My name is Daniel and I am a passionate gamer and indie game developer!
I’m currently working with my colleague on a game called Azura - The Two Views of a World, where players can switch between the two protagonists’ controls.
The focus of the game is based on the fact that different characters with different personal backgrounds often have their own view of the world they are in.
I develop a mechanic that takes this as a starting point and visually integrates it into the game. The two protagonists perceive their world differently and have to learn from each other to move forward.
One topic that is unfortunately doesn’t stand out in the gaming industry is empathy and understanding for others who haven’t learned what others take for granted. We want to address this issue and create a game that will make people start to reflect on their actions and thoughts.
The project is currently under construction and there is already a Kickstarter page - otherwise you can hardly be financed nowadays ^^
I’m not a Triple-A developer, so the feedback from you as gamers is very important to me!
What do you think about the concept of the game?
Take a look at the pre-alpha trailer here to get a better look of it:
Interesting idea. Trailer isn’t really hitting hard on the premise but it’s early still.
The emissive in building windows is too bright.
Probably just a matter of opinion but I’m not a huge fan of the emissive designs on the dragons. Seems sci-fiish or something, just doesn’t fit well.
I think if you experiment with fog more you may find better results. Right now everything kinda grey and washed out looking. I’d suggest using it more judiciously. Primarily as a means to give sense of great distance. To get atmosphere closer consider screen and particle effects. That may help with sense of speed as well.
One last suggestion, don’t be afraid of color. Medieval times were colorful times. I think having really strong skyboxes will be important in game like this.
Natural world is full of fantastic and diverse color palettes. Grey and brown gets dull fast.
I agree to the previous comment. Your world looks beautifull and, if demo was recorded in playmode, it is very well integrated and smothly loads so i haven’t noticed any seams or lags, but you should put more effort in the dragons. For instance, you may add some dust, wind and a camera shake when a dragon lands and make them a little bigger that a cow. Dragons are magestic and terrifying creatures but I don’t see it here. They look like robo-pets. Otherways I like your idea and design and you have good goal, but try not to split your players personality. Good luck on your journey ))
Thanks for you feedback palex-nx!
I like your idea of adding dust, wind and camera effects.
The reason our dragons look like the way they are, is connected to our story.
There are different sizes of dragons in the game (just re-watch the trailer, there is a huge one on the snowy mountain ridge) and the one that is followed by the camera is one of our protagonists, Azura. She is a young dragon girl and at the time you see her in the trailer she’s not an adult dragon yet.
Dragons are majestic and can be terrifying, I agree on that, but our world is not just black or white. There will be different kinds of dragons and neither of them are either “good” or “bad”, as well as there will be people who aren’t either. We want to focus on a storytelling, that makes the player(s) aware of their actions, rather than creating just another standard RPG that serves prejudices.
Your explanation makes sense, if it is teenage dragon. While I understand your stance against prejustices, I must admit you should implement some just to catch your players and guide them to the point where they be able to see and adopt your major goal - empathy and reflection. My point it is better not to spread your forces and concentrate on one goal at time. If you try to fight all dragons at once, you’ll probably lose. I agree prejudices are not good. But they exists and should be taken into account. Decieved expectations may fail your main goal, so I’d avoid them.
We take your opinions very seriously and have therefore started directly with the implementation of a gameplay scene! During the next days we will create this scene and keep you up to date.
The following mechanics will be introduced:
Switch between Azura and Josh
Character movement of dragons and humans
Dialog and quest system
User Interface
You will see Josh’s father, the blacksmith for the first time.
Hello there!
We have now released our first gameplay from “Azura - The Two Views of a World”.
Here you can see the trailer:
or here directly to the 10 minute gameplay:
Please keep in mind that this is our first gameplay and we are at the very beginning of the game.
Of course we would be very happy about your feedback!
Looking really good. There is a lot I like about it. There is room for polish of course – animations, post process, lighting maybe. But it is early and I’m sure you got a plan for all of that.
UI is particularly nice. Environment layout shows some nice attention to detail (the culvert along the path, etc).
I think the writing is good too, but it’s always good to iterate on that too and see what can be condensed, and especially consider if dialogue sounds like real talk or if it’s too much exposition. For instance:
The several sentences from father about going to pick a fight with the drunk being a waste of time could be condensed to probably a single line:
“Can’t you see I’ve got better things to do than pick a fight with the town drunk?”
This tells reader all the same information and sounds more like something a person would say in normal conversation. YOu can consider the character as well. Probably an old blacksmith might have a short, terse way of speaking. “Clobber the drunk? Son, there’s plenty of clobbering to be done here. Less talk. Give me a hand.”
This gives us impression father is a focused guy. Spends all his day working. But it does so without him actually explaining that directly, and it gives us some character to get into, which everybody likes.
Character animations look weird, but overall it looks like a cool game to play and this video is better than previous one, so keep doing man, good luck )
