagree about them. 
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lantranar
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 08, 2018 12:12 PM |
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Galaad said:
IMO your chances for getting folks to join you only with ideas is very scarce, if not null. You need to start to build your project for real, and once some work is done, showcase it. Then maybe you can get people to help you further.
Everybody has ideas and often everybody disagree about them.
well, thats is exactly why I need to compile a concept document first. high concept -> concept -> pitch deck -> prototype -> another pitch deck for development and investment -> marketing and publishing
and I don't convince people only with ideas. I already take care of graphic asset parts. Im also a game designer, so I mostly require programmers to join me, which is nowhere close to null. Hard, obviously, but chances are still there. Soon I ll move to Asia to work so I think I might be able to recruit people (with much cheaper labour cost too). Basically I ll be the only one working for free on this project until I can earn something back from it. This should be a huge relief for any game project, actually. Normally for an indie game scale, you just can't afford to get a graphic quality thats worth to be considered a saling point. Most of the time you ll resort to either free graphic asset on the internet or cheap pixel arts that requires the least amount of time and money to make. Assuming you are a programmer, would you jump on a project knowing that the graphic part is already settled ?
The problem is that this type of game requires a very long time to prototype and visual style is the easiest to showcase. That is why I need to work on both of them first (GDD and graphics). Building a team and a prototype are not the biggest problems to me, finding a publisher is.
Most publishers that are interested in this genre already have their own IPs in fantasy setting, and for some reasons no one has ever try to steal the spot NWC left behind for years. Another option for me is crowdfunding (which is impossible in Finland) but it also leaves somethings to desire.
Anyway, concept and idea first, for now. Nothing changes that. I ll write a bunch of gameplay ideas later here, so if they are supported by you guys, it would help me a lot in convincing people to join me. If I ever manage to build this game, I also need to draw support from this community anyway. There is no point in making a Hmm inspired game if I don't keep contact with its fanbase first.
here s a screenshot from the prototype i developed a few years ago. I only need to change a few features and it ll become like H5 battle mechanics. However, I want to switch to hex grid and it ll be a pain in the ass to rewrite it. The ATB feature (similar to Child of Light) is also not there yet. This is just to say that I absolutely don't plan to pursue this project just by talking and dreaming.
and here a mockup of map generating asset. At first I wanted to make a hexagon based map but it is beyond my capability, so I switched to square grid based instead. I still cant decide which grid type I should go for. H3 use square for adventure map and hex for battle, whereas Age of Wonder 2,3 use hex for both and it looks really good.
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