Descension: An Action/Adventure Game

[indefiance]

Descension is an action/adventure game with an emphasis on puzzles and story but without forgetting the action. As the only person capable of stopping a planet wide catastrophe, you will explore the darker side of humanity as well as make difficult choices with unknown consequences. With a mystery to unravel, a new world to discover and understand, and possibly all life at stake it will take wit and intelligence, strength and power, stealth and cunning, or some of it all to make it through alive.


Please come by and see the video preview : Video Preview

Demo of the first Level Now Available for Download: Here











The City in the Sky: The Volatere









Storage Area

[Max Power]

This naming may be confusing since there already is one of the the biggest sci-fi franchises (also action adventure) called Descent. There were four main titles and dozens of expansions. You might as well make a dinosaur game and call it Jurassic Park.

Otherwise looks alright. Cam's too shaky for retail, and voice acting is kinda funny. Not sure if it's supposed to be or serious.

[indefiance]

Hey Thanks for the feedback. The customer is always right and all that... You mean this one? I was aware of it. Funny you mentioned dinasaurs...freudian slip? Maybe its just me, but I figured a game that Ran on DOS back before windows 98 would be long forgotten. Then again, I never played it, so maybe I would feel different if I had... I suppose if someone came out with a game called 'boulders gate' I would feel a bit peeved. However, they can't lay claim to the word forever and eternity right? Besides which my game despite appearances wouldn't really fit into a Sci-fi genre, and it is only part shooter, and not even first person. Besides all that, I do have a subtitle to differentiate, but for brevity sake I hadn't included it in my original post. Now that I can see this is going to be a problem with the die-hards...it has been added.

The camera work is definitely a top priority for me right now. Most of the extreme shake in the vid was exaggerated from the actual gameplay however. Please feel free to download and try the demo. I would love to have feedback in regards to the camera especially.

[Snipe34]

Watching the vid, looked fine to me, and intriguing. I had np with the voices. The 'maniac' voice cuts in and makes it obvious he's got to die The shake I like, being it's a space station of some sort. Also for me, from the start I liked the feeling of movement. Even the misty stuff and whirls of the station as we pan around it and the vagueness of the planet below. For me the shake added realism (not that I really noticed it until Max Power pointed it out).

Er, if the player character could do Duke Nukem 'style' comments -maybe- obviously in keeping with the feeling of your story. Maybe not... just something to give more life to the character we are playing, some history or something, maybe about the baddy. Clues even. But having said all that... would that work, I wouldn't like to say...!

The game put me in mind immediately of Deus Ex (first version). I don't like story games much, but I played thru that twice and the Deus Ex guy makes no comments. I guess that's left to the player's imagination. Maybe grunts or something, anything - also missing from GTAIII... Satisfied lol as he puts down a boss or something. Sorry just a personal thing

But I like it. The character as I watched him is purposeful, and that arrogant maniac voice definitely needs its arse kicking.

You say a good mix blasting stuff and puzzles, great stuff!

[Rogdor]

Descent is certainly not a game that's been forgotten, they're releasing an update on WiiWare this year. Red Faction is also connected to the Descent franchise. They've renewed the Trademark on the name, so I don't think it'll be available for recycling anytime soon.

[MarkG85]

hey, whats going on guys its been a while since any 3ES team members have posted here so expect a lot more activity now this project has a full team and is gathering more momentum.

Our website has had a little revamp and we now have a studio Twitter account @3rdElement.

Also a Epic forum member posted a little video about our game here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9_Ge...gBzKUm1msi-Xc=

[MarkG85]

Download our demo here:

www.3rdElementStudios.com/downloads

Your thoughts & feedback would be appreciated :-)

[MarkG85]

Some new very rough designs for new Traevan & introducing the Decoherency Gun (a multi purpose weapon).

Decoherency Gun-1024x819.jpg

The View_Small-819x1024.jpg

[Beno09]

I played beta of this game and I'm actually pleased, even if it is beta.

Cinematics are great, voice acting also, I was really suprised when I saw the video at the beginning.
Menu of the game is bad but I guess that you guys only make it for this beta and it will be diffrent in the final build.
Again the beginning of the game and the cut-scene were great, I enjoyed watching it.
I love the player interaction and the actions after the player do something.
That magic or what is it with light is nice effect.
Visually it's fine, i think that can be better but for the beta is fine.
The really bad stuff is the player animation, movement and camera, for me it wasn't comfortable to play it, but again it is beta and there is much to finish yet.

Also, story is very good and can't wait for more playing.
There are my impressions for the first playing, I will play again few times and write some more informations.

Good job

[indefiance]

I played beta of this game and I'm actually pleased, even if it is beta.

Cinematics are great, voice acting also, I was really suprised when I saw the video at the beginning.
Menu of the game is bad but I guess that you guys only make it for this beta and it will be diffrent in the final build.
Again the beginning of the game and the cut-scene were great, I enjoyed watching it.
I love the player interaction and the actions after the player do something.
That magic or what is it with light is nice effect.
Visually it's fine, i think that can be better but for the beta is fine.
The really bad stuff is the player animation, movement and camera, for me it wasn't comfortable to play it, but again it is beta and there is much to finish yet.

Also, story is very good and can't wait for more playing.
There are my impressions for the first playing, I will play again few times and write some more informations.

Good job

Thanks for the critique Beno, it helps us get an idea of what people are liking. We will definitely take note of the annoyances you mentioned about camera and movement. Care to elaborate as to anything in specific about it that wasn't smooth playing for you? Was it not reactive, too mouse sensitive, too bouncy etc. ? Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks again.


Edit: P.S. there is a free game for best feedback in the offing should you provide feedback over at 3rdElementStudios.com in our forum

[Beno09]

Hello.
About the camera and player movement, for me it's little bit too reactive and unpredictable. Also as you said it's too mouse sensitive but I'm going for that you will add that option in the menu options. Camera and player movement are for sure the toughest part of game like this, and you will need to practice and try to find right solution. Also player animations are bad in some moments, like when the player is running or jumping.
If you fix these problems with camera and player movement, also animations of the player, everything else should be much easier. But like I said, it's beta and it's good for beta.
Also the big hall with big boxes at the beginning is little bit monotonous and confusing.
Will post all of this stuff at your site

EDIT: I posted some more impressions and added few more stuff at your site.

[MarkG85]

Thanks for your input Beno, nice to see people in the community playing each others games & offering there feedback :-)

[MarkG85]

New subtitle system in the works, our Lead Programmer Iman doing a grand job.

Hoping to post some new low res images tonight aswell :-)

FULL STEAM AHEAD!

[farshad12]

Hello everyone

As you may know we're re-conceptiong the game so you won't see the demo as it is, as the first level or something in the final game. Here's some new concepts for the first room designed by one of our artists, it's still WIP though:

Sorry I got ahead of myself, my bad. I'm the programmer and UI designer of Descent. So in case you had any feedback or request specially in programming aspects of demo, feel free to talk to us, it helps us to decide which parts we work on more.

You can follow our progress more closely in our site, http://3rdelementstudios.com/. Also we still need an animator. So if you are a talented animator/rigger and are interested, please read this thread.

Good luck everyone

[UDKKutigi77]

There were four main titles and dozens of expansions.

Yup!....I was among those who created few expansion levels years ago and it was fun;look!,many have try to do similar story with the title "Descent" but have to re-think the fact Volition/Outrage =>> THQ now "copy right" holder have a big Hammer!....I think those guys don't want anyone including the "die-hard community" out there to take the unfinished story to another level...not sure what exactly what they are afraid of. Many serious teams have been formed for a re-make and or continuation of the saga called "Descent 4" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=5GpFC1kOZtg) music;not that long ago to be ported online for free; the permissions (time and time again) was turned down. I am not saying you are thinking of a remake since you haven't play the game but this is how they ("so-called POWERFUL Copyright holders") think,unfortunately. Overall,your project is coming along beautifully;just differentiate the title or something like you said,regardless. I wish you the best man.

[MarkG85]

We appreciate you letting us know that and we do have a scheduled meeting with our lawyer to see where we stand on this. Thank you.

[Beno09]

Hello to everyone.

I just wanted to introduce myself here on UDK community. I'm the new guy at 3rd Element Studios and in future i'll work with this great team as a level designer. I just got first assignment and in future i'll work firstly on BSP brushes for the levels in our game Descent.

[MarkG85]

Ok, so for those of you interested we are now on Facebook, find us here: http://www.facebook.com/3rdElementStudios

[eridan]

I am currently working as a consultant with 3rdElementStudios helping them with any questions or concerns they have. Here is a short list of what we have discussed in the last few weeks:

• Game Mechanics
• Production Schedule
• Team Management
• Working with UDK

They are a fun group of guys and I am looking forward to seeing what they can do in the coming months.

[oranor]

Wow I just loved the video and I can't wait to try the demo when I get home from work. Good Job so far.

[MarkG85]

Wow I just loved the video and I can't wait to try the demo when I get home from work. Good Job so far.

Thanks for the support, it's appreciated.

[ThePriest909]

Looks good! Love the way you converted the default gun particles into enemies! Very smart!
Keep it up to a release!

[MarkG85]

If you like that wait until you see what the upgrade system can do to the Decoherency Gun.

Lots of exciting new developments taking place aswell as the studio growing in size by another 2 members.

[farshad12]

Hi everyone. I and my colleagues have been busy working on this project for last few weeks. I post my progress 3-4 times a month in our development blog, so those who are interested can follow our work. However right now our website has not that much of traffic, so as Mark suggested I decided to also post the updates here once in a while.

Here is a summary of what has been changed in game as far as code is concerned in the last month.

1. I started with writing a little win application called “Basic Refactor”, to help me with refactoring the existing unreal script code:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   It’s far away from a complete solution but it does well the only thing I need it to do right now. So I’m not going to add more features to it at least for a few months, but after that maybe I add some options to it so it can be useful for other programmers within community.
   
   
2. The next thing was re-implementing all the existing code for final game in a more clear way, so it will be much easier to read, modify, debug and also adding new features. I also used Basic Refactor to refactor the code a little and added some essential code to engine side of unreal script. Also there was 2 code packages, and I decided to integrate them so we don't run to potential issues in future.
   
   
3. The biggest new feature is Dialogue System which you can read more details about it in our blog. I just point to some of its features here:
   
   
   
   • Main goal for this system was to minimize the manual work needed to be done by one of the team members and the result is pretty satisfying. This system is completely based on archetypes and easily customizable in all areas without any coding needed.
     
     
   • Manages all dialogues and subtitles needed for the game in one place. Designer can use lots of archetypes as well as a couple kismet actions and events to have a good control on the system.
     
     
   • Ability to control the visibility of subtitles in real time, for example through options menu. As well as the ability to change the general volume and pitch for dialogues.
     
     
   • I also added some properties to help control delay and play time via archetypes, plus some controlling properties.
     
     
   • Designer can customize the visual aspect of the subtitles, even individually for each game character.
     
     
   • The newest feature is support for multiple languages at the same time. As you may know story plays a key role in this game and we wanted it to be completely understandable for non-English speaking players as well. I decided to write this part in a way so it doesn't have any limitations for supported languages, so I spent a lot of time and wrote it in a general way to support as many languages as we will need in future without any changes in code whatsoever.
     
     To be honest, this part of the system was the most cumbersome and the hardest thing I did in this project so far, way harder than I though it would be, well fortunately it is finished and ready to use now, so cheers.
     
     
   • Also there is a few dozen log, debug and control properties in this system which helps debugging and trap unexpected problems in future, if any.
   
   
   
4. I added a few new super classes for GameInfo, PlayerController, Scaleform GFx, Projectiles, Weapons, SoundGroup, etc., which helps to keep the code more manageable and the time needed for additions and modifications at minimum.
   
   
5. I also re-implemented the whole save/load system to avoid some problems, but I had not time to test it out yet.

Actually right now the code is a completely new code base and we can start to implement new features in a few days. The only part of the code that is yet to be re-implemented is about 10-15 percent of the whole demo code (5 classes to be exact) which I will finish 3 of them in a few days, and the other 2 will remain for a few weeks later.


From now on I probably will post more frequently here until our blog gets more attention, so hopefully my posts won't be this large in future. I hope our artists also post here every now and then about their progress so you can be more in the loop and be able to follow our progress.

Let us know what you think and also tell us if you think there is some parts of the demo which need more changes or even a different course.


Thanks for reading and good luck.

[Beno09]

Hello guys,

Here is my second post and it's an update about what me and Rob have done so far on this map. As I said in the title it's still pretty far from a finished scene but we are happy with the results so far.

Pretty much everything in the map is done with BSP and the BSP is almost finished for this map. There is still some additions to be made with lighting, static meshes from the modellers, etc.

The work that I done is almost whole the BSP, whilst Rob has been in and out fixing problems with set up the materials, build of the lighting and stuff like that. As I said up, we're almost finished with the BSP just yet. We can only see there being minor changes with it. The only thing that we're waiting for is static meshes and models from the Art team. We're expecting to hire two more experienced modellers shortly and they will help us and the process of building the game will become much faster.

Doing BSP for me is my favourite part of job so I didn't had any problems at that point, we'll see in the future job of this map will there will be any major problems, I hope not.

We discussed what we wanted to do with this map, Rob mentioned to me very important and helpful tips because practically this is my first piece of work for the team, so with future work you can expect even better results.

Hope you like the results of what you have seen so far, enjoy and have a nice day!

Belmin Kozlić

3rd Element Studios

Level Designer

[MarkG85]

Our YouTube page is now live here: www.youtube.com/3rdElementStudios

Also our forums are now live, feel free to drop by and browse our content.

[Beno09]

Hello to everyone, not just guys (hope that there are few girls to)!

In my first two blogs I showed you the stuff that Rob and me have done on the storage room level from the first demo. For this blog I again have the storage room to talk about but with much more improvements and new details that we implemented. I must stress it's far from a finished level but it's getting there just fine. Art team has a huge task in building new assets for the level and when all is finished we'll have a great first level for sure.

So you're probably asking yourself what's new and what has been implemented on the level, pretty much all of it, except the basic shape is new. Firstly we added much more detail to walls by adding static meshes that were created by the art team. It looks nicer than just BSP with the material, it looks more detailed now. You'll probably notice that we have added the nice structure to the catwalk. It now looks more realistic and interesting. It's still not finished but as I said it looks better. Also about the catwalk, Rob played with the materials of the catwalk itself and it looks pretty good now, better then before at least, haha. We added a lot more BSP and in the meantime we had more ideas about the level. We added "lower storage room" (you'll notice it by small round windows) and you can now get to it by going from "upper storage room" through the hallway. In future Rob will animate the cranes and boxes that are going through that lower storage room. It will be interesting and for sure add some nice detail to the whole level. We also added the bridge, it's just the static mesh for now, but later it will get animated. For a more realistic view we started to put more structure around the level, you'll notice much more of it (catwalk, upper storage room and etc.). We're also slowly going to input more static meshes than we have now, a lot more of them we'll be implemented when the Art team has finished with it. Beside the BSP that we are done on this level, we have also completed the lighting. We put more lights in the level, you'll this in the pictures.

In the near future we will probably hire a new level designer and that will allow us to complete more levels in a quicker time frame and finish the project quicker.

Cheers guys, I hope that you enjoyed this second blog and all the work that the team have done so far. Pictures below.

Belmin Kozlić
3rd Element Studios
Level Designer

[MarkG85]

Update from Sound & Music Team:

Afternoon all, (damnation you will read this in the afternoon)

I'm Jack, and I'm the sound designer and composer with 3rd Element Studios, and this is my first diary blog entry.

So far I've mainly been concentrating on the musical side of things, composing the game's main themes whilst I wait for an opportune moment to jump into the rest of the fray.

Currently I am working on cinematic music for a promotional trailer due out towards the start of next month, and it is jolly good fun; especially as I am getting back to good ol' film music way of writing. Ah the ease of linear motion... none of this silly 'player interaction' or 'unpremeditated sequences of events' to worry about.

The clip is only c. 30 seconds long, which seems an easy enough task... however fitting just enough emotion, intrigue and excitement to get an uncommitted viewer to take notice is no small feat. Luckily I am surrounded (via ethereal planes) by a team of rather talented artists, writers, programmers and unsurprisingly, since they do seem to account for a large proportion of the earth's population, Manchester United fans, whose artwork, lyrical prose, remarkable input and dedication to the red devils leave me with no lack of inspiration.

I mainly write in a classical style, drawing influence from classical and film composers, however I have a further penchant for writing weird electronic music, and experimenting with unusual sounds as musical tools, so it usually creeps into whatever I am writing, eventually (and hopefully) creating an interesting original style. I'll leave you to judge.

For musical tasters feel free to check out my website at jwmelham.com, until I get some sneak preview music uploaded on the website for your listening pleasure.

I'll be back with some more unstructured ramblings about music and sound soon, as hopefully next time you'll actually be able to hear something too!

Jack

[MarkG85]

New Programming update from Iman Shabani:

Hey everybody. In the last couple of weeks I was working on a basic menu and HUD for the game. There is not much art assets involved as I used only placeholders, so I’m not gonna show you some shots ATM.

At first I designed 2 different UI for them, but then for some reasons I decided to integrate them into one. So right now the result is an SWF file including both menu and sub menu pages plus the HUD including support for subtitle and a basic support for question system. At this point the goal is to finish the functionality of the UI, and I don’t care about the visuals.

The next step for the UI is to finish UI part of the question system, and then add the multilingual support to both subtitle and question parts of the UI.

The only major gameplay feature that I’ve done since the last post is the Question system. The game we’re working on involves a few dozen decisions for the player which he can never come back and change, and he has to face the consequences for them, good or bad. Most of those decisions will be made through answering a question with some predefined answers. With this system we are able to manage all those questions in one place using archetypes. Following is the major features of this system so far:

The main goal, much like the Dialogue system, was to ease the managing and handling all the questions in both content browser and kismet, gladly we’ve reached this goal.
This system has a queue for simultaneous questions just in case, so like the Dialogue system if anything goes wrong, system can handle these kind of situations.

Each question can have 2, 3 or 4 answers. This numbers are hard-coded and I didn’t add the ability to change it via archetypes. The reason for this was the UI part of the system and its limitations, and also we only need 2 or 3 answers for each question ATM. However if the time comes and we need more I can change the numbers in code and modify the UI part accordingly.

Like I said, there is no way for the player to go back and change his/her decision, and they’re completely permanent. Because of this we want to be sure that the player is able to understand his/her options before he/she chooses one. For this I came up with the idea of a simple (but not necessarily short) tooltip or comment for each answer. Right now each answer can have a tooltip, the only thing the player has to do is to hover the mouse on an answer to read it’s description.

I also added a couple of kismet actions and events to have a good control of the system in kismet. The most important one, is an event which will be called whenever player chooses an answer, so kismet would be able to act accordingly, as most of our decisions involves modifying some actors in the level itself.

Also there is some properties to customize the visuals of this system via archetypes as well as a few debug and log options.

The next step for this system is to add multilingual support for questions as well as answers and tooltips, and also adding a feature to play a voice for the question. Hopefully I’ll post the details when most of these are done.

Thanks for reading and good luck.

[DJ CARNIV AL]

Hey folks. I shall dip my nose in the download later and give you some feedback.

You'll have to keep us updated on the naming issue, many games have working titles though so a name change wouldnt be unusual tbh. Descention? Mass Descent? Project Descent?

[MarkG85]

Hey folks. I shall dip my nose in the download later and give you some feedback.

You'll have to keep us updated on the naming issue, many games have working titles though so a name change wouldnt be unusual tbh. Descention? Mass Descent? Project Descent?

The game has changed named to Descension, Al. I am waiting on Rob to change the name of the topic as its his thread haha :-P

[mavrik73]

Well video game titles themselves aren't actually copyright-able, just like any other literary or artistic work. So unless "Descent" is trademarked, it probably would have been ok. Better that you changed it though so as not to cause confusion I suppose. Good work on the game guys, it's looking great!

[MarkG85]

Well video game titles themselves aren't actually copyright-able, just like any other literary or artistic work. So unless "Descent" is trademarked, it probably would have been ok. Better that you changed it though so as not to cause confusion I suppose. Good work on the game guys, it's looking great!

Thanks for your input man, it's appreciated. I'll be uploading more content soon.

[lethal_d0se]

I have now officially joined this Descension project as a 3D Artist.

We have a strong dedicated team and look forward to the release of Demo 2.0.

[Beno09]

Descension strives to be a game about story, and as such it also strives to be a game full of choices. In an effort to make this more intuitive, most areas of the ship and the game mechanics are designed around Three possible paths to completion. In RPG games there is the Mage class, the Warrior Class, and the Thief Class. Let this serve as a metaphor for these gameplay styles, and it is up to the player to choose at any given time what playing style they prefer. In contrast to a typical RPG game, the player isn’t forced into one mold or another, but rather the game will adapt to their preferred playstyle, unlocking skills and areas only accesible to those proficient in their preferred skillset, especially towards the end of the game, where certain story arcs are only available to those with certain levels of proficiency. Working in tandem with these styles, the player will become more proficient and their subsequent skill base modifiers will allow them to further excell in those playing styles they practice the most. This is all done under the hood, with only a few indicators to que the player as to their ability levels in each area.

[Beno09]

Big day for us guys, our first trailer is finally released. Watch it out and every share and comment is appreciated

[MarkG85]

Hi guys, just thought I would make a post to say we created the ship in the trailer in the post above (thanks Belmin) completely in UDK. It took around 30 hours to complete 10 of those hours were playing with the background. If you have any questions on this process please feel free to ask.

Here are some final images of how it turned out.

[MarkG85]

Impactful & lasting gameplay

Many modern games have vast modding communities that cater to them. *In many cases a new idea keeps cropping up as a popular mod. *In general that idea is*centred*around making the game choices have more permanence and making the death of the character of more consequence than reloading your latest save. Descension explores different game mechanics around the idea of persistent choices and saves, differing from the mainstream in an attempt to make the impactfulness of the story more relevant, and the gravity of your choices more poignant. * While saving at any point is possible, there is only one save for any particular game started, and using that save is done by logging into your unique character.

[MarkG85]

Character Model WIP's:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1346756782.495759.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1346756824.477860.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1346757286.930991.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1346757310.660291.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1346757322.805371.jpg

Feel free to leave comments.

[ekam]

Hi!
Keep up the great work, this is looking impressive. I think this is gonna be a really good game: the plot(exploring the dark side of humanity) is interesting(I wanna know more),
and the ship looks awesome.
You said that you created the entire ship in UDK. BSP? Entirely?
Thanks a lot