Cardboard RPG
A Map-based RPG set after the death of time itself! Cardboard RPG features procedurally generated content split into individual “maps” with RPG-style progression. Players can choose from several playable races, skills, and crafting professions, allowing for many possible playstyles in both single and multiplayer. Graphically its 3D world consists of propped up 2D sprites somewhat reminiscent of cardboard cutouts, which is what inspired the name “Cardboard RPG”.
Cardboard RPG is currently in the very early stages, with many technical and mechanical details yet to be decided. Its initial release is planned for early 2019. It will be available on 64-bit Windows (7 and newer) and Linux (primarily Ubuntu).
Cardboard RPG has been cancelled! The final version of it can be found on the demos page for download.
Back to GamesGameplay
In Cardboard RPG, players choose 1 of 12 playable races, 1 of 4 crafting professions, and 2 of 8 available skills to create their characters. These skills double as stats with each point spent in a skill also increasing its stat, each featuring both generalist and specialist abilities that either synergize with other skills or play into that skill’s main theme. Each crafting profession favors 2 of the 8 skills, and features its own unique gathering method.
| Skill | As a Stat | As a Skill |
|---|---|---|
| Force | Melee weapon damage | Warrior-style melee combat using either one-handed or two-handed weapons |
| Vigor | Maximum health | Maximum survivability both through sheer health and massive physical bulk from shields |
| Sight | Ranged weapon damage | Long-range combat using either bows (mobile, low damage) or crossbows (stationary, high damage) |
| Guile | Attack speed, crit% | Evasive hit-and-run with fast short-range combat (daggers, throwing) and chance-based abilities |
| Faith | Various resistances | Blessings and DoTs with effects related to a chosen deity and/or revolving around the undead |
| Grace | Healing magnitude | Healing and other supportive abilities along with possibly some utility-oriented summons |
| Will | Mana regeneration | Cheap and spammable elemental magic of various kinds favoring more mobile caster characters |
| Mind | Maximum mana | Expensive spells that deal big damage/AoE and other large-scale effects and maybe summons |
| Profession | Crafting Products | Gathering Method | Favored Skills |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blacksmith | Melee weapons, heavy armor | Mining | Force, Vigor |
| Craftsman | Bows, arrows, light armor | Hunting | Sight, Guile |
| Herbalist | Healing items, temporary buffs | Gathering | Grace, Faith |
| Enchanter | Enchantments on items | Essences | Will, Mind |
The playable races of Cardboard RPG are yet to be revealed, but will include boring old humans and slightly less boring centaurs.
Outside of exploring and clearing procedurally generated maps in order to obtain new equipment and crafting materials, characters can visit their own hub-worlds that grow along with the character they belong to and provide various services like general and profession-specific merchants.
Styling
At its core, the visual style of Cardboard RPG can be summed up as “2D stylized into 3D”. The best example of this is its use of the very obviously 2D CC0 resource RLTiles for the textures and propped up sprites in its 3D world.
All tiles of a map share a single plane, with elevated terrain simply extruding out of the 2D plane into 3D, thus combining aspects of both 2D tile-based and 3D height mapped terrain. Tile transitions feature a custom approach to texture blending designed to fit with the pixelated style of the game while still improving the look of the terrain tiles. Finally, there is some very minimalistic shading to add visual depth to the terrain.
A less visual expression of “2D stylized into 3D” lies in the term “map-based”, which means the game is essentially a dungeon crawler, except that the dungeons are visually presented as island-like outdoor environments instead of the usual indoor dungeons.
Status
Cardboard RPG has been cancelled due to practical considerations. While it’s possible that the project will eventually be resumed, this is unlikely. All the downloads of Cardboard RPG published over the course of its development are still available on the Slope Games Patreon.
Related Posts
Practical Considerations
The previous post briefly mentioned “other Slope Games considerations”, which are discussed in detail in this one. As a result of these considerations, Cardboard RPG has been cancelled and the final version published on the demos page for download.
Cardboard RPG Sound
Cardboard RPG now has sound along with corresponding configuration parameters for volume and music. At the moment the sound system is more of a proof of concept, hence there are only two sounds: One is the looping background music, the other a simple positional sound for the beetles.
Cardboard RPG Tile Blending
Cardboard RPG now uses subtle terrain shading to add depth, along with a unique approach to water and tile blending designed to enhance visuals while staying true to the game’s deliberately low-def “2D stylized into 3D” theme.
Cardboard RPG Movement Rework
The current movement rework actually got finished over a week ago, and was going to share a post with circular entity shadows. However those turned out to be more of a problem than hoped. As a result, the movement rework now gets its own post after all.
Cardboard RPG Page Updated
The Cardboard RPG page has been updated with new information in order to provide a better idea of what it might be like when it is finished.