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The Vantage Project
By: Chris Allar
New version updated 10/31/2008
This has been a game I have been developing for about 5+ years now on and off. It is pretty much my life's work. I simply want to make the games
I think about making and I love to play, and what I think the other gamers would love to play as well. Please check out the game and let me know what you think!
The Game:
You play a pre-historic caveman. The objective is simple: stay alive!
Try to explore the world and forage for food, try to gather the materials for a fire and make one before it gets too dark to see and too cold to function. Craft stone, wood, and bone tools to make your
life easier, like making a spear to go spear fishing for food. Explore a massive seamless, zoneless world using my custom graphics engine for the game called VantEdit. Full day/night cycles, dynamically
textured terrain, and an entire world generation tool so you yourself can create your own world from scratch if you wish!
The game requires Directx 9.0c to be installed on your computer, if your winodws system is reguarly used and updated you
should have this installed already. If not visit Microsoft DirectX Website
Also the game requires a video card with 2.0 shader support. A video card that is no older than 2-3 years should be good.
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News 10/31/2008
NEW VERSION!
As the IGF submission was closing in I have decided to give the interface a complete overhaul. I have vastly improved the look and the
functionality of alomst every HUD window, the most being with the inventory windows. As well as a great many other small enhancements. New version is
uploaded here, and to the IGF! Enjoy.
News 10/16/2008
NEW VERSION!
With the IGF submission deadline quickly approaching I have finally released a version for the 2009 Independent Games Festival.
It has officially been submitted and you can get the same version right here also with the link above. As for new improvements. A vast amount of work has been done.
A completely rewritten crafting/skills and character management system, and the biggest visual improvment, animated animals! I could list all the new things I have added, or
you can just check it out yourself!
News 9/8/2008
Well I have been adding content here and there, then I remembered "oh yea, I have to make a character animation system".
So that took a good few weeks of work, learning how to rig, skin, and texture animation models. But to make a long story short
it is fully complete, and I have a bear walking, grazing and ...dying in game. Its something else you can throw sharp objects at to kill it.
I have also redone the collision system to better work with areas and boxes instead of just lines and points, adding more realism to the collisions.
Overall, more content is going in, many meshes, skills and crafts have been implemeneted, and alot more to come.
News 6/22/2008
I have been working away on the game and have made great progress. I have finally finished the rest of the framework programming
I needed to do. Now comes the task of finalizing the gameplay and UI, which for me are the most enjoyable parts and I am looking forward to it.
Basically what this means is that I will be implementing "final gameplay elements" into the game, which means, all the objects, crafts, skills etc. I now put
into the game, will be final elements. With that being said, I will start releasing new versions much more frequently, and offically call them "Alpha" test
versions of the game. This means that the game will now start being fully playable as intended, and should work, act, feel, and function like a full game now.
Over the weeks and months I will update the game with new items, crafts and skills very frequently (hopefully), compile the new builds, and release them with more frequency
so they can be tested by you!
Stay Tuned!
News 3/25/2008
NEW VERSION AVAILABLE! As of now it is a "test" version, but I will make it official once I get a few testers to try it out. This version will basically look the same, except for some new artwork done my Michael Marrujo (www.cyperkole.com)
which includes some new terrain textures. Alot of the work done for this build is unfortunately in the framework and optimization areas so not alot of visible changes will be seen.
However this means that I will be focusing on all gameplay and interface work from here on out, so I will try to release new builds more frequently. However, there are some new additions:
- "Drag and Drop" inventory. Drag items from the world inventory to your player inventory, and also move items within and drop items on the ground by simply dragging them
- Character customization screen: Create a new chracter and you will be able to tweak your character's stats and even give yourself some starting items.
- Upgraded Craft and Skill screens. Along with my overhaul of the database system to make it run more smoothly, I have changed the way the stats and craft windows operate and made them easier to read.
Enjoy!
News 2/29/2008
Work is speeding along. A new build should come out soon, but for now I am building a couple of final tools that will facilitate the implementation of all the
meshes and the crafting system. After this is done, there is alot of cosmetic work to done, but the final gameplay restructuring of the game will be commencing soon after.
News 1/31/2008
Information on an artist position is located here.
News 1/16/2008
I am looking to hire an artist. Someone who has general knowledge of textures, 3D modelling, and animation, and enjoys making realistic environment art.
It will be for about 10-20 hours a week. This job would be perfect for an artist in college, or just graduating
and is looking for something to add to their portfolio. I will have full information about this soon.
News 9/24/2007
The game has been submitted to the Independent Games Festival! Its been a long, tough task to do but now it is finally done, and hopefully
everything turns out well. You can download the game at the link above.
As with most games, I wish I could have put more content into the game, but it can have so much content already there would be no end
to what I could put in. Of course I will continue to work on the game after this point. But download it and check it out!
News 9/4/2007
NEW VERSION! I need people to check this out and let me know if you notice any glaring bugs or more importantly, crashes.
But this version visually has it all! The new mesh loading, and progressive mesh loading, billboards, massive item placement system
for the the Editor, and dynamic item rotation and placement for objects so that they lay on the ground correctly.
You can also make fire now. You need to create a wood hearth and spindle, or grab some cattail strands and piece together a bow drill to make fires
more easily.
TIP: I left the Editor mode on for now. Press the 8 key to instantly slap down a fire. Press the T key for torchlight.
Enjoy!
News 8/28/2007
New screenshots are up. A new test version of the game should be up in a week with all the new enchancements.
Also, I am looking for a sound designer and an animator to do some quick work. These non-paid positions would be good for
people looking to build their portfolio out of college.
News 8/15/2007
I have finalized my mesh rendering engine. The engine now supports LoD meshes, billboarding, and much more efficient loading and rendering algorithms.
There have been a multitude of trees created for this final version and they are placed all over the world. With the new veriosn I can have 3-4 times more
meshes on the screen with no framerate loss. It is really quite a sight to see. For now I have ripped out the gameplay items from the game as I will be beginning
to finalize them now. So I may have a new playable demo in no later than a month hopefully. Well, I better have one since I have T-minus 1.5 months before I must
submit to the Independent Games Fesival.
News 7/12/2007
Well a great deal more has been added into the game since the last news update, but it is not quite ready to release as a new version just yet.
Point lighting and fully functional fire building techniques have been added.
You can now attempt to build fires using a hand drill or bow drill for example. Then you must keep the fire going by throwing wood on the fire,
or else you need to do it all over again.
The crafting interface has been updated to be able to use more items in a more dynamic way. You can select objects from inventory and from the world on the ground
without picking them up.
The inventory system has been improved to be more realistic. There is now a container system for the inventory, for example you have your hands to pick up items,
if they are both holding something, you need to start doing some inventory management and move items around on your person.
The actual crafting process has been improved as well, you can now select generic item types for crafting. There are now also a full range of
character statistics (Strength, Dexterity etc...) that affect everything you do in the game, including crafting. The statistics can be improved by improving your
skills.
Currently I am working on adding all the items, and craftable items into the game. It will be exciting to see just how many items I can get into the game.
News 5/1/2007
A new version of the game has been submitted to the Indie Games Showcase today! Go check it out HERE! and VOTE for it!
Many thanks to Phil Heckinger for creating art for the game, and Kevin Richardson for making sounds.
There have been a ton of additions for this release:
- Collisions added (player, object, interaction, the works! )
- Craft system restructured
- Actual sounds (3D and normal )
- New art added
News 4/16/2007
Yet more insane amounts of work have been completed, and this is starting to look like a game! Look forward to May 1st, this will be when a new version of the game will be
out. It will be a fully playable "tutorial and beyond" version of the game. The game will also be submitted to the
Indie Game Showcase for judging,
thus the May 1st deadline.
Newest additions to the game are a sound engine (yes, the game will now have sound!) and some slight graphical improvements to the skydome.
In the next couple of weeks, extensive gameplay implementation will be going on. When it is all finished, a new version of the game will be available!
News 3/20/2007
Well it wasnt an easy task to do, but now I have a fully working animation system implemented. The game now fully supports animated meshes, and skinned meshes.
Both are already integrated into the world generation system and all set to go. All that is needed is a lot of art so it can be used, but that is currently underway.
There is no version uploaded to show this functionality yet since no real assets exist yet.
News 11:05 AM 2/14/2007
Lots on new additions implemented.
-The interface has a new look to it, and all meshes have been converted to support normal and specular maps (no meshes have been created for it just yet)
-Some UI graphical cleanup with fonts and graphics
-The craft skills now work for the bone awl object (just for testing purposes)
-Some optimization to improve framerate
News 12:10 PM 11/27/2006
After taking a quick break I am back to work on the game going full speed. I am cleaning up a bit of the font rendering
and have been pounding out a great deal of the crafting and gameplay elements. As I am working on that I will be redoing
the mesh rendering code so that it can be supported by shaders for normal maps, specular lighting etc.
News 10/23/06 10:27 AM PST
News is back! Well it has been quite a long time, I took a break from the game to work at another game company, but now
I am back and working on Vantage again! The current version has had a ton of work added to it! The crafting system
has been completely rewritten and now is all database driven. You can also create a persistent character! The game
will periodically save all your crafts, skills, stats, and inventory items, so you can keep your character and play at
any other time and transfer your character between worlds.
Several basic shaders have been added to enchance the terrain, and thanks to the help of an artist friend, all new terrain textures
and bump maps have beeen created. You can see some screenshots of the new look for the game on the resources page.
Specifically, this version shows off all the core gameplay framework for the game. What does this mean? It means that all
the functionality needed to make the game is now programmed in and running, and most of the toughest work that was needed to be done to make
this game...is now done!
Have fun with it!
What is Vantage
Vantage is a seamless massive world RPG and a massive scale world generation system. The program is a crafting system based
upon pre-historic times and the editor can create very large worlds, similar to the size of
a world in a current Massively Multiplayer Game in only a matter of minutes, complete with temperature terraforming,
automatic object placement over the entire world, and completely realistic non-algorithmic height terrain taken from
samples off the USGS website.
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