Dead Monarchy - Medieval | Turn-Based | Mass-Tactics | RPG

Hey guys, I've been developing my game Dead Monarchy for over a year and a bit now. At least that is when full production started, it has more or less been in pre-production for over 3 years and going around in my mind for a decade. I'm a one man indie team, but I do occasionally outsource some work. The biggest influences would definitely be XCOM, Jagged Alliance and Battle Brothers.

I know that while turn-based combat has nothing to do with Mount and Blade, my game ultimately still does share some similarities, so I thought I'd post here if anyone was interested. I am currently focusing on the combat demo, in combat you will be able to fight in formation but also fight as an individual unit in that formation. After the base combat portion is done, I will be turning my attention towards the overworld map, where you will be able to capture territory.

It's still very early progress and everything is subject to change, but I'd like to show off my progress and hopefully generate some interest. Details are light right now as I am laser focused on getting the combat portion done first before really going into other details. Hopefully in a couple weeks I can release a new dev-blog too.

Unfortunately seeing as I am new, I can't post images or links. However I do have various images on my website and over on other forums in particular rpgcodex where you can see most of my progress there. A quick google search for "Dead Monarchy RPG" should give you the links

I also wanted to mention that the video are extremely old and are merely a proof of concept. The combat isn't that tedious as the units/models used are all placeholders

Hey guys, I have an update on the interface today. This is the equipment/stats/item inventory. I've decided to merge the two together to make use of screen-space but to also give the player quicker access to a global overview of the units under his/her command. For starters, the menu is split in half, you can more or less operate in one half then the other half as everything is sorted into equipment | stats.

Everything is still WIP and some icons are still placeholders. Going from left to right, top to bottom excluding the obvious model view on the left and right.

1. Unit name and stat/skill points.
2. Unit selection.
3. Unit status effects or buffs/debuffs. You can hover over the icon to bring up a tooltip.
4. Unit acquired abilities. This box will display what abilities the unit has learnt.
5. Unit stats, tooltips on hover.
6. Unit equipment screen. There are 6 slots in total. Head, chest, arms, legs and weapons. Icons are not completed.
7. Inventory screen, displaying all the items. Items will be stacked to prevent clutter, but I just wanted to fill out the screen.
8. Unit skill trees. Here all abilities are split into their weapon category.
9. Skill tree abilities. Here you can view all the abilities in the skill tree. Abilities are color coded, green is valid, red is invalid, orange is acquired. Tooltips on hover.

Let me know what you guys think, any feedback is welcome

Here are some pictures of my progress over the months. From combat to models.

Not bad. But you need to move this to the Other Games board.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/board,37.0.html

Looks like a great idea! Not my sort of game (however if I see it in the distant future, I'll be sure to check it out), but I can see a lot of effort is being put into your project, so best of luck!

Nice idea. Hope you can make the combat fun and challenging.

creuzet said:

Not bad. But you need to move this to the Other Games board.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/board,37.0.html

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Cheers, yeah I just noticed the other games sub-section within the off-topic section, new to this forum so not 100% with the navigation of it

Яowan said:

Looks like a great idea! Not my sort of game (however if I see it in the distant future, I'll be sure to check it out), but I can see a lot of effort is being put into your project, so best of luck!

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Thanks for the vote of confidence! I originally never thought I'd even be into playing turn-based games. After a while they grew on me and then here I am developing one. I think everyone should give TBS games a go as I think it is more or less the purest form of gaming. I'll be releasing a demo in the coming months so you'll be able to have a look at it yourself

Rodrigo Ribaldo said:

Nice idea. Hope you can make the combat fun and challenging.

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Combat is what I am focusing on right now. I'll be releasing a demo in the coming months so you'll be able to check it out. Any feedback is greatly appreciated when the time comes

I'd highly recommend adding lore/factions/political aspects to the game. That's really marketable right now.

ＤＹＳＴＯＰＩＡＮ said:

I'd highly recommend adding lore/factions/political aspects to the game. That's really marketable right now.

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Thanks for the feedback, factions are definitely in which then naturally breeds politics. For the most part, I'm a one man team so I tend to focus on sections one at a time. Dead Monarchy won't be stopping at just combat, there will be an overworld map of which the base framework has already been laid out

I've been tinkering around with dismemberment and decapitations to bring a more visceral feel to the combat. Dismemberment and decapitations will also have an effect on morale but are quite hard to pull off. Once again this is still early testing and everything is subject to change but I'd like to say that dismemberment and decapitations will be in, in some form or another. Also the "gore caps" as I like to call them are not finished, which is why you can see inside the head/neck or waist. I'll scrounge up some textures later and fill in those gaps later on. Also don't pay any attention to the environment, I'm in the middle of migrating my game to a newer version of Unity. I've also zoomed the camera in further than it it is normally, just to show everything off.

Visceral, but it's just a gimmick. You are avoiding working out the battles, aren't you?

Rodrigo Ribaldo said:

Visceral, but it's just a gimmick. You are avoiding working out the battles, aren't you?

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Hi there, no the base battle mechanics are actually more or less finished which is why I've turned my attention to the smaller details. I do have some very early footage of gameplay on youtube, but it is a proof of concept.

All the coding for the framework governing stats, formulas, damage calculation, grid path finding, attack of opportunity, counters etc are all done as well. You can have a look at my development video but a lot has changed since then.

The UI has also been overhauled, animations have been sped up and the general pace of combat itself has also been sped up. That's not to say that you can't spend time making decisions, but actions all take place within 1 second intervals within your own phase, so you don't have to wait for a single unit to completely finish their turn before moving to the next one.

I've been meaning to release a second development blog with the new changes, but there are still some finishing touches I'd like to add

Here's the link to the first blog:

Another set has come through and I've ready to show it off. The great helms have quite a lot of variation, there will be plain great helms, decorated helms (with rings) and fully decorated (with helmet piece and rings). I haven't settled with the naming convention, but just wanted to point out the modular nature of some of the armor pieces. I've settled with 3 slots for armor, Head, Body and Legs. The reason why I've gone with this is because the armor zones tie directly into gameplay as they are each a stat and that stat represents the durability of each piece.

More details will come as I come closer to the demo, the other reason why was there was too much clipping with some existing sets and I would of had to rework a lot of the base meshes to avoid clipping. It got to the point where armors looked too similar and lacked striking/prominent features as too much emphasis was placed on not having armors clip. That said, I think there is still enough base variation with 3 slots also the individual pieces like shoulders and wrists will be bundled together with chests, so within base sets there would be progression within it as well. IE chest, chest with gauntlets, chest with gauntlets and shoulders.

Been toiling away on the interface in between tweaking the combat gameplay. I've made room for biographies, as usual some stuff is placeholder and mainly just to block out the interface. Some of the border decorations have been taken out and will be put back in later. Overall I quite like how this interface has come out, but at first glance it main look a little overwhelming.

Victorious/Defeated Battles sounds weird. Better change those to simply Victories and Defeats.

Interesting stuff. Gonna keep tracking.

creuzet said:

Victorious/Defeated Battles sounds weird. Better change those to simply Victories and Defeats.

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It's mainly just to test the text padding, using longer words to make sure there isn't any issues when changing between resolutions, but I agree