Outwith Windows game

This update covers my work over the past few months and a little about plans for the coming year. For those that may not know Outwith is a single player first person fantasy RPG. I"m working on the game as a solo indie dev using Unity.

I’m essentially just working on the demo at the moment, and planning on releasing the demo on Steam in early January in time for the next Steam Next Fest in February. Although it’s currently available on Itch.io should you wish to play it there before it becomes available on Steam.

Outwith Steam store page.

About the Demo

For anyone that has already tried the demo previously I"ve made a lot of updates and fixes over the past few months and I"m hoping that it"s starting to feel more rounded and playable.

The demo includes the first main area of the world. Access to the rest of the world is conveniently blocked by rockfalls which the villagers are diligently attempting to clear.

There’s one main questline - a take on the typical fetch a potion quest but with some unique differences. The demo is designed to give a taste of many of the core gameplay features - hopefully it does the job.

A Rough Road Map

My plan in the short term is to keep going on the demo refining core features. And during January I plan to work on improving the magic system adding more variety to the spells and integrating the VFX with the enemies.

Once the demo is out and February Steam Next Fest is over I’ll continue building out the rest of the game world.

The demo doesn’t include any character creation. I’m still working on this and it will be the first thing I focus on after Next Fest is over. Part of this work will cover adding full armour slots - head, hands, chest, legs and feet. And also re-evaluating the current NPC models.

I’ve also made some progress with the main story and world building. I’m likely going to scrap the previously-mentioned factions. Although There’ll still be choices and alliances. I’ve been working on the dialogue and quest system to support this - making things more manageable as the world and the complexity of the project grows.

I’m really grateful to everyone that has supported me and provided feedback. I’ve also made it easier to give feedback directly from the game - there’s now a link to a subforum on the Outwith store page on steam and my email address is there too.

So as mentioned my main focus has been getting the demo done and launched on Steam ready for the next Next Fest in February.

The longer term aim is to apply what I’ve implemented in the demo to the rest of the game world and build out the main quest line and other content with a tentative Early Access release set for this time next year.

About the magic system

Magic is unlocked in the game by exploring and discovering artifacts which unlock a particular school of magic. Once a school has been unlocked you can use ability points to unlock individual spells in that category. You can also use ability points to unlock skills should you wish.

I did have classes in the game early on and they still exist in code. Although I’m considering leaving them out as it will make balancing the gameplay more manageable. Reasoning being that I’m prioritising balanced gameplay over having classes. Although as with anything it could change based on player feedback.

A fine example of premature optimisation - making interiors separate scenes

One day in November I decided that it would help performance if I made all the interiors separate scenes and the player would encounter a hard loading screen when entering a building. This was supposed to reduce loading times for the main scene and help with frame rate.

Well after a few weeks of living with this, it turns out it made no difference and in fact made gameplay tedious when following the demo quest - enter house - loading screen - exit house - loading screen - enter tavern - loading screen - exit tavern - loading scree… you get the idea.

I’ve done away with the separate scenes for the interiors now and performance and loading times are unaffected. You can now walk through a door and you’re in a stranger’s house and they don’t mind at all - perfect.

The game world is constructed by linking separate scenes in Unity so there will be loading screens between main areas but I’m working toward this not happening too often during typical game play as the main areas will be large.

Which leads me onto fast travel. I’m working on this being integrated and making sense within the game world so it could be something like mage teleportation, bind and recall spells or horse and cart. I do like games where you have to think and plan your journey instead of just fast travelling on a map location marker. I feel the latter can lead to lots of loading screens. It may lead to a slower pace of play but hopefully will add to the immersion. Again, player feedback will tell.

There’s been so many updates over the past few months - some major highlights include:

• Performance optimisations
• Improving archery
• Improving combat
• Implementing the UI
• Creating a settings menu
• Added a compass

That’s pretty much it for this update. One final reminder, the demo is currently available on Itch.io should you wish to check it out there. And please do reach out should you have any questions or feedback.

Should this game be of interest you can add it to your wish list on Steam here. Once again I"m so grateful to everyone that has offered feedback, encouragement and support over the past few years of the project.

All the best

Jeff