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- Shadow of an angel: Russia has created the world's first strategy based on an engine for visual novels
Shadow of an angel: Russia has created the world's first strategy based on an engine for visual novels
A programmer from Moscow was the first in the world to create a strategy engine for visual novels. Independent game developer Konstantin Sakhnov presented his game Azrael, Herald of Death — he took the free Ren'Py toolkit for creating visual novels, modified it and adapted it to develop a strategy game with an atypical process. How experts assessed the capabilities of the Russian gaming industry is described in the Izvestia article.
What is the new game from Moscow about?
Ren'Py is an engine that was originally created exclusively for visual novels. This is a genre of computer games in which a gamer is shown a story by displaying text, static or animated images, as well as sound and music accompaniment. They can be called a subspecies of a text quest, and there are not so many such games on Ren'Py on Steam — about 3 thousand, and most of them are quite simple. Therefore, developers usually do not consider this tool seriously. However, the author of the Azrael project, Herald of Death, managed to squeeze a lot more out of Ren'Py than ordinary developers.
— When I started making Azrael, I also planned a small, standard novel. But gradually I got so carried away that I went far beyond the genre and, in fact, did almost the impossible: I turned the project into a kind of RPG with a full—fledged economy, combat system, bodybuilding, puzzles, heroes, collections, butler, inventory and reputation," said Konstantin Sakhnov, head of the Vengeance Games development studio.
Screenshot from the game Azrael, Herald of Death Video Game
To achieve this, I had to bypass almost all the limitations of the engine and write about 90% of the game in the Python programming language.
According to the developer, Azrael is primarily a dramatic story. The epic scale of the world of the ancient gods, who easily decide the fate of millions of elves and burn planets in the flame of void generators. And to make it interesting, Azrael gives players a variety of gameplay options. These include battles with monsters and demons, and a city-planning simulator on different planets, trading, time manager mechanics, and others. The developers plan to develop this universe and ideally want to bring the world of Retribution to life.
— No one in the world has created such large-scale projects on Ren'Py, much less turned novels into strategies. At least, I am not aware of such cases," Konstantin Sakhnov added.
Russian games attract general attention
According to Alexandra Ivanitskaya, founder and art director of the Welsharess game studio, the new project, on the one hand, has found a way to use a well-known engine, which opens up new potentials and ways for development, and on the other hand, if the technology is applicable only within the framework of Azrael, Herald of Death, then this is hardly a breakthrough.
— This is definitely an innovative game. The peculiarity of domestic developments lies in their explosive potential both from the point of view of economic prospects and from the point of view of contribution to culture. Every new indie project from Russians is developing rapidly," she said.
Screenshot from the game Azrael, Herald of Death Video Game
The project itself is another step towards expanding the portfolio of the Russian game developer market, according to Oleg Dobroshtan, an expert in the gaming industry.
"There is hope that the authors will be able to at least recoup it, and better yet, make money on it in order to continue creating new games that are interesting to gamers, and improve their experience in development, marketing, and working with publishers," he added.
Screenshot from the game Azrael, Herald of Death Video Game
According to him, using the engine to create visual novels in a relatively new format for him is also another confirmation of how Russian indie teams learn to work in the realities of modern Russian game development, the expert added.
— I believe that the foundation should go from passion to development. Without it, no project will survive to release. However, the first releases are almost never successful," says Artem Koblov, creative director and founder of perelesoq studio.
Screenshot from the game Azrael, Herald of Death Video Game
According to Sergey Aleksashenko, Chief Operating Officer of Game Art Pioneers, such achievements remind us of the early days of the gaming industry, when each project opened up new horizons. They also prove that it is not necessary to have a large budget or a large team to create an original project — the desire to create and a clear understanding of your capabilities are enough.
— The new development is especially valuable because it was created in the spirit of the "old school": the author of the project took a simple tool, Ren'Py, originally designed for creating visual novels, and adapted it to implement a strategic gameplay. It is important to note that Ren'Py is an open—architecture engine, which allows developers to modify it to suit their own needs. Konstantin took full advantage of this opportunity, demonstrating his high technical savvy and deep understanding of his resources," he said.
Screenshot from the game Azrael, Herald of Death Video Game
Azrael, Herald of Death in its current form is more suitable for the format of a mobile game and is unlikely to be able to captivate the audience of players on personal computers, which is known for its high demands and general fastidiousness, believes IT expert Sergey Pomortsev.
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