I'm fairly certain he uses blender, yes. Unless there has been a recent change in that.

Yep, blender, gimp and some cakewalk(daw) and ofc old version of audacity. here are some more recent screens...the first two are just me checking out the moon, wearing two different armors and the last is literally me reworking parts of the castle. It ended up being more work to texture the old models than it was to make some new ones and texture on the go...the way I am using the atlas(seen in the uv editor). EDIT: ignore the NPC in the second screen...just a test, "nothing to see here"...really. :)

9 months later

So this is what's going on...I'm still doing this...slowly, albeit, but it's still happening. I'm currently finishing up the starting area quests...after that I need to focus on a menu and save/load system...because it's going to get difficult to test quests later on if I have to run through the entire game..lol
Here are some random images(collage) of the starting area and in game map. The map was just implemented and since I was using it also as a quest tracker(by mousing over the icons) I kinda needed it...slow and steady.

Excellent work! 👍️ I'll keep an eye out for progress.

19 days later

made a short and horrible audio video..I just don't have a lot of time to mess with this sometimes..it is what it is 🙂 Still, I try to tackle at least one thing a week...be it just some bugs or game system whatnot...I'll be struggling with the save/load system soon...it's harder and harder to test without it.

An interesting project. For which platform is this done?

Thanks...first..I'm not sure "epic" describes it 🙂, but very kind.

I am planning it for the 3 major pc platforms(mac,pc and linux)
Andreas, too kind, as always.

6 months later

Wow, it's been a while...I'm still slowly but surely plugging away...hopefully I can get this done in under another year...
I'd love to heat any criticism I can get..I say this a lot, but negative criticism is very valuable...I'll take both ofc but if someone has something bad to say....let me hear it, otherwise I cannot address it..I'm working off a limited pool of people who have seen this so every crit helps.

    It's starting to come together. I think the graphics look dated, but they are consistent, which is more important. Sort of like an old RPG like Neverwinter Nights. This is probably fine, there is a market for retro indie games (used to be only 2D but retro 3D is getting popular). Seems like you might need some work on the animation and blending, it looks kind of stiff and not matching exactly. You should try to make sure the walk/run speed of the animation matches the physics speed in the game (look at the foot steps and make sure they don't slide). The scale also looks off in some places. Like some characters are not at world scale to the player, and that certain objects (or textures) look too big. This is okay for a retro game but still true to make sure that things are believable. Such as the size of bricks in a brick texture, the grain of the wood, detail on the terrain, etc. It should be similar size and detail (texture resolution per UV) so that it matches. Otherwise it's looking like great progress.

    justinbarrett Hi! RPG is quite a complicated idea in fact. You need to have dozens of different quests for the world to be alive and interesting. How are you doing with this?

      Excellent! It's almost ready to play. When can we play it?

      I don't want to pick on the graphics — the important thing is that the game is there and it works. Graphics can be improved over time in an already finished game. I did not see bricks, rather roughly hewn stones, and for them the size is fine.

      Completely fair comment that in RPG more important story and quests. I hope there will be a romantic line. 💏

      Is the map handmade? Automatic generation will not give caves and mines/corridors.

      @cybereality
      animation:
      Yeah, you're correct with the animations, I'm not using root motion is one of the biggest issues and there is A LOT of sliding. I am starting a new list of things to tackle so this is one that keeps spilling over to the next list(bad justing, bad).
      graphics:
      I can make really good graphics if I choose, but I am leaning on that retro look, not as much as it in fashionable, but because of time constraints and resources, I do model and paint all my textures, aside from some of the foiliage and architechture(some)
      scale: I'm not really sure what you mean about the actors not being proportional to the player. I have them all scaled within 1.6->1.8 m..I felt this would be fitting...maybe it's the camera lense? in any case can you elaborate?
      texture(pixel to screen ratios):
      yes, a lot of these are off...some to scaled...I don't really concern myself with this. I'm using atlases for most things 2048 for all foliage 2048 for all architechture etc...only some of the actors and terrain have their own(not shared) texture.

      @Slava
      yes, rpgs are a handfull..that's why most of my systems are already done and I am mostly just world building(quests, dialogue etc. Some quests are already in game..like the initial prison camp... I'm not doing a lot of useless quests, most of my boards are a lot of back and forth with a lot of quests relying on one or another...quite a headache and probably my biggest concern.

      @Tomcat
      playable: It's far from playable..well, it's playable, but because I know all the things that break it makes it easier for me to avoid...I will probably sit on it another year(I'm thinking less, but I also need to allow myself time).

      world and map: Yes, all homegrown and hand modeled....it's static. I can make changes and I do from time to time..but then I have to reimport and make a lot of changes to pathing for npcs etc.

        justinbarrett I'm not using root motion is one of the biggest issues and there is A LOT of sliding.

        What was said about the graphics, fully applies to the animation — it can be corrected later, when the main features of the game will be ready.

        Will the weather affect the gameplay or gives only a visual effect?

          The rain is purely visual ATM, but there are some weather and time related caveats to gameplay already. Demonic creatures do more damage at night. I want to work out that vampires can survive during a storm during daylight hours..but that's a ways off and simple to implement.

          working on animation all day 🙂...the hard part is yet to come...when I re-import I have a lot of exported variables I need to transfer over...if anyone knows a way to import and export single animations(one anim at a time) it would be alifesaver.

            justinbarrett if anyone knows a way to import and export single animations(one anim at a time) it would be alifesaver.

            Here, Volume 4 is about animation. Would that be useful?

              Thanks, I'm aware of this..I wanted to export a single animation from blender without exporting all the animations...