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Abyss Odyssey Reveal Trailer (ACE Team, Zeno Clash; not an Oddworld game)

M

Messofanego

Banned
Get the first look of ACE Team's latest original IP: Abyss Odyssey. This trailer is the first of a series of videos where we will progressively unveil the features that make this title a unique game. Also, get a sneak peek into the offices of our indie studio located at Chile.
Click to expand...
Trailer
Youtube
Abyss Odyssey Website

First time I've seen the Bordeu bros. This is ACE Team's 4th game (prev.: Zeno Clash 2, Rock of Ages, Zeno Clash).

It's a 2D brawler (enemies are a roster of fighters with complex AI) platformer with randomly generated levels. When you defeat enemies, you can play as them and they have a diverse moveset (combos, block, parry, variable air attacks, cancels). I think it looks promising. Love their art and character designs, some of it looks like stop motion in the trailer.

Zeno Clash 2 was my 2nd favourite game of 2013, which I still can't believe was made by just 8 people. They're quickly becoming one of my favourite developers.

1743581_730880340268964_422571630_n.jpg

7jveX.jpg

7jvlM.jpg
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Funily enough I THOUGHt the title was 'Abe's Odyssey' =P
Looking forward to this and I am interested based on the images alone.
 
N

NinjamicWZ

Banned
Tizoc said:
Funily enough I THOUGHt the title was 'Abe's Odyssey' =P
Click to expand...

Me too lol

The art style gives me Valley Without Wind feel... if Valley was more cohesive and wasn't hopped up on goofballs/out of it's mind on too much acid.

Character weighting and movement seems a bit on the heavy and slow side (close to Trine maybe?) but that could just be because I've been looking at Strider Returns and Dust: An Elysian Tail again for the last couple of weeks. The methodical combat and AI sounds like a nice change of pace, though. So does capturing souls like Aria of Sorrow and being able to play as everything you fight... that's giving me flashbacks to playing as a villager in Guardian Heroes vs mode.

This looks like my kinda game, for sure.
 
F

FloatOn

Member
This looks really great. I wish ACE team would return to Rock of Ages one day but I'll take something fresh as well.
 
FrostuTheNinja

FrostuTheNinja

Member
ACE Team, I will follow you to the ends of the earth. Combat looks like it's engaging, deep and most importantly, intimate. Can't wait to try it out.
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
RPS did an interview

It's all worth reading. Will have local and online co-op, would love to have a competitive fighting game in a later post-release update. I'm glad they're heavily playing up the fighting game aspect, to make it stand out amongst the crowd. They're asked how hand-crafted art design works against more repetitive procedural generation, and how those kind of games get away with it. Inspired by Art Nouveau like Harry Clarke. How story can work in such a game. Set in Chile, which someone here pointed above, and takes from Chilean folklore. Backing away from calling it a roguelike.
Bordeu: The variety is not only about the levels themselves. A really big part of the variety comes from the enemies and elements within the Abyss itself. In terms of how many enemies we have, and how complex they are, I think this game beats Zeno Clash. Having been one of the two animators to work on all the hundreds of moves for the creatures I can say without a doubt that this has been our most intensive work to date with regards to combat design.
Click to expand...

Zeno Clash was a more story-focused adventure with melee combat, but I think most people played it to see the art design rather than master the combat mechanics. Abyss has a very strong emphasis on other aspects, and combat is a key element of the game. The game is easy to play, but the depth of the combat mechanics goes way beyond traditional 2D action titles and more into the realm of fighting games.
Click to expand...

Currently we have a sort of global AI variable which we can raise or decrease to make the AI more aggressive, and when pushing it way up I’ve seen just a couple of basic enemies destroy a capable player. That’s how powerful our combat engine allows our regular NPCs to be. This is something unique to the game because you can’t really imagine two basic skeleton enemies beating the player in a Castlevania-like game. In Abyss Odyssey they can.
Click to expand...

Gotta Inhabit Em All!
RPS: You can turn into various enemies you encounter. How does that system work? Can I level up creature forms and stuff?

Bordeu: The player starts off with a base skill level and he can capture enemies that are of his skill level, or lower. As you progress and raise your own level, you will be able to get better monsters. The real leveling up for the monsters is getting better ones, as you can swap between them while you are progressing, so it wouldn’t make all that much sense to level up a monster if maybe soon I’ll capture a better one. Basically, you’re shifting into new characters, so you’re keeping your level/stats.
Click to expand...

Zeno Clash 2 was on par with AAA titles, imo shamed many of them in terms of variety
I don’t want it to feel as a complaint, but the truth is we got almost no credit from the press for making a game of the scale of Zeno Clash 2 – something that was easily of the scale of some smaller AAA titles and selling for a third of the price. All this considering our indie nature of course. What simply happened was that people said “Oh, they are a big studio now… they have money” …but that was far from the reality.

I think with Abyss we can focus on making a more polished and smaller game and have more time to iterate on it rather than making something so huge like our previous title. And if that reason isn’t good enough; not getting murdered by our wives for taking so much work home might be another thing to take into consideration.

RPS: Hurrah for not getting murdered! Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...

New screenshots (bigger on facebook):
abyss3.jpg

abyss5.jpg

abyss4.jpg
 
A

Ashtar

Member
This actually looks really dope, one of the things I loved most about Halo:CE was how tough those elites were and how on the higher setting you got to see those AI routines or whatever. Seeing this makes me want to go grab zeno clash 2.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
It has this weird look in the art that kind of reminds me of old games that used pre-rendered CG for sprites. Kinda dig. ACE has done a lot of fresh stuff with their games, even though they haven't been acknowledged much, outside of getting that first bit of hype before Zeno Clash was released.
 
M

Miker

Member
From what I can tell, this is a Western, weirder, expanded version version of the combat from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow or Order of Ecclesia? And randomly generated levels means it'll likely have the same quality level design as Igavanias, too!

I love Igavanias, so sign me up
 
B

bidguy

Banned
Messofanego said:
RPS did an interview

It's all worth reading. Will have local and online co-op, would love to have a competitive fighting game in a later post-release update. I'm glad they're heavily playing up the fighting game aspect, to make it stand out amongst the crowd. They're asked how hand-crafted art design works against more repetitive procedural generation, and how those kind of games get away with it. Inspired by Art Nouveau like Harry Clarke. How story can work in such a game. Set in Chile, which someone here pointed above, and takes from Chilean folklore. Backing away from calling it a roguelike.






Gotta Inhabit Em All!


Zeno Clash 2 was on par with AAA titles, imo shamed many of them in terms of variety


New screenshots (bigger on facebook):
abyss3.jpg

abyss5.jpg

abyss4.jpg
Click to expand...

looks cool but why did they call it that way ? i think its confusing.

also minotaurs weird me out you arent playing as in this game one are you ?
 
S

SAB CA

Sketchbook Picasso
I love their way of thinking here: Making the enemies playable character-level deep... and thus, making them all playable too! Exactly one of the reason I love Guardian Heroes.

I feel pretty sad to miss out on Zeno Clash 2 on XBLA, still fully beating the first (Have beat the 2P sections, though, hehe.) Hope it comes to XB1, but just glad to see such a product is coming out, period, this early on.

Should be really great to see how this all works out.
 
R

robotzombie

Member
I keep seeing this title and thinking it says "Albert Odyssey" and get really sad realizing it isn't an announcement of a new Albert Odyssey
 
S

SatelliteOfLove

Member
SAB CA said:
I love their way of thinking here: Making the enemies playable character-level deep... and thus, making them all playable too! Exactly one of the reason I love Guardian Heroes.

I feel pretty sad to miss out on Zeno Clash 2 on XBLA, still fully beating the first (Have beat the 2P sections, though, hehe.) Hope it comes to XB1, but just glad to see such a product is coming out, period, this early on.

Should be really great to see how this all works out.
Click to expand...

That and Tobal no2. Sounds so neat.
 
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