Monomyth - May Update

[HiddenX]

Redglyph spotted the May update for Monomyth:

Monomyth - May Update

State of the Game: Video Devlog 4.0 | Beta Patch 3.1

Hi, dungeon-crawling fans!

It's time for another update! This month I am in the middle of creating Beta Patch 4. While doing so I decided to release a small interim patch to fix some of the issues of Beta 3 and introduce the new trading system. As always you can find the video devlog and its transcript below:

See you soon and best wishes,

Michael

Hi, dungeon-crawling fans!

It is time for another update on Monomyth! As you know last month Beta 3 started. Since then I have been working on Beta 4 and implemented numerous improvements as well as a new trading system. These newly implemented features will be added shortly in a small interim patch. So let's go through all these things in detail.

First, let's take a look at a few more general things that I have fixed throughout the last few weeks. I finally found the time to reimplement weapon load-outs on the new codebase, as they were present in the original Kickstarter demo. Now your character can wear two different sets of weapons and quickly switch between the two in a combat situation. Alternatively, you can also use this to quickly stow away torches, so you are not seen by enemies.

In terms of level design, I added shortcuts between different areas as well as fast traveling from designated points in the game. You have seen these fast travel points before, except now that all areas are in the game they are active and usable. Together with the shortcuts, these changes make the world feel significantly more interconnected and backtracking becomes less of a problem.

Of course, I have also worked on the game's main hub. This will be the main area of Beta Update 4. Players will find most traders in this hub as well as an anchor point for the game's main quest. Concerning quests I have added another small fix: Instead of having quest items clutter up the player's inventory, the latest version of the game now features a dedicated quest inventory. This was another small feature I finally had time to transfer from the old codebase. However, in this version of the game, any item type can be a quest item. In the original demo, this flag was technically limited to regular combinatory items, meaning no consumables, weapons, or anything with specific functionality. The quest inventory itself works much like an item bar you would see in a point-and-click adventure game. It isn't limited in size and you can just pull items from it to combine them within the game world. This works very well together with the menu-world interactions I implemented a couple of months ago.

[...]

More information.

 

[JDR13]

I think this is going to be the closest we get to a quality immersive sim in awhile. It's taking longer that I expected, but that's fine. I'd rather he not push it out before it's ready, and there are already more than enough games this year that I want to play.

 

[Redglyph]

He seems to manage it quite well, I'm optimistic about this game.

 

[LaHolt]

I don't think this is an immersive sim at all. The creator's very clear on this, it's a dungeon crawler. You go underground into a dungeon.

All the reductionist, so-called I-Sims have been facsimiles of the real thing. Neon Struct is not I-Sim in the least, yet cus it looks a little like Deus Ex people try to hold it up as such. Weird West isn't much of an I-Sim either.

 

[Drithius]

Can we just take a moment to admit how amazing this all looks graphically for a one-man project? Development tools have come a long way.

 

[JDR13]

I don't think this is an immersive sim at all. The creator's very clear on this, it's a dungeon crawler. You go underground into a dungeon.

Not a pure immersive sim, but if you followed the development you'd know it has immersive sim elements.

 

[LaHolt]

Can we just take a moment to admit how amazing this all looks graphically for a one-man project? Development tools have come a long way.

That's my worry actually.

Since a few videos back it's been looking a lot like a one-man project. A lot of unity stock assets. I'm hoping there's enough stuff under the hood that one can't easily tell.

 

[Redglyph]

That's my worry actually.

Since a few videos back it's been looking a lot like a one-man project. A lot of unity stock assets. I'm hoping there's enough stuff under the hood that one can't easily tell.

I'm not sure I see the disadvantage there, wouldn't you like a game to be consistent? What do you mean by "unity stock assets"?

 

[JDR13]

He's not using Unity. It's Unreal Engine 4

 

[LaHolt]

I'm not sure I see the disadvantage there, wouldn't you like a game to be consistent? What do you mean by "unity stock assets"?

The assets have the generic, store-bought off-the-shelf quality to it. Textures appear repetitive over large, congruous surfaces. It was in the video of the tower that I first noticed. It looks a lot like Underworld Ascendant that I unfortuantely backed.

 

[Redglyph]

The assets have the generic, store-bought off-the-shelf quality to it. Textures appear repetitive over large, congruous surfaces. It was in the video of the tower that I first noticed. It looks a lot like Underworld Ascendant that I unfortuantely backed.

It's an indie game made by one developer and from what I see in the videos, he's making a terrific job. But if you need a AAA-quality game, that's not where you should be looking for it.

 

[LaHolt]

I'm not looking for AAA quality.

I'm not looking for obvious one developer quality either.

And there was talks of this being "Immersive Sim." One guy already has a full-to-the-brim plate just to make it a believable space without trying to stretch it into something as complex as an I-Sim.

I'm the one in middle here.

 

[JDR13]

You sound like you're trying hard to convince yourself.

I don't see where this is obvious one developer quality. On the contrary, I don't think I've ever seen a game done almost entirely by a single person that even comes close to how this looks.

 

[LaHolt]

It takes me out of my suspense of disbelief when I actually looked at the tower level. That's how I feel. Am I supposed to not feel that, be dishonest to myself?

Almost all the top-rated one-dev games are 2D and stylized, for good reasons. This one's not. Therefore realism comes into play and I gotta judge it according to suspense of disbelief. Realistic one-dev games like Bright Memory or Road to Vostok conceal their use of off-the-shelf assets well, I'm hoping Monomyth can do more. Yeah it's a lot of work but it's pretty darn important IMO for a 1st person game.

But no this is not a particularly good looking one-dev game when looking at the assets under actual light and not hidden in shadows, and I'm not even a graphics whore. That's how it is when the game's first-person. I'm looking at things up close.

 

[Redglyph]

If you're spending so much time arguing before the release, I'd think you do that because you're not convinced either way. If you're already convinced it's not for you, why bother?

I don't know if there's a new demo planned before the release. But even if there isn't, you can still buy the game and play up to 2 hours to see what it's really like, then get a refund if that's not for you.

 

[LaHolt]

So now I'm spending too much time arguing? You are working hard to move the goal post around, it's obvious I hope you realize.

One of the points of news posting is the discussion. I first made a point that a legit I-Sim is beyond the workload of any one developer. In fact I'm concerned that given the perspective and genre it'll be beyond the workload of one dev to do what is needed to be convincing, and that I hoped he would do at least one pass on the graphics during the beta.

Apparently that's somehow not okay to say, and I'm somehow expecting AAA from one guy. What? I also gave two examples of one-dev projects in the 1st-person perspective that easily look better. I don't see a "fair enough" from either one of you. But instead now it's "too much time arguing."

I don't think I'm the one that hasn't thought it through here. You can give each other thumb ups and it wouldn't change that fact.

 

[JDR13]

Actually, you haven't made any points. You've only given your opinion on some things, which is fine, but not everyone agrees. Now you're apparently getting upset that others have a different view of it.

I question how much you know about this project. After all, you didn't even know what engine he's using.

 

[Redglyph]

So now I'm spending too much time arguing? You are working hard to move the goal post around, it's obvious I hope you realize.

Nobody moves anything around but you. You started by arguing it wasn't an immersive sim at all, when that didn't work, you argued one developer was bad, which didn't work either but you went back to the immersive sim and one-developer feeling again...

We're only responding to your comments, and now you're all flustered, almost insult us and complain it's not possible to discuss... If your idea of a discussion is everyone else agreeing with you, then you're correct.

You said your piece but if that's not a game for you, that's fine, just find something else more constructive to do.

 

[mercy]

I think this is going to be the closest we get to a quality immersive sim in awhile. It's taking longer that I expected, but that's fine. I'd rather he not push it out before it's ready, and there are already more than enough games this year that I want to play.

Same here. Extremely addictive game! Have the buy a new PC to be able to play this though and add another 30 years to my life..

 

[JDR13]

Same here. Extremely addictive game! Have the buy a new PC to be able to play this though and add another 30 years to my life..

If you need a new PC to play an Unreal Engine 4 game, I'd say you were overdue for an upgrade anyways.