1 week left for Fable 3's release, and anticipation levels are in the red-zone at my house! Combat is one of the aspects of Fable I really was looking foreward to! Growing up with RPG's like Baulder's Gate and Might & Magic, I could barely wait to see what kind of tricks and powers were at my disposal when Fable got it's release.
I wasn't too dissapointed, yet I never quite felt that Fable had a Level-Up system that complemented the use of magic in the game.

One of the features I've tried to improve this week is the 'Magic-System' from Fable 2. In Fable 2, action stopped, and your hero started taking blows from opponents when charging a magic spell. When action is fast and a player is in combat, usually, the last thing the player wants is to get slowed down or hit.

I've focused on the actual casting of magic, and not so much it's versatility. On casting a spell, the hero leaves behind a charge. This charge is air-borne and gathers energy for a few seconds, until the charge explodes and the intended spell is brought forth. This leaves the hero time to either flee, get defensive with a shield, or charge at the enemy, keeping them at some distance while the spell charges:



The video is recorded in 50% speed for better viewing


Further improvements to the spell system will be made, by incorporating different spells, and stats for each spell. In classic RPG's, there is no limit to how powerful a hero can become. I'll bring Disgaea: Hour of Darkness in as an example.
In Disgaea, the hero's level was limited to lvl 9999. An almost impossible number to reach if one is not a completionist. All spells and moves could be powered up individually, by simply using them. This is how I want to implement the spell system, and also let Hero Spell Power affect the outcome of a spell.

Thursday next week will be special. In my country Fable 3 releases on Oct.29th, and my plan is to have a playable demo ready the day before this. If I do not reach this deadline, development will still continue, but at a slower pace, as my team is getting ready to release the new D-Pad Studio website. Come back next week, and you might get a chance at trying the fan project right before Fable 3's release.

Fabelicous Update #2!

Fable 3's release is 2 weeks from now, which is also the demonstration-deadline for this project. Until deadline there are a few improvements to the franchise I want to bring into the spotlight, by implementing them into the project.

One of those features is the 'Fishing-System' from Fable 1. Fishing in Fable was never quite intuitive enough in my opinion, as vigourous button mashing is not my preffered cup of tea.

With a great number of games out there that incorporate the sport of fishing, I focused on going about this improvement by looking at Zelda: Ocarina Of Time and Sega Bass Fishing(Dreamcast). In these games, fishing was challanging and had a nice flow to it. This is how the result came out ingame, after spending a few days on the basics of reeling and throwing:





Further improvements to the fishing system will be made, by incorporating different lures, and letting the Hero Strength stat affect throw distance, and reel speed. The line will also snap on pressure, and will be indicated by the fishing-line's color, going from white to red.

Improving the economy from Fable 2 will also be a focusing point of mine on this project. Where in Fable 2, there was huge issue with the balancing of economics in-game, in the fan-project, I intend to break this by keeping the players ability to buy stalls, but requiring them to stock-pile the stalls themselves, giving meaning to the fishing system. I've figured out systems for stockpiling the rest of the Fable 2 stalls aswell, but I'll keep these under wraps for another update.

Follow the progress of the fan-game Thursday next week, as I'm adding more features continously.

Fabelicous Update #1!

The first part of my Fable Tribute project is taking form. I'll explain a litte about the project:

The concept behind Fable has inspiered alot of ideas for my part, and the Role Playing aspect of it is solid: "Be who the heck you want to be, but take the damn consequences."

What I've seen the games do, compared to what has been promised(in the past), has always left a wealthy amount of players dissapointed.

In my world though, the concept behind it is what matters, and is what sparks ideas and creativity



Lychfield Graveyard(Early Screenshot)

I've taken the oppertunity to start a small tribute project, which is aimed to be released before the launch of Fable (Lucky-Number) 3.

The plan is to bring some missed features(Real-time Vegetation Growth, Weapon Pickups), aswell as features from the previous games(Body morphing, Moral choices, Crumbtrail), into a simplistic 2D retro-styled game. This is a tribute game, and may not capture Fable's magic, but it'll try to capture some of it's basic concepts.



Skinny & Tall




Strong & Heavy




Sumo Wrestler


Later this week or the next, I'm going to show more of the project, and perhaps provide a small playable demo.