Lords of Nether - A DK inspired game, with 3D Modeling by Blutonium

[Blutonium]

Hey KeeperKlan!

For the forum members who are new or for those who might have forgotten me, Let me briefly introduce myself.
I joined KeeperKlan when a DK1 remake was being developed, called "NBK". The project later evolved into WFTO, where I was the lead 3D Modeler at the time. I left the project when the team decided a new IP would be needed.

It has been many years since then, and my itch for creating a DK inspired game never went away. How could it? We all know the impact DK made on us, I don't have to explain that here. :D

Then a promising Dev team working on a DK inspired game popped up on my radar on an obscure facebook group in December of 2016. Who are these crazy guys? I remember asking myself If I was prepared to spend all my free time on another DK game again. I started digging through their posts, and realised they had something special - something great. The early models looked primitive, but the concept was there. The story, The concept art, the creatures, the mechanics - everything amazing. They were a good fit for me, and I might be for them.

So I contacted their lead game designer, David, who had apparently been fleshing out the mechanics, story and creature concepts for almost a decade. We spent hours talking about it all, and how amazing the game can turn out if we banded together. Fast forward a few months and here we are, ready to introduce our project to KeeperKlan.

Oh, almost forgot! We also have a kick-ass Programmer (Kris) who is exceeding my unusually high expectations and still surprising me every day! :p

We're very excited to announce the project more publicly and to a core audience of DK fans such as ourselves, and we invite you to follow its development if you are interested on our various social media! We will of course try to post updates here on keeperklan as well!

Our Website | Twitter | Facebook | Reddit


I'll let David Introduce himself in the next post, as well as fill you all in on the details on what Lords of Nether is all about! Feel free to ask him any questions you might have.
For now, here are some of the 3D models I've modeled for the project so far.

[DBlac]

Hello Everyone! My name is David Blac, the Lead Developer on Lords of Nether! I want to start off by saying I’m very excited (and a little nervous ) to reveal the game to you! I certainly hope we have something here that resonates with you as much as it does with us!

Like Blutonium pointed out, I have had the idea of this game slowly coming together in my head ever since I was in my teens, first starting with wondering what creatures in DK would look like if they were higher fidelity and drawing little pictures of them, then making my own designs and eventually stories and world for them. I always hoped inside that eventually I would be able to make this game, but it seemed like a very distant goal before a couple of years ago. A few of my former classmates were looking at some of the creature designs I had made for the game, one thing led to another and we formed a team to actually make the game. Eventually most of the initial team left as we found new members who have proven to share the same dedication and passion for this game as I do and that in itself makes me happier than you can imagine! Blutonium has been the latest person to join our team, working with us for more than half a year now and honestly the first time he messaged us I simply went “No way…” as I had often seen his work when looking for inspiration, I kid you not. In the time he has been with us, he has solved an immense amount of 3D problems I was worried about and many that I never even knew we would have But now the core team is united and heavily working to get LoN to a state in which we feel comfortable to show you, and with that I suppose I should explain what we are making!

Game Introduction:

Lords of Nether is a brand-new game in development, that while heavily inspired by Dungeon Keeper, attempts to go its own way within the genre and provide a new take and experience within it.

Players will find themselves in a dark fantasy world that is heavily inspired by myths and literature, filled to the brim with mysteries and strange creatures! Taking control of one of the Four playable Netherlords, returning to the ancient world of Antioch after seven centuries of banishment, You will take on a campaign to take over the world from the decaying, self-righteous Kingdom of Man. To do this you will need to shape the Underworld, where lies your true domain, to your tastes and needs and from it call forth armies of dark creatures and enemies of Mankind. You, or rather the Lord you choose to embody bears a physical form in the game and while very powerful, their death means the end of your conquest, so be wary as you face raids and attacks on your dungeon, or as you guide your Lord beyond. Having built an army, you will most often be called to take it to the very Overworld itself, where you will ravage mankind’s forces and accomplish the various goals set forth! Antioch will be Yours…
In terms of Mechanics, players will find themselves greeted by a number of familiar features such as digging the underworld terrain with your workers and building rooms, nurturing creatures etc. However also confronting them would be some new ones, such as the ability to place objects within your rooms to optimize their efficiency or use of their space, and the ability to directly command creatures. These and some other tools are set forth in order to allow you to truly unleash your creativity and intellect within the game. In terms of the direct command of creatures however, worry not! Creatures still possess a high degree of autonomy both inside and outside of combat! When in combat, think of yourself more as a general, a guiding hand that gives commands to its forces but can still trust that they will think for themselves and use their abilities in a way that most fits the engagement they find themselves in.

All in all we hope to give you a game that is both new and feels familiar, one that will excite and entice you hopefully for years to come, as certain old classics did!

Current State and Future Plans:

The game has been in development for roughly 2 years now, the majority of the ground work such as designing mechanics, establishing the world, aesthetic and such have been done, and for the last year or so we have been laying the foundations for the game proper itself, by building the level editor which plays a crucial role in the development process. We have recently started delving into the gameplay itself and building assets and we are doing all this in whatever free time we have in-between work, freelance jobs or education in our varying cases. We are all very passionate about this project and intend to bring it to light in its best possible condition no matter what, but this will of course take time.

We are currently planning to release an Alpha demo sometime within the Autumn of this year (2017), hopefully around the end of August. Within the following months we will keep polishing and building whatever we can, while working on a Kickstarter campaign. We’re doing this as of course I’m sure everyone knows development costs money and we would like to be able to work on the game full time in order to finish it faster and in the best possible state. Depending on our success with funding, we will proceed with the according pace, but we do not intend (in fact will strictly try to avoid) to enter into Early Access as it can often be more damaging to a game than helpful. We will however dedicate a time well before release for extensive beta testing (whether open or selective is still to be decided) and in the end we will release a Free Demo as well! We want this game made and we want it made right, just as much as you would!

So that’s the end of this massive text wall, apologies but there’s a lot to unpack! However, feel free to ask me anything and I will answer to the best of my abilities (while avoiding spoilers of course )

[dotted]

Sorry David, but your post was caught in the spam filter, fixed now (we have had some pretty big spam issues as of late, so our automated tools are a bit overly strict perhaps).

So I found out about this on Facebook some weeks ago I think, and looking at the renders I felt oddly nostalgic - turns out there was a reason for it.

Now I do have a question. In terms how how your games will play, are you taking your inspiration from the faster gameplay of Dungeon Keeper 1 or the slower Dungeon Keeper 2?

[Blutonium]

Hey dotted! long time no see!

I see I am still classified as "WFTO Lead 3D Modeler" on the forum profile - you can remove that, if you wish to avoid any confusion between the two games.

Nice seeing you again btw, glad to see the forum is still going strong!

[DBlac]

Sorry David, but your post was caught in the spam filter, fixed now (we have had some pretty big spam issues as of late, so our automated tools are a bit overly strict perhaps).

So I found out about this on Facebook some weeks ago I think, and looking at the renders I felt oddly nostalgic - turns out there was a reason for it.

Now I do have a question. In terms how how your games will play, are you taking your inspiration from the faster gameplay of Dungeon Keeper 1 or the slower Dungeon Keeper 2?

Ah, no worries i can imagine that gets real annoying, thanks for fixing it mate, much appreciated!

Haha, well indeed, now you know i guess Although we are also generally trying to have a more.. i dont know, traditional design style? Something akin to Diablo 1 & 2, DK 1 itself etc, so maybe that plays some part in it

Thats a good one actually! We want to have a sort of balance, a sweetspot between 1 and 2 if you will (And certainly very very far from Dungeons 1 and 2 because that game was slow as all hell, in addition to 1 being outright terrible). We generally want to have pacing, moments that are fast and require heightened attention and moments that are more relaxed/downtime but never enough to leave you bored and with nothing to do. It's important to vary highs and lows in all manner of entraintment really, to let people appreciate both!

Ofcourse in the end we will be listening to the community and especially KeeperKlan's feedback based on testing and such, and we will adjust based on that! We want to make the game the way people will enjoy most!

[YourMaster]

Looks nice, always interested of course. Do you perhaps also have a project page or something, where we can see the project documentation and/or design documents? Screenshots and models are great, but it's hard to provide feedback on that and impossible to tell if the project has a chance to be successful or the game to be any good.

[DBlac]

Looks nice, always interested of course. Do you perhaps also have a project page or something, where we can see the project documentation and/or design documents? Screenshots and models are great, but it's hard to provide feedback on that and impossible to tell if the project has a chance to be successful or the game to be any good.

Thanks mate! We dont yet have a site set up or a sub-forum here but we have a Wikia page where there is a fair amount of information on the gameplay and some other things! It hasn't been updated in a while but we'll get to it and the info there is still valid.

http://lords-of-nether.wikia.com/wik...f_Nether_Wikia

We will try to update where needed and you can always ask me any specifics if you're curious about something!

We are going to be posting a lot more here, so hopefully that helps as well!

[Metal Gear Rex]

Well this is a nice surprise. I'll have to take a more detailed look at that wiki to see whatever kind of feedback I can leave behind that would be useful, but good luck on this project nevertheless. I'd really like to see another DK game, and it's no secret around here that I didn't like WftO, but I'll still hold out high hopes for this.

Also hello again Blutonium, nice to see you getting some modelling done on this.

[Evi]

Heeey, good to see you again, Blutonium!

This looks pretty interesting, so I'll be keeping my eye on this.
I need something to calm my nerves after WftO.

[DBlac]

Well this is a nice surprise. I'll have to take a more detailed look at that wiki to see whatever kind of feedback I can leave behind that would be useful, but good luck on this project nevertheless. I'd really like to see another DK game, and it's no secret around here that I didn't like WftO, but I'll still hold out high hopes for this.

Thanks mate, we really appreciate the support! We will eventually provide the alpha demo and such, within the next couple of months, and before that there will likely be a couple of videos so there will be material for you guys to examine and give us feedback on! As for WftO, we can see what they were trying to achieve, but we go in a very different direction, both mechanically and artistically! We prefer the grittyness and darkness of Dungeon Keeper (even would go so far as to say were influenced heavily by Diablo 2's atmosphere and art style) so expect things more in that direction