Master Sword: Reforged

[Lark]

Watch the Demo video here

Download and try the Demo here (Win x64, but if you want to try it on a different platform, PM me)

Discord channel invite here



Hello everyone, Lark here, long-time player, forum creeper, and ne'er-do-well.

Now I know what some of you are thinking, "Seems like there's another 'spiritual successor' pops up every year." I even thought about calling it MS:Unreal, just to have another MS:U. Then, I thought "Reforged" sounds good, but I'm starting to have my doubts. So, the title is a work-in-progress. But all kidding aside, I solicited Thothie's feedback early on to see if I was on the right track with the concept, build toward a workable demo that (hopefully) passes the smell test, and finally, post a playable demo and get feedback.

So why didn't I just join the MS:U team? Preference and features, really. I started toying around with Unreal Engine 4 a few months ago, and I love it. I'm already comfortable with C++, but the ability to rapidly prototype, access to a lot of content and documentation, and the look-and-feel really sold it for me. Finally, I ran across a plugin that allows imports of Quake, GoldSrc, and Source Engine maps, and I got excited: I can design levels in Hammer/JACK/etc. and import 'em straight over (well, the meshes, textures, materials, props, and lighting anyway). Due to licensing concerns (HL2 materials) and other reasons, the MS:S map imports are for demo purposes only! But take a look and tell me what you think.

I want to keep moving forward, but obviously I'll need help: Level Designers, Artists, Modelers, Animators, etc. There's some | great | assets on the Marketplace, but this community has been fantastic with Original Content to keep this mod alive for so long - I'm hoping this "revival" can continue that. Also, some of those assets are spendy, Lark isn't made of money, and this is a completely free project. If you have any suggestions/comments/concerns, I'm all-ears.

As for proposed story, game mechanics, etc.: The story will be tied to the Master Sword universe (one or more of the Ages), but I really want the project contributors to help drive and decide what direction we take, to include using lots of play-testing and user feedback to determine the mechanics as well.

If you would like to join, please shoot me a message, I'd be happy to have you on the team. Cheers!

Near-term checklist:
√ Finished Demo
_ Rewrite codebase to allow similar functionality from the demo, but removes the sample assets used (and replace with more original content)

 

[Age]

This looks awesome dude, get some sleep for sure. Hope you can recruit at least one warm body to pitch in and at least get a small, self-contained prototype fully up and running.

 

[MS:C community]

For a demo, I find this truly impressive! Well done. I took a bunch of screenshots:

https://imgur.com/a/vgqJlb7

Screwing around with the UI to give that classic "MS:C fullscreen with bloom" feeling lololol

 

[Lark]

Thanks! Yeah, the bloom was probably overkill, but who doesn't like seeing light shafts through trees n stuff?

On that note, you may notice the sun's high speed and strange trajectory. That was mostly to minimize the almost pitch-black night (although personally I like the mood). The latitude is set to -63 S, end of December, mimicking a summer in... Antarctica? *shrug* It's a demo.

 

[MS:C community]

No no, the bloom is fine. It was a joke.

Try playing MS:C in fullscreen with "ms_bloom_level 1" and see what happens

Edit: This happens:

 

[Age]

From the video and posted screenshots it looks as if a lot of the power being displayed is coming from Unreal itself (lighting, inventory you mention, physics). I am curious, would it be possible for you to make a list of what you've personally injected into this demo? The map is a well-made source map and combined with the lighting it paints a very pretty picture, so while I don't want to devalue your work thus far I am having a difficult time picking out which pieces of what you've shown are strictly your own work / thoughts and not a quick placeholder pulled from Unreal or elsewhere. I know you said it is early on and I don't mean to say it doesn't still look great, I am just curious.

 

[MS:C community]

So I made a video:

Something hilarious happens when you get killed. Skip to 00:41 if you're in a hurry. The rest of the video is just me screwing around.

 

[Lark]

Try playing MS:C in fullscreen with "ms_bloom_level 1" and see what happens

Wow, I'd forgotten all about that, haha

Would it be possible for you to make a list of what you've personally injected into this demo?.

Nope, impossible!
Kidding, I won't hide anything. Like I said in the video, my code contribution is minimal so far; most of my time was spent prototyping with Blueprints and using the tools:

C++: Character class calculations. Player HP, Damage, Death call, and Stamina calculations. Weight is initialized, but not really used yet.

Blueprints: The HUD (minus items/inventory). Main Menu and input rebinds, 1st/3rd person switching, Revive. Hitbox/collision detection. Making dead enemies lootable. Day/Night cycle and tweaking of sky/atmosphere

Animations: Arm swing, and blends for swinging while moving/idle. A quick note:. I'm not an animator (and it shows), but it took maybe 20 mins to create an attack animation that works within the editor.

That's what comes to immediate mind, hope that helps. My plan now is to rewrite the Character and Item classrs in C++. There will still be several functions implemented in Blueprints (like the HUD), but now that I've prototyped, I'll dive into the code.

The demo was intended to get people excited about what's possible in the Unreal Engine. I hope the consensus impression of the demo wasn't "look at all the stuff this guy ripped off!" If so, I'll happily go back to the drawing board until it's fleshed out with more code and original content - which is the target for the Proof of Concept later on anyway.

 

[Lark]

Something hilarious happens when you get killed.

Yeah there were Print functions for damage and death/revive, but I think it was disabled in the Shipped package. That and I gotta fix restoring animation after revive, hould be done tonight.

 

[Thothie]

Try playing MS:C in fullscreen with "ms_bloom_level 1" and see what happens

Sadly, seems to be a change in Windows and Nvidia has not updated the library we used. Doesn't seem to affect all GPU/OS combinations (works with my main rig under Win10 AME+RTX2080, not so much the laptop with Win10 Pro+GTX1060M, but fine in the netbook with Win7pro+IntelGMA - albeit, @3FPS). Ultimately, nadda we can do on this end.

Something hilarious happens when you get killed. Skip to 00:41 if you're in a hurry.

Not sure if wrong animation index, or if Lark did that on purpose. Perhaps the dance may be inspired by the day/night cycle, as it still seems to be in disco mode - though I hadn't even noticed that the UI is customizable.

 

[Lark]

Not sure if wrong animation index, or if Lark did that on purpose. Perhaps the dance may be inspired by the day/night cycle, as it still seems to be in disco mode - though I hadn't even noticed that the UI is customizable.

Oh it's the right animation but it's to mask the fact the movement animations don't work after a Revive. And as for Disco mode, I reduced the speed by half from previous demos. I'll switch it to a 10-minute cycle and crank up ambient lighting, see how folks like that.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Ultimately, nadda we can do on this end.

What about removing bloom entirely? Would that free up any extra string space?

 

[Thothie]

Bloom's entirely code side, so no. Save a tiny smidgen removing the scripted test/warning, but negligible.

 

[Lark]

Updated the demo and link at the top:
- Night/Day cycle is now ~4 minutes (if my math's right) instead of 48 seconds, and brighter at night.
- Character animations after reviving are fixed (sorry, no more crazy dance).
- Walk/Run animations in 1st Person no longer have the weapon swinging into yer face.

I noticed the camera controls in 3rd Person stop after looting a Muppet, so I'll probably fix that next, then move onto the C++ classes, unless there are any other suggestions.

 

[Kermit]

sick man, good job Lark. Sounds like you're going strong at it. Here's a recent orchestral piece I did 'Torch of Time', not used but was made as a purpose of being a gaming-related event theme. I could personally see this fit somewhere within Master Sword, for instance in the Edana Temple or any other sort of place that has torches and need an epic atmosphere. Could also go as the main menu soundtrack? Nonetheless, here's the tune.

@Thothie you can also add this to MSC if there would be a fit. Right now I've just been sitting on this piece and might as well put it up here.

In this version, it's 7 minutes, because I'm illustrating the loop-ability of the tune.
Do take into consideration that this wasn't created for MSC and not a finished product.
But again this all comes down to if you would see it fit in the world as well as liking it. And if that is the case, I would tighten it up for sure.
Nonetheless, I felt it was time to make an appearance again. If a ball is rolling nicely on a project, I'm up for filling out some of the sound needs.

TORCH OF TIME - SOUNDTRACK MS

 

[zeus9860]

TORCH OF TIME - SOUNDTRACK MS

This actually sounds like something that could play in a town perfectly, perhaps an exploring tune even. I'm confused as to what town specifically though (i'm mostly towards elf/dwarf related towns), this track reminds me of: elves initially, with some touches that could associate with dwarves/orcs and perhaps humans throughout the track. As for main menu theme, i'm not sure, it could work though... i usually associate the main menu theme in games with something calm/gentle and epic, it usually should also have a meaning with either the intro or main menu or potentially draw back memories from previous games.

Here's some random examples, both fit in with the main menu/intro stuff:

Calm and dramatic, pulls back memories from previous games

Calm, dramatic and epic, pulls back memories from previous games

Calm yet serious and dark, fits in with the game atmosphere

Right in the feels

If this remake is meant to follow the lore (as in, have a connection with previous games), i think the best approach would be to go for something that pulls back memories. Or something related to exploring/adventure. If it is meant to be its own thing and ignore the past, then the main menu could easily be anything that relates to the game and the theme.

 

[Kermit]

@zeus9860
Cheers mate, I could also see it working in a town. In that case, I would remove the tension building drums occurring here and here and make some more quiet transition sorta parts.

Very nice main menu themes, get what ya mean.
I absolutely love this one (The Outer Worlds Menu):

I even love it so much I made a remix of it, that the composer himself retweeted

In terms of pulling back memories, sure that could be possible. But personally, I don't think the main menu soundtrack of MSC is something that left itself a huge musical mark. The only thing that would make it rememberable is all those times opening the game for the first time and being blasted by 500 decibels of that soundtrack. God, it has fucked me up many times haha. But that said, I do not see it as the best possible written melodic piece and therefore I'd suggest a new and fresh thing for the main menu.
I'm sure though, that @TheOysterHippopotami would have a bunch of ideas for pulling back memories through the old soundtracks in a way to create a new piece that sparks some nostalgia but in a fresh way.

 

[Lark]

sick man, good job Lark.

Thanks Kermit, and yeah this track sounds great! And I agree with Zeus, this sounds like a great city theme (Kray Eldorad or maybe Rivermoon, if we stick with the Daragoth world - and an appropriate Age). Cheers!

 

[Kermit]

Thanks Kermit,

Cheers mate. I'll get a brushed up version of this for ya and if you like you can give me a request for something needed in this earlier stage?

 

[Lark]

Could always use a good title screen theme.

Other than that, no real requests - you could make a haunted forest/spooky theme for undead areas, or tribal/Orc, or any generic town/level theme, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

And thanks for the support! I'm hoping to be done with the new codebase in 2-3 weeks and I can throw together/showcase a quick level that might draw a few more people to the project. If we get a level designer, we might have more requests

 

[Kermit]

I'll try to get my hands onto some title screen stuff then, it seems that would be a nice addition to have in this early stage. If I can make something epic asf for the showcase, that would also help to draw in more people!