Games Dawn of the Tyrant [It's back!]

Hello Unity people,

Dawn of the Tyrant is a game project we have been working on for a while. We now have a fully functional demo and we thought it would be a great time to share some of our work and progress with the community here on the forums.

Thanks for dropping by to take a look at what we're working busily on. We'll be sure to keep this thread regularly updated with more videos, screenshots, information about the project and updates on what we're working on as the game progresses.

Any comments and feedback would be great to hear!

– The team at Six Times Nothing






About the project

Genre: RPG – Single player, but some social features
Platform: Windows + Mac OS

Dawn of the Tyrant is a socially connected role playing game where the actions of players affect the flow of the storyline and gameplay. The game is based in a dark, primeval and brutal world where the advanced technologies of a once ancient and powerful race have fallen into ruin. The style of play fuses elements of traditional RPGs with faster paced survival-horror gameplay. The game world and artwork is inspired by a combination of gothic fantasy and horror and Babylonian, Egyptian and ancient Middle Eastern history and mythology.


Gameplay video

Here is a gameplay video, which shows the functionality and art as it currently stands. This video shows around 11 minutes of unedited gameplay, although for the impatient – you can skip to 04:50 to see some combat!

(Also – looks better on YouTube in HD!)

Please note that this a demo, not the complete game and some artwork, UI and content may not be final.

As to be expected, there are a lot of things to still be ironed out – loads of little bugs and glitches. However, the truly gargantuan task that still sits ahead of us is content – levels, missions, environment art, lots more characters, tons more weapon and armour options, and so the list goes on. We are currently looking into various options to give ourselves the necessary financial backing to take this game to the place that where we really want it to go!


Screenshots








The story

The planet of Vónekh VII is a stark and brutal world. Drenched in blood and dread, those unlucky enough to be trapped on its surface fight a never ending war for survival. With eyes cast skyward, many dream of going to a home that they have never been to and have only heard tales of. On the horizon they see the rising darkness, and the infinite terror stirring within.

An ancient and powerful race who once ruled the stars, now known only as the Aëdr, were rent asunder by a war long since passed. Yet their descendants – the proud and powerfully winged Lánaraï still fight their fallen kin, the dark and brutal Kheïtanni, in a bloody and seemingly perpetual stalemate. Neither faction will rest until the extermination of the other is complete.

Unknown to these vying factions, a growing darkness and malevolence has taken seed in the depths of the Void. In the utter blackness of this sinister nether realm, one who was thought destroyed rises once more. Rhïarrh, The Fire in Heaven, whom the fallen call the Tyrant-God.

It was His infernal desire to create and control life itself that once set in motion the war that still reverberates though generations of warriors that follow. A war that pitted brother against brother, and turned a galaxy-spanning empire to ash.

For now, Rhïarrh remains trapped in the eternal darkness of the Void. In fury, He strains against the chains that bind him and His infinite anger and seething hatred burns like a new star in the firmament. A terrible fire whose searing blaze reaches out into the material universe. It is prophesised that should He return, all are doomed to perish.

As the sky blackens with the threat of a coming storm, a new hope springs from the darkness. Ancient technologies of the Aëdr, thought to have been forever lost, have been unearthed. Now over shattered relics and the skeletal remains of once mighty starships, the battles between the Kheïtanni and the Lánaraï increase in ferocity. Rhïarrh's hateful gaze turns northwards and where it falls, unspeakable horrors begin to stir in the darkness and in the ground below. The dark and wild places of the world fill with vile things born of the Void. These Lán-Faën, the nightmares of men made real, now plague the lands of mortals. The end of all things is truly at hand.

For the long lost stars or for blood and vengeance, the time is now. Stand your ground, rise to the challenge and fight. Before the raging fire consumes us all.


About us

Dawn of the Tyrant is being developed by Six Times Nothing. You might have seen our name around before – Chris, though he no longer works with us, was behind the popular UniSky system on the Unity Asset Store. We've also released some free assets to the community in the past, including the Terrain Toolkit, which was part of the Unity Summer of Code, way back in 2009. There's actually just two of us now, though we've had the honour of getting to work with quite a few fairly awesomely talented people on this project, who've freelanced with us to help bring the game to life. Really, making this game was what we initially formed Six Times Nothing to create, but it's been a very long and winding road to get to this point!

 

This looks amazing!

 

I like your project ! We see your work

please Can you tell me the software used by your team ?

 

Hey, I sent you a pm about the most likely WIP voice acting, I made a better (IMO) "What Do You Want?"
Also, your project looks great, look forward to seeing more!

 

Thanks for the positive feedback, much appreciated!

@frysket – We have used Unity Pro for the client, Photon for networking and the SilverStripe CMS for web integration (also used for user authentication). Though there's probably some other server side software for databases, security, etc. that I'm not familiar with. Other than that we have used Photoshop, After Effects, Cheetah3D and Garageband for some of the 3D, 2D design, visual effects and music. Some of our contractors use zBrush, 3DS Max, Photoshop, etc. as well – most of the higher end 3D artwork has been done by them.

I should also note that we've used a couple of packs off the Asset Store – the ones by Michael O. deserve special mention! We will be creating a lot of our own environment assets moving forward as well though to help give the world a unique look.

@mightymike5321 – Hey, I got your PM. Thanks for that! Yeah, the VO is placeholder and is just me recording my own voice in Garageband. I'll drop your sample in when I can and see how it sounds in the game. We are also considering trialling VoiceBunny (http://voicebunny.com/voices-for-games) as a solution for voice acting. It looks like a great service.

 

Wow, the aesthetics there look really, really, REALLY good. Usually, though, Unity games that are all decked out have relatively horrible performance on the average machine, compared to games made with other engines. I'd bed really interested in seeing if that game's gorgeousness could actually be achieved on a wide range of machines.

That being said, I LOVE RPGs and I would certainly be interested in trying that game out.some day.

 

Wow. No words really. Looks astonishing! Hats off sir.

 

Gee that animation looks good

 

Wow, looking really great so far!

 

I'm in love with your UI. So clean especially inventory...

 

Love the game and cant wait to play it! Good luck

 

It's beautiful. I hope the game play is as good.

 

Ha. Glad you think so.

@Aspiring_Failure – I'll check again tonight to be sure, but from memory the demo as per the video was running consistently at between 60-70 fps at 1920 x 1080 on a 2 year old iMac. I also have a 5 year old MacBook Pro, on which the game admittedly isn't playable at all.

There are a lot of optimisations that need to be made to the game as it stands, and probably some graphic options to dial up and down the amount of effects, etc. Generally it will be our aim for the game to be playable on a reasonable range of machines, but there will have to be a cut off point somewhere I guess!

- - - - -

Thanks to everyone else for the kind words, again very much appreciated!

I'll be posting another update soon. This week we'll be giving access to the game to a small group of testers to review the gameplay and provide feedback on how we can improve the experience.

 

Update

This week we've started sending out the first builds to our testing group. An exciting step for us, and very useful to start hearing some feedback from people who've never played the game before. It's quite true that after playtesting every step of the way throughout development, you tend to end up being a bit too close to the game. The quirks of the controls become second nature to you, and what the player is supposed to do in each situation seems obvious. Sometimes, of course, that isn't quite the case! Either way, it's very helpful to have some fresh eyes with a new perspective.

Next up on the agenda, I'll be adding a simple mini-map to the UI. Then the focus will be back on mission and level design. The missions shown in the gameplay video here a bit light-on, and we'll definitely need a more substantial piece of narrative and content for our testing team to play.

I've recently added some new mechanics including the ability to commandeer other characters to join you on quests – which should open up some interesting options for future missions. Another new feature allows the player to use special mêlée and ranged attacks – including a deadly sniper ability that will also feature in an upcoming mission. Some of these will be shown in the next video, as well as a first look at the hated arch-enemies of the Kheïtanni – and our second playable race – the winged Lánaraï.


Concept art

Here is some of the concept artwork created by our talented team to create and visualise the world of Vónekh VII and its grim inhabitants. This is just a taste, and we'll be sure to share even more soon!


Kheïtanni race promo artwork (playable race)




Lánaraï, male, light armour concept (playable race)




Kheïtanni, female, heavy armour concept (playable race)t




Lán-Faën 'Horror' concept (enemy NPC)




The Pillars of Heaven, the home of the Lánaraï

 

The game looks really good graphics-wise!
The combat does seem slightly dull, but hey, it's a WIP!
Thoroughly impressed!

 

Hello there - I see no reason why your Creation is not playable on an old mac....But I have been using Unity for some time and Optimization Is what I am really good at....that and finding bugs....well they come to me haha....

If you need help optimizing let me know I will check it out and give you pointers on the adjustments needed.
If you are willing to pay I can transform your whole game to a run on even single core machines.
It always seems strange to me some of the Unity games I see running really slow when they shouldn't.
And if I can't optimize your game....you don't pay . Let me know what you think.

 

Very good work, keep in this way!!

 

@Justei – Yeah, fair call on the combat. Having more variation in the animation will make a big difference – that's just a big cost, so hopefully something we can improve on later. We've made a few tweaks since and combat feels a bit quicker already.

@SilverStorm – Thanks for the offer of help. I'll keep that in mind and will be in touch via PM. Right now we don't really have the budget for something like this, but hopefully the opportunity will present itself a bit later. We would really like the game to work on a broad range of machines, so it's a good thing to be considering.

A few things I'm already conscious of that will help performance...

This is in Unity 3.x – I've heard that GUI is significantly optimised in 4.x, so I'm hoping that will help a little. Failing that, we might look at rebuilding the UI in one of the systems on the Assets Store. That would just be a massive pain though!

The 'volumetric' fog effect makes a significant hit on performance. However, this is a big part of the gameplay mechanic, especially the ability for objects to attract or repel the fog (you can see this in the video when the character is carrying the glowing crystal through the fog). We could create varying resolutions and drawing distances for the fog which would help on less powerful machines though.

Terrain is always a huge performance hit in the Unity engine. I'm thinking of subdividing the terrain into smaller tiles and having them shown and hidden with the Umbra occlusion culling system. Also using Umbra for all GameObjects would probably help somewhat.

 

This game looks beyond beautiful. And when you said socially connected, does that mean it's an MMO? Please make it an MMO! Pleeassseeeee? C'mon.......don't make me beg. You can start a kickstarter for a budget! C'mon!

I haven't seen an MMO where the story is seriously affected by the player's actions and decisions. So this would be beyond wonderful if you can play with other players in an interactive world.

Pweas? :3

 

Visually stunning, and all around great looking game. Fantastic job on this! I'll be following this.

Best of luck,

SubZeroGaming

 

I took a look at the video and some major optimizations need to be done if that can't be played on a old mac.

The Gui in Unity needs major optimization; I have experimented with it on and off and well....I wouldn't use it unless I had lots of Fps to crunch.

Your menu is very clean and doesn't have much on screen should not be lagging if things were ok.

For Terrain make sure you make your OWN....I warned you.... Unities Built in Terrain has many flaws!

I wouldn't jump to conclusions though; It might be something silly that = a face-palm scenario if found.

I will look at it for free just to help. If things turn out well we can negotiate something down the line.
I want to help to get this game out of the water and into the sun . It is up to you though.

I got a lot I want to talk to you about in regards to improvement just based on the video I have quite a few .
Good Luck!

 

That's a job well done, wish I could find a team of artists that skilled to work with

 

very very nice project.

 

It is obvious you guys rock in this domain! The concept art, models, ideas in general left me speechless. I would like to make a suggestion though.
It would really impress me if you would change the straight spell bar at the bottom into an arch orbiting around a bubble or sphere showing you the current life and mana.

I can't wait to play it.

 

i love the quality of art you have. its very well made.

 

Hi all,

Thanks all for the positive comments on the game, all very much appreciated!


@SilverStorm – Thanks for your suggestions on optimisation, I'd really like to talk to you further about your thoughts and the possibility of getting more involved in the future. Perhaps it would be best if I PM you and share my email address, so we can take the conversation offline.


@EverHeartGames – We actually started out with the intention of creating an MMO, in fact our back end systems still have some of that functionality in place. However, we decided to take a different approach to creating a socially connected game, given both the high complexity and high cost of maintaining MMOs.

There will be a number of social features in Dawn of the Tyrant, the full details of which will be announced when we launch the website – most likely in a couple of months time. We're still working though the fine details, so we're intentionally not saying too much about these features at this early stage. At least, not other than the premise that the player community will be able to alter the course of the game and the storyline through their actions. In fact, the game is set on a planet on the verge of dying. Players will need to fight simply to stop the encroaching darkness from devouring the planet and causing entire parts of the game world to cease to exist altogether!

That doesn't mean that there will never be actual realtime multiplayer. We will likely add a feature at some point that allows small groups of players to work together, but it is unlikely that we will ever create a full scale MMO.


@AMDAndrew – The idea about shuffling around the UI into an arc is interesting. I worry that it might get in the way a bit, but on the other hand, it would mean that the player has only one place to look to see their current health, mana and abilities – which might be a better user experience. I feel like it might be a bit fiddly to get the icons rendering nicely in an arc, but it's definitely doable. I might look at this suggestion a bit later on and consider some A/B testing of the 2 layouts with our alpha testing group.


@Shinkiro – Thank you for the feedback. Naturally, I have my own ideas about how combat can be improved in the game – but out of interest, what did you feel was missing or not working well? I know it's currently a bit limited by the number of animations we have (these can get expensive), but would more animations help? Better enemy AI? Or were you thinking of more spells, abilities and effects?

Note that a few things have been added since this video was created – the target selection system has been improved, so combat is a bit snappier. Ranged weapons have been made much more usable and there are also now special attacks which can be used – both for ranged and hand-to-hand weapons.

 

Ah ok. That makes sense.

There is actually a blocking system, both for the player and some NPCs. But you're not seeing it for 2 reasons.

1. I didn't bother to block when I played the game to make this demo, which is probably a sign that it's not working well. At the moment, the left mouse button attacks and the right mouse button blocks. It's a bit glitchy though and to be blunt, I feel like it's more of a problem with the Unity event model than it is my code. I guess I could look at approaching the code differently or even changing the control system. In fact I guess it might also have something to do with the buttons on my Apple mouse too...

2. The NPCs shown in this demo (Horrors) have no blocking behaviour of their own as they are not really even alive and don't really have a sense of self preservation – although that's not top say that they couldn't be given another more suitable mechanic. Horrors are kind of 'trash kills' too. They are supposed to be numerous and easy to kill. Though what might be interesting is to give the player more access to 'crowd control' abilities and area of effect attacks that allow them to take on hordes of demons at once. Other NPCs do have the ability to block though.

So, on one hand, you might find that those more active elements that you are looking for will start to appear once we have some higher level enemy NPCs in the game, but on the other – there is probably a lot more that we could be doing with our AI to give enemies more interesting behaviours and more adaptability to combat situations. To be honest, we have been a bit lazy (!) on that front and just given the AI agents the bare minimum they need to identify targets and engage in combat – although the AI system we have can potentially do a lot more.

The system we are using is something of our own invention. It's entirely 'needs based' in the sense that AI agents have a set of needs (like the desire to kill enemies, survival instinct, the need to protect territory – or friends, and so on). They continually survey their surroundings and react to objects that can fulfil a need (such as attacking an enemy or picking up food to eat). Some needs are more important than others and simply at any point, they will choose the action that best meets their needs.

At the moment Horrors have a pretty simple needs/actions profile – they can patrol, attack or flee (certain items will repel demons) – but that's about it. By adding more dimensions to their profile, it will yield more complex behaviour and therefore more interesting (and perhaps more challenging) combat.

 

This looks absolutely stunning!

 

Hello again,

Yesterday we launched the new blog for Dawn Of The Tyrant. We'll be updating it regularly with news and updates on what we're working on, sharing new concept art and game screenshots and even giving readers the chance to get their hands on the beta.

Check it out here: http://blog.sixtimesnothing.com

We're all still working hard on this game and are currently building out the first set of story missions for the Kheïtanni (fallen angels) race. We hope to have some new video footage of some of these ready to share here and on the blog soon!

 

Hey there - wow I check my email and all of a sudden I am like what is this....then I open it and see your name and then I am like oh yeah....I remember you....but that was a year ago....man what have you and your team been up to in all that time!

Keep us fans informed!

Loved the concept art and back-story posts.

 

Gorgeous art and effects, technical execution looks solid.
I assume since this is closed beta its close to completion? My criticisms are based solely on that:
It starts kind of boring, talk to this guy, talk to that guy, been done 1000 times before and its not engaging. And since its a single player you kind of expect more engaging story.
The voice acting.. you guys gotta voice the entire dialogues!
The music feels out of place, sounds more like menu music? This game would also greatly benefit from combat music when you are fighting.
Combat feels a little old-school MMO-ish, I personally prefer a little more dynamic and less clicking on ability icons.
Overall to get me want to buy this, it just has to stand out in some way from looking like an MMO and have some uniqueness to the gameplay.

 

Let us know when the beta is available.

 

@SilverStorm: Thanks for the kind words and support! We'll be sure to get you an invite to the beta once we're ready – still lots of work to be done though!

- - - - -

@Cheburek:
Hi and thanks for the feedback – both the positive and negative. I think criticism is probably the most useful thing for us to hear, as that will help us make a great game, rather than an average been-done-before game. I hope it doesn't sound too much like an excuse, but do bear in mind that video you're watching is almost a year old and really just shows a technical demo, rather than anything we would consider as a final product.

In coming weeks, we will be talking a lot about some of the more innovative features of the game on the blog. But until then, here's a few teasers of what to expect...

1. You start out as a raw recruit in a warband in story mode, but eventually work your way up the ranks to lead your own warband which you can command in open world mode.

2. It's a single player game, but there will be World Quests that require the efforts of multiple players to complete. World Quest completion will unlock rewards, new resources, new technologies, etc. for that entire faction.

3. The most heroic actions of players will be published to a social feed. Other players can 'Honour' them, which works a bit like a 'Like' on Facebook. Honour can be used as currency to get access to the best upgrades and abilities.

4. There will be legendary weapons which get better the more kills they get and worse each time the bearer is slain. When you level up and outgrow a legendary weapon, you can bequeath it to a lower level player in your faction, so the best weapons in the game will really have been handed down from generation to generation.

5. You can set traps and pay assassins to try to take down other real, players of the opposing faction.

Plus more features to come, but that should give you a general idea!


Also, a few quick-fire responses...

– The beta, when available, will be the first set of story missions for one of the main races – so no, it's not close to completion!
– Story missions will bring a lot more to the game. We are working with a published novelist who is writing the full dialogue.
– Voice acting is expensive. We'll add it after we get funding (we'll be going up on Kickstarter once the new demo and video is done).
– Music is also expensive. But I totally agree!
– Combat is done with mouse controls (attack/block), you can counterattack by blocking with perfect timing, multiple hits unlock higher combos, including an ultimate Deathblow attack. Only special abilities/spells are done through icons. From memory, I think only the basic attack/block stuff worked when we made that video last April.

 

ah ok that makes sense. I may have sounded a little harsh but that's because I kind of judged your game in AAA ballpark, which is miles ahead majority of games on these forums. Good luck and looking forward to beta

 

Hi,

I'm just wondering what you used for the UI for this. I'm curious to know if you used Scaleform or not?

I'm struggling to get crisp clear button textures and smooth clear text on my UI, so was just wondering. It looks like you've achieved this The game looks great!

 

Cheburek: Thanks. All good, harsh is fine with us – it's good to know where improvement is needed! I am also aware that going for an AAA-ish look means that people will expect a lot more from the game, despite it being very much an indie production.

@Velo222: Hi, it's actually just Unity's built in UI. We've thought about using one of the packs in the Asset Store, but the time/cost of rebuilding the whole thing has never really been appealing. Plus apparently since 4.x, the built in UI is much better performance-wise than before.

Main tip would be that whatever system you use, it needs to be pixel-perfect, no scaling or image pixels not snapped to the screen pixels. I kinda worry that some of the systems that render UI onto geometry in front of the camera aren't 100% spot on – but I'm speculating. In terms of text, I'm not sure why it wouldn't be smooth – maybe also check that it's pixel-perfect and not getting scaled up at all.

 

Hi all!

We’ve been quiet on here for a while now (probably a little too long!) – but we wanted to share a couple of recent major milestones and a new announcement about the planned release of the game.

A few weeks ago, we exhibited the game publicly for the first time at PAX Australia in the International Indie Pavilion. Being just on the cusp of moving into our first public Beta round, it was exciting and perhaps also just a little scary to be showing off the game for the first time. But we had a great response from both the gamer and indie dev community. We hope to follow it up next year with an appearance at PAX Prime 2015.

There’s a few photos from the PAX Australia here:









Secondly, we have also just launched a new website for the game that goes into much more detail about what the game is all about – it covers elements of the story, the features of the game, plus the first two annouced playable races.

Most significantly, we have confirmed the major feature for the game – a serialised release plan and a socially connected questing system called World Quests, which allow the entire player community to affect the storyline of the game from one chapter to the next.

Check it out here:
http://www.dawnofthetyrant.com

A mobile version of the site will be coming shortly – and we'll also be updating the site very soon with much more media – both screenshots and video – showing the latest region we've been working on.

Lastly, we announced at PAX Australia that we will be bringing the first chapter of Dawn Of The Tyrant to Steam Early Access – with the plan to get the game Greenlit for a future Steam release with the support of the community.

Thanks for dropping past and checking our game out!

 

Hello – a bit of news from me about the game after what is really quite a long absence. So much so that it’s almost embarrassing to look at the date on the last post (umm yeah… don’t look).

Work on the game has been on and off for a while. As mostly a solo developer on a fairly ambitious project I guess that’s a bit inevitable with all the things that go on with life, work and so on!

Anyway, the news: after diving back into the game project and getting it back on track over the last year or so, I am about to launch it on Patreon as way to help give the game a more likely future and also give people a way to play the game sooner while (mainly content-wise) it still has a way to go. I haven’t started posting about our Patreon launch across our social channels or website yet, but hoped I could share it here and get some early thoughts, comments or feedback.

To speed up and get closer to a release, I have introduced a more streamlined experience of the game through a new Battlegrounds feature where players can lead and fight alongside their chosen warband in a fast and brutal battle. Story-wise, these are each one of many scattered clashes that will pave the way for the full game. Plus – they use our signature World Quests feature, meaning that what players do upon these Battlegrounds will affect the storyline and balance of power when Chapter I of the full game starts.

https://www.patreon.com/dawnofthetyrant

Also, here’s a few new screenshots that look quite a bit better than the old screenshots!







Thanks for taking the time to check out the project!