Based on feedback from the demo (notably, that many people couldn’t run the game at all), I’ve uploaded a downloadable installer. It includes several quality settings for slower machines. It also runs much better than the webplayer build in general as I have made some optimizations.

Controls:
WASD or Arrow Keys: Move
Z: Confirm
X: Cancel
C: Menu
Q/E: Next and Previous shortcut

Click here to download the demo! (Windows only)

A few notes:

• This demo contains no story.
• The Gameplay Demo drops you into a small map. You can keep track of your progress on the minimap; it is a pretty brief demo.
• The Boss demo drops you into a small map with the game’s first boss.
• Only gamepads with DirectInput are fully supported at this time. I am working on XInput support for the full version. You can set up gamepad and visual quality in the splash screen config.

Although the first chapter for Wilfred the Hero is only a few months away, I thought I would put out a demo to get a little bit more feedback on the combat system and game feel. I am also interested in performance. Because the webplayer is hardware accelerated, it should run more or less about the same as it will as a standalone executable. I recommend running your browser in fullscreen

UPDATE: There is also standalone Windows version of this demo. If you have trouble running the webplayer, try downloading and installing the downloadable version Here.

Controls:

WASD or Arrow Keys: Move
Z: Confirm
X: Cancel
C: Menu
Q/E: Next and Previous shortcut

Click here to play the demo.

A few notes:

• This demo contains no story.
• The Gameplay Demo drops you into a small map. You can keep track of your progress on the minimap; it is a pretty brief demo.
• The Boss demo drops you into a small map with the game’s first boss.

This demo is still a little rough, but I think it’s good enough to share to get more input. I am very excited to share it after all of these years! Please let me know what you think!

And, of course, some screenshots. I have been posting these on Twitter for the past few weeks:

Since it has been almost a full year (!) since I posted video for Wilfred the Hero, I thought I would post a new one to show the progress we’ve made! Specifically, since you will spend so much time fighting, I thought I would pick an extended boss battle to showcase the flow of combat.

This is one of the early boss battles in the game. Wilfred and Alanadale have to fight Streganona, the black witch, and Stregoneria, the black monster, while stuck in a horrible nightmare world.

In my playthrough I have loaded Alanadale heavily with magic and Wilfred with physical attacks. They are a good antitheses to Stregoneria’s deadly attacks and Streganona’s evil magic. There’s no reason you can’t outfit your heroes however you would like to though!

There are still some glitches and rough edges left in this video (for example, the horrible sound effects), but we are pretty proud of it so far. I am shooting for release by Summer 2013. A lot later than I originally planned, but the game has expanded significantly in scope also.

I will put up some other videos featuring other areas over the rest of the year, mostly just to show off some of the music.

Enjoy! Thanks!

It will probably be one more year before Wilfred the Hero is completely finished. We’re getting really close to having most of the art done, but there’s still a lot of stuff left to go. It is sort of fun playing the game as it is right now, because it everything is a complete mess and the cutscenes are just awful.

I have been thinking about posting a soundtrack preview sometime. The OST is about 1/2 done (3/4 of tracks are done, but they are all rough cuts). Is anyone interested or should I wait until it’s all done?

I posted this on Screenshot Saturday. This was just a test map to get some new prefabs and textures right, and the lighting for this area. The big golem guy is my favorite enemy in the game, so I use him for a lot of screenshots.

Wilfred the Hero also now features unicorns.

Here are some new screenshots!

I can’t say too much about which part of the game this takes place in without spoiling some of the story.

Enjoy! The game is really coming starting to come together!

All good jRPGs have a colosseum, and Wilfred the Hero is no exception! When the heroes first reach the area, the sun is waning; it is almost nightfall. While left wondering which unspeakable horrors come out after the sun sets, the heroes step into the Colosseum–and find themselves in the fight of their lives.

The full version will feature a different enemy, but showing him would be a spoiler. I promise it will be an intense, grueling fight though!

Once completing this story sequence, the heroes may return to the Colosseum at any time to fight increasingly difficult waves of monsters. Is there any end to the battles? You’ll have to find out.

Many people who played the original Wilfred the Hero in 2005 were very fond of Mr. Onion. He is still a character in in the Wilfred the Hero remake, just as he was in the original version. He has never looked better.

Wilfred the Hero is very close to being half complete. The Colosseum battle marks the midway point of the game. This is a major milestone! It means that much more than half of the work has been done, because progress so far includes many long hours of learning how to do basic things that a competent and experienced game developer would have already known how to do. To illustrate, I emailed Teo asking him if he was interested in doing Wilfred the Hero again about two hours after opening Unity3D for the first time!

We plan on having a feature-complete alpha out by the end of the year. After that–we’ll release it (most likely for free), once it is playable and polished, whenever that is. Since this is a labor of love I won’t make any commitments (although the original game design doc hubristicly listed December 2011 as a release date). I can’t wait!

I have added several new screenshots for Wilfred the Hero to its game section. Most of them are from in and around the Great Wall area.

I have been working on music quite a bit lately. I currently have about 27 minutes of the OSV finished–or half of the soundtrack. The game may or may not make the end of 2012, but I am pretty confident the soundtrack will.

I’ve updated the backend for my site; I was using a version of WordPress from about 2006, and thought it was about time to update it. I am still running a stock theme from WordPress, but I might get around to customizing it some day. The content management interface’s HTML editor doesn’t seem to actually be an HTML editor, and there are things I don’t like about the stock CSS, but otherwise I am pretty happy with it.

As promised, following are a few tracks from the game. They are rough sketches, so there are some production issues and I will go back and tidy up some of the dynamics before game publication, but for now, enjoy. You’ll need an HTML5 browser to play the audio content, or you just won’t see anything.

Arrival

This is a track from the opening scene of the game and the first map. You may have heard it already, as it is the track played in the demo reel we made last October.

Cliffs

This track is from the first section of the game also. Shortly after the opening, the heroes find themselves exploring a misty canyon.

Magic Trick

This track is a battle theme. Wilfred the Hero will not have a stock battle theme; rather, regular battles will occur seamlessly and without additional loading or a change in music. This battle theme plays when the heroes fight Streganona and her monster, which you may remember from the original 2005 version of Wilfred the Hero. I don’t have a screenshot for that battle yet, so here is a screen from a different boss fight.

All of these screenshots are from the actual game running. No mockups here! These are all from last October, and we’ve come a long way since then, but they fit the scenes for the music.

Most of the demo reel shows outdoor scenes from the first area of the game; I don’t want everyone to think that the entirety of Wilfred the Hero takes place in the same outdoor environment, so I thought I would share some other screenshots of the first area of the game that demonstrate some variety.

The first area of the game takes place around the foothills of the mountain. The path forward cuts straight into and through some of the foothills and into the mountain itself, so there are some caves to explore. They’ve been hollowed out over the centuries by the rising and falling water level, so they are fairly wide-open and airy. They are also filled with water; Wilfred, like many video game heroes, has never learned how to swim, so he has to make sure he doesn’t fall!

Teo and I are still working hard on Wilfred the Hero and we are making very good progress. About 1/4 of the game content is complete at this time, including music, sound, scenes, etc. The majority of the game’s basic framework and mechanics are complete. We’re sticking to the 2012 release date indicated in the demo reel, but I would advise that it will be closer to the end of the year than the beginning. It takes time to make a video game on the weekends.

At some point in the coming months I will post a preview of the soundtrack. There are a number of very good tracks that are very close to being complete and I thought I would share them without anyone interested. Stand by for more updates!

I thought I might post occasionally to keep people abreast on development of Wilfred the Hero. I’ll try to update with concept art, musical tracks, screenshots, or something at least twice per month just to keep everyone aware that we’re hard at work!

Teo Mathlein sent in some wonderful concept art for an area of the game called The Great Wall that I thought I might share.

This austere structure made of sheer rock faces, impregnable stone walls, and many treacherous walkways is the only way up. This area marks the Heroes’ major climb up of the dragon’s mountain, through low-lying clouds and into the sky, as they journey always to the unreachable summit. By this point in the mission, it is well into the day.

There are many entrances that lead into the heart of the structure; inside, lie the mysterious passages and tunnels that many monsters call home. The only up is through them—and through whatever danger is inside.