#seelentanz

These are the latest news for our project:

Storyline - Races Technetium finished a few basic outlines for the races featured in the game. These outlines do not contain any spoilers so feel free to read them and give us your feedback.

Dark Elves: Once members of the proud Elven race, the Dark Elves have been corrupted by Lacrymosa, a phosphorescent mineral which greatly amplifies the magical capabilities of its user. Due to the dangerous and unpredictable effects of Lacrymosa, its use was banned in the Elven Empire. This caused a rift in the Elven society between those who supported the ban and those who believed Lacrymosa was a gift from Tzerreth, one of the Six, and that it should be used to make the Elves into a race of unparalleled power. Ultimately, those who supported Lacrymosa use seceded from the Empire and forged their own city deep within the enshrouded bowels of the world so that they may be closer to their precious mineral. It is from this subterranean refuge that the enigmatic Dark Elves strike out at the other races, murdering the weak and taking the strong as slaves to work as miners within their labyrinthine tunnels.

Dwarves: Deep beneath the soil live the Dwarves, a peaceful race that finds comfort and safety in the solitude of their underground realm. A stalwart and loyal race, the Dwarves are fierce allies to both the Humans and the Elves. Human and Dwarven societies are closely connected both economically and culturally, as the two races share a common ancestor. Dwarven scientists are among the most advanced in the world, especially their engineers and alchemists, who play important roles within their society. Although their stone fortresses are said to be impregnable, in recent times the Dwarves have become troubled by the looming threat of the Dark Elves, who savagely attack their settlements and take the survivors as slaves.

Elves: The oldest of the five races, the Elves have existed since the world's creation eons ago. The Elves believe themselves to be the original creations of the Six, their gods who embody the six elements of Light, Air, Fire, Water, Dust, and Darkness. At the top of Elven society are the six noble houses, each of which claim to be the descendents of one of the Six. These houses are ruled by an individual leader who is chosen by members of the house itself once their leader dies. Only these six nobles are allowed into the sacred garden, where the Six were believed to have convened during their creation of the world. This garden literally is at the epicenter of Elven society, as their immense, solitary capital city was constructed around it. Because of its importance, the Elves do not believe in the long term settlements of other regions of the world. After the fracture in the Elven Empire over the use of Lacrymosa, the Elves have become much less dominant over the other races, allowing the other races to become equals with the Elves both economically and militarily.

(Humans and Orcs will follow by next week)

First environment - Abandoned mineshaft As promised here are some screenshots from our first playable environment.

We have also uploaded the environment sound demonstration produced by Ben. If you have the time feel free to listen to it. (link: http://www.indiedb.com/games/seelentanz/videos/wip-mineshaft2)

Roadmap We decided on a new roadmap that includes releasing an early prototype of the game within the next months. This prototype will contain the essential features our project is aiming for such as authentic co-op combat in multiplayer.

Upcoming Dracowyr is focusing on a screenshot concept to demonstrate our plans for the first release. Furthermore Ben is working on additional environment sound samples. I (Neovertex) will try to get back into character modelling so we can show our first in-game character within the next weeks.

Recruiting We are currently looking for advanced users of the UDK as well as modellers and texture artists. If you got the skills and like the concept of this game just send us a PM and we will get back to you.

That is all for this week. Again if you have any questions about the project just let us know. We appreciate feedback an ideas submitted by the community.

Have a nice day The Liquidbox Team

These are the latest news for our project: Design Update Dracowyr re-worked the design of our indieDB project page this week. Speaking for myself I really like the new logos and design and I envy his skills. We are all looking forward to see more from him.

Concept Update As already mentioned in our last update we have changed a lot regarding the concept for this game. Some ideas became obsolete and new ideas were added resulting in rendering our concept documents outdated. I have now uploaded new versions of these documents to indieDB including new content. They also include the new design Dracowyr made for us so if you are interested you can access these documents in the download section here on indieDB.

Further Changes This week we decided to switch our game engine. The Unreal Development Kit (UDK) which we will be using from now on offers us more features and lines up nicely with the features we have in mind. NavySeal already started working his way into the new development environment and so far it looks good for all of us.   New Team Member This week we have gained another new concept artist. Evile will be focusing on producing world- and local maps for this project. So far he already did a few sketches and they really look promising. We hope that we are able to show you some of his concepts within the next weeks. But so far- Welcome to the team.

Sound Effects Ben did a few field recording sessions over the week and produced a first sound sample for our environment. Since our first level in the game will be an abandoned mineshaft he recorded some interesting effects for this special environment. They really sound awesome and the team is looking forward to hear more from him.

Storyline Technetium is still working on the background story for this game. So far he has finished basic stories for all of the races featured in the game and started working on outlines for their history and gods. We are trying to create short summaries that do not reveal too much information and can be issued to the public. Upcoming We will focus on getting familiar with the UDK and also importing our assets into the new environment. We hope that we will be able to show you some first in-game screenshots within the next weeks.

That is all for this week. Again if you have any questions about the project just let us know. We appreciate feedback an ideas submitted by the community.

Have a nice day The Liquidbox Team

New team member A lot of new members have joined recently. This week Bencworlidge joined us as Sound Designer. He will be in charge of producing sound effects for the game such as ambient sounds for different in-game environments. So far the whole team is looking forward to hear from him. With all the new team members and their different ideas this project recently has become more and more fun. Furthermore the overall concept really improves over time and with the contribution of those new team members.

Subversion (SVN) repository Last week we deployed Redmine, a project management tool. This week we installed SVN on our server to easily share progress made by team members with the chance of rolling back changes in case something goes wrong. NavySeal already committed his revision1 to the repository so each team member can get his hands on the source files now.

General Discussions Right now we have a questionnaire planned for the project's members. This way we will determine our expectations and responsibilities as well as chances and risks while working on the project. Furthermore we will redefine the general game concept. A lot of changes already have been made and the old documents are outdated. They will be updated soon and re-uploaded to indieDB so you can get an idea about our new concept.

Background Story Technetium finished his work on the basic outlines for the races featured in the game. Though we are using common fantasy races sometimes they will be quite different from what players are used to. We are currently creating a world map to visualize the written concepts from Technetium.

Upcoming We are focusing on our first environment which will be an abandoned mine shaft. Bencworlidge will do some field recording to get the required ambient sounds while I'm building the necessary 3d assets. NavySeal will be designing an UML-scheme to visualize our concept from his point of view. Technetium is currently busy writing a religious background for our world while Dracowyr is designing a new logo to replace the old one.

Recruiting Though we have our core team assembled we are always looking for more motivated developers to join our cause. If you are a 3d designer, texture artist, programmer, sound designer or concept artist willing to contribute just let us know about it. New additions to the team are always welcome.

Anyway that is all for this week. If you have any questions or feedback don't refrain from posting comments.

Have a nice day