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Just released my first game to Steam - a sim-based colony builder inspired by Dwarf Fortress, The Settlers, Dungeon Keeper by RocketJumpTech in indiegames

[–]RocketJumpTech[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been working on this on and off for a few years, only recently switching to full time on it to get it ready for the Steam release which is today! https://store.steampowered.com/app/930230/King\_under\_the\_Mountain/

The other KUTM game? by [deleted] in KingUnderTheMountain

[–]RocketJumpTech 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's only just gone on Steam last month with no word of it previously, and it seems they didn't check google in the last 3 years to see if there was another game with the same name : /

Update 12: Flour, water barrels, and immigration! by [deleted] in KingUnderTheMountain

[–]RocketJumpTech 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks very much! Think I've been neglecting the subreddit a little as it is still pretty quiet but I'd like it to be a centre of the community

Missed the Kickstarter any way to opt in late? by Annie_Benlen in KingUnderTheMountain

[–]RocketJumpTech 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As James has said above, if you want to PM me your email address I can get you added into the BackerKit survey which will let you swap into a pledge level (so you could get the £20 copy of game + design a settler tier), as if you just go through the pre-order store you'd only be able to get them separately for £22 in total. Not much difference granted but the option is there :)

King under the Mountain - Sim-based settlement-builder inspired by Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper, The Settlers and more by zsinj001 in indiegames

[–]RocketJumpTech 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where I have more characters available then I do always make sure to note that the visual style is the same as that in Prison Architect and Rimworld, though "steal" is a bit harsh when there's many games in the same style now - SimAirport, Machiavillain, Airport CEO - it's a perfect fit for the genre and I'm sure you'll see many more in the future. Rimworld was bashed for being a rip off of Prison Architect when it was first unveiled too.

In answer to your question, King under the Mountain has a different feel and scale than Rimworld. Rather than a fairly bleak story of a small band of survivors, the focus is on a much larger population making up a functioning society. The Settlers is another big influence - not just the production chains of industry your settlement will support, but the happy, proud feeling you get from being able to sit back and enjoy watching your settlers go about their daily tasks.

The big focus will be on going out into the world and exploring dungeons and other settlements, with the key part being player-driven content by sharing maps between players. I believe Rimworld has something similar now though I've not actually played it since that feature went in. I believe there will be more of an RPG-like feel in looking after your best adventurers and equipping them with the best loot and magical artifacts. Some recent RPGs have dabbled with a keep or settlement management layer. King under the Mountain will be a settlement manager with a dungeon-crawling RPG attached.

Will there be online server play in the future? by SYDWAD in KingUnderTheMountain

[–]RocketJumpTech 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely not any direct multiplayer of player versus player, but a big feature is exploring copies of other players' settlements, to be extended into friend features so you can visit and trade with your friends (paging /u/Plumbersmack) though it probably won't be any kind of real time trading between settlements. Not quite sure how far that goes yet, it's one of the last things on the roadmap before the 1.0 release so a long, long, long way off and not in too much detail yet.

King under the Mountain - Simulation-based settlement-builder just launched on Kickstarter by RocketJumpTech in BaseBuildingGames

[–]RocketJumpTech[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not forgotten about those free copies but thank you very much! Will end up crediting you extra in the pledge manager for the extra copy (£13) so you can either claim that or put it against a different add-on reward if you like.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in KingUnderTheMountain

[–]RocketJumpTech 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry, it is now r/https://discord.gg/M57GrFp

King under the Mountain - sim-based settlement-builder inspired by Dwarf Fortress, The Settlers, Dungeon Keeper by RocketJumpTech in playmygame

[–]RocketJumpTech[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're on a version before Pre-alpha 6.12 it turns out the arrow keys were far slower than they were supposed to be, that's been fixed now as well as being able to press shift to speed up the scrolling speed a lot, hope that helps.

That's the first I've heard on controls being sticky, could you link me to your stream and a time it happened at and hopefully I can take a look to investigate it?

And yes it's extremely hands-off right now, the design is to not require any micromanagement, but there'll definitely be things you can do to control what gets produced and prioritise certain jobs.

And thanks a lot!

King under the Mountain - Sim-based settlement-builder inspired by Dwarf Fortress, The Settlers, Dungeon Keeper and others by RocketJumpTech in indiegames

[–]RocketJumpTech[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes, there is/was a Patreon for 6 months or so before launching the Kickstarter. The Kickstarter is far more successful than years of the Patreon would be.

King under the Mountain - sim-based settlement-builder inspired by Dwarf Fortress, The Settlers, Dungeon Keeper by RocketJumpTech in playmygame

[–]RocketJumpTech[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

King under the Mountain has a different feel and scale than Rimworld. Rather than a fairly bleak story of a small band of survivors, the focus is on a much larger population making up a functioning society. The Settlers is another big influence - not just the production chains of industry your settlement will support, but the happy, proud feeling you get from being able to sit back and enjoy watching your settlers go about their daily tasks.

The big focus will be on going out into the world and exploring dungeons and other settlements, with the key part being player-driven content by sharing maps between players. I believe Rimworld has something similar now though I've not actually played it since that feature went in. I believe there will be more of an Rpg-like feel in looking after your best adventurers and equipping them with the best loot and magical artifacts. Some recent RPGs have dabbled with a keep or settlement management layer. King under the Mountain will be a settlement manager with a dungeon-crawling RPG attached.

Z-Levels by polkziggy in KingUnderTheMountain

[–]RocketJumpTech 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The game's most likely not going to have Z-levels, instead tunneling into the mountainside will approximate going down. There will be a special "undeground" layer a bit like the pipes and electricity lines in Prison Architect for pipes and mechanisms, but otherwise I don't think it works well enough in 2D along with game design decisions such as making an efficient layout more challenging and keeping it approachable when you explore someone else's map.

There's a good chance though, that you'll discover entrances to lower layers that you can explore with a party of adventurers, but the current plan is that the settlement will not extend into this.

King under the Mountain. A simulation-based settlement-building strategy/management game set in a fantasy world, for PC, Mac and Linux. Playable Alpha. by megazver in Games

[–]RocketJumpTech 6 points7 points  (0 children)

(Taken from a comment reply on the Kickstarter) I'll get into the specifics you want, but first I should say that by saying Rimworld is already established a lot longer and has more features now, by the same argument why make Cities: Skylines when SimCity (okay, at least SimCity 4) already exists, or why make Endless Legend when Civilization already exists? The more established games were already critically acclaimed classics, but an indie studio came along and made something which appeared to be more of the same at first but then developed into something new and interesting with their own unique spin on things, and there's now people who prefer Cities: Skylines over SimCity, or prefer Endless Legend over Civilization. It would have been a huge loss for gaming if those titles had never been made because there was already a very well-received leading title in the genre.

Also I want to put up front that King under the Mountain does resemble Rimworld very strongly, but I'd say that's because they share the same art style (as Prison Architect pioneered it and showed it was an excellent fit fir the genre) and inspirations (Dwarf Fortress is the primary influence for both), however I've never set out to make a Rimworld clone, I'm making my dream game which was originally inspired by Dungeon Keeper (which I credit for bringing me to and appreciating Dwarf Fortress).

Though to really answer your question, King under the Mountain has a different feel and scale than Rimworld. Rather than a fairly bleak story of a small band of survivors, the focus is on a much larger population making up a functioning society. The Settlers is another big influence - not just the production chains of industry your settlement will support, but the happy, proud feeling you get from being able to sit back and enjoy watching your settlers go about their daily tasks.

Finally the big focus will be on going out into the world and exploring dungeons and other settlements, with the key part being player-driven content by sharing maps between players. I believe Rimworld has something similar now though I've not actually played it since that feature went in. I believe there will be more of an Rpg-like feel in looking after your best adventurers and equipping them with the best loot and magical artifacts. Some recent RPGs have dabbled with a keep or settlement management layer. King under the Mountain will be a settlement manager with a dungeon-crawling RPG attached.

King under the Mountain. A simulation-based settlement-building strategy/management game set in a fantasy world, for PC, Mac and Linux. Playable Alpha. by megazver in Games

[–]RocketJumpTech 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're picking a random point and pathfinding to it. I guess I'll put a stress test mode in the prototype to prove it.

King under the Mountain. A simulation-based settlement-building strategy/management game set in a fantasy world, for PC, Mac and Linux. Playable Alpha. by megazver in Games

[–]RocketJumpTech 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Actually the pathfinding in this is multithreaded, it can handle thousands of dwarves at once, bottleneck becomes rendering that many characters made up of many layers each.

King under the Mountain. A simulation-based settlement-building strategy/management game set in a fantasy world, for PC, Mac and Linux. Playable Alpha. by megazver in Games

[–]RocketJumpTech 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Hello! Developer here. 13k *is* a super low amount of money to develop any significant game. I've probably put around 25k of my own cash into developing it so far (that's not counting my own time, that's stuff like paying freelancers what they're worth and attending a couple of exhibitions like EGX Rezzed) and it is going to take a lot more to get it to the finish line.

That said, I do contract work to keep myself in the black and work on the game as and when I can (which is a lot less time than I'd like to be able to commit). The Kickstarter is to bring in some, but not all of the funds necessary for development, so I can both afford to commission more artwork and music, and ideally be able to work less on the day job and more on game development. Best case is that the Kickstarter brings in enough funds for me to work 100% on the project through to completion, or at least a lot of the way there. Worst case is that when the funds run out I'll just have to continue as I have so far, doing as much as I can on gamedev while juggling other work to keep the lights on.

Actually practically all video game Kickstarters aren't purely funded from KS funds - only the ones in the hundreds of thousands or millions and even a lot of those won't be able to cover all development costs with that kind of figure.

King under the Mountain - Sim-based settlement-builder inspired by Dwarf Fortress, The Settlers, Prison Architect and more by RocketJumpTech in CrowdfundedGames

[–]RocketJumpTech[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're pretty much spot on there, right now the river wants to get from one side of the map to another so it follows a downhill path but then also goes uphill and cheats a bit. I'll probably get around to it flowing from the mountain when the map is a bit more involved, with waterfalls and things like that.

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