Project Reah, an Ys Origin-like: 2D sprite characters/enemies in 3D environments, focus on snappy movement and combat intended with a simplistic item and level progression.
finally made true on this meme this weekend and started Project Reah (named after one of the goddesses in ys, naturally). i'm explicitly using ys origin as a target for game feel in the short term, and then later on will study its leveling curves and item progression since those felt pretty good too. hopefully it gets that far!
i spent the first hours of the project just familiarizing myself with PaperZD, the plugin that fills in some major holes mostly around animation in unreal's existing 2D "Paper2D" flows.
here are two progress videos from today:
getting 8-directional movement working with the imported sprites ripped from ys origin
messing with camera shenanigans when jumping and landing
hoping i can get decently far with blockouts, market assets, and rips from the ys origin itself because i certainly can't do 2D or 3D art oops (well, the 2D sprites are actually shot from 3D models but still). ideally this gets shiny enough for someone to give me money to pay for an artist or for an artist to offer their work.
just happy to have something to noodle on again, it's been a long time! will also have to return to some other projects and ready them up for progress again, but that's for another thread
(youtube vids will be low quality until the HD gets processed since youtube is dogshit these days)
video starts with ys origin, then couple seconds of black (thanks OBS), then reah
attacks that combo when you spam the button! gotta fix timing and lurch distances here but the bones are there
realized the sprite was crunched from the camera angle, angled it properly at camera now and tweaked camera distance a tad
turned FXAA on, i dunno man, i think some blurriness/AA is needed. i don't really know this side of things. ys origin also looks like it maybe has a thin black outline shader since that's not on the sprites
action RPG series that's been around since the 80s and gone through various remasters and remakes over the years. known for challenging but solid combat and killer soundtracks. some anime bullshit in there too.
they're grouped by the engines they use, Ys Origin (a prequel game) specifically was the last one of its engine generation so it's imo the best implementation and balance of it, i just love the way it feels to play and i think the scope is super streamlined and manageable. feels ripe for an indie clone.
