Project Arroa: News & Updates

[Interkarma]

I haven't posted anything about my new game on the forums so far. It didn't really feel proper until DFU was truly flying free without me. But I think enough time has passed now that can post about it here as well.

So just in case you're unaware, I've started working on a new game project using a custom engine which I announced last year. I'm blogging about this in a similar monthly format as I did with DFU for all those years.

I've just posted a new blog article about how I implemented trees and foliage. It's fairly light on the technical details, and I've included plenty of screenshots in an attempt to make it more interesting. If this is something you're interested, go check it out!


https://dev.interkarma.net/2025/02/03/trees-foliage/

dappled-ground.jpg (488.5 KiB) Viewed 26140 times

self-shadow-3.jpg (436.86 KiB) Viewed 26140 times

grass-2.jpg (533.81 KiB) Viewed 26140 times

material-tool-1.jpg (263.59 KiB) Viewed 26140 times

[All4]

Very cool! Making your own engine is wild, but it looks like you've already made a ton of progress. And making it modable by design from the very beginning is huge. Modding communities have the potential to make a game go from good to prolific. I'll be watching your career with great interest!

[King of Worms]

Thanks for sharing, this finally led me to the dev blog and your Discord.
You should possibly promote it a bit more... Or Im just the last one who noticed, as usually

[Interkarma]

In Project Arroa: Revenwood, Dougal’s Glade is where the player starts their adventure. It’s also a sandbox where I can experiment with production, art styles, and gameplay. This post explores the concept along with a few additional details.

https://dev.interkarma.net/2025/02/21/d ... e-concept/

[MrFlibble]

Interesting! I got the impression that there will be much exploration, but no NPCs to interact with? The entire area is described as if it were fully deserted.

What kind of enemies do you envision here? Wildlife? Undead? Or will there be an emphasis on exploration and puzzles over combat?

[Interkarma]

Dougal's Glade is the nucleus of a much larger work. See the page About Project Arroa: Revenwood for high-level summary of the entire project.

It's purpose at this time is a staging ground for me to experiment with processes of production, art styles, and basic gameplay. This stage follows building a custom game engine for the project. The things you mention (NPCs, wildlife, combat, etc) are all systems that come much later.

How I intend to use this area later in development, if I retain it at all, remains to be seen.

To compare the current state of Arroa's development to Daggerfall Unity - this is roughly equivalent to late 2014 where I was still building tools and bootstrapping the basics of player and world. Except this time I have to build an art pipeline as well. To be honest, that's a much larger concern to me than anything else in this moment.

[Interkarma]

With the practical "I'm still really early in development" answer out of the way, I am willing to share a little of what I hope to achieve with this small area in the near term.

Dougal's Glade is from one of my short stories set in the world of Arroa. Called "Dougal's Book of Flowers", it's about an aging warrior, his wife, and a drunkard stone mason. At the start of each day, the warrior crosses the bridge to his training grounds. Every day, the stone mason waits on the bridge and asks of the warrior, "is today the day you kill me?"

When the player finds Dougal's Glade, they find it abandoned and overgrown. But something of that story remains, waiting to be uncovered amongst the stone and flowers that remain.

Besides the development processes, my personal goal is to create a small, self-contained area to explore this story framed after the fact with some environmental story telling and simple gameplay elements. I want to stretch myself and prove - mainly to myself - that I can do all of this.

[Nystul]

just checked back after quite some while and finding this post is amazing!
looking forward to see how it will evolve
good luck with all your efforts!

[Interkarma]

just checked back after quite some while and finding this post is amazing!
looking forward to see how it will evolve
good luck with all your efforts!

Hey Nystul! It's great to see your name again, it brings back the best memories of DFU's early days. Thank you for the words of encouragement. I'm really looking forward to showing off a lot more as I progress.

And I saw you joined as a generous patron too, thank you for that also! If you're into Discord at all, there's a patrons channel there. I'm always happy to chat if you have any questions or feedback along the way.

[Nystul]

Had a lot of fun back then, and also learned a lot by contributing a bit
Didn't have to think twice when I saw the patron site. Always good to support gifted people, especially in your case as you already proved how talented and focused you are! It is also about giving back a bit after you dedicated so much time into dfworkshop/dfunity and made this project a thing