Our Kickstarter Is Up!

Yesterday was the release of our Kickstarter, and with that, we get on screen, share our ideas and our vision for the game, as well as show off some really cool concepts we brought together!!

Check it out, got a friend that loves PC games or pirates? Or do have you a pirate-loving pirate gamer? Tell them about what we've put together!

One Step Forward

I can't believe it's already the 10th! It seems it was just yesterday September just started. Anywhooo a couple of things I wanted to bring up in this post; For starters, we created a Facebook page as a "central hub" for all our game's website links, at least for the time being, and can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectHorizonKA.
With that being said, in the first three days of it being up we've nearly gotten 80 likes, which is phenomenal! Keep trying to spread the word as much as possible.

Alex and I have figured that for the time being, we're going to call ourselves Team Horizon! (We really like the name) I decided to create a logo for the team, a simple H for Horizon, and also created a banner for the Facebook!

Also, for the Kickstarter, Alex and I have been discussing some little payment promotions that I personally think are pretty awesome and I cannot wait to share them with you all!

While also on the topic of the Kickstarter though, we picked up an artist known as Joshua Arhar, who's an artist that agreed to work with us creating a couple of concepts for PH! (His works can be found on his DeviantArt Page: http://jeeshwa123.deviantart.com/) We're glad to be working with him over the next couple of weeks!

Another thing I had forgot to mention was none other then Joshua Fadenholz, the man who's actually working on creating a score for the game, and we can't wait to show you what he can do. (A little preview coming soon)

Now to the technical side of things. Alex has still been working on getting a pretty cool particle engine in place for the game, trying to get an assortment of special effects in to compliment some in-game actions, and it's turning out pretty well! Myself on the other hand have been moving back and forth through different things in the code, primarily working more on the deferred renderer and the boat editor! (Which I can't wait to show you a creation I'm working on directly in the editor; The SS-Horizon! :D) I also has been working a bit with additions to our terrain system and it's use of perlin noise, starting to add more layers in the mix to get more of a "biome result."

Look! Low-Res Terrain Weights and Percentages!

With all that being said, back to the drawing board, or in my case, a screen that displays a bunch of code! Hopefully soon I'll have some screen caps of some new stuffs in game for you guys, but for now, I'm out!

-Kyle

P.S. - Don't forget to spread the word to all your friends that are pirate-loving landlubbers! Let's unite the pirate nation!

Are You Ready For a Horizon?

It's September at we all know what that means! It's Kyle's Birthday this month... Okay, well you guys more than likely had no clue, but regardless, it is September, and that also means this is the month we're posting our game onto Kickstarter! I myself am super excited to share our status and ideas on the game, and hope come the 21st, you'll check out our Kickstarter. (Which I will of course be posting on this blog)

With that being said, as always, Alex and I have been working constantly trying to get as much done as possible visually so we could have something to show come the Kickstarter release. Alex has been working super hard on getting a really nice particle system together that will make things super cool, and I've been working on two things: Our boat editor, as well as working inside our deferred renderer to get a really nice lighting system in place. Also, as good friend of mine, Emilio Borges, has been working on a little intro for our Kickstarter video, which is coming out awesomely!

Alex and I have been talking and are pushing for the Kickstarter to be up around the 21st. (which is actually the day of my birthday :D) Until then, I hope you're ready for a Horizon!!

*A little sneak peek into Emilio's project*

BOATS!!

Hey there! What with September coming up, Alex and I have been working hard trying to get things prepped for our upcoming Kickstarter. What with creating the particle system, updating our environments with updated water, a skybox, bettter fog, grass, enhanced terrain, and better visual ratios for our camera setup, we've been quite busy! I myself have also started working inside Maya and working with our boat creation system and editor!

Here's a little teaser image for you!

What do you think? This is just a little teaser that actually has more than meets the eye! ;)

*Update* In-Depth Feature List

I know it's been a long time since I've updated my blog, we've been busy working on the game, however with this update I'm bringing a lot of goodies to the board! Aside from many optimizations to the engine, a better structured collisions system, a terrain system that utilizes threads and expands on the endless world aspect of the terrain, we've been making good progress on the development overall! 

Now, with this post, Alex and I have decided to release a description of what Project Horizon is, and give you a better understanding of how the game will play out. In the upcoming lines below, we describe base gameplay elements and features to be added to Project Horizon in the future. After that is a little bit of what's happening next. Hope you enjoy!

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“Project Horizon is a game where you play your own personal Pirate, exploring unknown worlds with a pirate crew, dominating enemies, from vast lands to the never-ending seas, in attempts to pillage glorious treasures.”

-BASIC RUNDOWN-

In Project Horizon the user plays as a pirate customized to the their liking and focuses largely on the concept of exploration. The player has the ability to choose their world's "seed" which will then generate an entirely new and unique world based on that seed. Every world is infinitely expanding, giving the player the satisfaction of never knowing what they’re going to find, what they're going to see, and what adventures they’ll experience, and allowing for limitless exploration. From the cities you venture to the treasure you seek, down to the enemies you’ll seek and destroy, Project Horizon strives to offer a new unique pirate experience.

-PLAYER PERSONALIZATION-

Project Horizon will give the player the ability to fully customize a character down to their clothing and body features. With a personalized character, the player can take their adventure online through player hosted servers, bringing their stats, items, features, etc. with them. Players have the ability to team up with a crew to either team up with or fight other pirates crews they come across. Whether they choose to become a pirate-for-hire, a pirate on their friend’s crew, or even a pirate overlord themselves, they can venture the seas in search for new treasure that could essentially build themselves into one of the most feared pirates across the servers. As you adventure throughout the game, players build a "bounty" on their head (which serves as the experience) and as they increase their bounty, they gain abilities to craft better weapons, armor and expand on their crew, to become a better pirate overall.

-BASE GAMEPLAY-

The games plays with 3rd person, over the shoulder combat, where each pirate has action-based attacks along with certain abilities based on their specific types. Players have the ability to go anywhere, be it on land, boat, or even in the water; Combat can be done on land or on boats. As players sail the seas on their ship, they are given the ability to engage other ships in open combat, choosing to weaken the boat and board the ship, taking all their treasures and their lives, show compassion to enemy ships and let them proceed, or to show no mercy and bring the enemy ship to the depths of the sea. Throughout the lands there will be "friendly" pirate cities, where the player has the ability to rest, interact, trade with other players, or pirate cities that are "safe" but anything can happen against other players. Aside from pirate cities, there are also other cities with citizens that don’t take kindly to pirates, and could serve dangerous to explore.

-ENEMIES-

Since Project Horizon offers an endless experience, the game has plenty of  unique enemies that inhabit the world. Ranging from humanoid type enemies such as typical fantasy lore characters to many different type of beasts and monsters. The game will have plenty of new enemies to find, as well as after core development, we wish to continuously add new types enemies that players can engage as they explore the world. There are also random events where players can find unique boss and/or special enemies. These random events will be pinged across the server to all the players notifying them of the of coordinates of the event.

-CLASS TYPES-

The game will have a class based system that isn't necessarily combat focused, but pirate-role focused. Some examples are the Captain, who runs the ship, tells people where to go, what to do, and literally calls the shots; the Navigator, that will have the ability to plot courses to destinations of the unknown; the "Scout" that would normally man the crow's nest, and will have abilities to see potential threats or opportunities that any other type of pirate would not see. Note: These are just some short examples of the class system inside Project Horizon.

-CREW (GUILD)-

Another major concept is the pirate crew. As a pirate captain, (guild leader) the player will have the ability to fully create and customize their ship with 100% freedom on where they place components, what colors they are, etc. as well as the clothing that can better personalize their their crew. The player will have the freedom to choose the name, emblem and based on the amount of money invested in to the crew, amount of foundation and firepower the ship holds. Crews will have the ability to form alliances with other crews as well as turn on them at any given point, as Pirates can be deceitful!

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With all this being said, Alex and I are super excited to announce this feature list to you guys, and we really hope you like what we've come up with. This upcoming September we are going to be posting a Kickstarter where we will be raising money towards further development of our project. As of now Alex and I have a pretty solid game engine (which we've created from the ground up) in place, and are working hard on getting gameplay elements into the project. We hope you'll come check out our Kickstarter this September and help support the development of our game!

Thanks a lot for reading up on the new development of Project Horizon, and until next time!

-Kyle & Alex

Sneak Peak into the Idea

Today Alex and I decided that we were going to release a little more information on Project Horizon other than it's a video game. "Project Horizon is a game where you play your own personal pirate, exploring unknown worlds with a pirate crew, dominating enemies from vast lands to the never-ending seas, in attempts to pillage glorious treasures."

That's a quick pitch of our idea behind the game, but no worries, we have a lot of the game already figured out at this point. One of the big goals behind Project Horizon is to create a game that has an amazing emphasis on the idea of exploration, and that's exactly the big focus for myself. I want to provide a unique experience when you play Project Horizon every time you enter the game.

Before I say to much, I'm going to shift over the development side of things. That system I was speaking of in my last post is showing positive results, and I personally cannot wait to show it!

Well, it's time for me to head out and get back to crunching code into my computer!

"Taking on the World"

Over the past couple of days I've been doing some research on "random generation" and it's implementation with worlds. *hint* Countless hours spent on reading articles, papers, code snippets, and further implementation theories, and so far things are going on a track I wish to be on.

The game engine's coming together smoothly as well! Our entire interface is now wrapped within network layers that utilizes Winsock, making it easy for sending and receiving packets. Aside from that we've added many additions to already existing systems, and now we are proud to say that we have things we can show! (But you must be patient)

Just the other day I started going back into Maya creating some random assets for the game, playing around with different modeling techniques, and I'm quite satisfied with the outcomes! I myself am currently focusing on the gameplay side of things, while Alex continues to do more engine work, and as of now things are running as planned! (If not ahead of schedule) Real soon we plan on revealing more on Project Horizon, but for now, you get to think on the two facts: ran-gen, and networking!

See you next post!

Kicking Things Off

Yep! This is the first post to what will be a development blog for a project called "Project Horizon." In this dev blog, I plan on posting many things that involve the development of the game, ranging from the programming end, to the art end, all the way to the musical sides of things, I plan on talking about it all.

First thing's first: What is Project Horizon? As much as I want to tell you, I can say that with this game, my teammate and I hope to create a game that will focus on the concept of exploration and teamwork, as well as building a personalized character while doing so. The ideas we have for Project Horizon personally get me excited for the game, and I absolutely cannot wait to begin playing around with gameplay.

For the game, we're creating the game engine from the ground up, and currently we've completed many core elements to the system and hope to have gameplay later this week! We've been working until the late hours so far, trying to get the engine ready, and real soon I'll have some special content to show off!

Well, it's a late night (it's actually early in the morning, but whatever) and I think it's time for me to shove off to bed. Until next time!