ELLENICA: DUSK OF THE GODS - New Ultima-style RPG in development

[StuOhQ]

Oooh, that looks good. And the Ultima ports were best on Genesis IMO. I still love the NES ports too, though.

[Zebbe]

Looks really great and original! Sign me up for a copy of the game when it's done!

[Black_Tiger]

Oooh, that looks good. And the Ultima ports were best on Genesis IMO. I still love the NES ports too, though.

Have I been missing out all these years? I love Ultima IV for SMS.

[McValdemar]

Just wanted to share a weekend update as promised.
First of all a big THANK YOU to Pyron that helped me in pushing more vibrant shades of color on MD.

Here you can see the main character zoomed-in when you are in a detail location (yes, the sea is animated ), and two of the four in-game menu.

The in-game menu is much inspired to Skyrim. The first two sections allow you to see the full world map (once you recover it) and gets populated of places to go when you discover them exploring, readying a book, talking with a char, etc...

The quest menu allows you to keep track of all the open, active and closed quests. For each quests shows if is primary or optional, the overall task and the specific step that must be completed to advance to the following one. You can also focus on a quest that means that, if possible, the menu-map will show roughly where the step's target is.

[McValdemar]

The stats screen of ELLENICA. 2/3 of the game is spent in actions that impact on the balance between the belief of Olympians or the Mother Goddess at Minoan times. Ultima IV lesson learnt on crafting a game where the goal is not to overcome an ultimate evil.

[EPSYLON EAGLE]

Seems much better now, keep the good work!

[McValdemar]

Seems much better now, keep the good work!

Consider that the character is smaller when you are in the over world map like the first shots, and is larger when you are in one detail location and/or in combat.

And last update then I will go "silent" for another two weeks...
...I managed to have an item engine that allows the game to offer HUNDREDS of items between different cathegories: helms, armours, weapons, shields, consumables, readable, keys and "various".

I am trying my best to push the dept of what usually is a PC CRPG into a MegaDrive one.
And now the Stephane released the support for larger ROMs into SGDK I feel more confident to be able to port my game to MegaDrive.

[turboxray]

Pardon my ignorance on greek mythology; why is the main character naked???

[McValdemar]

Because he didn't equip clothes or armour. When you equip clothes or armour, or a weapon, a helm or a shield, you actually see them on your character, exactly what you equip.
And these affects your defence or attack skills.

[Pyron]

Man its really look a very cool game to play on md, very different thats we usuallu got. keep going the good work

[Barone]

Awesome project! Keep up the good work!

And thanks for sharing the progress with us.

[Zebbe]

That inventory looks beautiful and really immersive for the theme - i.e. not a generic blue box like Sega often did. I love the naked statue and the fact that it gets clothes etc. on it as you equip stuff.

[McValdemar]

Man its really look a very cool game to play on md, very different thats we usuallu got. keep going the good work

Awesome project! Keep up the good work!

And thanks for sharing the progress with us.

That inventory looks beautiful and really immersive for the theme - i.e. not a generic blue box like Sega often did. I love the naked statue and the fact that it gets clothes etc. on it as you equip stuff.

Thanks you all.
Really.
Appreciation is the best energy you can give to an hobbist developer.

@Zebbe.
It took me a bit to work on the inventary system but I definitely wanted hundreds of items. Most of them are usable, recharging hunger and thirst, equipped to impact your capabilities in combact, reading books to find new quests, locations, learn skills, etc... very minor ones are just for deco but to make you feel is a real world. To give you an example, you can get close to a table and take the silverware.

About statues/etc... they are really taken out of historical books on the era. I don't compromise. The statue was naked back then, and naked you get. People were sometimes naked, then you can do it. Of course since was not polite back then, if you go around naked not only you're very weak, but also easily people refuse to talk to you.

I know these choices are not typical for a CONSOLE rpg, but I wanted to bring to MD something I designed for RPG nerds on PC. I accept some compromises/cuts/etc... only to fit everything on a MD but not to turn my project in a Zelda clone only because this is a console.

[Stifu]

It looks quite promising. I must admit I'm not a big fan of actual pictures being used in MD games, because they often look dirty (those statues from the Stats page look fine though) and I'd rather get hand-drawn stuff, but I like that bearded guy character sprite and those stage maps.

[McValdemar]

It looks quite promising. I must admit I'm not a big fan of actual pictures being used in MD games, because they often look dirty (those statues from the Stats page look fine though) and I'd rather get hand-drawn stuff, but I like that bearded guy character sprite and those stage maps.

I completely get your point. MD, especially for the depth of the palette, and the limited number of palettes, is not the platform for digitalizations.
For this reason all the game is hand-drawn, just some elements in the UI are digitalized because this way gives more the "historical" feeling. Like is really something from the past.

But, for instance, the items are again all hand drawn.

I hope this mix is something that people will feel ok with.
(And thanks for the comment )