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Lab Zero (Skullgirls) announce Indivisible "Metroidvania w/ Valkyrie Profile combat"
- Thread starter HadesGigas
- Start date
They didn't "decide" to appeal to creepers, they have staff members (both women and men) who spend all day drawing sexy people of both genders in their free time. From my view, they just were expressing what was inside them.
For examples, one of my favorite artists, Mariel Cartwright aka Kinuko, was a central animator for the team (and still is, last time I checked) and if you check out her sweet art at her tumblr here: http://kinucakes.tumblr.com/
You'll see that it's clearly their passion to draw stylized, and sometimes sexy, characters.
8 X 11 Printer Paper
Member
You don't know how many wet dreams gamers (Of all genders) have had of Beowulf.
Skullgirls actually has a ton of female fans, too.
I don't know the actual breakdown, but at Anime Expo and other "general admission" events, most of the fans I talk to are women.
8 X 11 Printer Paper
Member
Oh yeah Ravidrath, you guys still aiming for a September campaign, or are you pushing it back to October/November?
NipplesAndToes23
Member
I'd be so down for that.
First, a bit about our process...
With Skullgirls, we had three layers for every frame: line, shading, color.
Autumn put together this awesome little mini-documentary about our process for Skullgirls, which illustrates it pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VkDXBsIXso
With Indivisible, we have four: line, shading, color, and "dye," which colors the lines.
All the files are put into the game and then called via gameplay script.
Since we're using the Skullgirls engine, everything is designed and implemented and timed frame-by-frame.
Still aiming for September, but... might slip a week.
It's a big campaign with a lot of moving parts - for example, we're localizing it into French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese and Russian.
And we also have to set up distribution for the prototype.
We have a date for the Indiegogo campaign: October 5th!
More info here:
http://indivisiblegame.com/blog/indivisible-indiegogo-campaign-launching-october-5th/
More info here:
http://indivisiblegame.com/blog/indivisible-indiegogo-campaign-launching-october-5th/
So many campaigns, ongoing and upcoming. My wallet is in pain.
Master Milk
Member
Time to set aside a lot of dollars.
We won't.
The Bloodstained social thing was interesting, but since it mostly unlocked more stretch goals, I felt it was a fruitless collective effort.
It also requires way more staff than we're going to have to run this thing.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
I'd prefer no stretch goals. I'd rather they just make the game as they originally intended.. if they get more money.. they should add more after the fact as money dictates.
I think stretch goals are one of the reasons I think projects get delayed so much. Because if you add stretch goals that add more to the game, then you need to also extend the estimated delivery time of the game.
Actually...!
If we get to them, we're going to have two kinds of stretch goals - "make the launch game better" ones, and "extend the game through post-release updates" ones.
The goal is to make the game a better and more desireable product with the former, but without greatly blowing out the scope of the core game, adding another year to development, etc. None of these are things like "more levels" - we know what we want the core game to be like and we're not going to shoehorn stuff into it.
The base budget is for our complete vision, but these sorts of goals would include things like more music, more voice acting, animated opening, etc. Virtually all of these are things that will improve the overall product, but the bulk of the work is not done by Lab Zero's staff.
The gameplay-expanding stretch goals, on the other hand, are intended to be released as a post-release update(s), ala how Shovel Knight is handling things. These would be things like multiple endings, super hard bonus dungeon, etc. - stuff to make you want to revisit and replay the core game and then try this new stuff.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Is Hiroki Kikuta doing the whole soundtrack?
I mean the point of the social gaming for that KS was to get people to talk about the game and for backers and potential backers to basically advertise the KS for them. Considering the reaction that followed both in terms of community engagement (hell a fan forum sprang up just around that game that eventually was absorbed and became the official forum). money collected and general goodwill, I'd say it was a huge success. However, I don't think its something that can work for every KS and I do imagine it would require a prohibitively large number of staff to manage.
I'm liking the sound of this. All of this. Weirdly enough hearing about an "animated opening" makes me hype but that might be some small weeb part of me speaking. I do hope you mean traditionally animated and not CGI animated though.
PS4, Xbox One, Windows / Mac / Linux.
The Mac and Linux ports of Skullgirls are done now, so we have those platforms handled. So no need to rely on volunteers, etc. again.
The Mac and Linux versions of the prototype may not be out at the same time as the Windows one, though, just because at the moment we're reliant on others to do Mac and Linux builds.
Okay. So with the okay with peter, here is a small review of my experience this weekend. I'll answer any questions I'm able to (with the okay from peter of course).
I'm gonna try to talk in detail but not about the content of the prototype because it will be out soon and I don't want to spoil anyone's experience.
The game is an RPG with 2d platforming in between. The movement felt great. Gave a little feedback on movement but nothing big because it already feels really really solid. You can do an attack while platforming, which doesn't have any lag and is super responsive. This comes in handy because you will see enemies on the map and can hit them before combat starts to get a first attack.
There are some great movement options aside from just running and jumping. It feels really solid. I keep saying it but from the start the game just feels so damn responsive. Not really slow like some rpg's feel. Which brings me to the actual combat.
In battle your party members are set to each of the face buttons, in combat each character has an active time battle guage that will allow the character to attack when it is full. Characters can also have multiple stocks of attacks so you can have the main character Anja attack multiple times in a row. Kinda like smash, a character action + direction will have different moves.
Anja's up+attack is a raising jump kick that can launch enemies. Down + attack is a crouching jab. Different attacks have different properties, hitting multiple people or doing a lot of damage at once.
Another aspect of combat is the super meter, of course attacks you do build meter. And when you have meter it gives you access to two additional things, each character has a super move that will take all of the meter saved up (up to a current max of 3). More meter = better super.
Super meter is also used to drain meter, pressing the characters action button when an enemy attacks let's you guard. As you guard your meter will drain.
Battles were super fun to play. Having multiple characters with multiple stocks of actions doing all sorts of crazy stuff, you get the hang of it pretty quickly, this attack hits multiple people, this one hits single target, but does more damage.
Won't go into much more but the game felt super solid and its just going to get better.
Outside of seeing the studio, talking character design and just bouncing ideas off each other was a dream come true. Thanks to everyone at lab zero for having me through there! Everyone was great and ooooohh man the stuff I saw!
Im seriously telling everyone about this game and getting the word out there.
I'm gonna try to talk in detail but not about the content of the prototype because it will be out soon and I don't want to spoil anyone's experience.
The game is an RPG with 2d platforming in between. The movement felt great. Gave a little feedback on movement but nothing big because it already feels really really solid. You can do an attack while platforming, which doesn't have any lag and is super responsive. This comes in handy because you will see enemies on the map and can hit them before combat starts to get a first attack.
There are some great movement options aside from just running and jumping. It feels really solid. I keep saying it but from the start the game just feels so damn responsive. Not really slow like some rpg's feel. Which brings me to the actual combat.
In battle your party members are set to each of the face buttons, in combat each character has an active time battle guage that will allow the character to attack when it is full. Characters can also have multiple stocks of attacks so you can have the main character Anja attack multiple times in a row. Kinda like smash, a character action + direction will have different moves.
Anja's up+attack is a raising jump kick that can launch enemies. Down + attack is a crouching jab. Different attacks have different properties, hitting multiple people or doing a lot of damage at once.
Another aspect of combat is the super meter, of course attacks you do build meter. And when you have meter it gives you access to two additional things, each character has a super move that will take all of the meter saved up (up to a current max of 3). More meter = better super.
Super meter is also used to drain meter, pressing the characters action button when an enemy attacks let's you guard. As you guard your meter will drain.
Battles were super fun to play. Having multiple characters with multiple stocks of actions doing all sorts of crazy stuff, you get the hang of it pretty quickly, this attack hits multiple people, this one hits single target, but does more damage.
Won't go into much more but the game felt super solid and its just going to get better.
Outside of seeing the studio, talking character design and just bouncing ideas off each other was a dream come true. Thanks to everyone at lab zero for having me through there! Everyone was great and ooooohh man the stuff I saw!
Im seriously telling everyone about this game and getting the word out there.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Is Hiroki Kikuta doing the whole soundtrack?
That's the plan.
It's possible we could do what we did with Skullgirls and have someone else handle more cinematic / mood music, and have Kikuta focus on level and battle themes, etc. But the current plan is for Kikuta to do everything, and he's aware of that.
No plans for that, sorry.
I think what we're offering is pretty substantial for a $30 game, and unlike just about every other crowdfunding campaign, you actually get to play it beforehand.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Awesome, he's one of my favorite composers and it's so rare to hear his music nowadays. Dem Secret of Mana feels.
Looking forward to this game.
Yay! Do you guys have an idea of how much music will be in the game or is that still being figured out?
That's one of the reasons we sought him out - he's one of our favorites, and he's been surprisingly absent for a while.
He's been contributing a track here and there to things, but it was time for him to get another full RPG OST under his belt.
He also has the kind of ethnic and tonal range that a diverse game like Indivisible needs. The SoM track "Ceremony" is pretty heavily influenced by gamelan, which is a SE Asian musical style, and you can definitely hear that in the tracks we've previewed on videos.
Initial budget is enough for 60 minutes with some wiggle room. The first stretch goal will likely be for more, though.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Wall to wall Kikuta Goodness!
Ah, that's a shame. Understandable, though. Can't wait to play it at release!
Thanks for answering.
Even an hour of Kikuta would be awesome but it's nice to know that there's the possibility for more! I'll definitely be backing.NipplesAndToes23
Member
Thanks for the write-up and it furthers my excitement for the game.
Unarmed attack animation?Ravidrath said:
AdaWong
Junior Member
Is keeping the framerate consistent the hardest part of porting a game to different platform? (And is that what's taking Skullgirls Vita so long?) i was reading that Shovel Knight / Broken Age article and the writer mentioned how developers should almost always port their games to anything they can as it helps significantlly, but I dunno. What's your take on it?
Regardless, super excited for the campaign.
Regardless, super excited for the campaign.
Any plans for guest composers for extra tracks? Yoshitaka Hirota is also a great composer who would fit the sort of range this game seems to be going for, especially with the pseudo-horror elements. He hasn't had any interesting RPG work in a while either!
New cleaned attack animation! Zebei's up attack!
No plans to use other composers now, but it's possible if we need more music and Kikuta is full up.
Any plans for guest composers for extra tracks? Yoshitaka Hirota is also a great composer who would fit the sort of range this game seems to be going for, especially with the pseudo-horror elements. He hasn't had any interesting RPG work in a while either!
No plans to use other composers now, but it's possible if we need more music and Kikuta is full up.
Professor Renegade
Banned
Man I fucking love Skullgirls, but I didn't have the chance to back it. Gonna back the fuck out of this game tho.
DICKS AHOY
Banned
Knowing how many game references Steven Universe has I could see them sneaking in a Skullgirls or Indivisible reference in the background at some point.
8 X 11 Printer Paper
Member
Steven will retake his role of Tiger Millionaire to take down Beowulf.
Dimitri LH
Member
....I would start watching the show if that were to happen.
The alpha is public, but Skullgirls backers get it a little earlier than others.