Viking Action-RPG concept / For Kickstarter - Collaboration!

[sprouty]

Hello everyone, I am working on the visual concepts and the 3D assets for a video game set in the world of ancient Norse mythology.
I am putting the idea out here, and inviting any community members who might be interested in the concept to be part of the ongoing project.
At this point the idea is just for fun, but I'd like to present it farther along as a Kickstarter project and see the level of interest that might be out there for developing it into a more fully-realized game.
We are going for stylized authenticity, so to speak. Working from authentic viking-age artwork/relics and stories. Mixing historic elements with our own fantasized additions to the world of Viking myths.

Some details on the game concept thus far:
- Characters will be unique, players can create and customize their own unique viking character with a variety of options.
- Different skill-classes. Players can unlock different abilities with points in a tree. Characters can focus in a single skill class, or put points into multiple classes.
Ideas?: Freeman, Huscarl, Berserker, Völva
- Different combat/gear focuses that contain level-able proficiencies and bonuses to different types of weapons and armor.
Weapons- Axes (2-handed, 1-handed), Swords, Spears, Shields, Hammers, Staffs.
- Spells - Shouts, attacks, blessings, wards, sorcery. Magic involving the power of the Runes.

-Starting in the realm of Midgard..
- Beautiful vistas- caves, waterfalls, gnarled trees, mossy rocks, and wildlife like bears, birds, and wolves.
-The monsters and beings of Norse myth - Jotunn, Álfar, Dvergar, Varg, Draugar, Einherjar, and Valkyries.
-The gods of Norse myth may play key roles within the story, but I'm thinking they'd be more of a "backdrop"and elusive presence at first. In an expanded storyline, the characters might commune directly with the gods, or seek them out and explore their respective realms.

Technical:
- Normal mapped assets.
- PC platform+ - using Unreal or a more indie-geared engine such as Unity3d.

I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on the idea at this point! (And I might be in the wrong category here.. please feel free to move this thread)
Thanks and cheers,
Leif

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I have been trying to create a collection of as many pictures movies, etc of authentic Viking-age armor, clothing, weapons, runestones, carvings, ships, architecture, jewelry etc as possible, to aid as reference and inspiration for the concepts for the game. Feel free to post any concepts, story/game ideas/suggestions, and reference images in this thread.

What do you think? I can post more and more of the concepts/art and references thus far.

[Hitsu//San]

Action Rpg games are for multimilion dollar companies (because this kind of game is usually story driven and to develop a good story today you have to spend a lot of money in a lot of stuff), look what happened to Reckoning. Your goals are too high bud, the kind of highness that's materially impossible to achieve without lots of cash and experience.

[TedtheHermit]

I don't think I know what you completely mean by having a lot of money to develop a good story. There are a lot of indie developers that can create great stories and most authors create books by themselves. It really depends on his experience with creating games. If it's his first game, then yes, this might be over his head. Something like this is not impossible though. Take a look at a game called Path of Exile developed by Grinding Gear Games which is a relatively small group of people that is creating a diablo inspired free-to-play game. Though it has been in development since 2006 it is an MMO. Just don't be so quick to discourage people from creating games especially since if you don't know his experience. It also does seem like we are in growing indie development movement.

[Hitsu//San]

I mean that to develop a story driven game like an action rpg you have to take in account that the biggest part of the fun in your game will be animations, system complexity, story acting and awesome graphics and design. Those aspects in a game are the most money draining ones because you're going to need a team of expert professionals in order to achieve a certain level of quality. The Path of Exile case is of course an exception and i have to say that they are not doing anything new (i tried the game), a part from this they are doing a good job but do you really think that being indie is a synonym of being amateur?

I didn't mean to discourage anyone but i have to admit that i rarely see someone with those kind of ideas having his feet on the ground and succeed on their intention. Early this week a friend of mine called me saying that he had an idea of producing a mobile game and that the game will be awesome and that he wanted me to do the art and all those stuff... well i said to him to write down how the game will work, what kind of people he does have to hire in order to achieve all the ideas he ad about that game and how much time he will think that the project had to last (no one do this kind of stuff, only professionals), and then to call me back when he had all those kind of information to discuss about my ratings on this kind of project. Well i've got no calls from him till now, i can bet my cintiq that the next time i'll hear about him this project is long gone and forgotten ^^.

To end this little ot i suggest to have a look to what are the most successful indie games from the last 3 years and the ambitions that those game had.

[sprouty]

Hey guys, thanks for all the perspective and feedback. Path of Exile looks really nice. Also, I did some research into the recent happenings with Reckoning and 38 Studios. Fascinating.. In their case I think they "failed" mainly because of their business model and all the time and money spent on trying to make a big MMO right away. Reckoning was pretty successful sales-wise, they had just spent so much before that point. I don't want to spend any money at all yet, just want to create art content and experiment.

In regard to these viking ideas, It's more of a "game concept" at this point than a project for an actual game.. something I just find fun, and so I put it out there to see if others here might too. I've been hugely inspired by Norse mythology and relics/artwork lately. I understand (to some degree) the amount of work and potential money that might go into a serious endeavor for a full game. I do want to play more with the high-tech engines though.. a bunch of them are are completely free to use if you're not selling anything. Another inspiring indie example for me is Mount & Blade, which from what I heard was just a husband and wife coder/artist team in the early days, and is still one of my most favorite games I've ever played.

[sprouty]

A quick idea for the face of a character in Norse mythology.. can anyone guess who this is supposed to be? (Referenced from an actual ancient Norse stone carving)

[sprouty]

A quick sketch of environmental possibilities/scale

[sprouty]

Swords

[Spellsword95]

I'd like to participate on this project somehow. I am keen on Norse mythology, paganism and everything related to it.
Yeah, I am interested. But I won't be a big help, though, I am pretty lazy and can't communicate with "possible co-workers" well.

[Vak]

You're talking about generating a new world here. This means you will require much more resources than what you seem to be considering. The biggest one off the top of my head for you is props. Think of chairs, tables and all the other things that exist in a single room of a medieval tavern. All of those need to be designed and modelled, unless you buy some sort of ready-made prop package from the internet- but that will make your game look generic, which usually also equals boring. And this is just one tavern in one city! Think of all the things you will actually need to build in order to make a game of the scale you suggest.

That said it is not like I don't understand you- Me and 3 friends of mine were like that too, we went ahead and worked for 1 year to create an IOS game called acheron prime but the result was, well, let's say its not really as glorious as it was in our heads. The reasons for this? Resources! Not only in the monetary sense but also in the the skills and time to devote to the project. If you're just starting, with a small group of people that are in love with making a game, I would recommend starting small. Maybe a 2d RPG game first, or even a text-based RPG, like those old MuD/MUSH games, or a basic 3d game based on a small village to start with.

Trust me, everyone involved will learn a lot about how to make games interesting. Your coders will learn from their mistakes, your graphic designers will realize that the user interface can be better than what they made, and many more issues that you are better off dealing with in a small game than in a project that you are really committing to.

That said, if you are zealous about starting with a big project like that, either because smaller projects seem boring to you or your team, or because you are confident that you can make it work (like we were), then I would recommend to you to start your game small. Instead of planning an entire world like you seem to have, start with a single town, a single area of bad guys, and a couple of quests. Then keep it open for expansion, if it turns out to your liking..

That's my two cents. Cheers!

[sprouty]

Thanks Vak - I think you're exactly right. Starting small is the way to go. Environment-wise, I'm thinking a small area in Midgard.. rocks, trees, cave elements and a few dwellings to start. I appreciate your insights here very much. Cheers!

Spellsword..Awesome! I checked out your sketchbook, love your stuff. In the fantasy themes, I love the dragon, giant walking about, and your Thor.. and how you made his hammer glowing white with power.

I'll post more soon.

[Spellsword95]

Thanks, I'll post some viking-themed designs soon or later in my SB.
I think you should think about 2D or maybe isometric game - hand-drawn characters, mattepaintings as backgrounds with high quality animations and kickass additional effects. It should be better than common 3D on free indie engine.

[sprouty]

Awesome. This is definitely open to people's thoughts, but my personal take is that a fully 3D third(/first) person game would be most fun to do and allow more cool things. The key reason being.. the sky! Isometric top-down games don't have skies. (a 2D side scroller would.. that'd be a pretty different sort of game, and could potentially be very cool too). I imagine some possibilities for interesting skies

[Vak]

You can have a sky on a topdown game, you just need to be a little smart about it, like you can have floating islands which is the easy way out, or you can mirror the sky in like pools of water on the ground and stuff :p

[Nowio]

okay, seems to be dead project

[Spellsword95]

Nowio: Nah, maybe someone will push this idea further. Personally I like this project and I'd like to see how far will it go.

[sprouty]

[sprouty]

Some helmet style ideas - from relic photo reference and more simplified ancient figure carvings. There was apparently a lot of diversity in the helms in the viking age. From what I've found researching so far, there were only a few ancient viking helms found mostly intact. Ship burials contained various items of kings & queens. There are also other carvings of warriors with a range of unique shaped helms. The average viking warrior supposedly wore leather armors with a leather helm. Chain mail and iron helmets were more sophisticated - and prized by the more heroic or wealthy warriors, nobles, and kings. The Boar helmet is thought to represent the god Freyr - the god of kingship, prosper fertility, good weather. He had Gullinbursti -a magical boar with a glowing mane that he could ride through dark places.

[sprouty]

Wolf/varg

[sprouty]

Gálgviðr
(guy on horse for scale)

[sprouty]

You can have a sky on a topdown game, you just need to be a little smart about it, like you can have floating islands which is the easy way out, or you can mirror the sky in like pools of water on the ground and stuff :p

I love the floating islands and reflective pools of water ideas (for any game type). Floating islands would be perfect for some of the astral world regions. I could imagine an isometric game, along the lines of the Diablo series, Sacred, Titan Quest, etc. being really cool too. I think there are certain things that lend themselves better to full 3D in the case of Norse mythology, because some of the characters and locations in the lore are VERY big.. in framed isometric setting you'd probably only be able to visually see the very base of them, or their feet. With an interactive 3D camera one could look up at things towering over them, and also down at the ground, other points of interest, or to zoom in close to check out the details on their character.

[CrowSkullfield]

Im currently writing a story that incorporates many aspects of many mythologies (including Norse) and ideas of my own. I hope to one day be a game designer and transcribe my story into a vast video game world, but i to know that its better to start off small or atleast with different things, so if you'll let me id like to help in anyway i can. Im good with creating stories, concepts, and sketches especially if you give me base ideas to work off of. Im also pretty decent at drawing in general so i can help with making ideas into visual concepts, need to work on my landscapes though.