Devlog: The overview

A Tale of Light looks like a simple 2.5d retro dungeon crawler, and it is. But there was far more work than I had imagined that needed to go into it. I had always wanted to create a game very similar to Bard’s Tale, Might & Magic, the classic 80s/90s tile-based games. “How hard could it be?” I asked myself.

Turns out, even with AI to help with code, visuals and sound/fx, it has taken many months to get this far, and I’m not even 50% of the way done. Even with the assistance of frontier LLMs, there is just simply a ton of work to do. This initial blog post is about the major parts of the game, and later, I’ll dig into each one.

The world in 2.5D

The game uses the Godot engine. It’s amazing how much you can do with this engine, and it’s open source, and free. To say it is incredible is an understatement.

I love 3D “stuff”. Back in the 90s I used to use the Imagine 3D software on the Commodore Amiga. I’ve loved everything about CGI and 3D as long as I can remember, even wanting to do it as a career, until I realized I just wasn’t that artistic!

The game itself uses a combination of 3D and 2D visuals. The main panel (game) is a 2D panel, but we inlay a 3D viewport on the left side that reveals the actual 3D aspect of the game. That in itself deserves a very detailed post. For now, we’re sticking with basic building blocks for the town, with some nice facades on the front as well as real depth for doors, windows, and other aspects. Signs jut out of the venues and sway with the wind, and more.

Ah, can’t forget the weather and lighting system. That is what gives the town real atmosphere.

Visuals

All told, I’ve generated over 2K character portraits. Mainly because at the beginning I didn’t know how many classes, races, genders, appearances that I was going to have. Then I ran into inconsistencies with the generation of them, then a very large regeneration because dwarves, gnomes and elves were not consistent. I’m really focusing on quality as much as my time and skills allow. It’s not going to be a triple A game, but I want it to be the best that I can create given the constraints. If that means, I spend a few hundred dollars more for a more consistent portrait set, so be it!

Sound and music

I started out originally purchasing licensed music and sound FX at $50 a pop here and there (they came in packages). And that is a great way to go if they have what you need. But I found the variety somewhat lacking. The sounds were sometimes too long (over 3 seconds for a sound that repeated frequently isn’t acceptable), sometimes hard to hear, and sometimes just wrong. So I decided to use ElevenLabs.com for much of the sound fx, and all of the voice overs. It’s a great service and if you haven’t used it, highly recommended. It also came up with some of the music for the different venues, though the main title them is licensed from an audio pack.

Special effects

Special effects are hard, especially if you’re not familiar with the game engine. So, with the help of Antropic’s Opus 4.8 (and Fable 5 as it was available) models, I was able to design some decent special effects. Some of them are the glow from different spell types (healing, dark magic, etc).

As you walk around the dungeons, you’ll notice your light casts flickering shadows based on what light source you’re using. On a clear night in Somariel, you can watch fireflies lazily roam around the town, lighting up doorways and window sills. And at the top of the 3d frame, a special light gem pulses with the light that represents the health of your party, changing at party members are hurt, poisoned, and more.

Combat

This takes WAYYY more time than you’d think. I won’t get much into it here, but you must know that if you don’t get combat right, the game just isn’t fun. It has to be challenging, but winnable. Stat points have to mean something, and they must be felt as they’re increased, but they can’t be overpowering. And gear like magic weapons or even your normal leather armor suit, must be tuned properly. If you’ve ever played D&D (which I’m sure most of you have), then you’ll know all of the numbers that go into this. Now, think of automating it and balancing it all. It has required a full seed-based test harness that can simulate thousands of battles quickly and see the outcome. Without this, it’s just a guessing game.

Spells, bard songs, and more are coming! (some are already implemented!)

The lore of the world

A Tale of Light is a body -> mind -> spirit ascent, and the towns represent this, as well as some of the classes. I may provide more details in another blog, but this is part of the fun: revealing the lore, getting hints, and that moment when you realize what something really means, instead of just the obvious.

What’s next

I’ll work through each topic above in more depth, but I’ll also post about general lessons learned as well. I’m hopeful this blog will help others who are now enabled through AI to create their own games.