Death Trash - Dev Talk

Remove all ads!

Stephan, the dev of Death Trash shared some info about his post-apocalyptic RPG on the Codex:

Hello. I'm Stephan, the creator of this game. Obviously you have some parts already figured out, but it's also a bit messy in here. And I might be responsible for some of that too.

So if you have some questions, I'm happy to answer them. Here are some of my thoughts:

• No, this game is not designed for 12 year olds. Nor am I 12 years old. Being a bit older, the high era of my gaming was in the nineties, and I intend to make a game in the spirit of the roleplaying games of that era. Not exactly like them though.
• Of course you can play a male character. There should be a wide range of characters and visual customization to choose from, but while gameplay and animations count are not finalized I don't want to spend too much time yet making multiple characters.
• This is no political game, but part of my belief is that people should be friendly to each other and tolerance is very important, so some of that might of course make it into the game. Personally I find it a bit sad that in a genre that is so much about giving options that the addition of a further option (playing a trans-gender character) is a point of discussion.
• The game will have stats. But light-weight, more Ultima 7 than a Fallout 1/2 / Daggerfall. So almost non-existent for purists out there. If you think that stats are the most/only defining characteristics of making it a roleplaying game then we'll have different opinions anyway. Here is a screenshot of the simple stats screen, but the plan is anyway to model the actual gameplay first and then the stats on top.
• I agree the combat looks boring still. Two things about that.
• One: Choosing realtime was a deliberate choice because part of my interest in this is (like Ultima 7) world simulation, and I find turn-based very tedious for that. Turn-based tends to lock games into two modes, where with simulation it should be an ongoing play. What happens if you shoot an NPC in a bar? Having to wait until 23 NPCs made their turn? Not what I want.
• Two: As the game is centered around one character and realtime a natural iteration now is to make it more action-like (think Dark Souls, not Diablo). In the process of that, but with dashing/rolling added it feels a lot better now. (Part of the reason I didn't try this earlier was probably because I was not confident enough as an animator. That's also improving.)
• The dialogue and the setting. I know it's a matter of taste, and it will certainly not meet everyone's. Just want to say here that this project probably differs much from others in the regard that it was online from day one, and what other people might muck around with or make their jokes with behind closed doors during that multiple years of development or especially in the beginning: here it was part of the "posting daily on Twitter about it". And that will always lean more towards light-weight humor. There it's natural to post non-working or non-serious stuff. So while parts of the final game will be like that, the perception of the whole thing is too much skewed towards that yet.
• The art. It's not about retro for me. The pixelart fits the right spot between abstracted and handmade so imagination can fill places. But it's a matter of taste, too, of course.

I'm happy that some people are interested in this game. And while I might not always have done the best job communicating this game, I'm learning. Hopefully improving.
Thank you for reading this.​