Suggestion: add Telepath RPG as a campaign

[seedship]

Telepath rpg is where it all started, and how I found this game like 10 years ago. I think it would be really great if the story of the shadowing spriggat war and the fall of the shadowing queen was revamped and retold with the improved telepath tactics engine.

[CraigStern]

Thanks for the suggestion! That sounds like a good project for a member of the community to take on.  ;)

[bugfartboy]

That sounds like a good project for a member of the community to take on.  ;)

TRPG2 is still probably my favorite in the series, so I was already kind of considering taking a stab at it, but now I feel like I have to put at least some effort into it.

[seedship]

Yeah I feel like it would be a nice community collab, and I'd be down to help out where I can! Maybe it would be easier if we could see all the assets (dialogue, pics, level designs etc.) from the original, rather than having to play through it again?

[Atranen]

I've been playing around with this as a way to familiarize myself with the engine. The verdict so far:

I think porting the *battles* over would be quite easy. See attached; I was able to reconstruct the first battle in all of 2 minutes. You could probably get them done with a free Saturday.

But, I'm not sure how well that would stand up. TRPG was TRPG, not Telepath Tactics. And because you lose the overworld, exploration, and decision making, you've lost a lot of what made TRPG2 a great game.

At the same time, by reusing the battles exactly, you're not taking advantage of the Telepath Tactics engine. Everything is so small scale compared to what's possible.

A direct port will have some real nostalgia value and be a worthwhile product; I would play and enjoy it!

But I think it could be done even better, by rewriting (scaling up) most of the battles, modifying the script, adding in some new characters, etc. Into a sort of "Telepath Chapter 2 Redux" that blends the story of TRPG2 with the new capabilities of the engine.

I'll be spending some time and effort on this! We'll have to see how far it goes. If you're interested in collaborating, get in touch and let's see what we can come up with!

Most of the battles are uploaded online, so you could get the information from there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7kkkpCZ2Bs

[CraigStern]

Thanks Atranen! I happen to agree; the engine does have an exploration mode (check the Guide under Conditions), but the way it functions is purely point-and-click rather than the free movement of the old Telepath RPG titles. Real-time elements like dodging patrols wouldn't be doable.

There also aren't assets to accurately represent places like Somnus outside of cut scenes; I suspect you'll probably want to create a cut scene with menus to navigate Somnus, at least until you reach the end game fights.

[Atranen]

Yeah, I think the biggest challenge to doing this will be getting the assets. At a glance, for a direct port we'd want

-Energy golem sprites, animations, portraits
-Bug sprites, animations (and big unit for the queen? Is that possible?)
-Custom sprite/animation for Niven
-Custom sprites, animation for suits of armor
-New assets for Somnus tents etc.

And optionally some aesthetic changes would be nice; custom sprites for CHARNAME, Guy, Anya, Festus, etc.

All of that is beyond my skill level; I'm happy to write dialogue, design combats, create new characters etc, but I don't think I can provide these.

At the moment I'm planning to proceed and rewrite as necessary to take advantage of existing assets. But if anyone has the know how to do these sorts of things it would be a massive help.

[CraigStern]

Yeah, the engine doesn't support custom sprites and animations unfortunately; you'll have to take some liberties there.

[Atranen]

Good to know, then I won't feel as bad about not making them!

[seedship]

Hey all, sorry for the late reply. I thought I would get email notifications whenever someone replied but I didn't.

Wow the progress looks amazing! I would like to collaborate, could you share with me what you have so far? I made a google drive link that we can use to share files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18DITXVYEfQASCevchobG_wb7_xWdIa4z