About

Thale Cres is a game created by two brothers living in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden, and a music composer and sound fx engineer living in London, UK. The project started in the fall of 2004, and it started out as a pure learn-to-create-games project, but over the time it has evolved into a more or less actual game.

World

The game is set in the ancient world, when mysterious, and often dangerous, creatures existed. Trolls, giants, and all kinds of forgotten beasts lurk within the shadows of the forests. Though the trolls are believed by some to be nothing more than imagination, the kingdoms of the land prepare themselves for the inevitable war that is soon going to erupt...
Thale Cres draws inspiration from Scandinavian and Russian forests, tales and folk lore. We hope to bewitch the player with the magic of the ancient mountains, the cold rivers and the mystic sagas of our world.

Game

The game can be described as an adventure game, with dialogs and puzzles, though elements of a rts game exists, such as battles and multi unit control. To start with, the game will be released as a singleplayer game only, but we have kept the doors open for a possible multiplayer version in the future. There is also a map editor, which will be released together with the game.

Implemented Features

Per-pixel lighting

Day-night cycle

Pathfinding units

Scriptable (Both game behavior and interface)

Map editor

Graphical User Interface

Technical

Programming

We have chosen to write the game in C++ and used lua for scripting. It is compiled and written using Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 .NET. We have created our own game engine, which we call emono.

Concept Art

The conceptart draws inspiration from the works of John Bauer.

3d graphics

The 3d models were made in a program called Blender. We have tried to make the game look realistic and natural, but still do it in our own style. All the models and ground textures are currently themed on the southern parts of the world, but we will try to make more maps and models in the future, which will represent other areas and landscapes.

Software

Blender together with Arben Omari's DirectX X Exporter

Gimp

Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 .NET / 2005

Libraries Used