Blog for Jay Barnson at GarageGames.com

Frayed Knights Pilot Episode Now Available

Jay Barnson — 2008-04-30T08:59:32+00:00

A dainty elvin warrior with an inferiority complex and a hot temper.
A thrill-junky rogue who considers defying death the best alternative to boredom.
A cute but scatterbrained sorceress with destructive tendencies.
A tree-hugging nature-priest who wonders why everyone can't just get along.
Together, they are going to save a kingdom from destruction...

...if they don't kill each other first.

FRAYED KNIGHTS PILOT: The Temple of Pokmor Xang
Now Available!

Frayed Knights - an indie computer RPG of high adventure and low humor, has reached a pretty major milestone. The "pilot" episode is now released to the public. We're continuing development on the full version, which is still many moons away. But now we have a stable engine, and we're gathering feedback on how this one plays.

The pilot is a short "demo" adventure - a single quest which should probably take anywhere from a half hour to two hours to explore. Battle pus-golems and pot-bellied priests of Pokmor Xang (the god of boils, blisters, and pimples) in a quest to obtain the Eyes of Pokmor Xang.

Now, the pilot episode is free - mostly. I do have one request. At the end of the game, you'll be taken to a survey page. Here, I ask what you think about the game. I'm going to use this valuable information for improving it with the next edition of Frayed Knights - the full version. I want to know what you think. I already know it's not perfect, but I need to know what comes out and strikes you as particularly good and particularly bad.

Let me know what you think. And I'm going to see if I can't sleep for a week...

Don't forget to visit Tales of the Rampant Coyote for weekly updates as the full version CONTINUES development. But in the meantime - enjoy the pilot episode, and let me know what you think of it.

Frayed Knights - The Interview!

Jay Barnson — 2008-03-28T23:25:21+00:00

I was just interviewed at RPGWatch about Frayed Knights, the indie RPG of high fantasy and low humor...

Frayed Knights Interview at RPGWatch

If you guys have been following my weekly diaries or monthly updates here, you'll be pretty familiar with most of what's going on there. They do ask some intriguing questions, though.

The big news this month has been:

* ALPHA! Yes, we've been alpha for over three weeks now. The testers have found an amazing quantity of bugs, goofs, usability issues, quirks, confusing points, missing pieces, and plain ol' bad design. I've been working on addressing these issues even as we've been starting work on the full (post-pilot) game.

* CRUNCH MODE! Crunch mode sucks. The day job decided to subject me to 12 - 15 hour days, including a Saturday, the last couple of weeks. That particular nightmare is over, but it did delay Frayed Knights' development for a couple of weeks. Bummer. Although that OTHER game I work on during the day is looking pretty cool. And no, I'm STILL not allowed to talk about it.

* RELEASE! Not yet, but soon. I was hoping for an initial public release on April 1 (for a comedy-based RPG, it would only have been TOO appropriate). But at this point, courtesy of the development delay, that looks highly unlikely. I'm still trying to get Alpha 3 out, which was supposed to be out two weeks ago.

I tried to release the game without a Save Game function. I thought - hey, the pilot is short, right? Will anybody really NEED to save their game when the whole thing only takes less than 2 hours to complete?

The testers convinced me of the error of my ways without causing me any permanent scars. At least none that would have been admissible in court. So alpha 3 WILL have full saved game implemented.

The game is coming along very nicely at this point. It is fully playable, and most of the effort has gone into polishing up what we've got and beginning some of the new stuff for the post-pilot development.

If you'd really like to see more of the nuts & bolts action, here are some of the "game development in the open" blog posts I've muttered over the last few weeks:

Frayed Knights: Save Me!

Frayed Knights: Be 'Fraid. Be Very 'Fraid

Frayed Knights: When One Door Closes...

Frayed Knights: Alpha 2 Laundry List

Frayed Knights: Going Alpha
Have fun!

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote

The Future of Indie RPGs

Jay Barnson — 2008-03-17T16:34:40+00:00

The second "Indies of the Round Table" panel discussion is up, where the experts of indie RPG development speak up on matters of interest to RPG fans and developers. This month's question is, "What does the future hold?"

What Does the Future Hold?
When asked about their expectations of future games, many mainstream developers reply with stock answers about ever more realistic graphics and rarely-realized promises of more believable AI. Indie RPG developers, on the other hand, have to make advances in different areas and small innovations. In the past, this has included capturing the attention of new audiences, creating wild hybrid games (such as found in Dwarf Fortress, or ... some titles by these panelists!), and revisiting older, classic ideas with modern technology and design sensibilities.

Panelists include Thomas Riegsecker of Basilisk Games, Josh Engebretson of Prairie Games, Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software, Georgina Bensley of Hanako Games, Jason Compton of Planewalker Games, Steven Peeler of Soldak Entertainment, Amanda Fitch of Amaranth Games, and Mike Hommel of Hamumu Games.

Quote from Josh Engebretson:
'I think product deployment and compatibility are major improvement areas for the future. The focus will be the web which is slowly becoming a viable deployment platform. There are a number of cross browser/cross platform tools such as Silverlight, Java, Flash, and the new Director 11 that will play a major part in allowing customers to easily stream games. This will avoid the download, install, and compatibility issues that especially plague indie game companies.

'There are already some great examples of browser games. The line between "browser games" and "desktop games" will be completely blurred. This is already happening and we're seeing major investment from companies like EA into web deployment. As most indie game companies depend solely on web based sales, I think this is an important place for indies to be as well.'

Check out the rest of it here:

The Future of Indie RPGs: Indies of the Round Table #2

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Frayed Knights, Late Nights

Jay Barnson — 2008-02-27T21:14:30+00:00

Another heartwarming tale of development of Frayed Knights - the comedy-based indie fantasy RPG.

With the This month has been a blur. A sleep-deprived, frantic blur. The "Pilot Episode" of Frayed Knights is going alpha this week. This month has been a frenzy of finishing up last-minute code, arranging content, debugging, polishing, and playing the game over and over.

I managed to go to bed at only 1:30 AM the other night (I wake up around 7:30 most non-weekends), and I found myself unable to sleep for going to bed so "early," in spite of being exhausted. I've been blowing through my budget at an alarming rate (Ah, well, maybe it'll save me on 2008 taxes), and imposing on friends to help out where they can.

Spells. Sound effects. Drama star effects. Fonts. A massive GUI overhaul. A combat re-design. Music. Facial expressions in dialogs. Improved animations. Dialog scripts. And a ferret.

Yes, a ferret. In the future, I think all videogames must have ferrets. Those, or elephant-mounted troops. Since I'm not planning the latter (hmmm... can I fit it in?), I'm sticking with the former. For great justice.

And what are Chloe and Dirk arguing about, anyway?

I'm not done. Nope, far from it. Development will continue through alpha, release, and beyond. The plan is to assemble feedback on the pilot, and use that to guide changes and further development on the full version. We've already begun work on it, but there's still plenty of time for changing things.

The new-and-improved UI is looking tons and tons better than the awful crap I've been subjecting myself and my dev team to the last several months. We went through something like a dozen different iterations before settling on a couple of themes that worked. We decided to make the controls part of a circular amulet (shown left). Each one of those segments glows to highlight when the mouse passes over. A variant pendant is used for combat, with some of the controls changed.

Not only does it look slick, it REALLY made combat work much, much better. I think I eliminated about two-thirds of the mouse clicks required for fighting, which was a huge improvement. Here are some before-and-after shots (plus a mid-way shot showing a 75% done spellcasting pop-up):

Old And Busted:

Intermediate version:

(Mostly) New Hotness:

The pilot episode of Frayed Knights is coming out in April. It's a self-contained, stand-alone adventure that will be released into the wild as kind of a test case, "First Game" (well, "First Role-Playing Game") designed to gather feedback, impressions, gauge the market, and so forth. It will be "sorta" free - the only (optional) payment will be your feedback to help us turn its upcoming big brother into a better game.

In case you missed the Tales of the Rampant Coyote dev diaries for this month (and, really, who'd miss 'em?), here they are:
Frayed Knights: Alpha Candidate Close
Frayed Knights: GUI Kablooey!
Frayed Knights: Pilot Prep
Frayed Knights: Bad Text Gone Wild
Frayed Knights - The Stupid Stuff Takes Too Long

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Why Indie RPGs? Indies of the Round Table #1

Jay Barnson — 2008-02-11T17:52:18+00:00

I somehow managed to abuse my pretense at being plugged into the indie RPG scene (there's a scene?) and rope ten indie RPG developers together for a monthly Q&A called "Indies of the Round Table." The developers range from new developers making a splash with their first title, to seasoned vets who've been at this for several years.

The list of panelists includes some names the GarageGames community should recognize - Josh Engebretson of Prairie Games (Minions of Mirth), Amanda Fitch of Amaranth Games (the Aveyond series and Grimm's Hatchery - the latter made with TGB), Vince D. Weller of Iron Tower Studios (Age of Decadence - another Torque-powered RPG), and Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software (if you play indie RPGs at all, you've probably played his games).

The question they wrestle with this month should be a familiar one to the folks here: Why bother? Why Indie RPGs? With all the MMORPGs being released, the mainstream RPGs released in the last 18 months or so, and all the fan-created mods for games like the Neverwinter Nights series, what do indie RPGs possibly have to offer?

I hope you enjoy their answers as much as I did:

Why Indie RPGs? Indies of the Round Table #1

Please feel free to add comments, your OWN answers, suggestions for future questions, or just let us know if you liked the article or not.

Thanks!

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Frayed Knights: Beware the Priests of the Pus God!

Jay Barnson — 2008-01-30T01:24:45+00:00

Frayed Knights - the Comedy RPG - Continues Development.

The dungeon is just about done, and we've been working on the village. In a recent play-through, skipping about half the combats with a cheat code and skipping much of the dialog, the dungeon took me about 40 minutes to go through from start to finish, hitting all of the rooms and clicking on everything that was (at that point) clickable. I expect it to take twice as long if you take time to smell the flowers, read the text, and don't know what the cheat code is.

Secret doors are working. If you are paying attention, you'll be able to see them by how the texture and lighting doesn't work quite right (as in the picture). But the Frayed Knights themselves will also roll their dice and check for secret entrances as well. And other secret, hidden things....

And here we have one of the priests of Pokmor Xang, the god of boils, blisters, and pimples, posing for a photograph. Well, actually, he's not posing at all because he's not rigged yet. So use your imagination. He still needs a little bit of texture work, too. These guys are low-level threats, and wear creepy wooden masks to cover for the fact that they are overweight, redneck "evil priests" who serve a pretty lame god of evil.

I'm especially fond of the holy symbol, which James invented. It's sort of a modification of a biohazard warning symbol, with something that looks like a blister or pimple rupturing inside of a cup. Yeah, these guys are pure class.

(Oh, and James JUST messaged me as I was writing this letting me know he's got a new version coming in email shortly. AWESOME!)

And here we have the pus golem. Actually, I just got a brand-new version of the pus golem yesterday which I don't have pictured yet, who has much better texturing. I really feel for James, who had to time looking up pictures of pus on the web as he was working on the texture for this guy. It's a sorry, sorry job, and I feel for him. However, he kindly shared his pain and sent me a link to one of the "best" images he could find of an open sore with pus and trickles of blood oozing out of it. I guess that's "suffering for your art," because my dinner really wanted to come up after that.

A troll on the balcony of the meditation room. I think he's playing Juliet. But the meditation room is missing something. Oh, yeah.... the "pool." I added that (and some torches to go with the torch-light) a week later.

Yes. That is a pool. Please don't say it looks like anything other than that, because we have to talk Dirk into swimming in it if we want to open up an optional area in the dungeon where... oh, wait. I'm giving too much away, aren't I?

Oh, and the uber torch model and the toil... er, pool model... were done by me. PHEAR my 133t modeling skillz!

Want more details? Hey, I can't blame you, I wouldn't either! But hey - here's more about what I've been working on:

Frayed Knights: Please Don't Swim In Our Toilet
Frayed Knights: Secret Doors
Frayed Knights: Of Priests and Pus
On Making 3D
Frayed Knights: To Raise a Village
Frayed Knights: The Exploding Lock and Other Stories

Later!

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Frayed Knights Development - Frayed Nerves!

Jay Barnson — 2007-12-31T08:32:24+00:00

Dirk: So this is the temple of the goddess of disease?
Benjamin: Nope, that's Neutoxis. This was the temple of Pokmor-Xang, the god of boils, blisters, and pimples.
Chloe: Ew! I don't feel bad about raiding his temple, then. He owes me for my teenage years!
Dirk: So, what if you get a disease that gives you boils? Which god is responsible?
Benjamin: I think they both are.
Chloe: I really don't like this god.

So here's the latest update on Frayed Knights, the comedy-based fantasy RPG.

Some of you may know that I'm a full-time "mainstream" game developer by day, and an indie by night. I wasn't when I first started this indie game thing, but game development is kinda like the mafia. You think you're out, and then they pull ya back in again.

And it just so happened that during two thirds of December (and most of November), I have been in "crunch mode" for a couple of key milestones for a game that I can't talk about which will be on many different major platforms at some date I'm not allowed to mention. All this hush-hush stuff. It's like being a secret agent, except not nearly as sexy.

But since the day job pays the bills, I had to give it a little more priority this month. This meant development slowed, and I'm frantically racing at the end of the month to get the initial dungeon 100% gameplay complete.

It ain't gonna happen. But I think we'll be close.

It's amazing how much stuff breaks when you've not been maintaining it. Bit-rot, we programmers call it. Like the trap & lock system. Traps and locks are handled by the same code. You guys may remember - I wrote a whole mini-game about it. Well, it turns out the "lock" side of thing hadn't been maintained through a few bug-fixes of the trap code. So now I test it out, and I find out my locks are now exploding on me.

But since locks don't have a payload of any kind, they do no damage whatsoever when they explode. Yeah. They just blow the door open. Nice game balance there.

Oh, and speaking of game balance - it's pretty out of whack. I'm getting clobbered all the time. Potions aren't working. The "Negligible Healing" spell is too negligible. And the "Angry Flowers" spell doesn't actually do anything yet. Pus-golems and cultists are cleaning my clock. I'm having flashbacks to the original Bard's Tale, my party is getting killed so often...

This can be pretty frustrating. Except when I realize how very close it all to actually - you know - working 'n stuff. There's triggered events 'n things going on. And wandering monsters. You wouldn't notice how close the dungeon is to actually working, yet, because you'd get wiped out in the second fight.

I guess I could ship it now as "Frayed Knights- the unfairly hard RPG" and call it done, right? I'm not sure how many copies I'd sell, though. And then I've written all these pages of dialog for the game that would go to waste. So I guess I'll keep soldiering on.

I'm still working with stand-in art right now, though we're getting a little closer. As you can see, James has been working on the pus-golem. And Kevin has really been polishing the dungeon, giving it some fine details and trim. It's gonna be the best looking Pimple God temple you have ever seen!

One trick that we're trying to do as indies: We're trying to go deep instead of going wide. We don't have the time or budget to do a sprawling, gigantic world with a dozen towns, a hundred dungeons, and miles of terrain to cover. So instead, what we're trying to do is to pack what few areas we do have with things to do and click on. I'm trying to take some cues from adventure games here, which packed a lot of detail and a little re-use in every room, so that the pace is slowed without throwing tons of meaningless combat at the player.

As if these random, rambling details weren't enough to cure you of any and all curiosity, here are some more weekly notes:

Frayed Knights Updates
Save Me, You Jerks!
What's the Big Idea?
Frantic Dungeoneering
Poor Spelling

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Indie RPG News Roundup - December 13th

Jay Barnson — 2007-12-13T21:44:58+00:00

Wow. I've neglected these for the past few weeks. Sorry. Crunch-mode in the day-job (which is also game development) has left me a little frazzled. So... here we go with the Indie RPG News for the... well, the last MONTH actually. A heck of a lot has happened.

Eschalon: Book 1 shipped. Nice old-skool western RPG goodness here, turn-based, but very pretty. Great lighting effects, and good reviews so far. I haven't finished it yet due to the aforementioned crunch-mode, but so far I've been really digging it. This, ladies and gentlemen, is another of this years' excellent examples of what an indie RPG can be.

Aveyond 2 has also shipped, only about two weeks after Eschalon! This is yet another outstanding RPG from Amaranth Games. If your tastes run to jRPG (Japanese RPGs) rather than the western variety, Aveyond 2 is a game you should check out. The original game (well, the commercially-released predecessor), Aveyond, is also very fun, but it not required in order to enjoy this sequel.

In fact, speaking of RPGs in general, we had about FIFTEEN INDIE RPGs released this year! That I know of! There may be more --- please help fill me in. But that seemed pretty significant to me. I mean, okay, maybe it's just that I'm paying more attention this year. But role-playing games are about the hardest (specifically, most resource-intensive) of the single-player game genres to do, and it's impressive to see indies not only rising to the task, but doing a spectacular job on many of them. And thanks to everyone who's helped fill me in on what's going down in this area lately.

Here's a quick run-down of the *completed* indie RPGs that have appeared on an Internet Near You:

What Were the Best Indie RPGs of 2007?

There are some more awesome-looking RPGs waiting in the wings, too. Hopefully 2008 should be an equally awesome year, if not better.

And now for some of the news of the last few weeks:

Indie RPG News Roundup, December 12th, 2007
Indie RPG News Roundup, December 5th
Indie RPG News Roundup, November 28th
Indie RPG News Roundup, November 22nd

Well, that's all for now. As always, if you have some tips on some soon-to-be-released RPGs (developers, I'm talking to YOU), please contact me and let me know. I try my best to scour the web, but dang sometimes hunting down indie games is like snipe-hunting.

Good luck, and happy adventuring! TTFN!

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games

Frayed Knights: The Mid-Development Doldroms

Jay Barnson — 2007-11-29T04:51:52+00:00

Ah, gentle reader. Let me welcome you back to another installment of Frayed Knights Theater, wherein we again follow the rollicking adventures of our delightful band of misfits, as they go merrily rampaging across the landscape, sowing destruction, death, pain, and carnage in their wake. Ah, good times, good times...

As November draws its frosty curtains upon the autumn, and December comes with its promise of snow and chill of the beginning of the true winter season, we also find our attention turning slowly from code to content. We find many of the code modules in the game to be function, in much the same way a ten-year-old computer running Windows 3.1 might be considered "functional." Now begins the tedious process of refinement, improvement, and maintenance.

Our goal for the month of December is to see the first dungeon, the "Temple of Pokmor Xang" (god of boils, blisters, and pimples) completed, playable, and even, dare I say it, "beta ready." Indeed, it may be considered a trial by fire of our code and team, presenting great challenge that may daunt the unready developer! Ahead there lay much puzzle-solving, monster-bashing, lock-picking, trap-disarming, maiden-rescuing, and button-clicking!

Let us dispense with these inadequate introductions, gentle reader, and move ahead to the true meat of this post. By meat, I mean, "Stuff I've already written so I can end this post already." Without further ado, let us traipse through chapters in November's saga of the development of Frayed Knights!

Are You Experienced? - wherein we discuss the nature of experience points awards, and ponder such things as fairness and... user interface managers.
On Weaponry and Spraying Blood - wherein we gaze deeply into the philosophical implications of bashing an enemy's head in with a flanged mace, versus simply lopping it off with an axe, or the classic skewering of it upon a pike. Ah! A veritable cornucopia of carnage! With a tasty cream center!
Death, and Arianna's Interview - What happens to the Frayed Knights when they "die?" Oh, and Arianna threatens our interviewer.
Frayed Knights Squeaks Into the Lead - Wherein we note that whoops and cheers amongst our team is warranted, but only just.
Ben Speaks, and Combat Tweaks - Wherein gentle Benjamin finds his voice and talks about his history. We also speak about how those annoying monsters have just become speedier, more interesting, but also more dangerous...

Until next time, gentle reader, I bid you farewell, and happy decapitating!

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Indie RPG News Roundups

Jay Barnson — 2007-11-16T18:38:56+00:00

What's going on in the world of indie computer RPGs?

A lot!

Indie RPG News Roundup for November 15th

Indie RPG News Roundup for November 7th

In the news these two weeks: Aveyond 2 goes beta! Parhedros: A "Mature" indie 3D RPG! Avernum 5 is released for the Mac! Eschalon: Book 1 is due out on Monday! Interviews of the team behind The Broken Hourglass! And More!

And I think I've broken my exclamation mark key. Sorry...

Anyway, I keep getting surprised by the amount of homebrew / small team RPG development that is going on. This is a busy little niche. If you have an indie RPG in late development, please let me know about it. I can be contacted at jayb at the email suffix rampantgames.com if you have some information you'd like to share. Or if you just have comments or questions.

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote