Monomyth News

Hi, dungeon-crawling fans!

I'm happy to announce that Monomyth is now live on Kickstarter!
You can find the project page here:

[h3]Kickstarter Page[/h3]

As for the demo, I must apologize to Steam users since the demo build is still under review by Valve. I expect that to be done around Thursday - hopefully earlier. However, that does not mean you have to wait! You can try the demo right now! Just head over to itch.io:

[h3]Demo Page on itch.io[/h3]

The demo is a short introduction to the grim world of Monomyth. You will find yourself in the Serpent's Bastion, trying to enter the great underground fortress of Lysandria.







[h3]A little tip for your adventure: Not all rats are the same. [/h3]

I already want to thank all of you most sincerely for your patience! Some of you have followed this project literally for years. I am confident, that, with your feedback and support, it can truly carry on the torch of its inspirations.

Thank you and best wishes!
Michael

P.S.:
If you haven't seen it already, you can watch the HD trailer for the Kickstarter:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Discord[/h2]
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Greetings, dungeon-crawling enthusiasts!

Today I bring you some great news:

Monomyth will be coming to Kickstarter on the 27th of July, 2021, at 7 pm CET / 1 pm EST.

As a part of this Kickstarter campaign, you will be able to try a demo of Monomyth yourself! In this demo you will travel to the Serpent's Bastion, an outpost of Lysandria, and a bulwark against the many dangers that lurk in the wastelands surrounding the ancient fortress.



You will be able to create your own character and customize its stats to your liking. The demo will feature dialogue, puzzles, combat, and the full tutorial area of the game - though, it won't hold your hand too much and there is enough room for exploration.

[h3]Why a Kickstarter?[/h3]
You may wonder, why now? Why a Kickstarter after all these years. The answer is, that Monomyth is now entering a phase of development where certain costs arise (equipment, software tools, legal fees, etc), and some assets - most of all the music - have to be done by contractors. While I do a lot of assets myself I am not a musician, so, besides financing core development, that is where the money would go.

[h3]So, when will Monomyth be released?[/h3]
There is still some content to be made, some dialogue to be written and some assets to be created. Feature-wise Monomyth is already on a good track. There will still be some changes to NPCs and the AI.

Monomyth is scheduled for Q2, 2022.

Originally I wanted to go for early 2022 - and I still think that is realistic - but I do not wish to delay it yet another time in case something unforeseen pops up. I tried to calculate a realistic goal and added a little bit. This time is actually a hard deadline. If you followed past updates you know that this is now my full-time job, and given how it went over the last couple of months I would really like it if it stayed that way. Talking of which...

[h3]What about the future?[/h3]
Since the Kickstarter will also cover some legal fees for the (one-man) company that I have established over the last couple of months, it's only right to quickly discuss what you can expect from Rat Tower Software in the future.

Now, besides the obvious possibility of developing sequels to Monomyth, I wrote down numerous ideas over the years, some of which I believe are worth developing into full projects.
These range from small to medium titles, most of which share a lot of DNA with Monomyth and the first-person RPG genre. Personally, I would like to expand this formula by a few simulation aspects that work on a higher level than just moment-to-moment gameplay.

But it is too early to chat about these things. I only want you to know that my intention is to build a stable long-term operation for an established audience - and that is you!

It is your wishes that count in the end. Even more so, when they overlap with my personal taste.
As for Monomyth, I believe that the result will be just in that sweet spot.

I am looking forward to your feedback!
See you in a week and a half!

Best wishes,
Michael

Hi all!

I am very happy to inform you that Monomyth is now under full-time development! As announced earlier this year I left my academic position in February. I did my final exam last week and now I can entirely focus on this project. I'm glad to report that development is already progressing at a much faster pace! So let's quickly recap what has been happening over the last couple of weeks:

• The main menu was improved and I finally added a full character creation system.
  
• I added a new spell that may not be entirely intuitive at first, but it has its value.
  
• I also added more interactive elements to the environment (chandeliers that can be dropped on enemies, explosive barrels and a couple of other physics-related shenanigans)
  

But most of the work went into the new tutorial area, which is also the beginning of the game:







The next few months will be quite critical for the development of Monomyth. During Q2 of 2021 you will see three things: A trailer, a demo, and a Kickstarter campaign. The reception of all of these will help me assess the situation and give me a little guidance on how to scale future development.
If the Kickstarter campaign does well I can hire artists to produce additional assets (first and foremost music). If the campaign underperforms, I will have to make some adjustments here and there.
Either way, Monomyth is making good progress and I’m excited for the coming months. I’ll keep you posted (from now on, more frequently than in the past)!

See you soon!
rattower

Hi,

today I have a short video update for you:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In it, I talk about the work that has been done over the last couple months and how I will continue this project.

We take a look at:

• Environments
  
• Interactivity
  
• Combat
  
• Spells
  
• Character & Inventory System
  
• NPCs & Dialogue
  

For the future, the most important pieces of information are the following:

• Development will slow down, roughly until the end of february - after that however, I will focus full-time on this project
  
• Once that is so there will be a kickstarter campaign asap
  
• During the kickstarter campaign there will be a demo
  

I'm also thinking about keeping this format for future updates.
So stay tuned for more and see you soon!

rattower

Hi,

since some of you folks were worried about this project, I decided to give you a little update. First of all, I can relieve your minds: Monomyth is still very actively under development. Things are still happening (almost) daily.

However, as you can probably imagine, this year went a little different to what we all expected. As a result I had very little vacation time, which is what I need to really prepare the updates that would push the alpha forward. Instead I focused on level design / content creation, because if you get interrupted there - say, for a couple days - it's not so dramatic. So here's a little overview of some of the things I've been working on over the last couple months:

Lysandria is a coherent environment. Naturally it needs a sewer system.

Magic devices may sometimes reveal things you were not supposed to see.

Long ago Lysandria was a center of trade. The mines underneath brought wealth and prosperity.

Verticality plays a major role in all areas.

Not every corner of Lysandria is dangerous. Some places are peaceful and allow you to relax for a while.

The Lysandrians were rather devout. The whole area is filled with shrines and temples to worship their ancient gods.

The roots of the fortress reach deep down into the underworld.


I also improved the level design workflow quite a bit. Some of it is now handled through a tile map interpreter which makes it easier to block out / prototype simple dungeon environments. Basically, with this method I "draw" tiled environments on a layered image, which is then interpreted as a 3D environment (z-axis information is coming from the layers). Here's an example on how that works:

A tile map drawn in UE4's internal tile map editor

The interpreted 3D environment (early)

A more complex environment produced with the same method


I've also been overhauling the character animation setup. Many NPCs now share a single animation rig, which is again (essentially) a workflow improvement because it allows for modular characters.
I posted an example for this over at Twitter. My main gripe with Steam's update section is the size limitation on gifs. Then again those are absolutely terrible on twitter as well (plus the compression is awful), so I might look for an entirely different solution.

Further, I also put some time into making friendly NPCs attackable. Attacking them naturally has a negative effect on your faction relationships. I will have more information on this (and other stuff) in the next update(s).

Talking of which, I'll try to keep this place more up-to-date in the future (haha, whoops!).
Sorry for that! See you soon!


Yours,
Rat Tower