Game Details
Basic information
The format of this game is a story-rich, third-person role-playing game (RPG) with action elements. As the player, you will have the ability to control one main character and any optional party members by issuing commands and setting strategies. The main focus of the game is to explore the world, interact with non-playable characters (NPCs) and the environment, and engage in combat using both magic and physical attacks.
However, please note that this game will not be a fast-paced, combo-heavy slasher with flashy attacks. Instead, we are aiming for a slower, more immersive and intense RPG experience, with a Gothic-like atmosphere. The role-playing aspect of the game is especially important to us, and we want to provide a rich and engaging experience for players.
In this game, you will be thrown into a world that is on the brink of a major civil war. As you explore, you will uncover deeper secrets and new dangers that could potentially bring about the end of the world. However, you will still have the freedom to make your own choices and play the game as you see fit. Your character will be overpowered compared to other characters in the game, but that doesn't mean there won't be danger lurking around every corner.
The game world of our role-playing game will be a large continent with a variety of different terrains and environments. The center of the continent around the equator is covered by a dense tropical forest, while deserts can be found around the tropical circles. These areas transition into savannas and forests as you move towards the poles, while both the southern and northern ends of the continent are covered in snow and ice.
Players will have a variety of different modes of transportation at their disposal, including walking, running, flying (faster than the speed of sound), and teleporting. All of these modes of transportation follow rules described in the game's lore. Elves, in particular, have the unique ability to walk (and run) on water and can also swim and dive.
The game world will be incredibly large, with a map scale of 15:1 compared to the real world. The planet itself, including its tilt, distance from the local star, and other aspects, will be designed to mimic the real Earth. This is done to fully utilize the knowledge and information that has been collected about the real world, particularly in regards to historical texts. This means that the game will feature realistic distances, day-night cycles, and seasons.
The game time will also be 15 times faster than real time, but players will have the option to skip forward by meditating. During meditation, the game will still simulate itself, with the day and night cycle and seasonal weather changes based on the real Earth day and night cycle and the player's geographic location.
To enhance the immersive experience for players, we plan to map game locations to real world locations. For example, when a player asks an NPC how long it takes to travel from city A to city B, we will map those cities to existing cities in the real world that are the same distance apart. This allows players to get a sense of the actual distance and time it would take to travel between these locations.
Our goal is to create a captivating game world where every interaction with NPCs is fresh and exciting. We want to provide a more mundane, but still engaging game loop, rather than relying on traditional RPG tropes like hordes of enemies or HP sponge monsters. We want to create a game where players can choose to be kind and helpful, or to kill anyone they want without any cutscenes stopping them. We want the game to continue as long as players are willing to play and for it to constantly evolve, with no endgame in sight. The journey is the destination in this game – we want players to feel fully immersed in the world and to never feel empty or unfulfilled when the game ends.
The Frozen By The Sun game will introduce an innovative feature that is likely to be highly appreciated by players who enjoy story-based games: the ability to freely communicate with non-player characters (NPCs). In contrast to other games, where you are typically limited to selecting pre-determined responses, this game will allow you to enter any text you choose when interacting with NPCs. This added level of immersion is not possible in traditional games.
You will have the freedom to initiate conversations with any NPC and express exactly what you want to say to them. The NPCs will then respond based on their AI-generated understanding of your previous interactions with them.
To further enhance the realistic nature of these conversations, we are exploring the use of text-to-speech and speech-to-text converters. We will carefully evaluate various options and select the best one to license for use in our game.
Limitations
There are going to be significant restrictions due to the heavy demands of the language model on CPU resources. In order to mitigate this impact, we will prioritize graphics and gameplay functions that rely heavily on the GPU (such as lighting and materials) and limit those that require a lot of CPU time or RAM. Our aim is to use following component distribution:
Figure: Local and remote components
Please, read about game components on the dedicated subpage.
We have already prepared a simple proof of concept demo in the Unreal Engine 5. All graphical assets used in it are from the Unreal Engine Marketplace. The point was to run the demo and language model at the same time on a typical machine – AMD Ryzen 5800X with 32GB RAM and Nvidia RTX2070 8GB. The demo generates around ten queries (currently nonsensical, random) and pushes it into the fast language model. The demo contains movement, dynamic lighting (Lumen), realistic day-night cycle, attack animations and effects (Niagara) and some basic GUI to check, if the mouse cursor won’t warp too much.
Even without any optimization, the demo is playable. Our estimation is that any modern 8+ core machine with at least 16GB RAM, enough SSD storage and modern DX12 graphics card will be able to run the final game. That being said, the game won’t look as good as other modern games. This is very important to know before you decide to invest your money. Our goal is to have the best language model possible. It will be prioritized for the CPU time before the graphics.
Despicable acts
In the real world, unfortunately, there are individuals who are capable of committing acts of extreme cruelty and violence. This is especially true during certain historical periods, such as the medieval times, which are not known for their civility and kindness towards others. As a result, we have spent a lot of time considering how we should approach this issue in our medieval fantasy game.
We want to create an immersive and believable world, and that includes depicting the harsh realities of life during this time period, including the possibility of heinous acts being committed by powerful NPCs like lords and kings. However, we also understand that some players may feel uncomfortable playing a game where they may encounter and witness such actions taking place.
To accommodate these concerns, we have decided to release two versions of our game simultaneously. The first version will be completely uncensored and unlocked, allowing players to experience the full range of events and actions that may have occurred during the medieval period. The second version will omit the most disturbing and offensive content, including sexual acts, violence against children, and mass murder or genocide.
To achieve this, we will be using a BMD processor module in two different versions. The safe version will exclude all questionable content during the compilation process, so it will not be possible to simply switch between the two versions by changing a single value in the registry or flipping a switch. We hope that this approach will allow players to choose the version of the game that best suits their personal preferences and comfort levels, while still allowing us to create a believable and immersive medieval fantasy world.
Consoles and HW limits
The current generation of console systems presents a significant challenge for us. Their limited hardware capabilities may not be sufficient to run our game. One potential solution is to utilize the cloud by delegating our fast language model to be accessed remotely, but this would require a stable and fast internet connection. Currently, our main focus is on developing the game for PC, but we also plan to create a fast language model that can be used both locally and in the cloud. This will allow us to potentially port the game to console systems in the future. However, at this time, we are unable to make any promises or set any goals regarding console ports.