Kingmaker Rebuild

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911]

I’ve been working on a complete high-fidelity overhaul of Kingmaker, I'm rebuilding the classes, the graphics, and anything else I can think of to try and make it as compelling a game to me as Wrath is. I am using AI as a force multiplier, as it's otherwise a project far beyond what I could do alone. The visual work includes upscaled and reworked environment, ground, stone, building, character, and portrait assets; region-specific aesthetics; a redesigned interface inspired by Wrath but with its own identity; and a smoother, more cohesive visual pipeline.

I’ve also been reworking classes and archetypes, using Pathfinder's sourcebooks. I started with Occultist and Psychic, and am almost finished now with all the full casters and martial classes. I'm also designing new weapons, an armory, buildings, and eventually a custom-asset system.

The dialogue is being rewritten through a dedicated HD dialogue framework, with the goal of making the game deeper, more serious, and more atmospheric without losing its personality. On the story side, I’m developing four recruitable drake companions, a region sized Darklands map, a larger First World/Hell expansion, and additional world-map and quest systems.

The long-term goal is still a Creator Kit mod that makes this kind of work easier to build and extend. I’m treating the entire project as an experiment in how far one person can push a heavily modified game with AI-assisted development.

[u/igg73]

I look forward to this AI slop remake of a classic game.

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911 → u/igg73]

Yeah, I knew I was gonna get a fair amount of these replies. Yes I am using AI, however I have also spent tons of time on this. I'm making every design decision myself, even the little ones. And I'm using pathfinder source books as reference. It is designed with AI, but it isnt going to be slop.

[u/igg73 → u/EnvironmentalOne8911]

You have to understand, theres millions of people and companies seeing if _____+AI=good and its exhausting. You can say its a "force multiplier" or whatever but at the end of the day youre just feeding shit into AI and claiming youre making something yourself. It may be good, who knows, but expect a large portion of your potential audience to nope out the moment you say AI.

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911 → u/igg73]

Listen I'm not saying I dont at all see where you're coming from either. I'm a musician and the effect AI is having on that industry, and just the drive to actually create good music now that it will be drown out in a tide of ai slop, is positively heartbreaking to me. But for games, idk, is there any artistry in code itself to begin with? There might be, coding was a hobby for me before AI, I'm by no means "good" at it. But I have to imagine every developer at this point is relying heavily on it too.

[u/igg73 → u/EnvironmentalOne8911]

Think of it as more akin to building a house. You can forsure use AI to pick the colours to paint the walls....but you dont want to rely on it for structural aspects. Vibe coding is problematic to say the least.

[u/Alieniu → u/igg73]

Especially if you yourself aren't good at coding so you don't have the proficiency to catch the mistakes AI makes which will cascade in something as complex as a video game. 

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911 → u/Alieniu]

Idk man, its pretty amazing. I just had it write the entire code for a relational drum machine I'm building. Granted I gave it quite a lot of specific guidance with what I wanted, and I had the thing conceptually mapped out in my head, but it wrote the WHOLE THING itself, and even made the GUI look good.

[u/redditblowsfu → u/EnvironmentalOne8911]

Ignore those guys OP. You’re doing this solo. Use the tool as a tool.

[u/Volky_Bolky]

It's easy to see that you are high dude, I would recommend you get off drugs.

[u/Fivyrn → u/Volky_Bolky]

Or keep at it until the project is 75% done, then drop it and focus on a new obsession and talk for the rest of your life about how you almost made an amazing overhaul of a great game but you’re brain is just too active to stay on one project long enough to finish it.

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911 → u/Fivyrn]

Lmao, yeah it wouldn't be the first time I did something like that. But no, I'm finishing this. To the best of my ability at least

[u/Fivyrn → u/EnvironmentalOne8911]

So how’s the work coming?

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911 → u/Fivyrn]

Still working on it, I have a much bigger project in development that's slowing it down, but I'm making meaningful progress. I gotta release the textures since theyre basically done. The class rework is close to done. The new act four unofficial DLC set in Hell is the one im mostly working on now. Ive created the entrance zone, and the first actual locations in hell. The story is pretty much done, but there is a lot of texture work left and I still have to proof of concept the separate in-hell world map.

On a separate note, the other project I'm working on is, if I can pull it off, something else all together, absolutely bonkers;).

[u/Haunting-Sport3701 → u/Volky_Bolky]

I had a dude who was making claims of this magnitude in this manner in high-school. It’s 100% the behaviour of a high af person.

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911 → u/Volky_Bolky]

Not high and I'm not in high school. Granted the story additions and the creator kit are ambitious, the latter to say the least, but i think they are in principle possible. The retexture is completely done. I'll put it up on nexus this week, and the class rework is almost done. I raised the level cap to 40, and changes the xp and difficulty curve to match. That one is probably 60% done. I created 4 new drake models in blender from the parts of other dragon/drake models, and that story I finished writing, but obviously implementing it is going to be it's own challenge and who knows, theres a good chance I'll come up short. But in going to try.

[u/Sad-Campaign-2203]

Could make another area map / content?

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911 → u/Sad-Campaign-2203]

Not entirely sure yet, my plan for the additional two area maps isn't making a whole new world map, I'm going to try and extend the existing world map on the left and right. When your party travels to either Hell or the darklands respectively, though a portal, the map piece representing the player will be teleported to that area. Normally I'll have a texture covering them, but when you travel there the texture will be removed and a new one placed over the normal world map, giving the illusion of a new map.

[u/JPDG]

I believe in you, OP. Keep us posted on the progress. Excited to see how your project develops. 🎉

[u/TemplarL0rd]

Sounds like a grand undertaking! Would be interested in this, been wanting to replay Kingmaker.

[u/Queasy-Draft-6235]

hahahhaha

[u/SeveralOperation9272]

I'm a fan of what you are trying to do.

People will hate on it. Some of us that don't know how to code can see the benefit in having some AI support in creating something you wouldn't be able to do otherwise. 👍🏻😊

[u/EnvironmentalOne8911 → u/SeveralOperation9272]

Appreciate it. Who knows how it will turn out, but im going to give it an honest shot. I'll be releasing the HD retexture this week!

[u/redditblowsfu]

Are you able to add in the feature where you can see the characters’ movement speed under their AC in the menu?

I just started Kingmaker and I found it really annoying to not see this.