Hello I'm doing a research and review on the RPG engine. I've used of for awhile now, and would like to let others know more about your development team. Please if you could share any insights of your own about this project in response to this project.
Some prompts: 1. Who is all working on the engine. 2. How long has it been in development. 3. Did you have a kick starter 4. Will the demo mode always remain free to play as players in the future. 5. What plans do you have for the engine.
Around 3 years ago, I quit my full time 3D artist job to start developing my own games. I spent 2 years working on little projects and prototypes to hone my programming and general dev skills until around a year ago when a friends asked if I could host a D&D campaign. Having not GM'd in a while, I assumed there'd be some pretty nifty VTTs out there that would allow you to build in full 3D but just couldn't find any I liked the look of so... I decided to try making my own! And thus, (in April 2021) The RPG Engine was born!
The Team: Osian -A friend of mine is a brilliant software engineer (with a full time job) who helps me on the occasional evening and weekend to bounce coding principles and help clean-up some of the back end code. He's also responsible for some of the features (such as Ctrl + Z). Without him the game would not be at the level of polish it's currently at.
Jeremy - Around 2 weeks ago at my part time job (climbing instructor) I met a very talented Ui/Ux designer who has kindly offered to do some bits and bobs when he has time (The logo is already being made)
Community -Over the last month the community has also tremendously grown and there have been some amazing individuals who have helped bug-testing, making screenshots and some are even starting to make tutorial videos. They have been so welcoming to anyone joining or asking for help and they've come up with a whole host of amazing features I've implemented into the game! It's been an absolute joy interacting with them. (You can interact with them too: https://discord.gg/mJntEJ2kzC )
Me - Admin, Art, Design, Coding, Shader, Videos etc...This project is my baby and have been having an absolute blast making it!
Kickstart: There hasn't been one yet. I'm not a fan of the amount of kickstarters that promise so much but deliver so little. I planned to make a demo and show users what the games all about by letting them experience it, not by showing some faked trailer and setting ridiculous milestones (the best I've seen is 200k for an autographic camera mode... literally a toggle in unity). I'm unsure if there will be a kickstarter at this point in time. It was certainly my plan but I've been informed as the game is already out there may not be much point.
Pricing: For the duration of the alpha, anyone can host any amount of players. Demo-> Demo, Main -> Demo works too. On release (I'm tentatively aiming for the end of the year). There will most likely be a small subscription to have more than 1 or 2 free users join your lobby. This will include a "lifetime membership" purchase option. It's really difficult to put any exact numbers on it as it's an ongoing discussion.
Plans: The plans for the RPG engine are big. As the community is developing, more and more amazing features are being suggested and implemented. Some notable upcoming features are:
Dynamic player sheets, with referencing and automatic rolling -> Designed to cater to homebrew as much as existing TTRPG systems.
Roll Logic - We're currently looking at adding a system similar to "Anydice" which should also cater to FUDGE/FATE game modes.
Obj Importer - because the 4.5k placeable objects already in the game just don't cover all possibility!
Additional Terrain Tools ( to make sculpting easier and faster).
The community has also be crying out for a 1st/3rd person mode so that's something which I'm likely going to look at adding.
Rather long post but hope I've covered all your questions. I really appreciate you spreading the word and if you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact me!
Hey buddy, I can tell you have been working on this a while and I hate to rain on the content. It's beautiful.
In June of last year I started a company called The RPG Engine.
Unfortunately, we have similar ideas about what the company intent and product are.
I don't know how else to contact you, so I'm letting you know here that we need to talk about your app name, as it is in direct conflict with my company name and purpose.
I found this because I was searching my website that I just finished building.
Hey Alexander thanks for getting in touch. Please drop me a message on Polydemons.demos@gmail.com so we can sort this out. Cheers and hope you are well. Justus
Thanks you so much and what an amazing idea. I will add it to the search tags and descriptions, but this issue has already been resolved :) It's about to be released on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1818180/The_RPG_Engine
This looks promising. I'll be watching for a later version! I foresee assets being a bit harder to come by, but that's to be expected of anything new. Do you plan on keeping it free and making it open source, or will you eventually charge for the full version? If it works as good as the RPG Maker series but in 3D, it will be worth a decent chunk of money.
Hey Aslanemperor! Thanks for the comments. I have a small collection of Themed assets which I will be importing over the next few updates. In the long run I plan to make this game extremely mod friendly - with servers for uploading and downloading maps, assets and addons. This means people who just want to build beautiful maps will be able to share their work, and others who just want to RP a bit can pick any of the collection of maps online.
The current plan (and this may change as the development progresses) is to keep the game free to play for the duration of the Alpha. Upon release I'm thinking of a one time charge that will get you the game and full access to all community content. I think it would also be cool to have the option to donate to creators of maps or assets should you download and use them.
Now the Map-Making part of The RPG Engine is in a solid starting place, I will be taking a look at the player/character sheet side of things to make playing TTRPG easier. If all goes well things like dynamic roll calculations will be part of that.
Thanks for checking the game out and if you do have any other suggestions, ideas, or feedback please let me know. You can also join us on Discord for more discussions and updates: https://discord.gg/mJntEJ2kzC
Pretty cool! I tested it a bit, it would be nice to have, as a GM, a way to paint an area in one go. Like a paint can function. Also, it would be nice to have some smoothing functions to the brush. I was trying to paint a road for a town and it was a bit stilted. Is there a way to create the sharp cliffs in the demos? my raised terrains seem to be more like hills. A paint can tool would be nice if it could be used on the props as well. Either way, a cool project so far. I'll definitely keep an eye on it. I think, if it were improved, I could see myself using it instead of Roll20.
Hey! Thanks for trying out The RPG Engine and for the very kind words. It's great to hear it's heading in the right direction. At the moment sharp edges can be created by using a smaller brush around curved top of the slope, this will push the edges out and create more of the effect you are looking for. In future I will absolutely be looking at how to optimise the building process, both in the terrain sculpting as well as the Prop placement (and colouring). There are some things I will be adding first such as a major Ui update, custom item importer and player sheets. After these core elements are in, tools update and many more features will be added!
for whatever reason when i open the application i am unable to see the full screen i dont know why but on my computer it seems that the menu is much larger and i tested if it was an issue for others and it wasnt so i have no idea what could do to be able to fix this problem
Hey! Thanks for the report. The game Ui is currently not great at adapting to different screen resolutions. The best resolution to run this game at is 1080p. In an upcoming update the Ui will be dynamically scalable to any resolution.
So in a future update I will be adding an in-game uploader and downloader. For now maps can be shared by simply copying the #.map file (and #.png file if you have an icon for it) located in: AppData>LocalLow>PolyDemons>The_RPG_Engine>Campaigns. There you will find a list of you campaigns as folders and inside are the map files. (you can also open and share your template maps by selecting the folder icon in the template menu). I hope this helps for now!
Yo! I've made an experimental build for mac but am not in a position to test it right now. More info and the download link to the experimental version can be found on the discord in the "mac-experimental" channel. https://discord.gg/mJntEJ2kzC
Serious kudos if you do this as a one man project! You started something which could turn into a massive community project - can’t wait for GMs to share their maps. Think Minecraft for RPG and beyond………..
I LOVE this projet ! But at the same time my friends and I have SOO many questions ha ha So if you don't mind i'm gonna bombarde you with it lol...
1. Is there going to me a "night" time of the day ? Because I don't seems to be able to have one (or I couldn't see it, which could be true too)
2. Since it's an alpha, I have no idea if it possible but is there going to me a character creating tool for the players ?
3. I seems to have a ploblem with the "[" "]" part, I was able to minimize the size of the consol but couldn't make it bigger anymore, It is stuck being small ? (I have an azerty keybord), is it a bug or am I being dumb ? lol
Thanks again for you work ! I'm gonna follow closesly your work !
Hey there! Thank you so much for the kind words, I'm thrilled you are enjoying the game! To answerer your questions:
1. Yes! Unity doesn't handle lighting too well so I need to code a custom solution to allow for multiple torches and Light-sources. Then I will add night time. I am also planning to introduce an entire weather system, allowing you to create and move thunder- and snow-storms, control fog, light rays etc. (Check out Aura 3 for unity for what's to come)
2. The character creator is on my list of things to do and in the first version it will allow you to change the masks/helmets/shoulder pads of each character. As the game progresses I'm hoping to add a much larger variety of characters and creatures to give you more freedom to play!
3. I've just tested it on a couple of other computers and it seems to be working fine.. In the first patch I will add a keyboard control menu to give you the option to rebind keys. Until then, try saving and restarting the game or maybe temporarily change your keyboard language while playing.
I would love to see some of the maps you've created! Feel free to join the Discord where I will be posting updates and hosting discussion.
I'll happily join the discord ! And thanks for the answers ! I was not able te replicate the bug for the [ ] thingy but yeah.... A option to rebind keys would be wonderful !
And I'm quite excited about the weather system......... It's going to be so great lol.
For the character creation tool, it was actually a question from a friend. She really liked you engine but she was kinda sad that she was not able to customise her own character. She saw the game has a player point of view and not a GM pov. So of course she would like to put time into her character more than the map.
And if I create a better map that I have I would ! lol (I have only created a "date" map between two skeletons to test the game lol)
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Hello I'm doing a research and review on the RPG engine. I've used of for awhile now, and would like to let others know more about your development team. Please if you could share any insights of your own about this project in response to this project.
Some prompts:
1. Who is all working on the engine.
2. How long has it been in development.
3. Did you have a kick starter
4. Will the demo mode always remain free to play as players in the future.
5. What plans do you have for the engine.
Hey Elska, thanks for getting in touch!
Around 3 years ago, I quit my full time 3D artist job to start developing my own games. I spent 2 years working on little projects and prototypes to hone my programming and general dev skills until around a year ago when a friends asked if I could host a D&D campaign. Having not GM'd in a while, I assumed there'd be some pretty nifty VTTs out there that would allow you to build in full 3D but just couldn't find any I liked the look of so... I decided to try making my own! And thus, (in April 2021) The RPG Engine was born!
The Team:
Osian -A friend of mine is a brilliant software engineer (with a full time job) who helps me on the occasional evening and weekend to bounce coding principles and help clean-up some of the back end code. He's also responsible for some of the features (such as Ctrl + Z). Without him the game would not be at the level of polish it's currently at.
Jeremy - Around 2 weeks ago at my part time job (climbing instructor) I met a very talented Ui/Ux designer who has kindly offered to do some bits and bobs when he has time (The logo is already being made)
Community -Over the last month the community has also tremendously grown and there have been some amazing individuals who have helped bug-testing, making screenshots and some are even starting to make tutorial videos. They have been so welcoming to anyone joining or asking for help and they've come up with a whole host of amazing features I've implemented into the game! It's been an absolute joy interacting with them. (You can interact with them too: https://discord.gg/mJntEJ2kzC )
Me - Admin, Art, Design, Coding, Shader, Videos etc...This project is my baby and have been having an absolute blast making it!
Kickstart:
There hasn't been one yet. I'm not a fan of the amount of kickstarters that promise so much but deliver so little. I planned to make a demo and show users what the games all about by letting them experience it, not by showing some faked trailer and setting ridiculous milestones (the best I've seen is 200k for an autographic camera mode... literally a toggle in unity). I'm unsure if there will be a kickstarter at this point in time. It was certainly my plan but I've been informed as the game is already out there may not be much point.
Pricing:
For the duration of the alpha, anyone can host any amount of players. Demo-> Demo, Main -> Demo works too. On release (I'm tentatively aiming for the end of the year). There will most likely be a small subscription to have more than 1 or 2 free users join your lobby. This will include a "lifetime membership" purchase option. It's really difficult to put any exact numbers on it as it's an ongoing discussion.
Plans:
The plans for the RPG engine are big. As the community is developing, more and more amazing features are being suggested and implemented.
Some notable upcoming features are:
The community has also be crying out for a 1st/3rd person mode so that's something which I'm likely going to look at adding.
Rather long post but hope I've covered all your questions.
I really appreciate you spreading the word and if you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact me!
Cheers,
Justus - The Architect
polydemons.demos@gmail.com
https://discord.gg/mJntEJ2kzC
Hey buddy, I can tell you have been working on this a while and I hate to rain on the content. It's beautiful.
In June of last year I started a company called The RPG Engine.
Unfortunately, we have similar ideas about what the company intent and product are.
I don't know how else to contact you, so I'm letting you know here that we need to talk about your app name, as it is in direct conflict with my company name and purpose.
I found this because I was searching my website that I just finished building.
Please reach out to me to discuss this issue!
Warm regards,
Alexander
CEO
The RPG Engine
Hey Alexander thanks for getting in touch.
Please drop me a message on Polydemons.demos@gmail.com so we can sort this out.
Cheers and hope you are well.
Justus
Thanks you so much and what an amazing idea. I will add it to the search tags and descriptions, but this issue has already been resolved :)
It's about to be released on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1818180/The_RPG_Engine
This looks promising. I'll be watching for a later version! I foresee assets being a bit harder to come by, but that's to be expected of anything new. Do you plan on keeping it free and making it open source, or will you eventually charge for the full version? If it works as good as the RPG Maker series but in 3D, it will be worth a decent chunk of money.
Hey Aslanemperor! Thanks for the comments.
I have a small collection of Themed assets which I will be importing over the next few updates.
In the long run I plan to make this game extremely mod friendly - with servers for uploading and downloading maps, assets and addons. This means people who just want to build beautiful maps will be able to share their work, and others who just want to RP a bit can pick any of the collection of maps online.
The current plan (and this may change as the development progresses) is to keep the game free to play for the duration of the Alpha. Upon release I'm thinking of a one time charge that will get you the game and full access to all community content. I think it would also be cool to have the option to donate to creators of maps or assets should you download and use them.
Now the Map-Making part of The RPG Engine is in a solid starting place, I will be taking a look at the player/character sheet side of things to make playing TTRPG easier. If all goes well things like dynamic roll calculations will be part of that.
Thanks for checking the game out and if you do have any other suggestions, ideas, or feedback please let me know. You can also join us on Discord for more discussions and updates: https://discord.gg/mJntEJ2kzC
Pretty cool! I tested it a bit, it would be nice to have, as a GM, a way to paint an area in one go. Like a paint can function. Also, it would be nice to have some smoothing functions to the brush. I was trying to paint a road for a town and it was a bit stilted. Is there a way to create the sharp cliffs in the demos? my raised terrains seem to be more like hills. A paint can tool would be nice if it could be used on the props as well. Either way, a cool project so far. I'll definitely keep an eye on it. I think, if it were improved, I could see myself using it instead of Roll20.
Hey! Thanks for trying out The RPG Engine and for the very kind words. It's great to hear it's heading in the right direction.
At the moment sharp edges can be created by using a smaller brush around curved top of the slope, this will push the edges out and create more of the effect you are looking for. In future I will absolutely be looking at how to optimise the building process, both in the terrain sculpting as well as the Prop placement (and colouring). There are some things I will be adding first such as a major Ui update, custom item importer and player sheets. After these core elements are in, tools update and many more features will be added!
for whatever reason when i open the application i am unable to see the full screen i dont know why but on my computer it seems that the menu is much larger and i tested if it was an issue for others and it wasnt so i have no idea what could do to be able to fix this problem
Hey! Thanks for the report. The game Ui is currently not great at adapting to different screen resolutions. The best resolution to run this game at is 1080p. In an upcoming update the Ui will be dynamically scalable to any resolution.
i think it would be good if u allowed people to export
Hey, thanks for your feedback! What do you mean by export? The ability to share your maps?
yea, share and play
So in a future update I will be adding an in-game uploader and downloader. For now maps can be shared by simply copying the #.map file (and #.png file if you have an icon for it) located in: AppData>LocalLow>PolyDemons>The_RPG_Engine>Campaigns. There you will find a list of you campaigns as folders and inside are the map files. (you can also open and share your template maps by selecting the folder icon in the template menu). I hope this helps for now!
it really helps
Will there ever be support for MacOS?
Hopefully, if all goes well, I will release a mac version this coming Thursday!
Sick!! Looking forward to it. :)
Yo! I've made an experimental build for mac but am not in a position to test it right now. More info and the download link to the experimental version can be found on the discord in the "mac-experimental" channel.
https://discord.gg/mJntEJ2kzC
Worm!! Lemme join up now.
There's a new experimental Mac build on the discord which should have most of the issues fixed!
i have a doubt is this made by a team or a single person?
simply curios....
I'm a solo Dev but do have help every other weekend from a software engineer for some brain storming on coding concepts.
Serious kudos if you do this as a one man project! You started something which could turn into a massive community project - can’t wait for GMs to share their maps. Think Minecraft for RPG and beyond………..
really love it
and dont forgot to subscribe to mr beast ;)
Amazing how much you managed to update so quickly, the maps are soooooo cool!
I LOVE this projet ! But at the same time my friends and I have SOO many questions ha ha So if you don't mind i'm gonna bombarde you with it lol...
1. Is there going to me a "night" time of the day ? Because I don't seems to be able to have one (or I couldn't see it, which could be true too)
2. Since it's an alpha, I have no idea if it possible but is there going to me a character creating tool for the players ?
3. I seems to have a ploblem with the "[" "]" part, I was able to minimize the size of the consol but couldn't make it bigger anymore, It is stuck being small ? (I have an azerty keybord), is it a bug or am I being dumb ? lol
Thanks again for you work ! I'm gonna follow closesly your work !
Hey there!
Thank you so much for the kind words, I'm thrilled you are enjoying the game!
To answerer your questions:
1. Yes! Unity doesn't handle lighting too well so I need to code a custom solution to allow for multiple torches and Light-sources. Then I will add night time. I am also planning to introduce an entire weather system, allowing you to create and move thunder- and snow-storms, control fog, light rays etc. (Check out Aura 3 for unity for what's to come)
2. The character creator is on my list of things to do and in the first version it will allow you to change the masks/helmets/shoulder pads of each character. As the game progresses I'm hoping to add a much larger variety of characters and creatures to give you more freedom to play!
3. I've just tested it on a couple of other computers and it seems to be working fine.. In the first patch I will add a keyboard control menu to give you the option to rebind keys. Until then, try saving and restarting the game or maybe temporarily change your keyboard language while playing.
I would love to see some of the maps you've created! Feel free to join the Discord where I will be posting updates and hosting discussion.
I'll happily join the discord ! And thanks for the answers !
I was not able te replicate the bug for the [ ] thingy but yeah.... A option to rebind keys would be wonderful !
And I'm quite excited about the weather system......... It's going to be so great lol.
For the character creation tool, it was actually a question from a friend. She really liked you engine but she was kinda sad that she was not able to customise her own character. She saw the game has a player point of view and not a GM pov. So of course she would like to put time into her character more than the map.
And if I create a better map that I have I would ! lol (I have only created a "date" map between two skeletons to test the game lol)
Hey, I just released a patch with some extra light and atmosphere settings!
Give it a try and let me know your thoughts :)
Great tool and tutorial. I don't play DND but nevertheless it was still fun to play around with and set stuff up :D Great job!
Interesting project. I will be able to leave some more feedback after checking it on my computer as I didn't have the time yet.
Keep up the good work!