Vǫrðr Forge

[h1]Your multiverse awaits.[/h1]

So you wanna make a video game?

Get ready to spend countless hours watching internet tutorials, reading endless social media comment sections, and replacing any prospects you ever had of a romantic relationship with reading Stack Overflow Archives.

After weeks of research, you decide to go with a popular game engine, because it seems like the best path.

You read every resource you can and spend all your free time learning the engine and all its parts.

After a few months of fighting with that, you decide the best path is to code your game from scratch.

You spend 22,918 hours reading tutorials, watching videos, and studying your chosen language. You gain only 6 hours of usable information.

I feel your pain.

In my case, it took years just to develop a true understanding of how the process even works. Because of all this, I designed Vǫrðr (Vor-Thur) to remove all of the barriers that stand in the way of people who want to make games. Vǫrðr is an all-inclusive game engine for 2D, 2.5D and 3D games. With Vǫrðr, you have the power of a full coding language living underneath the editor, paired with a visual node editor. Build the game you've been dreaming of.

2D, 2.5D and 3D

When you start a project, Vǫrðr asks what kind of world you're making:

• 2D: Pictures only, seen from above or from the side.

• 2.5D: Sprites or models in a world seen at an angle.

• 3D: Models first, in a world with real depth.

Every project starts clean. There's no sample game to delete. You can have the camera set up for you (side-scroller or top-down in 2D, isometric in 2.5D, third-person follow or isometric-style in 3D), or pick Empty Project and set it all up yourself. Changed your mind? You can switch the project's type later in Project Settings.

If you're new to Vǫrðr or to game development, our tutorials can help you get started in 2D, 2.5D and 3D modes.

Create Your First World In Minutes

• Layered Terrain Generator: Making heightmaps sucks. Vǫrðr is equipped with a terrain generator that grows entire game worlds with the click of a button. Just select a preset and click generate. Start from a continent, alpine valleys, an archipelago, tundra, stepped mesas or one of two alien worlds, or roll a random one. Then turn the dials for land, texture, erosion, climate, water and landmarks, and watch the preview change before you generate.

• Landscape Mode: Included tools to raise, lower, smooth, flatten, add noise, and paint terrain. Functional and good looking terrain in minutes, not months. Erode by hand, carve rivers, flood lakes, cut sharp relief, and paint where feet are allowed to walk.

• Tunnels, Caves and Rocks: Dig a tunnel into the side of a hill, open it up into a cave, and scatter boulders, slabs and spires wherever your heart desires.

• Tiles for 2D: Paint your 2D maps from tilesets, with fills and auto-tiling. Tiles can be solid, climbable, moveable or breakable.

• Water: Oceans come with the generated world. Add pools and oceans to any map, and place lakes and rivers yourself with the brushes.

• Drag-and-Drop: Sprites can be dragged from Vǫrðr's Content Drawer and placed anywhere on the level. No need for text arrays of 0s and 1s to place sprites.

• Easy duplication: Select one, press Shift+Ctrl+D, pick a direction, spacing and quantity. Quickly create large grids with no hassle.

• Automatic Hitboxes: There's no need to add 16 square hitboxes of various size: Vǫrðr will automatically detect the shape of your sprite and add a hitbox for you. When you want control, draw your own with a brush or a spline, or place an invisible hitbox wherever a wall should be.

• Pathing: Configure NPC paths with ease without ever having to write a line of code.

• Play In The Editor: Press Play and your creation comes to life. Test anything without having to build and export.

Don't Get Lost In The Details

• World Map: Link your levels into one connected world. Each separately built level can be connected to a single world map and traveled between quickly and easily.

• Level Map: Vǫrðr includes automatic level mapping, so you don't have to spend days drawing your own or hundreds of dollars hiring an artist.

• Mini Map: Both Round and Square Minimap options are built into the editor. Minimap can be toggled on/off if you want your players to suffer with no map.

• Fog of War: Hides the map wherever the player has not yet walked. It remembers what they found, too, across maps, saves and loads.

• Five Hundred Villagers: Big maps get crowded. Sort everyone into folders, flag them, search them and sort them, so you find the one blacksmith you're looking for in seconds.

Art Tools Meant For You

Vǫrðr doesn't come with an art pack. It ships its own textures for the terrain, and the tools to help you with the rest.

• Bring Your Own Art: There is no proprietary art format for Vǫrðr. Current compatible formats for sprites are PNG, JPG, TGA and BMP, and import currently works for FBX and Unreal .uasset models and animations for 3D projects.

• 3D Characters: Easily use a 3D model with your animations for 2.5D and 3D projects.

• Image Editor: Vǫrðr comes with a real built-in image editor. I've got enough windows open already, don't you? Edit images without having to run more applications. Layers, a pixel mode for crisp sprite work and a paint mode for brushes.

• Animation Sequencer: Easily set up an animation from a sprite sheet with none of the headaches of trying to write out structured sequences.

• RenderStage: I love the pre-rendered look of isometric games, so I built RenderStage: pre-rendered sprite sheets from 3D models at the push of a button.

• Vǫrðr DAW: If you don't want to be like me, doomscrolling free asset websites at the witching hour trying to find free sounds, just use Vǫrðr DAW. Sound authoring at your fingertips. It makes sound effects (coins, jumps, hits, explosions, footsteps and more, up to four layers each); your music is still your own.

• The UI Editor: Create your full overlay: everything from your health bar to your quest journal. No agonizing tedium of trying to make a UI from scratch. Pick parts from a palette, anchor them, snap them to the lines, and preview it full screen.

• Interface Styles: Currently twenty-nine style packs for your game's menus and windows. Create the atmosphere you want for your game.

• Looks: Give your whole world a style: stepped lighting, outlines, hatching, halftone, color grading, palettes, dithering, pixelation and more.

• Curve Editor: Your experience curve is a row of dots you can grab and drag.

Make Your World Come Alive

• Living Environments: I figured out Day/Night cycles, weather, water and particle effects so you don't have to.

• Lighting and Weather: Easy to configure weather and lights. Rain, snow, day/night cycle, shadows. Don't worry about DeltaTime, I took care of it for you. Up to 512 lights at once, and fog that rolls in with distance or pools in the low ground.

• Sky Editor: Suns, moons, stars and atmosphere, with a live sky to watch while you set them.

• Particle FX: Fully integrated particle system. Magic, fire, water, smoke: no expensive asset packs needed. Build your own with a live preview and link them to spells and gunfire. They run on your graphics card, so you can have a lot more of them.

• Crowds: Need to populate a city? Vǫrðr has smart pathing that keeps citizens out of traffic. Need an angry horde of zombies? I've got your back on that, too. Or, well, they do.

• Living Economies: Dynamic trade routes and economies, both world and local. Create a living, breathing world.

• Interaction and Transform: Objects can be controlled and moved with triggers and actions, whether for jumpscares or simple door openings.

• 3D Spatial Audio: Make sure your players know that there's something right behind them. Or in front of them. Or both.

• Random Events: Whether it's making NPCs get up to some crazy shenanigans or making an indie horror game a little bit scarier, random events are here for you.

But Can It Game Though

• Combat, Three Ways: Real-time, Dice (d20) or Turn menu (jRPG). It's one setting in Project Settings, and you can change it whenever you like.

• D20 System: Fully integrated event queue, stylized on-screen dice, turn-based combat with initiative rolls. The rules are yours to edit: conditions, cover, flanking, high ground, death saves, reactions, and spell areas you aim on the ground. Save in the middle of a round and it loads right back into the same turn.

• jRPG System: Side-by-side turn based combat, top-down or isometric. This doesn't have to be your last fantasy.

• The RPG Suite: Full attribute system that can be configured in any way you like. Strength and wisdom too basic? Try something else.

• The Loot Forge: Don't want to hand-craft 18,612 pieces of gear for your game? Me neither. The Loot Forge does it with a few clicks, to your specifications. Item sets, item levels, affix tiers, and a rarity ladder you name and color yourself, loot beams included.

• Dialogue: Wanna chat? Full dialogue engine with option trees and quest triggers. Completely turn-key.

• Skill Trees: With Vǫrðr, fully customizable skill trees eliminate the need for generic fill-ins, so Heal2 and Fire3 never have to make an appearance.

• The Quest Journal: No one ever said "Making the questing system is my favorite part of game dev." No. It's boring. So I made it for you, you're welcome.

• Reputation: These Consequences Will Have Actions. Wait, was that backwards? Make it matter with real reputation tracking, guilds and clans. Climb ranks you name, and watch each merchant's prices follow their faction.

• Built-In Merchant System: Buy/Sell/Trade: Everything's for sale friend, everything's for sale. Shops restock, merchants haggle, and the Shop Editor stocks a shop in a few clicks.

• Crafting: Set up workstations for crafting disciplines, as well as crafting from inventory.

• The Game Screens: Vǫrðr ships with all of the menu and UI elements (and yes, they actually work already) so you don't have to start from scratch. Want to make it your own? Check out our UI Editor.

• Party System: Real party-driven movement, communication and combat with menu integration, as well as followers for non D20-style games. Sorry, no jokes on this one. It's too serious.

• The Endgame: You set up where the game ends, no nonsense. End credits, new game+, no convoluted nonsense. One trigger, one end.

• Menus are already built: You can skip this massively irritating step, I did it for you. Title, pause, options, audio, video, gamepad and key rebinding are all there.

• Save Game: Saving and loading are built in, without a single line of code.

• Gamepad Support: XInput Support included. Full input mappings available, no headache, no frustration, no confusion.

Something Is Watching You

• Hunters: Enemies that see you, hear you, get suspicious and come looking. Find a good hiding place.

• Fear: A fear meter and a tension director, off until you turn them on.

• Flashlight: It runs on a battery. Batteries run out. You see where this is going.

• First Person: Head bob, lean, crouch and stamina, things you look at to use, and notes to find and read.

• Screen Effects: Vignette, chromatic aberration, film grain and distortion.

Hello, Superuser. I've been waiting for you.

• C++ architecture: C++ from head to toe, DirectX 11. Vǫrðr runs on your graphics card, so a DirectX 11 card is required.

• Rûn: Vǫrðr's own programming language, built from the ground up.

• The Node Editor: Visual node editor for Rûn backed by the full power of the language itself.

• The Event Debugger: Set breakpoints, then step over, into and out of your scripts.

• Custom Nouns Throughout: Are you trying to make a sweet GTA6 clone? Well, you probably don't want gold pieces and villagers. Change anything and everything with no hardcoded nonsense.

• Built-In Wiki: The documentation lives inside the editor, under Help.

Download The Demo Now - What The Demo Includes

Nearly all of the functionality in the demo is the same as is experienced in the full version of Vǫrðr. However, the demo version is unable to export a finished game for distribution. The full version will read project files created in the demo, and you'll be able to easily finish and export the game that you've already started creating. Isn't that exciting?

Help Shape The Future Of Vǫrðr

Your feedback is the most valuable thing for helping make Vǫrðr better. Right now, the engine is in very early stages of development. If you experience bugs, crashes, or have suggestions on how I can improve the features, interface or functionality, I want to hear about it.

Tell me in the Steam discussions or send an e-mail to dev@vordrforge.com.

Making your own video game should be a process that is fun and exciting. You should be able to make what you want, how you want, without having to worry about whether or not it will take weeks or months to learn some unfamiliar technology or platform. I have struggled through this, and as a result, what I bring to you is not just a game engine, but a platform that allows you to express what it is you want to express, as a video game. Deliverable, complete, yours. Royalty free. Welcome to Vǫrðr, my friend.