default header

Development

Cult Engine 3 (internal codename: TaleSpire)

Moderator: JC Denton

Cult Engine 3 (internal codename: TaleSpire)

Unread postby icycalm » 26 Aug 2020 07:46

Image

https://store.steampowered.com/app/720620/TaleSpire/

I am putting this in the D&D Battlegrounds forum because it's a Fantasy Grounds competitor, but taking the visual aspect to a whole new level that competes with and rivals even some full-blown videogames.

Image

It includes powerful 3D map-building tools. Note that Fantasy Grounds and the like only do 2D maps. Here you're essentially designing an entire world, building by building, not just a map of a world.

Image

The end result is that you're playing in stunning environments like this, that rival even videogames:

Image

Of course as GM you can manage events, music, and even cutscenes.

Bouncyrock Entertainment wrote:Want to destroy a wall to reveal a secret passage? Do it! Want to rain down piles of gold from the heavens? Sure! At any moment the GM (or multiple GMs) can jump into building mode and change the world without interrupting anything else.


Love how they even mention "multiple GMs". These guys are ambitious af and they know what's up.

More info on the official site and the successful Kickstarter page.

https://talespire.com/

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bo ... /talespire

And, whatever you do, don't miss their Kickstarter trailer. It's mind-blowing stuff. You can turn the incredible D&D adventures into full-blown videogames with this and won't need Larian's pathetically small worlds, stupid plots and crappy dialogues any more.

Kickstarter Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkwX3G_WRF8

If you run an image search you can find ridiculous things that people have already built with the engine.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

And these are BEFORE the thing has gone on sale in Early Access. If they some day start turning out official conversions of D&D adventures, I swear I'll die from happiness.

Some bits of interesting information I collated from their giant FAQ page: https://talespire.com/faq

Bouncyrock Entertainment wrote:Q: Can we share things we made in the game, like houses and stuff?
A: YES. Simply select and copy some tiles and then you can paste it into discord or other text sharing service. Other people can then copy the text and paste it into the game and they get the same slab! One of our community is also making a site for this and we will possibly do something there too if it make sense for the players.

Q: How will modding work?
A: Adding tiles and minis to the game will be easy if you know how to model them. We will be providing TaleWeaver, which is how we get content into the game. TaleWeaver is a Unity project (that works with the free version of Unity) which takes models, audio, etc and packages it up in the way TaleSpire expects. Tiles will also be able to have scripts attached to them to give them behavior.

Q: I know this is pretty far in the future, but what is your perspective on VR/AR in TaleSpire?
A: It would be amazing right? An AR system that really leaned into the in room experience would be the best.

Q: Once it ships, have you considered other themes? SciFi, Cyberpunk, <awesome existing game IPs here>
A: Totally. Making cyberpunk, modern and other kinds of sets would be amazing but we will need to have a solid foundation first so it's not going to be before the Early Access begins.

We did hit our stretch-goal for Cyberpunk, so that will start rolling out sometime during Early-Access.

Q: This looks like too much work
A: GMs do indeed put in a lot of work to make the adventures. Regarding things specific to TaleSpire:

  • Building gets much faster once there are a good selection of premade slabs to use in the game. In future searching 'tavern' from the game will get you many prebuilt buildings so you would only need to focus on the details (if you wanted to).

  • Just like playing at a table there is nothing to mandate you have to make everything. Maybe you keep 90% in the theater of the mind and only break out TaleSpire for more geometrically complicated scenarios. Or maybe just for battles! We won't be forcing you.

All that said we are already seeing good evidence that the building time is not going to be a big issue for those who don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of that. Watch this space :)


The cyberpunk assets look pretty cool. The possibilities with this stuff are endless.

Cyberpunk Pledge Goal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdjUXGi9fIs

Image

Another great feature I love is that you will be able to communicate with the GM and other players entirely via in-game text chat, so that it will feel exactly like you're immersed in a videogame to you. I will be able to copy-paste description text in the chat, and you won't be able to tell the difference between stuff I improvised and the written adventure. And all the while I am changing the soundtrack seamlessly for you and modulating the weather effects. It's freaking incredible.

Steam Early Access is TBA 2020.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 27 Aug 2020 08:03

Looking at the content packs these guys have been releasing, I just realized something incredible. Check this out: https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/ ... 8905519382

Bouncyrock Entertainment wrote:Beta Asset Patch 04: "Rural Farm"
BUILD-ID: 5342105 - Download Size: 171.5 MB

Image

It has been a while! Time for another content patch.

This patch focuses on the farm. Follow the signs and take your adventure out into the countryside. Build yourself a humble abode, dig a well, and raise your favorite livestock. Live the simple life! Just make sure you're armed, in case the two-headed hunter tries to claim your property as their own.

Content:

  • Tiles: Thatched Roof
  • Tiles: Square Logged Rural Tiles
  • Tiles: Wooden stairs
  • Animal: Cow (Brown)
  • Animal: Rooster
  • Animal: Chicken
  • Animal: Pig
  • Animal: Goat
  • Creature: Ettin
  • Props: Signs
  • Props: Well
  • Props: Wheat Bunch
  • Sound: Farm (Day) Ambient

This build also contains some settings for units. This will make a lot more sense once the Ruler system drops.

Hope you enjoy your stay in the countryside.


The above update sounds EXACTLY like a survival-builder update to me. New toys to play with, basically.

And that's when it hit me that, if TaleSpire works so similarly to a survival-builder, you should be able to use it to turn D&D into a survival-builder lol. What I mean by this is that you can play your normal inter-setting campaign via Fantasy Grounds, exactly as I outlined it in my D&D Battlegrounds site, but with the players attempting to build a keep and then a full castle and even a town between scenarios as the campaign advances, with the building happening in TaleSpire. The players pick the location in the world, and based on that location the DM sets up some empty tiles for them in the appropriate biome in TaleSpire. Then provided the players have the funds/means, the DM gives them some materials, and they start building their fort/keep/whatever in the land they have (presumably) purchased. Any fighting happening in these lands/holdings is resolved in the TaleSpire interface. And of course the players will keep running out of funds/resources, as they expand their building, so they inevitable have to go back to adventuring to grow their funds. There's no reason why they can't eventually have sprawling domains of the kind of size and complexity seen in the biggest of Life is Feudal player-made towns and castles. This will not only be incredibly rewarding on its own, but it will strongly motivate the adventuring. Players will be greedy as fuck like never before, since they'll be fighting for far more tangible results than some items that exist only in their heads, plus if they get wiped they lose their entire holdings and have to start from zero, not only as characters, but also as feudal lords. The risk-reward dimension will go through the roof.

Take a look at some of the building blocks that have already been released. It's incredible stuff.

Beta Asset Patch 01: Moorgoth Exterior Extension Set
https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/ ... 8627570203

Image

Image

Beta Asset Patch 02: "Setting up camp"
https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/ ... 5556469208

Image

Image

Beta Update 15: Creature Scaling
https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/ ... 2985076649

Image

Aren't these models adorable? Don't you just wanna play with them and build up crazy stuff as if you were 9? I sure as hell do! And the craziest part is that this is only the beginning. These guys will be pumping these packs out like crazy, on top of the tons of stuff the community will be making. You'll have way more building blocks than in any survival-builder.

The truth is that TaleSpire is not ideal for D&D on a regular basis. How you gonna run a Planescape or Dark Sun or Ravenloft campaign in TaleSpire with the crazy aesthetics of those settings? You can't even run most of the decent stuff in conventional settings like Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance, because to do them justice would require whole teams of artists custom-making countless assets for every adventure. Every one of those adventures is as rich in places and characters as a movie, and reusing generic assets for them would massively debase the experience. So until it's viable for a company to invest a videogame's worth of budget on converting D&D adventures to TaleSpire, you're better off with Fantasy Grounds which DOES offer conversions of official adventures using the copious amount of artwork found in the retail booklets. At the same time, you can use TaleSpire as I explained for its strong point: the endlessly customizable building system. Because this way, you're not trying to REcreate massive adventures, you're just trying to CREATE a single stronghold and/or town, etc. from scratch. And precisely because this is not an attempt at COPYING something existing, but an ORIGINAL creation, you lose nothing by using the assets the TaleSpire team and the community will be publishing. In the former case, you would inevitably debase the D&D materials, whereas in the latter case you'll be ENRICHING them, since any castle created in the players' heads—as is traditionally done in D&D—will be inferior in detail and usefulness to one created in TaleSpire.

So my D&D Battlegrounds are evolving and complexifying, with both Fantasy Grounds and TaleSpire required to run them, on top of the Battlegrounds site itself with all the maps of the largest fantasy world ever created: the D&D world. So the game will be divided in three phases:

1. You have the "world map" on the Battlegrounds site, which will function exactly like a videogame overworld: you spawn somewhere randomly, at the start of the campaign/your characters' lives, and pick your path/next adventure from there.

2. Then you have the "adventure mode", running on Fantasy Grounds, where you play out the various adventures you choose on the world map, as well as the traveling between them.

3. And finally you have the "building/empire mode", running on TaleSpire, where, once you've chosen a land to settle out of the vast enormity of the D&D world, you zoom in to the bare land, and with a myriad of building options you start building your empire, one block of wood or stone at a time or whenever. And not only that, but you even populate the land with animals and people that you buy/hire from the markets, or recruit along your adventures, all of them represented by countless miniatures again bought off the TaleSpire developers or the community. Nothing stops you from raising an army, and if there's two teams in the Battleground universe, nothing stops them from laying siege to your holdings with their own army, and so forth. D&D has plenty of rules of how to handle that stuff, and TaleSpire can bring it to life.

The end result would be Dungeons & Dragons mixed with Life is Feudal mixed with They Are Billions (when your holdings are under attack). It would be the most insane and insanely complex D&D campaign ever.

D&D Battlegrounds is gonna happen, the only question is when. Stay tuned, and I'll tell you when I am ready.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 29 Aug 2020 21:00

It just occurred to me that, if TaleSpire launches in 2020, it will be a GOTY candidate, like Fantasy Grounds was in 2004 (I am planning to replace one of the 2004 GOTYs with FG, fyi, probably Mushi). TS is essentially 3D FG, it is a revolution in the genre as great as that between 2D and 3D games, it's essentially the last videogame genre to go 3D because, in some respects (certainly not in all), it is the most complex. There's a lot to explain here, and I'll leave that for further chapters of my Role-playing Culture essay and my FG and TS essays. I am just giving everyone a heads-up because no one has this game (and it is a game) wishlisted on Steam right now except me, so I want you to realize how important this thing is for videogames, because it's obvious that you don't (don't take it personally; no one does). It's probably less important than Cyberpunk, which as I've explained recently appears to be endgame for the open-world genre (see The Open-world Endgame is Upon Us), but it's probably more important than Ghost of Tsushima, which after all appears to be just another conventional open-world game, however good it may be. Now I don't expect TS to win 2020, unless Cyberpunk sucks, but so far at least I really don't see any title more deserving of a runner-up spot, which means it's probably the second most important videogame of 2020. I am even begging the devs for a key on Twitter lol [ > ], I'd do just about anything to get this on my hands right now (it's already available to KS backers, but not on sale to non-backers yet). I can't even seem to find the devs' email, so I resorted to Twitter, so far to no avail.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 31 Aug 2020 01:06

I've been doing research on TaleSpire, so here's an info dump of new stuff I found out.

First, something crucial. I saw this guy on Twitter who made a dungeon, and he said that he "maxed out" the "build size" so I was kinda disappointed by it because the dungeon is not that big, and I really want the players to be able to build whole kingdoms with the program if possible. So I replied to him asking for clarification, and his reply was fantastic. Here's the conversation: https://twitter.com/culturevg/status/13 ... 6623630337

Image

A "slab" is the program's name for what can be copy-pasted, so the dungeon he made is the largest element of a "board" that can be copy-pasted, which seen in that light is freakin' yuge. So your "board" can be "far, far bigger", and it can be made up of multiple copy-pasted slabs, the largest of which is that dungeon. In short, we're good, and the program can do exactly what I have planned for it. Now feast your eyes on a town the guy has already made, which can be freakin' copy-pasted just like everything else: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1276108840447205376

Image

And a cool manor and library: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1252588030197628929

Image

Image

Showing off environmental effects like haze/fog etc.: https://twitter.com/okistguitarist/stat ... 2115337216

Image

Cool countryside location: https://twitter.com/JakeEkiss/status/12 ... 9365791744

Image

Btw, if you've noted that the building blocks are similar, like those orange roof tiles, that's because the program is not out yet and the devs are scrambling to produce art assets for a variety of situations so that the thing will be playable at launch. So instead of adding ten types of roof pieces, they would rather add different things that will be required in most campaigns, like a tavern tileset, a harbor, dungeon, castle etc. They say they are committed to releasing "booster packs" as they call them of tilesets without end, on top of what the community will be producing, and the community has already begun to make awesome things like e.g. these market stalls:

Image

Image

They can be downloaded from a new site dedicated to hosting community-made assets, free of charge even: https://talestavern.com/slab/modular-market-stalls/

Moving on, cool keep showcasing also the day/night cycle: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1291707733666930693

Image

Incredible elevation differences are possible, making for locations of stunning depth: https://twitter.com/OrkenspalterTV/stat ... 9417797632

Image

Cabins in the woods: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1291707733666930693

Image

Castle: https://twitter.com/JakeEkiss/status/12 ... 7948551169

Image

Castle interiors: https://twitter.com/JakeEkiss/status/12 ... 1087619083

Image

Various miniatures: https://twitter.com/Sarklor/status/1276660352181297152

Image

Various props: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1288146469581721601

Image

Close-up shot of miniatures in action: https://twitter.com/TalesTavern1/status ... 7984443392

Image

Complex scene with one character on a roof looking down on others in a dark alley and illuminated by dynamic light sources: https://twitter.com/okistguitarist/stat ... 7417047040

Image

Wilderness cave entrance: https://twitter.com/JasonFabok/status/1 ... 6228887554

Image

Town segment with "more verticality and organic streets": https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1280926980830121986

Image

Moody tavern scene. Note the complexity of the lighting system: https://twitter.com/JasonFabok/status/1 ... 6228887554

Image

"Glimpse through a window into the courtyard." https://twitter.com/CriticalFumble/stat ... 3349614592

Image

Just you wait until it occurs to someone to switch to first-person view, and give the enemies animation and AI, turning D&D into an action game and the DM into a proper interactive movie director. That will be third-gen VTT, and I'll be on it like a fat kid in a candy store. Future of videogames right here, guys.

Showcasing the power of perspective once more, with an incredible low-height view of fantastic depth: https://twitter.com/Sarklor/status/1277041211237335041

Image

Advantages of multi-screen setups: https://twitter.com/anthonyjboucher/sta ... 9143931910

Image

Video showing flying mechanics. Do not miss this, it's insane: https://twitter.com/jonnyree/status/1299871349540782080

Video showing how high you can build. Space elevators confirmed: https://twitter.com/talespire/status/12 ... 5480511490

Comment from Twitter: "Might also need Protection from Fire for the atmospheric re-entry + a space suit."

And since cyberpunk assets are coming, what's stopping you from adding Civ-like evolution in the game? It would have to be a historical RPG, not D&D, but if anything would make me design my own rule system, this would be it (I've actually talked about doing this in the Discord somewhere a few months ago, and we had a good chat about it with some of the guys).

Video of skyport and flying ships, believe it or not: https://twitter.com/wheaty_pete/status/ ... 6072810497

Video of water mechanics: https://twitter.com/jonnyree/status/1226189888250314752

Video of Metal Gear stealth mechanics: https://twitter.com/jonnyree/status/1271922540106178561

Video of dynamic day/night cycle etc.: https://twitter.com/jonnyree/status/1233870101486735367

Video of beautiful guard tower: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1252565353068183553

Trailer for a mountain keep complete with music and cool cinematography: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1253356158800343045

Trailer for a castle with full voice-acting and music: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1254801675270918150

Video of miniature emote system: https://twitter.com/talespire/status/12 ... 7717031936

Video of miniature-resizing system. Incredibly fluid and beautiful. Could be very useful: https://twitter.com/jonnyree/status/1259186705422303232

Video of miniature snap-to-grid system that works even for minis that have been resized: https://twitter.com/jonnyree/status/1261663328964927488

Video of beautiful farmstead: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1264947041228197889

Video showing the power of modular slab building: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1251200966197723137

Video of beautiful atoll: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1275727720954068992

Video of dynamic rulers: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1288756062963867649

Teaser ad from 2008 of TaleSpire-like software that was never released: https://twitter.com/CharmstoneGames/sta ... 9866323969

CharmstoneGames @CharmstoneGames wrote:Anyone else remember the ad in the #dnd 4e DMG seeming to tease a @talespire looking virtual tabletop in 2008? That never came out, right? Godspeed to @bouncyrock getting there first!


Image

That's all I got for now!

A good number of the above slabs and new assets were made by Istallri Astra, and he seems to be leading the community scene. He's on Patreon and I pledged. If you have a few bucks to throw his way, I am sure he would appreciate it: https://www.patreon.com/Istallri
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 31 Aug 2020 05:32

Just after I posted the massive info dump, a new asset patch dropped.

Beta Asset Patch 05: "Merchants"
https://steamcommunity.com/games/720620 ... 0251885290

Image

Image

Some of that stuff wouldn't look out of place in Dark Sun. Still a very long way from Dark Sun being playable in TaleSpire, but who knows. If this thing blows up it's not out of the realm of possibility to see a concentrated effort to make the more imaginative settings viable, and perhaps entire adventures licensed and adapted. One can dream.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 07 Sep 2020 17:38

https://steamcommunity.com/games/720620 ... 1526141453

Bouncyrock wrote:Beta Update 24: Flying Creatures
BUILD-ID: 5511945 - Download Size: 6.4 MB

Introducing flying creatures!

Now you can enable flying on a Creature as a GM by togging flying in the Creature Radial Menu. Then, controlling players can set a Creature's flight height by holding the left-CTRL while carrying the mini.

You can control the mini both from the top of the indicator tower and at the base. Flying creatures will try to maintain world height when moving around. This resets when it is dropped, or verticality dragged.

This is the initial flying release, we'll be tweaking and changing things as we go.

That's the short of it. Enjoy!

Image
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 07 Sep 2020 21:53

I posted "Water next, please!" in the comments of this post, and upvoted it on my Activity feed (you can only see it in your Activity feed if you're "following" the game): https://steamcommunity.com/app/720620/e ... 9086486772

If you want to see water asap in TaleSpire, I advise you to do the same. Don't just upvote, comment and ask for water too.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 12 Oct 2020 13:04

Insane giant new game board by Istallri Astra.

LOW . DETAIL . CITY - Your Small Maps Bigger Than Life - [TaleSpire]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-kJmEYyAQE

Image

Istallri Astra wrote:Here is my latest project, LDC or Low Detail City is a set of tiles that will allow you to make overworld maps and gigantic maps with little to no FPS or performance cost!


It's much bigger than in the pic/thumbnail above. Gotta see it to believe it.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 16 Dec 2020 18:18

A new slab released by Istallri Astra, using the new desert village assets I posted about in the Empire phase thread.

https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1338516465239158785
https://talestavern.com/slab/dashing-camel-respite/

Image

Remember, you'll be able to buy this by paying an architect and some builders. If you want to create your own designs, you'll have to have architectural skill, and get your creation approved by me for aesthetics (so we don't turn the world into a Rust commie block clusterfuck).

The new tiles showcased in detail:

Content Update - Desert Village [TaleSpire]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY1t7uB6ve8

Tons of new slabs have been created since last I checked. Here are some that caught my eye immediately. And we can just copy-paste all of them into our game! It's freakin' unbelievable. I wish Gygax was alive to see it. He instituted super-hardcore rules such that your character could only have what items appeared on his miniature, which as you can understand is incredibly constraining, so I am sure he would have lost his shit over TaleSpire like I am doing.

0rk stronghold
https://talestavern.com/slab/0rk-stronghold/

Image

Look at this super-cool mountain pass keep!

https://talestavern.com/slab/tsolenka-pass-_-part-3/

Image

Istallri is meanwhile busy converting an entire Pathfinder adventure's locations (Carrion Crown, it's already on your map and unlocked) into slabs.

Image

Image

He even made a trailer of it! Whatever you do, don't miss this trailer.

Schloss Caromarc - [TaleSpire Map Trailer]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YlDPO5z_fA

What's great about it, among other things, is that the buildings are not sitting in the middle of a tiny square, he's built an entire forest leading up to it, so the buildings feel part of the world. "Game boards" will be massive, apparently, and there will be some way to link them into a world.

Now imagine if you also had a soundtrack for that adventure from Syrinscape? And it goes without saying by the way that everything in TaleSpire has line-of-sight built-in. It's not like Fantasy Grounds Unity where you have to specify to the program which line on the JPG is supposed to be a wall; TaleSpire already knows the properties of the tiles!

Someone else is making slabs from the PF Jade Regent campaign. That's not on your map because it's not in Fantasy Grounds, but we can play it on TaleSpire when I figure out the PF rules well enough to be able to do them in my head. You can roll dice and text chat on TaleSpire just fine.

https://talestavern.com/slab/jade-regen ... rt-1-of-5/

Image
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 16 Dec 2020 18:39

The cool pass I posted is from Curse of Strahd! At least that's what it says in the slab details:

lebion_ wrote:Slab Location: Curse of Strahd, Hills / Mountain

Tags: tsolenka-pass


So you see that even "merely" in map/location/building design, the published adventures still have the coolest stuff, and it is only the creators who simply copy them that create the best stuff. So, okay, you know how to use TaleSpire well to build things, but are you a good architect? Are you imaginative enough to dream up cool locations? As good as the writers and game designers and even cartographers that RPG publishers employ?

If not, and the answer will be not 99% of the time, just shut up and copy. There's enough skill and art involved in converting a 2D map from a book into a 3D TaleSpire location, that you should be proud of your copying. And it's not really copying so much as conversion and adaption. Most people can't even do that well enough.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 20 Dec 2020 02:49

New miniatures just dropped.

https://bouncyrock.com/news/articles/mi ... ter-pack-3

JasonRoy wrote:Miniatures Booster Pack
JasonRoy · 4 minutes ago · Patch Notes

Image

This week's update includes another round of miniatures, including Catfolk, Ravenfolk, and some generic Soldiers.

7 new miniatures:

  • 2 Catfolk
  • 1 Ravenfolk
  • 2 Human Soldiers
  • 1 Human Soldier, Captain
  • 1 Human Knight


We hope you like them!

BUILD-ID: 5993212 Download Size: 657.7 MB
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 22 Dec 2020 18:46

An example of how TaleSpire could be used to render planes: https://twitter.com/Istallri/status/1320686728760467456

Istallri Astra @Istallri wrote:The Aether Plane had known desolation like no other.
A barren void that Travelers would cross with haste.


Arcanum of the Travelers Planes | Amner Liriel

Image


Click to enlarge so it can fill your whole screen so you can feel the full effect.

I am impressed, I hadn't thought such a desolate effect could be achieved with existing assets. The miniature helps to feel the scale. I wish more slabs/boards would include some miniatures on the slab sites.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 22 Dec 2020 18:53

Note that though Planescape: Torment took place entirely in the planes, there was no scene in the game that gave a planes feel. So TaleSpire is already outdoing CRPGs. I have never seen a single videogame that captures the planes feel at all, let alone to the extent the above TaleSpire slab does. And it's just a rough draft with generic, uncustomized assets.

If this goes further, we'll allow settling in the planes too, and therefore City-building and 4X phases.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands



Unread postby icycalm » 31 May 2021 22:06

Now that TaleSpire is out, you can find a steady stream of user screenshots on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/720620/s ... r=toprated

Some highlights after a quick skim:

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

The lighting effects are incredible. Imagine if they add weather effects. And since they are adding spell effects, they will certainly add weather too. And imagine professional epic music playing over these scenes, with the weather and spell effects. It will blow isometric CPRGs out of the water. You will never consider spending time controlling six characters on your own again. Only if your D&D group can't make it that day.

The ETA for resuming Battlegrounds is July btw. Pretty much after we're done with Starbase. If Starbase takes longer, it will take longer. If we only play it a few days, it will come faster. I have many preparations going on in the background, among which will be a TaleSpire tinkering session soon. I'll fire it up and experiment with constructing scenes by copy-pasting people's boards, etc. I'll be on Twitch and Discord voice and people can join me. You can have several DMs collaborating and building things. If you want to join me, download and install to be ready. Don't have to be a DM to join, you'll need to learn the building anyway if you want to design your own stuff later to build in the game. Think of it like Minecraft or Rust lol.

The price is peanuts btw. €20,99 lol. But they do plan to charge for DLC later on, probably after Early Access.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 18 Jun 2021 03:29

Some incredible angles you can achieve with this program. They don't show you in the promotional images, I just found these in some random guy's slab upload: https://talestavern.com/slab/city-tiles/

Image

Image

It looks like a completely different program. No one has ever played a TTRPG with such perspectives. It wasn't physically possible before. The top pic is essentially Gears of War perspective, and it should be easy enough to turn it into first-person.

I finally bought the program, btw. I'll be doing a test session soon.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 18 Jun 2021 03:55

Now that people can actually buy the thing, slab and board contributions are slowly taking off, and the quality of some of these pieces is out of this world. Here is a highlight: The Red Mound.

This guy made a "winegrowing village".

https://talestavern.com/slab/the-red-mound/

Image

Right from the get-go, see how professional his header image looks. Almost no slabs have this sort of thing, only a couple of people do them, and lo and behold they are the best creators and its the best contributions. This image if you look at it from far away enough from your monitor might pass for an Italian country town.

Image

And here is the full board. The attention to detail is incredible. Must have taken him weeks if not months to make. You'll understand how much work it takes once you try putting something together yourselves. Every little bit of elevation has to be specifically set, and if you try to half-ass it by copy-pasting level fields it'll come out looking like a child's Lego board and nothing at all like this hyper-realistic village. The amount of work that went into this is way more than in your typical 2D D&D map, even most professional ones.

Image

And look! You can make it look like a 2D overhead map as well! So that if it's a massive city for example you can zoom out and navigate it like a normal 2D map D&D city, but then unlike the map you can seamlessly zoom in to wherever the encounters happen, including underground, or even underwater or in the skies above. With normal D&D you can also zoom in, in a sense, but it's not seamless: you must switch maps to the encounter map, etc.

Image

And lo and behold, now it looks like something out of Octopath Traveler! It looks absolutely dreamy. Imagine travelling for hours through a thick forest, barely making it out of there alive, and stumbling into this picturesque village half-dead, while a town soundtrack kicks in and you enter the first inn you see, all the while the DM has half a dozen different events ready that could be triggered in the inn or around it.

Image

This is STILL this village town! It's some room or some shit somewhere in the town, who the fuck knows where, I've no idea. Can you imagine how much work it is for him to make unique interiors (AND underground vaults and shit) for every single building in this town?

And he's doing it for completely free. And there's a growing army of people doing it, though I think soon enough there will be Patreons with locked content, as soon as the devs put in a system for people to safeguard their work from unauthorized copying. People are asking for it, and I presume the devs will do it at some point, because it doesn't make sense not to.

Incredible stuff. Far better than I imagined even at my most optimistic. And people don't even have a fraction of the assets they'll soon be having.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

★★★★★ TaleSpire (2021, PC)

Unread postby Insomnia » 18 Jun 2021 05:50

Insomnia review (5/5): https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=7440

Image

Insomnia wrote:I bought this curious about how well it would work for D&D. I don't care anymore. All I care about now is building more doll houses.
Insomnia
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:06



Unread postby icycalm » 28 Jun 2021 14:25

New content: https://steamcommunity.com/games/720620 ... 0502868193

Early Access Content Pack 3: Slithering Tribe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWyEocGysmg

Image

Dan wrote:Finally, just the assets I need to finally run that untiled goose game one shot!


It also has geese. With sound effects, apparently.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/720620/e ... 6595945515

Mr. Wolf wrote:"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. And onto this, Goosenan, destined to wear the feathered crown of Honkilonia upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"

On this day, the Stygian armies tasted the bite of cold beak.


The Insomnia review mentioned you can make and trigger cutscenes, which is something I’d never heard before. This video features a pretty cool cutscene, so I am hoping this is what was meant. If so, that’s a huge improvement on previous VTTs. Not quite Wrath of the Righteous lol, but it’s a step in that direction.

Full content list:

Bouncyrock wrote:Creatures

Serpentfolk Warrior
Serpentfolk Archer
Serpentfolk Caster
Snub-nosed Monkey
Goose


Tiles/Props

Serpent Arch
Serpent Statue
Pillars
Decorated floor
Extended stone stairs
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jun 2021 05:49

Another great close-up shot.

https://twitter.com/kindice6/status/1409516760911421441

Image

It's by a Japanese person, btw.

And it's not even a particularly well-designed location, or a particularly high number of characters. Imagine if it was on a rampart of a massive fortress, with tens of thousands of troops everywhere? The maximum of units right now is 10,000 btw, and they are aiming for 30,000. So in that respect it will blow the Owlcat videogames out of the water, which will certainly not feature more than a few dozen units at a time. And their castles, though they look terrific, are again pitiful compared to what TaleSpire can do. You can build towers 100 stories tall or something. I have linked a video above with that. The castles and towns can probably get to 100x larger than those in videogames no problem, if not larger. Then add 30,000 units swarming everywhere, and even the Game of Thrones sieges start to look pathetic. Probably even the Total War: Warhammer games.

I am working on a ruleset so we can have this kind of action. It's coming along extremely nicely.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jun 2021 06:00

https://twitter.com/MhaireStritter/stat ... 3336095752

Image

This is a pretty cool scene for grasping the scale that's possible. First off you have a very well-designed road with greenery on both sides and cool rock cliffs. And then behind the imposing wall you can see buildings stretching out into the distance. Because the camera has been set so low, you've no idea how big the town is. For all you know, it could be stretching for miles and miles ahead of you.

I hope the DM controls the camera totally, and can lock it.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 05 Jul 2021 16:23

Birth of a Genre: The Era of TaleSpire and Dramatic Strategy
https://www.patreon.com/posts/53320420

icycalm wrote:I can't give you an exact time, but it will most likely be tonight UTC, maybe around 8-10 PM UTC. Install TaleSpire and look out for my stream, and jump in when you want.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Next

Return to Development

cron