[Gregory Yudenko]

Hello Ladies and Gentleman,

I would like to ask your opinion regarding a whole myriad of swords which were designed for a video game called Exanima which takes place in a low fantasy, late medieval environment.

It's of outmost importance for me to hear your take on the overall design style, character and historical accuracy of those swords as well as their functionality.

Please feel free to view the screenshots and share your thoughts!







Please feel free to view the screenshots and share your thoughts!

[Craig Johnson]

They look ok. They suffer a bit from the usual game design issues. about 25 % to beefy at least and a bit generic in forms of the guards and pommels. But I would say better than a lot that are out there.

[Victor R.]

Your blade types generally seem to emulate Types XII, XV, XVI, XVII and XVIII. I say this because your designs tend to have a decent to strong profile taper and acute point. There is some potential for era mismatch with this variety of profiles: Type XII was common before the mid-14th, Type XVI was early to mid 14th and XVIII was more of a 15th to early 16th blade style.

If you're setting your game in the late 14th, then your XII, XVI and XVIII styles are a little out of period; if early 15th, then that brings XVIII back on the table, while the earlier swords wouldn't bee seen much. If you refer to the Feature on Ewart Oakeshott http://myArmoury.com/feature_oakeshott2.html, you can tailor your styles to the chosen era of your game.

As for other comments, you seem to have a couple of blades with what appears to be a strong medial ridge rather than a fuller. Such ridges were not typical of medieval era blades. Although depictions of Type XVIII blades, which are hollowground, do sometimes seem to depict a heavy ridge, the examples I've seen suggest the ridge is more subtle. Also, some of the blades as depicted tend to appear slightly corroded. If you could afford a sword, you took care of it. It might not be a mirror polish, but it wouldn't appear to have active (red) rust.

Your grips, guards and pommels actually look pretty good - nothing seems to be oversized or atypically shaped.

I think it's a pretty good job, particularly when compared to most of what you seen in games. A stickler will call out some of the things I noted, and maybe others, but the average gamer wouldn't really notice - they'd just see what they imagined as a basic sword.

If you want to get into some funkier styles, look up falcions and messers. You'd need to confirm that the style fit the time period of your setting, but these are single-edge blade types that coexisted with double-edge types during the 14th/15th/16th (messers tended to be later; falcions seem to be earlier).

Thanks for sharing and seeking. Good luck!

[Daniel Sullivan]

Gregory,

Noticed a few minor tidbits that Victor addressed quite well. My comment/question is, why the extensive rust and corrosion?
If these items are to represent weapons of the period, they would be clean and appear well cared for. A foot soldier or a mounted trooper would never let this important piece of his equipment to deteriorate to such sad state.

Don't know much about gaming, however, am assuming that one of the things you folks would strive for is reality.

Cheers,
Dan

[Gregory Yudenko]

[Madoc Evans]

Hello, I'm the development lead for Exanima, just wanted to step in give a little context.

These are not release ready assets and they are not exactly hand crafted models, it's an early screenshot we shared with fans to showcase a procedural weapon generation system we're developing. We're doing this for just about every European medieval weapon you can imagine. This "sword factory" was our first ever test of this system, and has served mainly as a testing ground for it. It temporarily includes a random assortment of components for different weapon types (e.g. daggers and longswords), and has not been tweaked or corrected at all since our first "yay it works" moment several months ago. We will make some small, but still important fixes before release, move specific components to specific factories only, and over time we will expand these with more and better designs.

Our game does not have an historical setting, it's a fantasy setting. Our designs are inspired by a broad late medieval period (European), and we usually deliberately avoid replicating historical designs exactly (more so with armour), but still keep them plausible. The condition of weapons is part of the procedural system, and there is indeed a lot of exploring abandoned underground locations filled with old rusty weapons and armour (as well as monsters and all sorts).

Sorry for the boring technical post, just thought I should clarify this and ask people to withhold judgement as this is far from our final or best effort.

[Ian Hutchison]

[Gregory Yudenko]

[Ian Hutchison]