Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

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Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by dark_sylinc »

Some of you may have heard of it.

It's now time to officially announce the first Demo of Distant Souls!



DOWNLOAD
MEDIAFIRE: PART I, PART II
DROPBOX: SINGLE FILE.
IndieDB: SINGLE FILE

Update: Reuploaded version SVN 608. Fixed incompatibility issues with Intel 4 Series & nForce 6150. Thanks a lot for the feedback!

The game demo went into the Intel Level Up contest, but failed to run **sniff**. So now I need testing & feedback from the community.

Most of you already know about me, I'm always contributing to the community, be it Ogre Meshy, Instance Manager, Depth Sharing, or as tech support through forums, without ever asking anything in return.

But this time I have big a favour to ask and get some of that love back. Currently I've been running through some tough financial difficulties, and my bets have been on Distant Souls. Being disqualified didn't help, while I'm also currently in the process of seeking government funding as well as potential private investors.

WANT TO HELP? SHARE on Facebook, FOLLOW the Twitter account, SUBSCRIBE to the Youtube channel. Every bit helps. The more subscribers/followers, the bigger your support. Spread the word!

Let everyone prove there's big, fun, quality game out there in the Indie scene.

You are not forced to do it, I don't expect you to do it; and it won't reflect my future contributions to Ogre, but it will help me. And I will greatly appreciate it :)

Other ways you can help:
  1. Does it run in your machine? Post all your 5 Logs, they are in the file %AppData%\Distant Souls. Also post all your *.rpl files there so I can reproduce your bug.
  2. What do you think about the game?:
    • Do you like it?
    • Is it fun?
    • Was there something you spent too much time to figure out?
    • were you stuck?
    • Did you enjoy it?
Didn't enjoy it? Then tell me! You won't hurt my feelings! Games are an iterative process. We will work on it as many times as possible until we're all 24hs addicted.
This is valuable feedback and please post your results!

IF YOU OWN AN INTEL HD 3000 PLEASE SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH US!!! I'm 99% sure the game didn't run in the contest because of that GPU, even though, it's ought to be capable to run it.

System requirements:
  • Windows XP/Vista/7
  • Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or better/AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
  • 2 GB RAM
  • NVIDIA Geforce 8 series or better / ATI Radeon HD 2000 series or better (Shader Model 3.0 compliant with full VTF support)
Unsupported Hardware:
The following hardware is known not to work. And it's really hard to support them, this list not likely to be reduced:
  • ATI Radeon X1000 series
  • Intel GMA 950 series
  • GeForce 6200 (??? needs confirmation)
If you need to contact me directly, you can do so at: dark_sylinc [at] yahoo [dot] com [dot] ar

Mandatory screenshots:
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Plot summary:
Distant Souls takes place in the historical events in Dyrvingahl. Long before the start of the game, a dark being killed Nathan's parents, destroyed his entire village, and started a war between the Three Proud Nations.
15 years later little is known about the dark being and those few who track him down call themselves hunters; each hunting it for it's own personal motive.
Today, the world is in complete turmoil, many factions constantly form alliances to take over cities; lasting their control as short as the alliance was formed; while hunters have to make it's way through to reach their ultimate goal.
Player's hunters will have to face with the decision to involve in local affairs or stay distant as much as they can.
Last edited by dark_sylinc on Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:54 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: DOWNLOAD DEMO Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by chaosavy »

Interesting setting and concept!

I will now treat all turtles I encounter with much more suspicion...
Visit http://www.VoidDestroyer.com to check out my space sim project - Void Destroyer
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Re: DOWNLOAD DEMO Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by Jabberwocky »

I'm busy getting my game ready for release, so I don't have time to playtest right now. But I watched the whole video.

Things I liked:
  • landscape textures and scale - distant mountains look cool.
  • shadows
  • character movement and jumping
  • music
  • text dialog
  • turtle flame particles
  • weapon trails
  • Nice work with Havok, many physics engines have trouble with characters standing on top of moving objects.
  • Camera work during the boss battle
Things I didn't like:
  • footstep sounds
  • landscape is bare. Some rocks or shrubs would be a nice addition.
  • tortoise shell texture blurry. Can you UV map the shell differently to "tile" / reuse the texture to achieve higher resolution?
  • fights with human opponents. Is it just "spam attack button" or is there any dodging or blocking involved? -- edit -- watching more closely I do see some blocking now. The enemies died pretty fast though, so it was tough to evaluate how interesting this part of the combat is.
  • characters blip movement sometimes - maybe just the NPC friends when they get left behind?
  • health / damage: Do you have any? Can you die? Watching the video, it didn't seem dangerous because I had no idea whether you were hurt or near death at any point.
The boss battle is both interesting and bizarre. Will the game give any background about why you're fighting a giant flying turtle with a flame-spewing orb on it's back? It's an unusual creature. If not, and you're just going for something quirky, that's probably ok. Lots of indie games are quirky. You obviously put lots of work into this boss fight, which is cool.
dark_sylinc wrote: I'm also currently in the process of seeking government funding as well as potential private investors.
Finding private investors for a single person indie dev team with no track record of shipped games is very unlikely. It will be viewed by investors as way too high risk. Government funding, if available, is probably a better route.
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Re: DOWNLOAD DEMO Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by dark_sylinc »

Hi all! Thanks for the replies!
Jabberwocky wrote:I'm busy getting my game ready for release, so I don't have time to playtest right now. But I watched the whole video.
Best of lucks!
Jabberwocky wrote: Things I liked:
...
* Nice work with Havok, many physics engines have trouble with characters standing on top of moving objects.
...
Ohh, yes, that took a lot of patience, math, and time. I'm really proud of that one. Havok is also a wonderful engine.
Jabberwocky wrote:
  • footstep sounds
Ouch! I thought it was OK. I will take your feedback into consideration.
Jabberwocky wrote:* landscape is bare. Some rocks or shrubs would be a nice addition.
Yeah. Partly because the heightmap could be better (it's too flat on the horizon when seeing away from the city) and partly because I haven't time to get into env. modelling.
Definitely needs improvement.
Jabberwocky wrote:[*]tortoise shell texture blurry. Can you UV map the shell differently to "tile" / reuse the texture to achieve higher resolution?
You're not the first to say the same. I'll definitely will need to improve it.
It wasn't easy at all though. It's not a technical limitation, but rather gameplay. If the Shell becomes too detailed, it's too distracting and becomes harder to realize for new players you can get on top of it.
Jabberwocky wrote:[*]fights with human opponents. Is it just "spam attack button" or is there any dodging or blocking involved? -- edit -- watching more closely I do see some blocking now. The enemies died pretty fast though, so it was tough to evaluate how interesting this part of the combat is.
Hehe, there's a combo system. Spamming attack button will only get you a few moves. The combo depends on which direction are you pressing at the time you press attack (or other buttons).
The enemies died pretty fast because of balancing issues. Combat may require some tactics for tough characters. Besides, my focus on the demo was on the Boss, which is why I nerfed the foes so much.
Jabberwocky wrote:[*]characters blip movement sometimes - maybe just the NPC friends when they get left behind?
Yes, annoying NPC friends which need to be fine tunned. By the way, through multiplayer on LAN, other players can Co-op by controlling your friends. (not included in the Demo unless someone figures out how to hack the Lua code; the reason I opted that out is that the server currently isn't waiting for clients, therefore it can Lag pretty bad)
Jabberwocky wrote:[*]health / damage: Do you have any? Can you die? Watching the video, it didn't seem dangerous because I had no idea whether you were hurt or near death at any point.
The red bar on the upper-left corner. It barely goes down because this demo was supposed to be in the Intel Level Up contest. I wasn't able to include a tutorial (although Assassin's Creed & Kingdom Hearts users would be familiar with the controls) and hadn't got enough time to do proper game play testing. Afraid the judges would find the Boss battle too challenging and frustrating, I purposedly nerfed down everything, relying on the sense of fear and the scale of the Boss instead (Prince of Persia 2008, anyone?); until they realise dying is very hard (you can, by the way).
Jabberwocky wrote: The boss battle is both interesting and bizarre. Will the game give any background about why you're fighting a giant flying turtle with a flame-spewing orb on it's back? It's an unusual creature.
Yes, there's a background.
I'm trying to explore non-traditional enemies. For the next boss I'm between a giant scorpion and a giant snake.
Traditional combat is also very fun when balanced.
Jabberwocky wrote:Finding private investors for a single person indie dev team with no track record of shipped games is very unlikely. It will be viewed by investors as way too high risk. Government funding, if available, is probably a better route.
I appreciate the honesty. Government funding is in the process of evaluation.

Edit: Updated the main post with a summary of the plot
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Re: DOWNLOAD DEMO Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by Jabberwocky »

dark_sylinc wrote:Ouch! I thought it was OK. I will take your feedback into consideration.
I'm trying to figure out if it's the sound or the mix I didn't like. Is it just one sound, or do choose between a couple random ones for each step? Having a bit of variation really helps make it sound more natural.

About the mix, I think what threw me off was this - Sometimes the player's footsteps are loudest. Other times one of the NPC follower's footsteps are louder, even though they aren't visible on camera. I get that the volume is just dependent on how close the camera is to the character. But it seemed weird to be watching the player, but hearing louder footsteps for an off-camera NPC. That seems to happen a lot since they're always following you. Maybe the player's footsteps should always be louder than the NPCs?
Yeah. Partly because the heightmap could be better (it's too flat on the horizon when seeing away from the city) and partly because I haven't time to get into env. modelling.
Definitely needs improvement.
You've done a great job preventing any obvious tiling on the landscape. But yeah a few little things along the landscape would give you a better sense of movement, and break things up a bit.
It wasn't easy at all though. It's not a technical limitation, but rather gameplay. If the Shell becomes too detailed, it's too distracting and becomes harder to realize for new players you can get on top of it.
Understood. I think you could keep it mostly a solid colour, but still get rid of the low resolution blurriness. But it's definitely a challenge texturing huge models like this.
Hehe, there's a combo system. Spamming attack button will only get you a few moves. The combo depends on which direction are you pressing at the time you press attack (or other buttons).
Cool. If there's some tactics and timing behind which combos work best, sounds like a good system!
By the way, through multiplayer on LAN, other players can Co-op by controlling your friends.
Great feature. Co-op is huge.
The red bar on the upper-left corner.
Doh! Can't believe I missed that. I think I kept the mouse over the video, so the video frame kept it out of sight.
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by tod »

Good stuff here. Congrats.

Some criticism:
- What bothered me the most was the turtle, mostly the feet, and also the player in some instance, entering into the ground. At least for the turtle this looks really bad.
- Some objects have texturing errors, but I guess this is expected at this stage. For example the initial bridge, the border is very ugly.

As for funding, you could also try Kickstarter. You seem to have enough to show off.
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by mkultra333 »

Looks like a great start. Human animations look good, and the brief glimpse of the small town look good too. I like the idea of fighting a giant flying turtle, it makes me think of Godzilla and Gamera movies. It's neat the way he flips upside down and blasts out that suction/energy attack.

I think the turtle needs work, graphically. the model is too simple both in structure and textures. He's a boss, so cut sick on the poly count and maybe add a few more animated parts. Just tell the player that they need to jump on top if you're worried they won't get it. "Hey look, there's a power pylon on his back, let's get up on top of the shell and destroy it!" says wise NPC friend.

The desert looks nice. Needs a lot more detail, small desert plants, rocky outcrops, maybe a scurrying lizard, tumble weed or small whirlwind here and there. The sand seem to have a specular sheen from some angles that looked wrong.

Soundwise, I think the problem is that it's too quiet, so you only hear footsteps most of the time. A giant mechanical turtle like that should probably be making all kinds of scary whirring, grinding and revving sounds, and letting out a horrifying bellow now and then. And perhaps his minions could let out a few growls and grunts as well. I'd like the music lower in the mix, and maybe less of it, but that's just personal thing.

The fighting looks fun. I don't mind that the minions were easy to kill, I like destroying cannon fodder. When fighting large, tough bosses, I like to have some feedback that tells me I'm doing damage to them, like an enemy health bar, otherwise I can be left wondering if I'm doing the right thing to destroy them.
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by Hubert »

Quick test on my laptop fujitsu siemens (at work) :
Window vista business 32bit
2.4ghz
4GB ram
Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family

It crashed while loading (some info in attachment).


I like the video, the game looks amusing, I really liked the turtle and player's attacks, but I think the turtle is moving too fast when it flies.
I had no problem with footstep sounds, maybe the volume should be more dependants of distance.

Graphics in general need a little more polishing, maybe you should try to find a artist to help you.
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by dark_sylinc »

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Keep them comming!
Hubert wrote:Quick test on my laptop fujitsu siemens (at work) :
Window vista business 32bit
2.4ghz
4GB ram
Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family

It crashed while loading (some info in attachment).
Just what I've been looking for!
There should be other *.log files in the %AppData%\Distant Souls folder (LogicThread.log, RenderThread.log & LazyThread.log, weren't they created?)

If you're able to get to the Graphic options, try disabling shadows.
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by Hubert »

Ah ok, it was not my logs in the previous post... here are the logs with shadows (and crash at loading), and the logs without shadows (no crash but black screen except for text, see screenshots).


edit : with no shadows, I had to alt+tab, close the window. I think the last error in logs is related to that, and not to the black screen.
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by dark_sylinc »

Thanks for the report!
A friend managed to try the game in a similar spec and we nailed down the problem. It's the HDR compositor. I have yet to figgure out the exact problem, but I'm guessing the GPU doesn't support Bilinear FP16 filtering (even though it should, because it's a DX10-level card)

I'll be working on a fix!
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by dark_sylinc »

Updated download links. Intel 4 series is now supported! Additionally, nForce 6150 is no longer unsupported too.

Thanks for your feedback!
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by areay »

Very impressive!

Things I liked

* Shadows - didn't see any glitches
* The city scene - would've loved to have seen more of that, maybe it's in another vid that I haven't seen
* The particle effects - particuarly the turtle's fire jet thing
* Character animations

Nitpicking
* The music, it repeats too frequently - By the end I found myself getting annoyed by the 'chorus' or whatever that fast bit was, maybe you could get a longer sample to repeat?
* The turtle's leg texture - It was too difficult to sense the depth of the legs when you were jumping on it
* The text narration - I got confused a couple of times until I figured out that there was a dialogue going on with your teammates. Maybe just colouring the text; white for the main player, red for the red NPC, and blue for whatever colour the other one was
*The environment - a bit bland as others have mentioned


These are just trifling things for someone as accomplished as you seem to be. Bad luck on that competition problem though, must've been incredibly frustrating.
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Re: Download demo Distant Souls + Screenshots!

Post by FlorianGeorge »

I tested the game on an old notebook, Core 2 Duo, 2GB, Intel GMA 965, Windows XP to see whether it could be run there.

Had to disable shadows for it to work.

Also tried running the game with SwiftShader, which would at least in theory would allow you to run the game on unsupported hardware (e.g. Guild Wars 2 will run just below 5fps at full details using it on an i7), but that didn't work for some reason.

All logs and the DxDiag attached.
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