Barony: 3D, multiplayer roguelike

[addictgamer]

In my 6 years of playing roguelikes, there's nothing I've wanted more than to game with my friends. Last October, I found Barony. It labeled itself as an oldschool game, and had the graphics to match, but then I noticed it had the words "multiplayer," "3D," and "roguelike" in the description. That caught my interest right away. Since then, I've been working on Barony.

On top of multiplayer and 3D, the game has two more gimmicks in the works:
 * Monster ecosystem. Rather than everything existing solely to kill you, they have their own lives and agendas, which you are interfering with. A goblin may set its sword on you, a gnome may be tempted by your fat gold pouch, and unnaturally large rats may chase you down for dinner.
 * An in-depth magic system. In video games, I always look for two things: multiplayer (as you've likely deduced by now), and magic. More often than not, I play wizards. Whenever a game has an interesting and unique magic system, it resonates with me. I view Barony's magic system as my pet project. I want something different from every other game I've played before. The ultimate goal of this system is to allow wizards to modify and create spells.

The game is currently in development. We are done with maybe around 40% of the game overall.
Supported platforms are Linux, Windows, and Mac (though only Windows and Linux have binaries built currently).

We've released a free public demo/alpha. (check here for the latest public alpha build: http://www.baronygame.com/download.html ). Please keep in mind that this is the game's first demo/alpha. There are bugs in it, it's optimized, many features are still under development (such as the monster ecosystem and the magic system), content is missing from the dungeon, and it's not yet beatable.
Note that the Linux binary in the alpha are 32 bit. If you are running 64-bit Linux, you will need to make sure you have the right versions of LibPNG, SDL, SDL_Image, SDL_Mixer and SDL_Net.

If you are interested in the game, do check it out: http://www.baronygame.com/index.html



Videos & other media:

(October 8th, 2014) Jamesster's let's play.
(October 5th, 2014) 2014.10.03 trailer. More of a tutorial than a traditional trailer
(July 24th, 2014) Indie Hooks! let's play.

If you feel like recording your own let's plays, please do! As I mentioned on the devblog, I love watching people play my game. If you do a let's play, feel free to post it or send me a pm.

[Zireael]

Grabbed it, sounds really interesting!

[addictgamer]

Grabbed it, sounds really interesting!

Awesome!

In other news, we've released another demo/alpha. You can get it from the downloads page: http://www.baronygame.com/download.html
We didn't really add new features insomuch as we fixed a bunch of bugs people found and added some performance improvements that should greatly help lower-end computers.
I want to do some more public demo/alphas. For the next one, we're focusing on adding new content

[JeTSpice]

i really like the graphics and models -- kind of doom meets minecraft.
i downloaded the zip.  tried running game.exe.  how to run it?

[Endorya]

I've just tried it. I think the idea is really worthy of exploring but what exactly does the game has or will have as far as roguelike elements are concerned apart from character creation? It just seems a real time FPS disguised in a roguelike theme. Nonetheless, I'll follow this project of yours to see how it turns out. Keep up!

[addictgamer]

i really like the graphics and models -- kind of doom meets minecraft.
i downloaded the zip.  tried running game.exe.  how to run it?

Nothing happened?

What's your screen resolution? Barony's default resolution is 1280x720. If that's bigger than your monitor's resolution, you'll need to lower it. To do that, open up default.cfg and change:

Code: [Select]

\res 1280x720to whatever you want your resolution to be.

If that doesn't resolve it: Check the directory you unzipped Barony into for a "stderr.txt" file. Please send me its contents.

I've just tried it. I think the idea is really worthy of exploring but what exactly does the game has or will have as far as roguelike elements are concerned apart the character creation? It just seems a real time FPS disguised in a roguelike. Nonetheless, I'll follow this project of yours to see how it turns out. Keep up!

Really? Feels like a Roguelike with a 3D engine thrown on top of it to me. Anyway, other elements this game shares with typical roguelikes include procedural level generation, permanent death, and a fantasy setting.

[Endorya]

Really? Feels like a Roguelike with a 3D engine thrown on top of it to me.

For me feeling it the way you describe it, the turn-based game play feature should be kept there. Take chess as example, you can have a 2D or 3D engine propelling it but both versions will still have turn based game play. The minute you remove turn base feature from any of them, they will no longer be a Chess game.

But don't worry too much about it as this is just my personal view on the subject. Others might not be that fixed on turn based as I am.

[addictgamer]

Really? Feels like a Roguelike with a 3D engine thrown on top of it to me.

For me feeling it the way you describe it, the turn-based game play feature should be kept there. Take chess as example, you can have a 2D or 3D engine propelling it but both versions will still have turn based game play. The minute you remove turn base feature from any of them, they will no longer be a Chess game.

But don't worry too much about it as this is just my personal view on the subject. Others might not be that fixed on turn based as I am.

Ah, I see what you mean. Well, glad you're still interested in the project

[addictgamer]

A bit delayed, we bring another alpha!



Notable additions include:
 * Several new monsters (slime, scorpion, succubus), and human NPCs will now spawn throughout the dungeon.
 * Races that dislike eachother will fight eachother (a goblin NPC will attack a human NPC).
 * An appraisal skill! Because everybody and their dog have been complaining about not knowing if an item is cursed or not, or what a spell is or what a spellbook does. Also added an identify spell for you wizards out there (like me).
 * Of course, there's bugfixes and behind the scene changes, but nobody really wants to hear about that.

So, grab the alpha here: http://www.baronygame.com/download.html

We also have a forum now. Please stop by and liven the place up, eh?

[addictgamer]

It's (well, was) Alpha Friday again!

What's differeint in Alpha 2014.06.07:
 * Spears
 * Hoods. They're available in four different colors.
 * NPCs can now wield and use any weapon, tool, or magic staff you can. While monsters running up to you and slapping you with their bow was hilarious, it just had to go.
 * Classes got some revamping, added some combat skills, and bugfixes and other things.

Grab it here!

[addictgamer]

Here's another alpha!

Alpha 2014.07.26:

 + Readable books!


 + Here's something people have been waiting for: an in-game menu (hit escape. You can change settings and everything.)
 + VBOs, for massive performance gains.
 + Rewrote sound engine to use FMOD.
 + Bows and crossbows more or less done.
 + Trolls
 + Added some bleeding. Use towels and potions to stop it.
 + Implemented a bunch of rings and amulets.
 + Slings. I know somebody out there is going to love this.
 + Green slime. A lower level version of the blue slime.
 + Added special NPCs.
 * Torches and lanterns burn down as you use them.
 * Weapons and armor can break during combat.
 * Monsters gang up on you if you attack their group. I highly suggest you keep on the good side of the folks down in minetown.
 - Removed ring of see invisible.
And way too many other things to mention.
Grab the game here and try it out for yourself.

[Endorya]

Good work, the game is getting better and better. I would like to suggest something related to combat mechanics. It would be nice if characters could block strikes during melee confrontations, it could also go slower paced, therefore making it more strategic and fun to duel in. Just some thoughts.

Keep up!

[addictgamer]

Good work, the game is getting better and better. I would like to suggest something related to combat mechanics. It would be nice if characters could block strikes during melee confrontations, it could also go slower paced, therefore making it more strategic and fun to duel in. Just some thoughts.

Keep up!

I don't know about slower paced combat specifically, but melee blocking is definitely on our list.

[Endorya]

I don't know about slower paced combat specifically, but melee blocking is definitely on our list.

Sweet!

What I meant with slower paced combat was having longer pauses between strikes so that if you miss or if your strike gets blocked, you'll probably think about going defensive instead; slower paced combat also forces the player to better time his attacks.

[addictgamer]

Almost a month later...OK, Alpha 2014.08.23 released!

 + Shops. 'Nuff said. And don't try attacking shopkeepers. They'll beat the living daylights out of you. If you still think you'd like to murder them and take their stock, be my guest.
 + Lobby tells you the port hosted on and IP connected to.
 + Gamma settings.
 + New levels
 - A few unused settings in the options menu.
 * Monster sight mechanisms modified. They no longer see you through the dark as if ever monster had darkvision.
 * THIS IS IMPORTANT. Commands changed from \ to /.
 * Bugfixes/stability improvements/netcode reliability enhanced.
 * Lots and lots of bugfixes.
 * Seriously.
 * Why do you think it took so long?
 * Sure, I had a lot of work to do to prep for the fall semester and my jobs...
 * But bugfixing, man.
 * That's what this release is all about.
 * Valgrind everything through the fourth wall.
 * ohmygatosvalgrindissoslow.

NOTE: COMMANDS CHANGED FROM \ TO /.
Download here.


Stop staring at this post and download it already.




I very nearly forgot to mention this. Updates will be on a monthly basis from now on since university/college/whatever. That's going to take most of our time.