Demon's Rise - Temple of Shadows

Hi guys,

While we're waiting for the November 10th launch date of Demon's Rise 2, I thought I'd show some early pics of what we've been working on lately. I've been working with a junior developer and she'll be helping me put together the next Demon's Rise adventure using my code base / game engine. This will allow me to focus on Strike Team, which is the sci-fi game launching next year. Demon's Rise - Temple of Shadows is a much smaller scale game as compared to Demon's Rise 1 or 2. However, it will feature a completely new story with completely new characters, enemies and environments. It will also feature some new elements such as weather effects and night / day battles.

The game will be a homage to classic D&D in style and will stick to a small, pre-built party featuring some of the more classic character classes. The setting is in the northern kingdom of Mercia, which is a early feudal / Saxon era setting. The Silver Elves will feature heavily in the storyline and the main enemies will be vampires.

DemonsRiseTempleOfShadows2 by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

The character classes will be:

- Huscarle: A heavily armoured warrior armed with a two-handed axe.
- Pathfinder: A lightly armoured elf armed with a bow.
- Winter Mage: A human mage focussed on ice magic.
- Wolf Cleric: A human cleric / priest with good armour and nature magic.
- Rogue: A stealth character with throwing knives.
- Berserker: A fighter class with high courage but low discipline.

New features will include:

- Dynamic weather (rain, lightning, etc.) that has an in-game effect.
- Multiple levels (fighting on stairs and elevated positions)
- Branching storyline with a decision points.

The story is much shorter than either Demon's Rise 1 or 2 but will have several points where players can choose to go one direction or another. This should allow for some solid replay. The story tries to stick closely to classic role-playing elements and involves players exploring a ruined temple structure in hopes of rescuing a wealthy noblewoman who has been abducted in a raid.

Similar to Demon's Rise 2, there will be levels with various missions such as survive X turns, escort a vulnerable character to an exit position, kill a specific enemy leader, etc.

Here are some more pictures. The work done by the developer is looking very promising. We're using a new tool that allows us to make custom characters so the factions will look much more cohesive and less generic. Here is a picture of Silver Elf noble (NPC) and Wolf Cleric character:

DemonsRiseTempleOfShadows3 by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

The style is very realistic, low fantasy so no scantily clad ladies with huge knockers, no dudes running around in armour with huge shoulder pads and so on. Imagine a fantasy version of 11th century Europe and you'll have a good idea of what to expect.

Here you can see the Huscarle, Winter Mage, Elf Pathfinder, Wolf Cleric and two Silver Elves against an ogre. This level is a night fight during a thunderstorm so there is lightning and rain that makes the ground muddy.

DemonsRiseTempleOfShadows1 by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

DemonsRiseTempleOfShadows4 by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

The game will probably be free with ads and an in-app purchase to remove ads. Due to its much smaller scale, I'm hoping to launch in Q1 of 2017.

 

Thanks guys ... appreciate the feedback. Here's a picture of the Ulfednar ... which is a mythological Norse berserker. The idea is that they channel the spirit of wolves and therefore have lupine powers. He'll have various berserker style moves and the ability to turn into a werewolf.

ulfednar by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

 

I would really like to but I have a lot to learn on that front. I think the big thing would be to convert my code to use a gamepad control. How does XCOM do that? Does the analog sticks control a mouse pointer on the screen?

 

Thanks. One of the earliest choices will be whether to join a battle between the Silver Elves and humans on one or the other side. Therefore, you could attack the elves and then in subsequent levels, you'll have allies from the humans on your side ... or you could side with the elves.

Silver Elves in the world of Demon's Rise aren't really tree huggers though.

 

Here's a picture of the human faction ... tentatively called Nordhelm. Their warriors are a mix of Saxon / Viking / Early medieval and wear a forest green colour as their primary heraldric colour.

Nordhelm Warriors by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

Have done some work on the vampires and will show them next.

 

In that particular faction? There will be both male and female characters. However, those are an NPC faction so not actual player characters.

From the 6 player character classes, I could have both male and female versions of each without too much trouble. However, it would increase the size of the game download and I'm trying to keep the download size as small as possible for this one. I'll see if it makes sense or not.

 

Thanks for the feedback. He does actually have a beard and a Viking style braid. It's just that the angle doesn't show it. Ideally, I'd like to add some fur on his armour.

 

I tweaked the beard to make it more visible and added a fur shoulder cloak. Here's a shot from my 3D modelling program:

ulfednar close up by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

 

Thanks. I decided to redo the cleric class and make him more of a traditional priest / cleric as opposed to a nature-themed cleric. Trying to decide if she will use a shield / mace like a traditional D&D cleric or perhaps a spear and shield to make her a more defensive / distance fighter. Will post pics and get your collective feedback to decide.