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ERK Games

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Blog Comments posted by ERK Games

    Josh

    Posted

    I'm not going to say anything bad right now, please understand my words correctly. BUT it seems to us that your current release strategy is wrong a bit. I don't think it needs to be clarified that an early release cannot be called 1.0 and not have at least minimally functioning modules for developing something not only based on code, but also on GUI and game levels, especially after more than four years of development. Especially considering the emphasis on the new interface that you are promoting. And especially considering that the Leadwerks engine was capable (and quite capable) of doing all this, and it was an old engine of the 7th generation of game consoles. So how is this radically different from another intermediate update for monthly subscribers? And who's the potential buyer of the new engine, if even the old engine, which has been neglected for several years, is hardly known outside of this forum? People simply won't accept an unfinished product, and on platforms like Steam, it's important to show the best right from the start of sales, even if it's early access. The strategy you have mentioned will mislead people, and if they buy Ultra, they will definitely refund it within half an hour. Remember the experience with Ultra App Kit, which had serious shortcomings from the start and even with the updates made, it was not accepted by the Steam community: it seems to me that you gained absolutely nothing from its publication and mixed audience reaction, and now the situation may repeat itself with an even more negative reaction, including from the old audience, do you understand what I mean? It won't be interesting to new users in its current form, and the old audience, includes us, will remain dissatisfied that they were made to wait for almost another year.

    By the way, you mentioned March 2024. That's a long time, considering that everything can change at any moment. With the level of functionality that you propose for 1.0, even our team that develops and releases games on Leadwerks (and respects you and your team), won't be able to switch to the new engine before that date (we planned to do it as soon as possible) - because it turns out that we won't be able to continue working on the game without at least having the flowgraph editor! And a Vulkan benchmark with a new interface is unlikely to help us create something worthy of audience attention. But... Apparently, there's nothing we can do about it 🌝

    Alright, then I have one last question: do you plan to follow your previously announced plans and release a major update for Leadwerks? At least before March 2024, if the answer is "yes". Because this engine REALLY needs an update, and we have already submitted the main issues related to its functioning in a bug report about a year ago:


    And by the way: Leadwerks, if it had a completed form, would be perfect for legacy development and would be relevant in this niche for many years to come. It has amazing features and compromised system requirements. Some of us are working on projects on older laptops, and it's still quite usable, if not for the annoying problems described by us and many others in the bug report threads. It seems to us that it's too early to write it off and radically replace it with something that isn't yet ready - it should at least be brought to working condition before that, because at least it ALREADY has a fan base.

     

    Josh

    Posted

    Can you please answer me:
    1. Am I correct in understanding that you are planning to release a version called 1.0, which will have a minimally functioning engine, but modules for developing flowgraph scenes and particle emitters will be unavailable?
    2. Will 1.0 also be released on Steam, or will it be an exclusive release for the website?

    ERK Games

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, Paul Thomas said:

    Wow! SALVATIONLAND looks great! I will purchase today along with Cyclone!

    Thanks! If you'll have a problem with passing first level, you must go to this house to complete intro quest (after police station). Many people can't find the way when playing first time (this is a screenshot from editor, so don't be surprised by the weird graphics here).

    111.jpg

    • Like 1
    ERK Games

    Posted

    12 minutes ago, Josh said:

    Congratulations. Everyone should try this game. :)

    Thanks a lot. Bad that we had to turn off the ragdoll physics at the last moment. Game randomly crashed with newton.dll. This game is sorely lacking in real physics. We even made a motorcycle based on a character class, as they would have done in the games of the 90s, to get around the technical problems of the engine.

    ERK Games

    Posted

    On 12/31/2021 at 7:31 PM, Vida Marcell said:

    I think you should make the wall materials more rough, because it looks like clay. Yeah leadwerks doesnt has the best material system, its difficult to make it look great, but i think you should also bake light probes in tight spaces, it will make it much better.

    If you say this based on footage from the trailer, then keep in mind that it's raining in the game, so all surfaces are wet and shine. We always work on materials to make them look more natural and adjust the roughness and specular parameters. You can see the result of our work in the game.
    Light probe method is not suitable enough due to the fact that there are various problems with them (uncontrollable shining, specular boost on the character's hands, etc.) + if we're working with large levels with dynamic sunlight, it can be difficult to control every place on map with light probe on it. Also it may cause performance drop, after all. We like honest engine dynamic light and the only trick we use to improve lighting, for example, in a dark room, is an additional light source with disabled shadow casting. And yes, we still use light probes for individual interiors.

    ERK Games

    Posted

    4 hours ago, Marcousik said:

    Yes a pretty cool intro, sure,  but there was nothing about the gameplay.

    Yeah ok - even if this video "only" shows that you as player can walk and talk. You announced about survival and shooter and stealth-action, maybe you want to show little bit more about those features - please don't misunderstand: I'm not complaining, only giving you my advice, you're free to ignore this if you mean. thx. 

    I had a few ideas for the first trailer, but ended up on a demonstration of the beginning of the game to convey atmosphere of the game itself. The survival elements, in my opinion, don't need a video demonstration (and they're not complete yet, by the way), and in the game we don't make such a strong direction on stealth and action as we do on the narration, dialogues and "lore".

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