SCOURGE2: first steps

SCOURGE2 development has started. It uses jME and LWJGL. Easy portability is the promise (low-level-of-detail SCOURGE2 version on Android anyone?).

All you can do in the latest Subversion revision is walk around on an island:

SCOURGE2 early alpha - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3go1axCwCoI

One great thing about SCOURGE2: it's not called S.C.O.U.R.G.E.2! ;)

I took this opportunity to record some S.C.O.U.R.G.E. gameplay. The first fight starts at ⅔ of the video.

Scourge gameplay (downloadable if you login on Viddler.)

I like the game very much: many items, many fights, not too hard, leveling, skills and missions. I did not progress far, but as far as I got it appeared to be a solid slash-and-hack RPG!

At my first attempts of playing the game I was confused by having a vast amount of hire-able NPCs and items lying around in the game start area and I had troubles finding out how to get started with the action (get a mission and bash some monsters), so there is a slight entry hurdle.

Another problem is that the mouse-to-game-objects interaction of S.C.O.U.R.G.E. is very sludgy: I find it hard to aim at items and enemies, often I'm not sure if my next click will cause my character to move or to attack, often the cursor is above an object but the object is not highlighted. Camera control is also a bit painful, the rotation speed is overly sensitive and in battle, the camera jumps instantly to active characters instead of a quick but smooth sliding camera movement. I of course hope that transporting content and gameplay to the new engine will be trivial and that the new engine will bring smooth controls.

To those more experienced with the game: how far did you get in the storyline? How far *can* you progress?