i wanna make a souls like game how hard is it gonna be?

i wanna make a game like dark soul

i know its gonna be hard but how hard is it going to be?

what do i need to learn in order to do it

Not much, just:

  1. Low-poly modeling
  2. Texturing, creating textures
  3. Animation of characters
  4. Writing scripts on Python
  5. Do not interfere with the ability to write shaders.
    :eyebrowlift:

If your new to the BGE, it will be HARD.
as stated above you need to learn all 4 points, point 5 is optional.

Also there are plenty of sites that shares textures/models/shaders, but it wont make things easier only a bit faster.

best is to start out with a simple game to get some experience to build from.

actually i plan using blender for modeling and animation and unreal 4 for the engine

im asking about what would need to learn to do stuff like character creation and swapping pieces of armor

  • Ah-ha-ha :), with the unreal 4 you still have complicated your life. I would advise you first (for a common understanding), even if you stop at unreal 4, make small games in BGE. This will create in you the concept off games developments. And then, if Ton Roosendaal with the team, does not please us with a cool update of BGE in Blender3D 2.8, then you will switch to Unreal 4 :eyebrowlift2:You start moving - step by step, and do not try to jump far - then you will have some mental disorders. Go strictly on the list :yes:.

is ue4 that bad? what about unity and cryengine?

Saying “i wanna make a souls like game” sounds at least frivolous and lightly. You can not make anything, that is even close to those games.
It takes 150 team of professionals and tens of millions $$. You can make a prototype or something, that resembles remotely Dark Souls and still you will need years of development and huge skills to do it.
Why just not start with pac-man or snake byte like game and see how hard it is to develop and then decide if you want to try making something more complex.

making any large scale game =

Design a modular system to fit the pieces in, and reuse as much code as possible,

make the system easy to use, create ‘generic’ ref items, to ‘mutate’ into new assets.

make the first 10 or so assets (of like 10,000)
put together tight gameplay, and then kickstart and explain that making the game is as easy as adding more legos, and the complexity is already ingrained.

after you know python checkout manic mack my bgmc game in finished projects.
it’s not my current scheme but it’s really really close.

ps It took me like 5 years to arrive at the ‘actstrip’ / input dictionary / hashtable states - design.

if anyone can provide a faster easier to extend model, let me know :wink:

It’s actually not as hard to make as one would think, having a character run around, be able to target enemies and to heal from potions would not be difficult to do. Some programmer might with little difficulty give the character stats and levels. If you’re a skilled artist and your programmer is capable you could have a character run around in a week fighting some skeletons.

Then comes the part that is impossible for you to do on your own, create a huge world that is full of enemies that is going to be able to entertain the player for hours. Basically the hard work is creating the game, could you do it, sure but you would have to create hundreds of models and different enemies. There’s such a thing as AI too, enemy tracks you after coming within a certain distance he starts attacking you or he might just guard against you depending on what action you’ve recently taken.

Dark souls is a simple game but it’s also a huge semi open world game. If I were you I would create something that’s similar but even more simple like a 3d platformer game. This would be more realistic for a small team to make and might still be profitable if done right, you could make it graphically more impressive and incorporate dark souls element into the game like the bone fires. A simplier more linear version of dark souls, levels not an open world.

Dark Souls is played in a continuous world - that in itself is already one of the hardest problems in video games - dynamically loading and freeing assets seamlessly to simulate the illusion that the world exists at all times. This one thing by itself will take a team of programmers and a lot of money.

Aside from that, the combat in Dark Souls is pretty complex. You have a ton a different ways to combo attacks and a variety of weapons (a lot of which change your combos).

Think of the game you want to make, but bear in mind that you also need to make that game. So also think of a game that you can make.

Aside from that, the combat in Dark Souls is pretty complex. You have a ton a different ways to combo attacks and a variety of weapons (a lot of which change your combos).

It’s not complex, it’s three animations for each weapon playing after each other. A hitbox at the end of the weapon that interacts with the enemy, I wouldn’t call that complex. The “complexity” comes from creating the game itself not the character and combat.

The “complexity” comes from creating the game itself not the character and combat.

The complexity comes from both angles. Technically, Dark Souls combat is very intricate and involved (when compared to other sword/hacknslash titles). On the surface, yeah, maybe it looks simple to non-programmers, but it’s very clearly not a trivial pursuit.

Also, I don’t know if you’re just making an understatement, but Dark Souls has a a lot more than three animations per weapon type lol. They have animations depending on how you combo your hard and light attacks. Different animations after a roll, after a parry, for backstabbing. The combat also needs to take into account parry timing, shields bashes, shield guarding, stamina, poise and status aliments. Each weapon deals a different amount of damage depending on what it’s hitting, how it’s hitting it and where it’s hitting it.

A hitbox at the end of the weapon that interacts with the enemy

This in itself isn’t difficult, but it isn’t easy either. “interacts with the enemy” lol, how do you even think that happens?

There’s a lot to it already with just the basics - and on top of that, you also need to create a cohesive world with a variety of different enemies and characters.

I have played Dark souls it’s not complex, in fact if we had a dummy model with a spear I could probably put something together that plays out like Dark souls in, hmmm a day only using logic bricks.

Light attack - three animations
Heavy attack - one hard stab

You push the button and the first animation is played, a timer is started if you don’t hit the button again within a certain amount of time you’ll go back to idle stance, if you hit the button a second time it will send a message to the hit box of the weapon which says that if enemy hits this box do this much amount of damage to the enemy and have him stagger, same for the third animation.

If the enemy has his shield up it will do no damage to the enemy. Then we’ll have a button that uses the shield and upon being hit by an enemy it will lower the stamina, same for when you attack it lowers your stamina. The hard thing would probably be to make something that tracks an enemy, but it could probably be made by creating a long invisible cube that follows the rotation of the character, if the cube hits an enemy and you hit some button the player controls are changed and you pan around the ground and track the enemy instead of facing whatever direction you’re running towards, this could be done with states.

Then it’s pretty much done, not very hard at all. You can improve upon the logic bricks somewhat before you call it done. Then all there is left to do is create enemy AI, which might sound complicated but it’s really just having the enemy detect the player and the player’s action. Raise shield if player is a certain distance away from you and attacking, you might need to mess around with this a bit but it’s definitely not hard. Two days with logic bricks and you could create a guy fighting a skeleton or even lots of skeletons.

Then comes the hard part which takes months, creating the game, hundreds of enemies, hundreds of models for the levels. That’s what’s going to be impossible which is why I said that making something simplier and more linear is going to be a more realistic goal for a small team or even one person. Also I should add that Dark Souls is a very popular game not only because of the game play, but also because it’s an online game. There are many games that are similar to it but not as popular, so the genre isn’t going to be an instant success just because it’s a dark souls game. See this dark souls clone, who cares?

In fact there are simplier games that many probably would consider more fun, the video I posted some posts up for example. A simple platformer can be just as enjoyable if done right, with enemies that don’t even have any AI, just if you touch them you lose health. Much simplier and could be just as fun.

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alright man, go make a simple platformer with Dark Souls combat in logic bricks and tell me how that goes for you lol

I’m not the guy who wants to make such a game, it’s however possible. Maybe not for you but others can do it.

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how curious people in the ue4 forum told me it gonna take like a year to make a simple demo, i’m happy to see the blender community seems to be more optimistic

at the moment i think i’m gonna start simple just making a character moving around

i m thking on making most enemies humanoid this way the weapon design and enemy design become the same thing and i will also have to make more unique weapons as well

It is possible in BGE, however it takes skills and years of development.

It’s not complex, it’s three animations for each weapon playing after each other. A hitbox at the end of the weapon that interacts with the enemy, I wouldn’t call that complex. The “complexity” comes from creating the game itself not the character and combat

Man…:smiley: Really!? Only the “timing<–>animations interaction” it self in their combat is something that no one here can do.
As someone, who actually tried to do similar combat…years before souls games, I would say it is HARD, it is reeeeally HARD. :wink:

I’m not a programmer but if you approach it logically, how hard could it be. The timing thing might be an issue if blender isn’t equipped to deal with “timing”. For example logic ticks, hasn’t that got to do with how well your computer actually performs. I remember trying to trigger an event after x amount of time using logic ticks and the result waried depending on I guess how well the game performed when I tried it out.

Anyway there might be creative ways to ensure that if you haven’t hit a button after x amount of time he’ll reverse to idle stance. For example you could have an animation of a cube move towards another cube and the duration it takes for the cube to reach the other cube could be the timer. You hit “space”, the cube starts moving towards the other cube and the character starts to perform his first attack, if you don’t hit space again before the cube hits the cube he reverses back to idle stance.

Got to be creative, but in theory all this is possible to do with logic bricks. Tracking an enemy might be the hardest thing, not quite sure how to do that, but there probably is a way for one object’s rotation to be locked to the location of another object.

Wow, your explanations are really interesting; I always like finding work arounds in logic to make it work right. Logic user to logic user (I don’t code at all), that will be a pain to set up. A tracking system would have to be set up per enemy (python would work around that) I would suggest a player state were it tracks to an arrow (or something) that tracks toward the enemies that way you could set up purely tracking stuff to the cube, and then have a player state were it tracks to the cube that tracks to the enemy. I’m just throwing out idea’s; The problem with using purely logic is that each enemy will have to be its own entity, so that tracking will work.

That is a mess, so have fun deciphering it :eyebrowlift:

Come on guys!
lordnoah - You want to create games, and this is your choice, and it’s better than stealing:yes:.
For you, some game has become a goal, but you do not yet understand all the nuances and difficulties of developing games.
Go strictly on this list and do not listen to anyone.
1. Low-poly modeling
2. Texturing, creating textures
3. Animation of characters
4. Writing scripts on Python
5. Do not interfere with the ability to write shaders.
:eyebrowlift:

All understanding of the complexities will be added in the process of work, and you decide for yourself - it’s difficult or not difficult to create games.
Start moving easy, gaining experience every day.
Learn to love your work - every model, every texture … and it will make up for you success.
Thanks!

p. s. do not argue much with people, it gives you a lot of strength … As Shaquille Rashaun O’Neal said in the past - stop watch TV, go to the practice.
Stop arguing, go and do creativity.