Nous n'en avons parlé qu'une fois. Le RPG Final Fantasyesque Neverend est pourtant en développement depuis plusieurs années. Après une longue traversée du désert dans la recherche d'un éditeur, Mayhem Studios annonce enfin qu'il se chargera lui-même de l'édition du jeu et avance donc une période de sortie – entre juin et septembre 2004. Pour accompagner ces nouvelles infos (vous trouverez après le lien, toutes les caractéristiques – en anglais – de Neverend), une série de screenshots inédits est aussi diffusée.
Story:
In the world of brave knights and beautiful virgins there roams a lonely creature Agavaen – an ancient fairy with broken wings. Humans are afraid of her and despise her so she found her place among the thieves. It is not a fairy-like life but however... at least she belongs to someplace. Until a day when it all changes. Most of the thieves are gone as well as all the money and the drunk captain decides to turn his anger on her. It has to be mentioned that just before he died, he realised his mistake, but Agavaen stays alone again to step on her uncertain journey for happinnes in the magic world of Neverend.
Summaries
Neverend is a RPG that is divided into three main aspects:
- Locations displayed by the pre-rendered background and engine-rendered characters and objects. The computer at the same time works with a simplified model of the scene that enables nice scenes with more than a million polygons and concurrently have full interaction with the surroundings. Dialogues and the adventure part of the game both take place in the locations.
- Combat scenes are full 3D with moving camera that dynamically adjusts to the combat situation. Apart from many weapon blows and spells it is also possible to use combos and special moves.
- The map permits liberty of movement and is also full 3D. It allows the player to travel between locations and discover new parts of the game world.
Key Features
- Cute and stunning epic story
- Main character advancement and its transformation into a true ancient fairy
- The possibility to create your own spells using the rune system
- ATBS (active time battle system) adding dynamics to combat as well as the possibility to use a lot of hits, blows, weapons and special combos
- Advanced sound engine with the support of 3D sound , EAX 2.0 and EAX 3.0
- Game engine using full 3D map traveling, combat and complicated pre-rendered scenes in combination with rendered characters and objects, interactivity with the game surroundings
- A lot of adventure-like items and non-linear dialogue branching
Unique Selling Points
- The market position gives an opportunity window for Neverend. There is great demand for games of this genre and at the same time low competition, especially on the PC and X-Box platforms (the only known title is the prepared Final Fantasy X-2).
- Addictive game concept that together with the storyline and character advancement makes the game attractive and keeps the player's attention.
- ATBS (active time battle system) adding dynamics to the combat, settled on the PlayStation 2 consoles, extremely successful and not yet used on the PC and X-Box platforms.
- Technological game elaboration as well as quality sound engine with licensed technologies for 3D sound and EAX 2.0 / EAX 3.0
- Game variability, including spell system allowing the player to create his own spells out of runes.
Technical Information
General
- New DirectX 9 video rendering technology
- Optional number of pre-rendered parallax layers in rendered screens
- Pre-rendered screens using global model lighting
- Multilanguage support
- Intelligent dynamic multithread texture management
- Support of animations in zones, pre-rendered as well as engine and programmable particle systems
- Adventure items in zones rendered by the engine to fit into the layer
Walking surface
- Warped
- Different material types
- Inverse legs kinetics
- Character walk animation is adapted to the shape of the terrain (for example they run up the hill differently than down the hill)
Characters
- Rendered by our own 3D engine (skinning)
- Animation blending
- Support of animation setting straight into the surrounding where they take place.
- Forward – head kinetics. For example – NPC character follows your hero with his eyesight
- Complex character texturing (Diffuse, Environment, Specular, Glossiness)
- Character lighting corresponds the whole scene illumination in the pre-rendered layers
Inventory
- Shopping possibility
- Engine-rendered objects
- Displaying inventory through the background while the blur and draw effects are applied on the background
- Possibility to equip a character with up to 8 different object types
- Own spell making possibility using the rune system
Dialogues
- Complex graph representation of the dialogues using dynamically programmable conversation management depending on the actual game status
- Monologues, dialogues, conferences
- Different events can be launched during conversation (for example animation playing)
Scripting language
- Flexibility
- Close interface with the object model of the game
- Object-oriented
- Parallel script execution support
Map
- Full 3D – 6DOF (Degrees of freedom)
- Different surfaces support
- Combat generated on the map – different parts of the map are differently dangerous (there are more dangerous creatures lurking in the forests than on a road)
Combat
- Full 3D – 6DOF (Degrees of freedom) Final Fantasy style
- Scripted enemy's artificial intelligence
- Dynamic camera moving according to what is happening on the battleground
- Specific character animation according to the type of wielded weapon
- Attack types supporting different weapon types
- The possibility to use certain weapons and spells as multi-target
- Engine-rendered spell effects
- Battleground surrounding corresponds the place in the game where the combat started
Sound engine
- Hardware accelerated 2D and 3D Sound
- EAX 2/3 or hardware accelerated reverb
- Obstructions and Occlusions
- Ramping / Click removal
- Advanced Software emulated 3D Sound
- Custom samples and streams
- Stream loop point and marker synchronization
- Custom DSP processing
