LIGHTRISE - A fun, fast paced multi-player combat game [OPEN ALPHA]

Lightrise is now on Steam Greenlight!
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Lightrise is a passion project I've been working on for about 2 months now (a lot of hours ). It is a skill-based, player vs. player combat game in a fantasy setting. It's focused on fun, fluent and fast-paced combat with a high skill ceiling. The idea is to have more in-depth and satisfying combat than a traditional FPS while omitting familiar restraints such as classes, roles and load outs found in most PvP games these days.

The game utilizes Photon Cloud for multi-player and Kii Cloud for player data. It has been a great learning experience all around, as I was not familiar with either service prior to starting this project. I'm officially a big fan of both now. I've been working with Unity for just over a year now, although it has mostly been with 2D up until this game. No shortage of stuff to learn, that's for sure! Also worth mentioning is that I'm using Unity 4.6 GUI exclusively.

The game is playable now, and available to play (albeit Alpha-ish state). I appreciate any and all feedback/comments/suggestions etc! Also, if you have any questions regarding any aspect of the game's implementation, or anything else for that matter, feel free to ask! I'll be updating this thread with progress moving forward.

Thanks for reading!

Website:
http://www.lightrisegame.com
Play Alpha:
http://www.lightrisegame.com/open_alpha
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/lightrisegame
Indie DB:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/lightrise
My daily Twitch.tv dev stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/destlocke

0.6.2 Video:

Some action from the Open Alpha:

Latest photons from 3/17/15:

 

-Updated client to 0.5.4

More info:
http://www.lightrisegame.com/node/75

 

Not related to the game directly, but relevant ~
http://www.lightrisegame.com/one_year_of_unity3d_a_post_mortem

Now listed on Indie DB:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/lightrise

 

New video, a bit more exciting than the first!

Play Alpha:
http://www.lightrisegame.com/open_alpha

 

This reminds me so much of Darkfall, was that the intent? Just curious.

Looks awesome, UI seems like a bit much. i personally would love to see it minimalized, especially with a twitch based game like this, a player wants to see as much as possible.

Very impressive!

 

Hey Mikenseer,

Thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated.

Yep - I don't know if you picked up on it, but the syllables in Lightrise are the opposites of Darkfall. It was a name I thought of years ago while just joking around with clan mates shortly after the shutdown of the original Darkfall. Long story short, I loved the combat of that game, so I want to honor it as much as possible while making it my own as well.

As for the UI, thanks to Unity 4.6, everything is scalable in game, and you can also expand the hotbars to decrease the numbers of bars needed. You can also shrink the chat/system windows. It's pretty customizable - which hopefully is enough to stave off the clutter feel.

Thanks again for the feedback, and give it a try when you get a chance.

 

Progress is coming along, been fixing a lot of bugs, thanks to everyone who has been play testing, because without players, it's very hard to find those edge-case bugs!

Live patch notes:
http://www.lightrisegame.com/patch_notes

 

Cool idea. I like your approach to creating a fan game based on an existing concept. I find this approach more enjoyable to see.
The lighting seems dark to me. If that's your intent it's good - otherwise may consider adjusting the lighting.

 

Definitely feel like I should have caught that haha. Definitely potential here, as many people would love Darkfall1 back.

 

Haha I'm kind of glad it sneaks up on you

 

Up to 0.6.0 now.

Does anyone have any advice on a patching system? I am not a fan of the "patching systems" offered on the asset store, I even bought one, and it just seems clunky. Maybe there's a reason even Unity still puts out full builds every time ?

 

Something interesting happened over the weekend after I announced open alpha on indiedb.com We had the good fortune of being featured on the front page of http://www.Indiedb.com (first game in carousel) as well as posted about on facebook. We've been in the top 50 all week there, and are at our highest right now @ 17. http://www.indiedb.com/games/top

I'll take it.

 

We've been pretty busy, and making great progress towards our Greenlight campaign! Over 250 people have registered and played Lightrise. The feedback has been amazingly positive!

I released Lightrise 0.6.3 last night.

This is a decent sized update, with some new functionality for testing, including an XP system and persistent global leaderboard!
Also included in this update is a new automatic patch/updater. 0.6.3 should be the last time you need to download the whole game!

Download 0.6.3 here!
http://www.lightrisegame.com/open_alpha

 

I now have a development twitch.tv stream up much of the time!
http://www.twitch.tv/destlocke

 

All the way up to version 0.6.8 now, and over 300 people registered and have played the Open Alpha.

The development pace has been breakneck so to speak. I've now streaming all day every day, and also answering Unity questions of all kinds!

 

Over 600 people have registered now, and the game has come A LONG WAY due to the Open Alpha. The faithful people who play and test have allowed the game to come along quite a bit more than it would have otherwise.

The version is now up to 0.8.4 (with 0.8.5 coming tomorrow)

Here's some of the latest visuals from our photo album on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/lightrisegame

 

Lightrise is official on Steam Greenlight now!

Vote for it and I'll be your best friend!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=382059601

 

Awesome progress @FamerJoe
Up voted. I need as many best friends as I can get!

The environments are outshining the characters in quality - in the latest images and video. Are you planning to iterate/up-res the character models before release - to match the environment visual quality?

 

In a perfect world, I would definitely like to @theANMATOR2b! Certainly not completely satisfied with them, but game-play does come first and foremost. If I am afforded the time to do so though, I would love to switch out the characters completely for something better.

Thanks for vote man, a niche game like this needs every single one!

 

Totally agree - tough lesson to adhere to for an artist (me)

Interesting - I'd assume a straight up PvP experience would shoot right to the top on steam. Maybe the community at large is more diverse than expected.

 

Well it's not an FPS or MOBA, so it's definitely not the norm, on top of the fact that PVP games are a niche in themselves, and mine is sort of skill-intensive, which I think further culls the field. That said, I would hope to be able to introduce people to something they may have never known they could love.

 

When are good times to play this? I have it downloaded but it never seems like anyone is online...

 

@MacMC it's hit or miss, you just have to get lucky. Primetime US would be your best chance. At the end of the day it's an Alpha, so people check it out, but don't get too vested in it at this point. There is a small subset that have played it ALOT but mostly to help me find and fix bugs and game balance because they are awesome. I didn't make a big hubbub about the alpha still being open with the Greenlight, because I don't really need a lot of people playing it to get the information I need to debug and progress the game forward. I'd rather have the majority wait! That said, if you are persistent, you will find some fights. Talk in global when you come on, I can see global even from outside of the game, and if I have a minute, I will jump on and wax you a few times

 

The good fight continues, if you haven't checked out Lightrise on Steam Greenlight please do! Every vote is appreciated!