[hr][/hr]

Greetings, Explorers!

We want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We also want to thank everyone for your support this year and may the next year be filled with awesome loot and exciting dungeons! A new Dev Log is on it's way, and there's a ton of new content to show you in the new year. Happy Holidays, explorers! Zarktor Studios Team

[ 2022-12-24 18:00:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings, Explorers!

Our birb has one or two things to tell you today! [hr][/hr] Welcome to another Zarktor's Realm Dev Diary. We'll be providing you regular updates to keep you informed of what's happening behind the scenes to bring you this fantastic game.

...and now for something completely different... steamhappy

This has become our defacto motto and one we're trying to integrate into everything we're doing with this game. You can click the image to zoom in but please remember to click BACK!
A sneak peek of what I've been preparing for our PAX ventures! [hr][/hr] Well, it's been a hectic few months with so many things going on - including rebuilding the main development PC (from scratch), designing posters like the one above for our upcoming indie booth at PAX, and buying a caravan so we can take much-needed breaks from our day jobs (yes, this is being built in our spare time!). However, development is still pushing ahead on the playable demo and packaging it up with an installer.

Branching Dialogue

Firstly, we're getting the main quest logic and mechanics in place to support broad role-playing experiences with multiple outcomes that affect both the player and the world around them. We've now got the NPC dialogue working quite well and integrating pre-recorded voiceover audio to trigger lipsync. I'm pleased to report that Jane has joined our team and will be writing dialogue for the game. This includes NPC's giving quests and rewards, rumors, and generally fun, insane conversations. We'll be using "barks" which are essentially background dialogue that you don't need to interact with, such as overhearing the grave-diggers conversations. Jane will be writing dialogue for both the player and the various NPCs and as we have 12 different player character choices, we're also adding some variability so that the dialogue may actually vary depending on who you've chosen to play as. We've managed to work out a way for Jane to create branching dialogue using a visual, node-based HTML editor which we can then import into the Dialogue System in Unity. Once this is done, we can then add in scripted cutscene controls such as NPC camera close-ups, camera pans, character emotes (such as smiles, anger, and hand gestures), or trigger changes in inventory such as giving/receiving items and quest rewards. In the example below there are multiple quest reward outcomes: coin (giving the player a reputation as a mercenary), a white cat companion that won't fight, or an angry ginger Tom cat companion that scratches, or a choice of having no physical reward but instead gaining a huge reputation boost as a hero. Below is a single quest reward tree (player choices are in blue). You can click the image to zoom in but please remember to click BACK!
Branching dialogue with different consequences! Your choices do matter in Zarktor's Realm. [hr][/hr] The reputation system will work on the basis of deeds and will translate into other NPCs across the game world treating you differently, such as reduced prices in a store, optional quest lines, and special rumor dialogue in inns, etc. We hope that by implementing this style of branching dialogue, you'll have a lot of fun exploring the role-playing aspects of the game through replays. With Jane's dialogue imported into Unity, we're able to play the scenes and select player responses to test the logic and ensure it all works and the dialogue actually makes sense - in context. We've got the ability to set it up with language codes so the player can switch to one of the other localized languages. At this stage, we're planning to translate the game user Interface and all dialogue (subtitles) to Russian, Simplified Chinese, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese (which we understand are pretty similar).
Will you accept her quest? [hr][/hr] When a chunk of NPC dialogue is ready, we can then commission voice actors to record audio, and at the same time, get the subtitles translated. Bringing those audio and localized files back into Unity will automatically trigger playing the audio files as the dialogue choices are made. This will also trigger lipsync and display subtitles in the player's chosen language. Once we've launched we hope to add additional languages to the localization list and may also consider recording audio in different languages if that is what the player base wants.
Everybody asks who is a pretty birb, but nobody asks how is said birb doing... [hr][/hr] Anyway, we're really excited to get these aspects working in the playable demo as it now opens up the ability to get the whole dialogue, questing, and storyline parts of the game into full swing - in parallel with enhancements to the combat system and level building.

Zoomy-Zooms

We've managed to get the follow-cam to work well with zoom-in and zoom-out controls - at this stage with the mouse wheel, but planned for gamepad control too. Here's our player considering what to do about the poisoned well...
Now let's take a looksie at the wellsie... [hr][/hr]

Background Music

In between bouts of programming and building levels, I have been working on some music for the game with influences ranging from Queen's "Seven Seas of Rhye" to Megadeth's "Five Magics" and Queen's of the Stone Age "Song for the Dead".
How about my bard cosplay? [hr][/hr] The studio is a bit of a mess right now, but I'm capturing ideas on guitar and piano with the acquisition of a mandolin being a source of inspiration for the neo-medieval metal to come. Needless to say, we are keen to expand Zarktor's Realm to include a 13th player character...

The Bard!

Introducing: Cat antics

Pet companions are starting to become a reality in Zarktor's Realm. We're still working on what you'll be able to do once you've acquired them - whether a domestic cat can actually be bothered to do combat for you, or will just curl up next to your lifeless form when a boss has just given you a right thrashing. Spoiler: [spoiler]Yes, you can cucumber the cat[/spoiler]
Eat more healthy, human! [hr][/hr]

Lockpicking!

We've now integrated Skyrim-style lockpicking into the demo scene complete with breakable lockpicks (there will be a limited inventory of these). If you enjoyed this feature in games like Skyrim and Fallout 3, you'll remember that the vibration on the controller was haptic feedback to let you know the lockpick was going to break. We're hoping to do something similar through haptic feedback too.
Time to revisit your lockpicking skills! [hr][/hr]

PAX Aus 2022 Approaching!

Come and say hi if you can :D [hr][/hr] With the PAX event imminent, we're in full logistics mode, trying to figure out how to get everything crammed into our caravan to go down to Melbourne for the 7th-9th of October. Needless to say, we are excited to be showing Zarktor's Realm at this awesome event. You'll find us at Indie Rising Stand #20, just inside the main hall after the queue entrance - we'll be the ones wearing these (assuming they arrive in time)...
The finest clothes in the realm! [hr][/hr]

Features in Development - coming soon...

We've extended our use of the awesome Invector Third-Person Controller which is at the core of our game. We've procured several new add-on modules and we'll be progressively integrating these and other features in the coming months:

• Magic users rejoice! We've had some awesome magic special FX on ice for quite a while and now that melee and ranged combat are working, it's high time we add in fireballs, lightning bolts, area of effect spells, healing, phase door, etc. ...You'll know what we mean...
• Free climb Scale the outside of buildings, rock walls, cliffs, etc. Most likely for Assassins wanting to sneak around and avoid stairs, etc.
• Swim Wherever there is a large body of water, you'll be able to swim and dive down to the bottom to collect items, etc. However, watch out for sharks and more importantly, loose-fitting budgie-smugglers.
• I am Ironman! One of the characters will have the ability to fly - at least as long as they abide by the rules of their order. Spoiler: [spoiler] The Female Templar has wings! [/spoiler]
• Craft a thing Craft new things from existing things in your inventory so you have even more things to go with your other things. Gee, better make a bag of holding!
• Build something Build by placing construction materials in the scene. We're going to experiment with this and see how it fits in the game. Join our Discord and let us know your thoughts on this.
• Destructibles Did someone put a ruddy door in your way? No problemo - kick it in!
• Pyromania, anyone? Set fire to stuff - you know you want to!

We're also working on a clean installer to wrap the game in so we can distribute the playable demo. ...Watch this space. Finally, if you have a few moments, please check out a recent playthrough of the demo level we created a few weeks ago. We'll continue to upload gameplay footage from our Twitch streams to our YouTube channel so please subscribe and follow! [previewyoutube=cZpveb04xlI;full][/previewyoutube] We hope this article has been interesting for you. We'd love to hear from you, so please drop into our friendly Discord server and follow us on our social media platforms. [url=https://discord.gg/EKVgVVM5Cs]
Stay tuned for the next Dev Diary update! Thanks for visiting. Cheers, Martyn Founder, Zarktor Studios

[ 2022-10-04 20:50:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

[hr][/hr]

Greetings, Explorers!

Welcome to the third Zarktor's Realm Dev Diary. We'll provide regular updates to keep you informed of what's happening behind the scenes to bring you this fantastic game.

GammaCon 2022

On July 23rd, we attended GammaCon 2022 in Canberra, Australia (our hometown and local event). It was our first time presenting the game publicly and getting feedback from talking with attendees. We had a playable demo of Zarktor's Realm and gave expo attendees the opportunity to play the game!
Our dandy quite quaint stand! [hr][/hr]

The Journey So Far

We're now just over a year into development and all the major technical components have been worked out so we can focus on assembling assets and level building into coherent locations in the game, writing and recording voiceover dialogue and quest lines, and focusing on the main bosses and working out equipment stats, balancing, particle effects for magic, etc. The playable demo was a catacomb scene allowing the player to explore a dungeon with plague husks which could be attacked on foot or on horseback using ranged or melee weapons. We'll be adding NPCs, pets, and a quest system into this playable demo so you'll be able to download it and try out the gameplay for yourself! We've another year to go before release so we're halfway through this exciting adventure! And the feedback we got from Expo attendees was amazing - here's a brief sample:

• "It looks absolutely amazing! The sunset and sunrise are stunning! Beautiful graphics!"
• "Reminds me of Tomb Raider!"
• "You can ride the horse into the dungeon? Cool!"
• "Controls are so smooth"
• "I don't have a steam account, but for this game, I'll get one!"
• "Very intuitive"
• "Love it, can I buy it now?"
• "I don't have a computer right now, but for this game, I'll get one!"
• "Wow!"
• "Did you build this yourself?" - "Yup!"
• "I love pets. But can we have a unicorn?" - "Yep - the horse has a horn I can unhide"
• "Skyrim, Monty Python, and Metal? Tell me more"
• "If you complete the main quest line with all 12 characters, you should unlock a special dungeon level" - that suggestion from a very clever aspiring young game dev called Simon who attended our stand. Simon, that is an awesome idea and we're going to make it happen. Thank you!

You get the idea.
You are welcome, now you know how these kinds of events look like without the crowds lol [hr][/hr]

Where We Are Headed To

It was pretty nerve-wracking going to Gammacon - it wasn't something we've ever done before and we're showing "our baby" to the world for the first time. However, our fears were unfounded, the reception was amazing and we had a lot of folks who want to be part of the project including writers, animators, voice actors, a band wanting to do a cameo in the game, and an author who creates their own languages. We are now reaching out to our new friends to see how we can make this happen because it is going to make the game even more awesome. We're very keen to find the game's hook and it seems to be "Skyrim meets Fallout 3, with a sprinkling of Monty Python and a side of Heavy Metal". We're not quite sure about what that means, but we'll be trying to make that a reality over the coming months! Our beta testing strategy will take the current demo and make it a small segment of the actual game playable as a downloadable demo from the Steam page. This will have all the game mechanics and significant interactions along with a boss so you're getting the Zarktor's Realm play experience without it ruining the game storyline, etc.
Our birb NPC staring at me when I'm not making the game. [hr][/hr] We've been working on controls and have been playing Skyrim and Fallout 3 recently so the default gamepad and keyboard controls are very intuitive and likely to be a blend of the two, but you will of course be able to customize them too. Over the next few months, we'll focus on getting the playable demo into the beta test phase right through launch mid-next year. We'll be taking your feedback onboard and prioritizing it either as pre-launch content or as post-launch content. Either way, we are keen to make a game that we enjoy playing and we hope you enjoy playing too. There will be lots of replayability, humor, easter eggs, and Heavy Metal! Beta testers will be able to provide valuable feedback and will get their name in the credits of the game. Finally, one of the things we've decided is that there will be a thirteenth player character - "the Bard" - who brings "the Metal" to the game. It's going to be a ton of fun integrating the music, lute-swinging, bar-fighting, poem-reciting Bard content into the game!

Cheers, Explorers

We hope this article has been interesting for you. We'd love to hear from you, so please drop into our friendly Discord server and follow us on the social media platforms. [url=https://discord.gg/EKVgVVM5Cs]
Stay tuned for the next Dev Diary update! Thanks for visiting. Martyn Founder, Zarktor Studios

[ 2022-08-23 17:14:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi Explorers! Welcome to the Zarktor's Realm Dev Diary #2. I'm super excited to announce that we have locked in our spot as an indie exhibitor at PAX Aus Game expo to be held at Melbourne's Convention and Exhibition Centre between 7-9 October this year. We have managed to secure Indie booth #20 which is right near the Queue Hall entrance in the middle section. We hope to have a couple of PCs there for people to have a play of the game and chat to us.
Pax Aus is the biggest game expo in the southern hemisphere so we're pumped to be going there to show off Zarktor's Realm. Badge tickets are selling fast (3-day badges are sold out) so get over to https://aus.paxsite.com/ to secure yours now! Come say Hi to us and if you say the super top-secret passphrase "Relic of Gildas" we'll give you some cool merchandise (while stocks last!)

We've been working on the structure and scope of the playable demo that we'll be presenting at PAX. We're keen to include all the main game mechanics you'll be playing in the full game along with dungeon expeditions and NPC quests. This week we also did a major upgrade of the main Unity development workstation from a simple office PC to an Auros C700 Gaming System with an Intel i9 12900KS (currently the fastest CPU on the market) which will allow us to turnaround builds more quickly and alleviate memory limitations with the old motherboard.
We were pleasantly surprised with the performance in Unity and had to have a quick scoot around the zone on horseback to check out the performance stats with volumetric skies, dynamic lighting and 4k resolution (this is running in the unity editor at 125 FPS with no optimisation yet). Of course, we'll continue to validate on the other testbed platforms too, such as an Intel i5 laptop, i7 desktop, Apple imac and the Steam Deck.
We hope this article has been interesting for you. We'd love to hear from you, so please drop into our Discord Server or follow us on social media. [url=https://discord.gg/EKVgVVM5Cs]
Stay tuned for the next Dev Diary update! Thanks for visiting. Cheers, Martyn Founder, Zarktor Studios

[ 2022-07-19 16:59:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi Explorers! Welcome to the Zarktor's Realm Dev Diary. We'll be providing you regular updates to keep you informed of what's happening behind the scenes to bring you this fantastic game. In this post, we'd like to give you an overview of where we are at in the development cycle and introduce you to the game world, main characters and goal of the game.
Zarktor's Realm is a 3rd-Person-perspective Action Adventure role playing game set in Medieval England, Scotland and Wales during the 6th Century AD. You start out selecting a player character from twelve unique heroes. Each have their own skills, attributes and back story and may be customised and equipped as you progress. You can choose from:
[table noborder=1] [tr] [td]
[/td] [td]

Templars

The religious fanatics. There are those who follow the doctrines to the letter and those who have since fallen from grace. Nevertheless, they continue to wield great power through their divine connection. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]
[/td] [td]

Knights

The Mainstay of battle. The resolute soldier, trusted by those in power to help defend what matters most and do their bidding. They wield all manner of weapons and armour and train hard for combat. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]
[/td] [td]

Warriors

Fierce and powerful. They come from a long line of battle leaders of the Dumnonii and Iceni tribes and are direct decendents of Boudicea. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]
[/td] [td]

Assassins

A master of the night, striking quietly and leaving no trace. They are despised by many for their cruel poisons, adept theivery and dark secrets. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]
[/td] [td]

Mages

Wizards specialising in various forms of magic. Sometimes, they turn away from the sacred texts and pursue their own interests in the arcane arts, experimenting with natural and unnatural forces. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]
[/td] [td]

Hunter

Seeks to banish any and all demonic forces, regardless of the consequences. They are rarely trusted by townsfolk for fear they too will also be hunted. They have an affinity with many animals. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]
[/td] [td]

Necromancer

They have been to the other side and returned with sacred knowledge to resurrect corpses, control decay and draw spiritual energy from the environment. They are hated and feared because of it. [/td] [/tr] [/table] Following an orientation tutorial, you'll be thrown into a maelstrom of world-changing events that actually occurred in the 6th Century including the Volcanic Winter of 536 AD (also referred to as Fimbulwinter - the precursor to Ragnark), the resulting famines and the bubonic Plague of Justinian - arguably one of the worst periods in history to be alive. Along the way you'll meet interesting NPCs and be given complex quests to solve real world problems with real consequences to the people around you. You will explore the world on horseback and battle hordes of the undead, necromantic cults and demons of the underworld. Your main guide, counsel and the game's narrator is none other than Gildas the wise - an educated monk who chronicles your progress and guides you when you need it most. Gildas was there at the battle of Badon decades before, knew of King Arthur's exploits and sets your main quest line into motion. From here on, it is up to you how you play the game, what you uncover and achieve.

Progress Thus Far

Now that we've given you a brief taste of the backstory and characters, we'd like to provide an overview of where we are at in development.

• Prototyping / Proof-of-Concept - we've spent about a year working up prototypes and de-risking the technical components of the game. Development is now largely assembling components into coherent scenes.
• Player Controller - The player controller is arguably the most important component in the game as it involves character controls, combat, dialogue, movement, animations, horseriding, etc. We've spent hundreds of hours working on these aspects to make the controls responsive and most of all, fun to play.
• Customised controls - We have implemented a third-party component called Rewired that allows the player to configure their own gamepad, mouse or keyboard controls across platforms.
• Platforms - We have settled on the Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and Steamdeck platforms for our initial releases. It is possible these may be staggered, but these are the ones we're testing with.
  
• Explored 3rd-Person vs. First-Person vs. VR modes of Play - During the prototyping stage, we explored different avenues to implement mode switching between 3rd Person Perspective, First Person Perspective and Virtual Reality. However, whilst we were able to get this functionality limping along - it was taking far too long. We made the decision to focus on 3rd Person only for the initial release of the game so as to control the scope and move forward. We still have the prototypes we can go back to re-introduce FPS and VR modes of play at some later date.
• Assets - We've procured virtually all 3d assets we need for Zarktor's Realm including characters, non-player characters, animals, enemies, nature and weather assets, buildings, props, weapons, armour and items. We've also now got our sound effects and visual/special effects assets ready to be integrated. We're very excited to be in a position now where we can focus on building exciting levels with these assets, implementing the storyline, and writing quests and dialogue for NPCs.
• Custom Artwork - Aidan (our very talented artist and close friend) has been working on turnaround sheets for character bosses and maps for boss-levels. He has a penchant for horror and an amazing imagination, so is ideally placed to come up with some awesome looking demonic bosses (and their unique combat abilities to boot). Here is a brief sample of his work - If you like it, please visit and follow him at https://www.artstation.com/aidancleary
  
• Story and World - We've been working for at least a last year and half on the story to make sure it is compelling and interesting. This has involved a TON of historical research into medieval celtic society, the roman occupation of the UK, the tribes, the legends of King Arthur, locations of hill forts and battles, religion, necromancy and the dark arts includes sigils and seals of demons, and of course real historical events occuring in 6th Century AD. Zarktor's Realm has real history and real locations so you'll be able to look them up on good ol' Wikipedia. We didn't make this stuff up!
• Realism - We have tested quite a number of weather systems, water and nature shaders to arrive at a set that provide beautiful scenary and realistic world environments. This includes a wave system and underwater caustics for those scenes where you're out at sea and have to swim down to retrieve items, realistic lakes and rivers (and lava flows in demonic cave chambers of course) and an amazing full weather system called Enviro. This provides day/night cycles, volumetric clouds, sun and moon animations, lighting changes, and dynamic rain, snow, thunderstorms and of course, fog.
  
• Pets and Mounts - It wouldn't be complete without Pets and Mounts. We have now completed procuring a large variety of animals. There's different horses you'll be able to collect and ride throughout the game world. Some animals will be wild and can be hunted, but there will also be other animals you can obtain as pet companions including cats, dogs, wolves and even a talking cockatiel! (He may even give you quest advice).

Where to from here?

We're shifting our focus on to implementing the level designs for the various locations throughout the game that are tied in with the core story line. Our priority is to include locations that will be in a playable demo and include the quest lines and dialogue with NPCs for these parts of the story (without giving too much away). The modularity of the game is such that we can introduce new areas systematically, add NPCs with their own questlines and dialogue and interleave them with the primary and secondary story lines. In this way, the game development is now shifting to "factory mode" to assemble larger components of the game world. At the same time, we're focussed on continuous testing of the game play. We hope this article has been interesting for you. We'd love to hear from you, so please drop into our Discord Server or follow us on social media. [url=https://discord.gg/EKVgVVM5Cs]
Stay tuned for the next Dev Diary update! Thanks for visiting. Cheers, Martyn Founder, Zarktor Studios

[ 2022-06-21 17:51:12 CET ] [ Original post ]