Awesome RPG - Fantasy Meets SciFi - Last Crusader is here ...

Free? Very impressive. Will there be an option to turn off the ads with an in-game purchase?

 

Hi there, I am project lead on this game. Heres a few more screenshots, to give you an idea of what the add supported version will look like. I'm especially pleased with the direction we are heading with this game, and there is a sequel in development too. I hope you enjoy it and we all look forward to hearing feedback.

Cheers! Yay for oppose-able thumbs!
AaronC

 

A couple of snaps of the GUI:

 

I'd really like to see a different control setup, not tilt either. I have bad arthritis in my left thumb, and there are a few games I just can't play! switching sides doesn't usually work if I need to keep whacking the enemy. I know this affects only a very small number of people, but hey, you asked!

 

I would like to see the option for different armor and weapons

 

I think for this type of game a inventory system would work best in my opinion.
and thnx for the code

 

Well I don't know what exactly do you mean by "nice graphics", but that's not what you're showing us. Bad bland textures, ugly characters...
While I do understand that it's a no way an Infinity Blade-killer, but even for a free game it looks bad. Especially the HUD system and the font that is unreadable.

 

Was thinking of three possibilities here-but I wont guarantee either just yet!

Landscape- as pictured, with a single right hand joystick, that controls player movement. The camera is fixed, behind the player, so left-right rotates the player, and up down is forward- back.

another option is building the game in portrait mode, and having two joysticks accessible at the right of the screen so you can reach either with your thumb. I'd like to experiment a bit with portrait games, but we are so accustomed to wide-style screens- its a little risky- but I'm keen to try ideas.

Another one is a different style of game altogether where you touch the ground and the player moves there, then initiates an attack on a nearby enemy if theres one nearby. Thats quite a different mechanic to what we have started so thats the least likely option. Never say never..

Any feedback on those ideas?

Plan A is to ship 2x Last Crusader titles, with the only modifications on the next being another animation session. I am tempted to come up with a supersword though..

Customisable characters noted for future titles however. We do have inventory systems in development. We want to go the full hog with these medieval fantasy themes at some point.

We are building up towards something larger, with our codebase art assets and inhouse development tools. Its actually building the custom tools thats helping us have more leeway and time in the design process. I recently wrote a system for detecting where all the valleys are and populating only those areas with pick-ups (Alien Eggs) Enemy spawners, enemy and NPC waypoints. (Pictured)

I'd really like to see us get into multiplayer. Are any of you guys using the GameCentre and Leaderboards features? Any feedback on your experiences there?

I appreciate your constructive criticism, because it is actually helpful. I'll take a sec to spar one or two of those points if I may:

What we find in this creative process is that all too frequently we end up with a really mixed color palette. That is to say an bunch of mismatched bright, over saturated colours, that look really bad together. It becomes quite a predictable visual mess. What we've done here is desaturate everything, except the effects and some elements of the GUI, to the point that most of the color is leeched out of it. So no its not pop-art, its not like an advertisment screaming for your attention, its been intentionally washed out as a design decision. A lot of games do it. Check out the earlier Medal of Honor games as an example. Messing with a games entire color palette is something I'd like to see us explore though. I've been thinking about a black and white game too.

I probably cannot stress enough how little processing/graphics overhead we have when developing games for mobile. I'll share a couple of shots of an NPC from the sequel. Very low polygon, gestural art. Imagine typing code with handcuffs on. Thats kinda what mobile development is like. In terms of the models, we have very little room to move. and while we say we are only supporting newer devices, in actual fact we want the older device owners to be pleasantly surprised too. Theres lots of guesswork in the mix, getting it just right. Its nightmareish in development when you hit the ceiling and the device starts crashing-finding the cause is not always easy.

These arent excuses- the team are all at various stages of getting to grips with the restrictions involved. These are 3d games running on telephones after all. Audio, textures, models, it all chews thru the device memory pretty quick. Did I just say its a dreadful platform to target? I hope that didn't slip out!

BUT, I did suggest to the team that we would look at bumping up the resolution of the aliens texture-I agree it looks pretty bad. I'm going to run some tests on that, and see if we can present better art than whats pictured, as I too am not overly pleased with how that character looks. When we do a 1.1 update, I'll be pushing for that to be looked at. Its depends how well it pans out in testing.

Yes I'm a bit unhappy with the font in the NPC communication screen. Is that specificly what you're referring to? Dont be surprised to see that fixed in the 1.1 release. What other comments would you make about the HUD? Total overhaul? Not sure on the Joystick textures myself. Open to feedback.

It doesnt matter so much whether its free or paid, if it looks bad then thats not really what we want to hear. The fact is as project lead I'm up to my ass in bug fixes and sorting out animation problems, so getting feedback from out here in the wild is really valuable. Thanks for that.

Its quite the journey in amongst it all backstage.

Cheers,
AaronC

 

Graphics should mean little to a real gamer. Heck look how crappy most ds 3d games look like those final fantasy remakes.

 

That kinds reminds me of when we had a PS1 at our flat and a friend was excited about bringing around GTA2. This was in the Vice-City era.
The graphics were really bad. I'm not so big on the old school aesthetic.

But yea we are open to crits, for sure.

AC

 

I gotta ask, is this game a sandbox game or is it linear? If it is a sandbox; what size are we looking at? Something small like crusade of destiny or large like aralon?

 

Sorry about the delay in reply. I havent played either of those, and if you get a chance to play our game I'd be keen to hear your comparison, and feed back on how well we got the balance. Its likely somewhere in the middle? Hence the top-down map view portals - When you reach certain zones, you get given a brief topdown view- this is an aid to help you locate any missed pick-ups. We dont want you getting frustrated running around for ages trying to find a pickup you missed so we made these zones to aid the game-play. I think the levels are too big to leave the searching to chance.

Aaron

 

One thing I like is branching skill trees and/or flexible character classes. The game Rimelands, instead of having a set class, let's you choose skills when you level up, and the combinations of these choices determines what your current title is (e.g. Assassin or Ranger).

 

It's a little hard to gather everything that this game is going to be about, but my personal control preferences with regard to these sort of games would be:

- Left stick, move/strafe
- Right stick, rotate, look up/down
- Attack buttons: Around the right stick, far enough away that you don't accidentally trigger them while turning or looking.

Now this is not always ideal, so a secondary preference is to keep the left stick as-is and use any area of the screen not occupied by a button to swipe in order to look/turn.

In either case I do not like accelerometer controls for games like this, as it's far too imprecise to make aiming practical or easy.

One feature I'd like to see is the ability to tap on an enemy to kind of lock on to them. Doing so would orient your view straight at them so you have an easier time fighting them, especially with distance weapons. I think Ravensword used this method, but it made battles easier when you didn't have to swipe around to get your bearings during the heat of battle.

 

Hi Mindfield, The control system you mentioned is pretty much exactly what we have, theres a strike button that triggers attack animations, and a sprint button to get you around the scene faster and away from predators. We did away with a jump behaviour in favor of having these two. The lock on idea is a good one although the actual combat of this game is fairly straight forward and quick rather than long and sustained fights. Whats probably not going to get noticed by a lot of players is that you can touch the NPC's and they will give you advice and information throughout the game, plus health top-ups. They express that lock-on behaviour with relevance to the player.

UPDATE: So what happened?
Well we hit a problem in catering for the Retina display and the time delay enabled us to implement a lot of the suggestions thought up here (although a warning in advance theres no inventory nor weapons upgrades in LC1 and LC2). We also tore apart the level structures of both games and made them look more similar. We had a problem where the LC2's levels were a lot shorter, so we re-ordered both games and gave the franchise more consistency. We've now resubmitted and LC1 should be available any day now. Its not WOW on a telephone, but its damn good bang for your $1 I reckon, and I'm pleased with how its come together.

One of the proposals I'll be tabling internally at TecStar games is to release a third and final title in this series: "Last Crusader 3-Immersive" Where we will add in an inventory and weapons upgrades, and will switch the gameplay to first person. I think that will change the feel of these quests a lot. We'll also introduce new enemies, develop the combat experience and in technical terms will reduce the draw distance or player view, and add in more immediate detail. Things like foliage and props, so it feels like a more up close immersive immediate experience. I also like the idea of chosing either a light or dark character journey path, and your weapons and abilities are altered based on that choice. Personally my favorite (Desktop) game of all time is Dark Messiah, so I'm quite heavily influenced by that in my inspiration. Basically build on everything you find in the first two installments.

We're currently in a phase of assessing what project will next take preference now, and although it wont immediately be LC Immersive, the success of "Last Crusader" and "Last Crusader2-The Lost Lands of Myre" will probably sway the production team to or fro on getting the final title out sooner, or alternatively, later.

So thanks for your interest everyone and HOPEFULLY the next post from us will be the producer Trevor announcing its public release! Then we'll look at promoting "Last Crusader2-The Lost Lands of Myre" and we'll start taking in feedback and suggestions-hopefully so we can close in on the trilogy soon! These titles are really helping us mature as a studio and we really value your support and input, so thanks and keep it up!

Cheers!
AaronC
Project Lead