Topic: Castlevania: Umbra of Sorrow (1999 Fan Project)

[VladCT]

So, in short, Grimoire of Souls could prove to be a challenge. As of now, nothing major interfered with Umbra, but if GoS reveals something TOO major once it comes out, it could mean that entire chunks of Umbra's plotline (and possibly gameplay aspects that are interwined with the plotline) must get rewritten to suit what GoS says.

Considering that mobage stories tend to be released in a piecemeal manner with new story chapters sometimes taking months on end to release, are you concerned with how long this might take?

[theplottwist]

Considering that mobage stories tend to be released in a piecemeal manner with new story chapters sometimes taking months on end to release, are you concerned with how long this might take?

Considering how long Umbra itself might take on the great scheme of things, not really.

But I am a bit concerned still because we have no idea what they plan on showing with GoS. There are a few things that could make us go "Well shit." up to including:

(click to show/hide)

-Showing what young Julius Belmont did look or think like.
-Speaking of certain characters' involvement or NO involvement.
-Speaking of what caused Dracula's defeat in more detail.
-Speaking of something AFTER a piece of Umbra is out that is contradicted and can no longer be fixed.

Some things can be adjusted for, some can't. In the case of the some that "can't", we will strap ourselves to one of the project's mission statements: We only aim to present a plausible version of this story with our silly headcanon. We have our feet on the ground and we know that we're ultimately nothing more than a fangame.

This is also how we will deal with the possibility of Konami releasing an OFFICIAL 1999 media. In case they do, we will just move forward with our fanfiction as "solidified headcanon" because that's what it was always meant to be. In fact, their releasing an official 1999 media scares me much less than them releasing other piece of media around the 1999 storyline talking about it (which is also not a lot of "scare", just a bit, like I said above), because a supporting media forces me to collect info and follow the breadcrumbs, an actual 1999 media does not -- it flat out tells me "you're wrong, here's the official thing" and I go "oh ok but fanfiction is not wrong tho".

On where we CAN make adjustments, we will, I promise, even on the stuff that takes months to get revealed. Konami being god, Umbra follows it like a devout unofficial and not-endorsed cultist doing what it says. I had to sacrifice a relatively minor thing that was in place already due to GoS speaking too much but the plan B might be just better than what was in place before, who knows? I have one million plan Bs still

[BLOOD MONKEY]

seeing that gameplay excites me in places that castlevania fangames shouldn't excite me

(click to show/hide)

like my gall bladder

[darkmanx_429]

(click to show/hide)

Hello! It's time for a "we're still alive, y'know?" update!

First of all:

What? You can't hear him? Try clicking that dialogue box!

Say hello to Martin Wain. He is the selected voice actor for Alucard. He's competent, swift, and he also has a passion for Castlevania!

As I have posted before, Alucard was going to be voiced originally by Dracula9, but this proved to be too taxing on his voice, so we set out to find another actor who could impress the entire team. Despite "cold rock with bursts of emotion" sounding simple to perform in theory, Alucard is not an easy character to nail. Yet Martin proved to be a godsend when he captured the entire character pretty much on his first performance.

As mentioned previously, we prefer a delivery closer to Robert Belgrade's voice for Alucard because, for us, not only is that interpretation the most iconic, but it also lends him an air of strangeness that he is confirmed multiple times to have in-universe. Martin is very talented, so expect his delivery to be more convincing than Alucard was on SotN -- the hammy acting is something we can do away with. And do not let this bit of audio fool you: We're keeping the real wide-range-of-emotions good stuff to the main course

Martin does not have a social media you can follow yet. As soon as he does, we will update accordingly to let you know.

And, Martin is not the only actor to join... But I'll keep this one to a mini-update in the near future.


I won't mince words here: Development is still going slow. But it never once stopped-- we're always adding new things or ironing past ones, or hunting for more new information. So we're definitely not dead. And speaking of "hunting for more information", one event happened recently that has a potential to make a slow development even slower: The announcement and release of Grimoire of Souls.

As you know by now, that game is drawing upon the classic timeline. Umbra's mission statement being to respect the canon at all costs, that meant that I had to do all research I could humanly do on this game, without having access to it, to make sure everything on Umbra was working according with it. So, from the game's announcement until this game comes out, I must be all over it collecting all information available to me. We are preemptively considering Grimoire of Souls canon even if there's no official word on this matter yet.

Bad news is that not only the game is still not fully released (barring me from looking at the entire thing and continuing with the adjustments on project's storyline), but the beta demo that WAS released contained information contradicting Umbra. Because of course it did

Good news is that this information contradicting Umbra was really minor and did NOT throw a wrench on Umbra's developed story or gameplay. Having a Plan B came in handy, and the adjustments were made without any losses to Umbra that would require a full rewriting of stuff and would bog us down even more than we already are. What GoS contradicted was nothing more than holes that we already knew to exist.

Bonus news is that this game confirmed some small stuff I had discovered/theorized a long time ago, and made Umbra even more convincing than before on this regard :O

So, in short, Grimoire of Souls could prove to be a challenge. As of now, nothing major interfered with Umbra, but if GoS reveals something TOO major once it comes out, it could mean that entire chunks of Umbra's plotline (and possibly gameplay aspects that are interwined with the plotline) must get rewritten to suit what GoS says. Anything official Konami puts out > Umbra of Sorrow.

But I'll let you guys know that I'm making an effort to account for that before it happens. At the moment everything is fine and we have much more pressing matters to take care of (graphics, engine, etc), and they are being taken care of.


So, remember the promised Gameplay Demo? It's also still coming and it was not scrapped or anything like that. You can expect MORE news on that soon outside of this update. We may have been slowed down, but new content is produced all the time for this project, be it graphics, coding, music, be it design decisions (on which we take strides constantly via internal discussions), and it all affects the demo's progress too. That said, we want to talk about and SHOW you scrumptious stuff to chew on. Ready?

-Julius Belmont's sprite is being retooled.



After testing it in-engine, after receiving feedback, and after myself growing as an artist, Julius is being edited/updated to be better read on-screen, fix pose issues, fix subpar animations or outright look more badass in general. He has over 150 frames, so that will take a bit to complete, but not NEARLY as long as it took to create him, that's for sure. And speaking of Julius' design...

-Julius' concept itself is being updated.



Junki also grew as an artist, and we felt suit that Julius needed an update to his artwork, which will get used in-game constantly. One such improvement is making him more "manly", something that was criticized a long time ago when his first concept was unveiled. And yes, that means that the other main characters are also receiving an update -- can't have Julius be the only one to receive an update, can we? This will be the first and ONLY update to these character designs.

And, here are some in-engine screensho-- Nah, to hell with screenshots. Let's see stuff MOVING:

Julius locates a secret passage. He has his Castlevania game on point. Also, is that... Is that a returning foe?

Julius fights an old enemy with his trademark Red Axe and does some climbing.

He can grapple on things, but it looks kinda different, doesn't it?

(The "green glitches" on some of these are just glitches from the recording. They don't exist on the game itself. And keep in mind you're not seeing retooled Julius yet.)

Here you can see a number of stuff. But more importantly, you can see for yourself how one of the core mechanics for Julius -- his grapple -- will work. No longer does grappling work like it did on Super Castlevania IV or Harmony of Despair. Julius, instead of merely dangling from a peg and vulnerably staying there, pulls the whip to propel himself on the opposite direction, more or less like Shanoa's Magnes glyph, but different in that he doesn't need to pull back to shoot forward. This makes Julius very fast in certain situations and enables him to move fast across long distances by himself. We felt that this was the best way to mix both the platforming and hectic action that we have planned for many sections of the game.

However, although we're showing you stuff moving, it's important that I make clear that THIS IS NOT FINAL. You'll see certain stuff off here that we KNOW is there and are working to fix or adjust, or stuff that is simply placeholder even if it looks "final graphics". Our goal with this was to demonstrate that work is happening, not that it is complete. Dracula9 felt suit to reunite some of his own coding progress to give you a general idea of what's ready or what is not:

(click to show/hide)

non-codey general progress stuffs:

-all enemies are in and working properly, simply in need of varying degrees of "finish sprites/animations". That includes a certain someone...

-inventory working with (small) selection of different items/equippables to appear in demo.

-Julius' mechanics to be showcased on the demo are nearly complete.

non-codey general to-do list:

-actually finish tiling the damn levels

-rework certain particle systems to look better

-implement new menu graphics (once the remaining graphics are completed) and submenu transition effects

-finish creating the handful of needed SFX that are left

codey progress stuffs:

-levelling system working properly

-general stuff working properly (physics, collision, stats and the like, enemy AI, etc. etc. etc.)

codey to-do list:

-restructure inventory arrays to be more dynamic and efficient (they're 6-dimensional and nested, for those who would know what this means and implies--take aspirin for the headache with me, friends!)

-try and get water shader to run exclusively at the base resolution and upscale in tandem, and not just rescale the entire shader to fit the various window/resolution sizes

-get off my ass and implement controller support and control customization for keyboards (controller has specific planned layout, that's why it isn't getting customization support)

Also yes, Punaguchi. And yes, that sprite is from Adventure Rebirth. And yes, he's getting new graphics and that is placeholder.


It's time to close this update. With that, I'll leave you with a screenshot, and a new soundtrack. Thank you people for not giving up on us. We're working hard, and we will bring you the best possible content we can -- you think all this is just for a demo, but it isn't. Every bit and piece made is going for the final game, and it is important that it looks as (close to) pristine in the demo as it will be in the final game. See ya, and I hope I can bring better news soon

♪ Iron Crusher - By our demonic songmaster Chernabogue. Can you tell where this comes from?

"A beast who rebelled against Heaven; Siding with the Dark Lord, it now fights even after death."

I like the colorful look of this game and the spritework is top notch. Well done!

[X]

Julius' revised look is pretty good 

[aensland]

Considering that mobage stories tend to be released in a piecemeal manner with new story chapters sometimes taking months on end to release, are you concerned with how long this might take?

Alucard sure is looking kinda ignorant in Grimoire of Souls, the dialogue from the game makes him look like a clueless cv fan lol

[The Puritan]

As far as backstories go, do you guys have any plans for the Scholomance? It's mentioned in the Stoker novel that Dracula's family "...had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholomance

I had thought not just Dracula but other dark luminaries in Castlevania may've studied there, such as Brauner. POR's Dark Academy may even be his rendition of the place, though I don't think it fits the Scholomance's description in lore.

[theplottwist]

As far as backstories go, do you guys have any plans for the Scholomance? It's mentioned in the Stoker novel that Dracula's family "...had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholomance

I had thought not just Dracula but other dark luminaries in Castlevania may've studied there, such as Brauner. POR's Dark Academy may even be his rendition of the place, though I don't think it fits the Scholomance's description in lore.

Hey!

We have plans to adapt certain specific details from the Bram Stoker novel, but I cannot give you a status on the Scholomance. It's something that was never considered (not discarded, just not considered). I can tell you that this was never on my mind, even though other details are.

However, I might consider this too. It will depend on what the other core team members think and if it could be used to enrich the plot, even if a tiny bit. They will be reading this, so we will discuss internally. I would also like to know if more people are interested on THIS detail making it in, so leave your feedback, but please understand that the Umbra team keeps the final word.

From my personal, preliminary opinion based on your input given now: I have no plans to incorporate Scholomance, because it conflicts with Castlevania's overall lore. I will give a short rundown why:

(click to show/hide)

Scholomance is ran by the Devil, so this says that there is a Devil to begin with. There is two ways to go about it: Either Dracula runs it or another demon does while working for Dracula. That is because, after a certain point, Dracula becomes the "Devil" figure himself.

Coincidence or not, there is precedent for Dracula teaching occult secrets to already-gifted individuals before his turning into the Dark Lord, but there's proof only for two individuals -- Hector and Isaac (and the implication of a third) --, and not an entire school. Also, the "school" for these two was Dracula's castle. We can find parallels with Scholomance even on the fact that the Devil kept a student for himself, as Dracula kept Hector to be his vessel to revive in, amongst others such how Isaac looks like a Solomonar is described. But, of course, there are many contradictions.

As for him having studied there prior to his turning into Dark Lord-- interesting, but a tad implausible as Scholomance is described. Dracula was already (much) older than the age preferred by Scholomance for its students by this point, and he himself was already extremely knowledgeable on the occult after his vampirization on Lament. Not to mention he was not a commoner. We DO know he learned more in the time between Lament and CVIII, but I don't think he did it at a Scholomance-type facility.

As for having studied there prior to his turning into a vampire in Lament: Even more implausible, even if Umbra is not giving as much detail this far in the past to warrant the evoking of the school or Mathias having studied in there in his infancy. He grew to be a warrior of God, after all.

So, if Scholomance makes it in, it'll get adapted, including the core concept of the Devil teaching there. But it might disappoint people, something I have to consider a lot before making a decision. You mentioning Brauner as someone who you imagine having studied in Scholomance makes me think that you'd be A-OK with it being adapted, tho!

[The Puritan]

Hey!

We have plans to adapt certain specific details from the Bram Stoker novel, but I cannot give you a status on the Scholomance. It's something that was never considered (not discarded, just not considered). I can tell you that this was never on my mind, even though other details are.

However, I might consider this too. It will depend on what the other core team members think and if it could be used to enrich the plot, even if a tiny bit. They will be reading this, so we will discuss internally. I would also like to know if more people are interested on THIS detail making it in, so leave your feedback, but please understand that the Umbra team keeps the final word.

From my personal, preliminary opinion based on your input given now: I have no plans to incorporate Scholomance, because it conflicts with Castlevania's overall lore. I will give a short rundown why:

(click to show/hide)

Scholomance is ran by the Devil, so this says that there is a Devil to begin with. There is two ways to go about it: Either Dracula runs it or another demon does while working for Dracula. That is because, after a certain point, Dracula becomes the "Devil" figure himself.

Coincidence or not, there is precedent for Dracula teaching occult secrets to already-gifted individuals before his turning into the Dark Lord, but there's proof only for two individuals -- Hector and Isaac (and the implication of a third) --, and not an entire school. Also, the "school" for these two was Dracula's castle. We can find parallels with Scholomance even on the fact that the Devil kept a student for himself, as Dracula kept Hector to be his vessel to revive in, amongst others such how Isaac looks like a Solomonar is described. But, of course, there are many contradictions.

As for him having studied there prior to his turning into Dark Lord-- interesting, but a tad implausible as Scholomance is described. Dracula was already (much) older than the age preferred by Scholomance for its students by this point, and he himself was already extremely knowledgeable on the occult after his vampirization on Lament. Not to mention he was not a commoner. We DO know he learned more in the time between Lament and CVIII, but I don't think he did it at a Scholomance-type facility.

As for having studied there prior to his turning into a vampire in Lament: Even more implausible, even if Umbra is not giving as much detail this far in the past to warrant the evoking of the school or Mathias having studied in there in his infancy. He grew to be a warrior of God, after all.

So, if Scholomance makes it in, it'll get adapted, including the core concept of the Devil teaching there. But it might disappoint people, something I have to consider a lot before making a decision. You mentioning Brauner as someone who you imagine having studied in Scholomance makes me think that you'd be A-OK with it being adapted, tho!

A-OK, but totally and perfectly understanding if it doesn't make it. I think it has potential to mean something in CV as a whole (and ultimately this project). Plus you guys like tying every little detail from every corner of the lore together, Stoker novel included, and I felt like I couldn't pass this up. Still: everything below the spoiler text made me wonder if there's even a need for the place, given the Demon Castle is already a bastion of forbidden knowledge. Heck, Castlevania itself probably is the Scholomance.

Anyway, it's certainly there if you guys need it. It just might be holding secrets ignored or more likely covered up by Dracula. Like destroying him forever, though the Hakuba ritual and Maria training in Japan already put a big monkey wrench in the very idea.

[piscesdreams]

(click to show/hide)

Hello! It's time for a "we're still alive, y'know?" update!

First of all:

What? You can't hear him? Try clicking that dialogue box!

Say hello to Martin Wain. He is the selected voice actor for Alucard. He's competent, swift, and he also has a passion for Castlevania!

As I have posted before, Alucard was going to be voiced originally by Dracula9, but this proved to be too taxing on his voice, so we set out to find another actor who could impress the entire team. Despite "cold rock with bursts of emotion" sounding simple to perform in theory, Alucard is not an easy character to nail. Yet Martin proved to be a godsend when he captured the entire character pretty much on his first performance.

As mentioned previously, we prefer a delivery closer to Robert Belgrade's voice for Alucard because, for us, not only is that interpretation the most iconic, but it also lends him an air of strangeness that he is confirmed multiple times to have in-universe. Martin is very talented, so expect his delivery to be more convincing than Alucard was on SotN -- the hammy acting is something we can do away with. And do not let this bit of audio fool you: We're keeping the real wide-range-of-emotions good stuff to the main course

Martin does not have a social media you can follow yet. As soon as he does, we will update accordingly to let you know.

And, Martin is not the only actor to join... But I'll keep this one to a mini-update in the near future.


I won't mince words here: Development is still going slow. But it never once stopped-- we're always adding new things or ironing past ones, or hunting for more new information. So we're definitely not dead. And speaking of "hunting for more information", one event happened recently that has a potential to make a slow development even slower: The announcement and release of Grimoire of Souls.

As you know by now, that game is drawing upon the classic timeline. Umbra's mission statement being to respect the canon at all costs, that meant that I had to do all research I could humanly do on this game, without having access to it, to make sure everything on Umbra was working according with it. So, from the game's announcement until this game comes out, I must be all over it collecting all information available to me. We are preemptively considering Grimoire of Souls canon even if there's no official word on this matter yet.

Bad news is that not only the game is still not fully released (barring me from looking at the entire thing and continuing with the adjustments on project's storyline), but the beta demo that WAS released contained information contradicting Umbra. Because of course it did

Good news is that this information contradicting Umbra was really minor and did NOT throw a wrench on Umbra's developed story or gameplay. Having a Plan B came in handy, and the adjustments were made without any losses to Umbra that would require a full rewriting of stuff and would bog us down even more than we already are. What GoS contradicted was nothing more than holes that we already knew to exist.

Bonus news is that this game confirmed some small stuff I had discovered/theorized a long time ago, and made Umbra even more convincing than before on this regard :O

So, in short, Grimoire of Souls could prove to be a challenge. As of now, nothing major interfered with Umbra, but if GoS reveals something TOO major once it comes out, it could mean that entire chunks of Umbra's plotline (and possibly gameplay aspects that are interwined with the plotline) must get rewritten to suit what GoS says. Anything official Konami puts out > Umbra of Sorrow.

But I'll let you guys know that I'm making an effort to account for that before it happens. At the moment everything is fine and we have much more pressing matters to take care of (graphics, engine, etc), and they are being taken care of.


So, remember the promised Gameplay Demo? It's also still coming and it was not scrapped or anything like that. You can expect MORE news on that soon outside of this update. We may have been slowed down, but new content is produced all the time for this project, be it graphics, coding, music, be it design decisions (on which we take strides constantly via internal discussions), and it all affects the demo's progress too. That said, we want to talk about and SHOW you scrumptious stuff to chew on. Ready?

-Julius Belmont's sprite is being retooled.



After testing it in-engine, after receiving feedback, and after myself growing as an artist, Julius is being edited/updated to be better read on-screen, fix pose issues, fix subpar animations or outright look more badass in general. He has over 150 frames, so that will take a bit to complete, but not NEARLY as long as it took to create him, that's for sure. And speaking of Julius' design...

-Julius' concept itself is being updated.



Junki also grew as an artist, and we felt suit that Julius needed an update to his artwork, which will get used in-game constantly. One such improvement is making him more "manly", something that was criticized a long time ago when his first concept was unveiled. And yes, that means that the other main characters are also receiving an update -- can't have Julius be the only one to receive an update, can we? This will be the first and ONLY update to these character designs.

And, here are some in-engine screensho-- Nah, to hell with screenshots. Let's see stuff MOVING:

Julius locates a secret passage. He has his Castlevania game on point. Also, is that... Is that a returning foe?

Julius fights an old enemy with his trademark Red Axe and does some climbing.

He can grapple on things, but it looks kinda different, doesn't it?

(The "green glitches" on some of these are just glitches from the recording. They don't exist on the game itself. And keep in mind you're not seeing retooled Julius yet.)

Here you can see a number of stuff. But more importantly, you can see for yourself how one of the core mechanics for Julius -- his grapple -- will work. No longer does grappling work like it did on Super Castlevania IV or Harmony of Despair. Julius, instead of merely dangling from a peg and vulnerably staying there, pulls the whip to propel himself on the opposite direction, more or less like Shanoa's Magnes glyph, but different in that he doesn't need to pull back to shoot forward. This makes Julius very fast in certain situations and enables him to move fast across long distances by himself. We felt that this was the best way to mix both the platforming and hectic action that we have planned for many sections of the game.

However, although we're showing you stuff moving, it's important that I make clear that THIS IS NOT FINAL. You'll see certain stuff off here that we KNOW is there and are working to fix or adjust, or stuff that is simply placeholder even if it looks "final graphics". Our goal with this was to demonstrate that work is happening, not that it is complete. Dracula9 felt suit to reunite some of his own coding progress to give you a general idea of what's ready or what is not:

(click to show/hide)

non-codey general progress stuffs:

-all enemies are in and working properly, simply in need of varying degrees of "finish sprites/animations". That includes a certain someone...

-inventory working with (small) selection of different items/equippables to appear in demo.

-Julius' mechanics to be showcased on the demo are nearly complete.

non-codey general to-do list:

-actually finish tiling the damn levels

-rework certain particle systems to look better

-implement new menu graphics (once the remaining graphics are completed) and submenu transition effects

-finish creating the handful of needed SFX that are left

codey progress stuffs:

-levelling system working properly

-general stuff working properly (physics, collision, stats and the like, enemy AI, etc. etc. etc.)

codey to-do list:

-restructure inventory arrays to be more dynamic and efficient (they're 6-dimensional and nested, for those who would know what this means and implies--take aspirin for the headache with me, friends!)

-try and get water shader to run exclusively at the base resolution and upscale in tandem, and not just rescale the entire shader to fit the various window/resolution sizes

-get off my ass and implement controller support and control customization for keyboards (controller has specific planned layout, that's why it isn't getting customization support)

Also yes, Punaguchi. And yes, that sprite is from Adventure Rebirth. And yes, he's getting new graphics and that is placeholder.


It's time to close this update. With that, I'll leave you with a screenshot, and a new soundtrack. Thank you people for not giving up on us. We're working hard, and we will bring you the best possible content we can -- you think all this is just for a demo, but it isn't. Every bit and piece made is going for the final game, and it is important that it looks as (close to) pristine in the demo as it will be in the final game. See ya, and I hope I can bring better news soon

♪ Iron Crusher - By our demonic songmaster Chernabogue. Can you tell where this comes from?

"A beast who rebelled against Heaven; Siding with the Dark Lord, it now fights even after death."

Seriously, this is shaping up to be very high-quality. Damn...

[X]

I'd say have the inclusion of the Scholomance from the novel. Dracula isn't the sort of person to learn forbidden knowledge from one source and that'd be that. He'd be gaining knowledge from multiple sources in order to max out his powers. And heck, if there was a deity in control of said Scholomance then all Dracula had to do once he learned all he could would be to kill off the deity in question and take over.

[Malus793]

Plus it deepens the lore a bit, and bases it in some real world occult beliefs, what with the Solomonari and all. 

Hello, everyone.  Room for one more?  I saw the casting call website but fear I am too late.  It let me look at the page but did not let me interact with it.

[theplottwist]

Hello, everyone.  Room for one more?  I saw the casting call website but fear I am too late.  It let me look at the page but did not let me interact with it.

There's room! Please send me a message containing the character you'd like to try for (between Jonathan Morris and Death), and your voice test in the highest possible quality for you. You may also request more details if you're unsure of something, but pretty much all of it is covered on the casting call page.

And keep in mind that you might not pass as the character you tried for, but we can still keep an eye on you for other roles. If this happens, we'll let you know in advance and ask you if you're interested in being contacted about it in the future.

[Dracula9]

It let me look at the page but did not let me interact with it.

that's my fault--the deadline's actually ongoing, but the site only allows set dates, and i didn't update it to extend last month

you should be able to interact with it now

[Malus793]

Nice, thanks!

Is there any rule against offering auditions for both?  I'd like to present options and display versatility (in theory, we'll see how it works in practice).

Thanks again.