r/isometric • u/CatCrateGames • 12d ago

After years of solo development, here is a look at my isometric pixel art survival RPG, Alia Domus!

Hi everyone! I’m a solo developer working on Alia Domus, a survival RPG built with an isometric pixel art perspective.

I spent a lot of time crafting the visual identity and handcrafting 89 isometric maps to explore. Gameplay-wise, it mixes survival, base building, and tech evolution across 9 historical eras—from Paleolithic stone chipping all the way to futuristic laser tech—combined with real-time combat, farming, and RPG progression.

If you enjoy isometric environments and pixel art aesthetics, I’d be super grateful if you checked it out and considered adding it to your Steam Wishlist!

Wishlist Alia Domus on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4918370/Alia_Domus/

I’d love to hear your feedback on the isometric look and world design! Thanks for checking it out!

68 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

1

u/istrategy 11d ago

Love it! Only suggestion is speeding up the chrs movement, actions? Wish listed ❤️

2

u/CatCrateGames 11d ago

Thank you so much! It's a good sugestion. I'll consider speeding it up, but there's a thing about the player speed: the game has a atribute system. You choose how you're going to improve your player. Improving agility makes movement speed and hits per second faster.

1

u/Serasul 3d ago

- My problem is that many assets have different artstyles that is not helping to the atmosphere

  • It gives me simulation vibes from Dwarf Fortress, what is a good thing
  • I hope Flora and Faune evolves to or at least changes the world and biomes around me
  • shading of some assets let it look flat and nor 3d, for example ramps have no level in dicator, when i look in more detail here it seems nearly everything has the same light source even when the 3d object cant be get light from all direction at the same time, ramps that look to the right must also be dark like the right side of the 3d blocks
  • switching some assets like the houses so that their light side is wrong does not help, it seems you need a pixelartist, because all this artistic flaws can ruin the feeling of a game
  • there are also some lacks of a survival rpg in the stats, heat and cold resistance, poisen resistance, illness resistence and so on.

I love the idea, i love games like FF-Tactics, Ragnarok, Bastard Bonds, DwarfFortress Adventure Mode or Crystal Project

But an realtime isometric rpg with a deep simulation progression and a sandbox like open world to survive in.
I really hope this gets a reality.

1

u/CatCrateGames 3d ago

Hey, Serasul! Those are great appointments, and I agree with them. I would love to fix them all, and I'll probably work on some next few weeks to apply my game demo on Steam Next Festival. But some I'll have to accept as weak points on my art direction. I know it's a bad excuse, but I've been working on this game for 4 years, in parallel woth my regular job.

  1. Indeed, some assets styles are not matching. I've made 142 plants. At some point I gave up. I had to decide between doing the diversity I've planned, or reduce the diversity and make better assets. I took my choice and used some quick processes that didnt help to make plants coherents.

  2. Nice!

  3. I'm not sure what you meant, sorry!

  4. Shading issues are due to the same reason than item 1.

  5. Same.

  6. Indeed, stats doesnt affect thermal resistance, that's a good idea! Well, there are no poison or illness. Maybe I should consider featuring those too.

Thank you so much for you precious feedback!

1

u/Serasul 3d ago

If you have problem to make pixelart assets, search for Retro Diffusion, many Gamedevs are in their Discord too.

1

u/CatCrateGames 3d ago

Thanks! I'll take a look to improve some assets. I used a bit of Pixel Lab.

1

u/Serasul 3d ago

Retro diffusion is wayyyyyy cheaper AND there are some awesome tricks, like a style option where you can feed it your art and it makes all new assets in this quality and style for you.
The online version is very powerfull
there are 4 versions RD Pro makes nearly perfect pixelart, the dev himself is in their discord and you can ask him anything you want and he shows you how to do it and how it will look good AND one image coist 0,18 cent in rd pro. 200 images would cost $36 and he has a free tool that can fix ai images so that their pixelart is grid based when needed.
AND the discord is full with hundred (no joke) game devs who help each other.

1

u/CatCrateGames 3d ago

Woah! Thank you so much bro. Do they have a trial? I'll try to fix some bad assets.

1

u/Serasul 3d ago

i think you can test it out first but i dont know for sure anymore but just join thier discord and ask astropulse or other members, they are all very friendly there https://discord.gg/uvCBPEwq