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Lost Chapters IV
I'm proud to present to you guys the latest game I am working on, which happens to be from an award winning series called Lost Chapters that I worked on back in the RPG Maker 2000 days.
How is it award winning? Well, the first game was awarded the title "worst RPG Maker game of all time" in 2001 and I am very proud of that!
The two following games were pretty bad too because I made them both in 2001 and they were mostly all RTP but yeah... Eight years later, I'm hoping that I can make something a bit better than RTP shitfests. I really don't want to be remembered for a Final Fantasy fangame so this is probably my last shot at RPG Maker mediocrity!
So what's this game about?
Lost Chapters IV is about World Trees, which are colossal in size and even more so power. In a nutshell, the World Trees were created by an all powerful being known as the Creator who gave birth to the planet and all life on it. The Creator looked into the future of his world and saw that the infant homosapiens (humans, obviously) would one day grow into a greedy, violent race that would harm the planet in many detrimental ways. He was aware that if he did not intervene before this happened, the humans would eventually destroy the planet. It would go from lush wonderland to giant desolate rock.
Becaue he obviously did not want his world to suffer this cruel fate, he decided to plan for this inevitable fate of the world. Rather than erasing homosapiens from his world (which he would not do, since he values all life), he decided to plant eight seeds which would grow into the World Trees. These eight trees, infused with vast amounts of mana, would counter the influence that the humans would have on the planet's health. These trees would pump their mana deep into the planet's core, which enriches the planet and keeps it healthy. In turn, the planet returns the drained mana to the World Trees in the form of essence, which the trees recycle back into mana and the process repeats.
The game itself takes place seven days after one of these trees comes under attack by Gorlasks, a sub-race of demons. The local inhabitants near the tree watch in horror as the demons drain mana from the tree. Eventually, the tree becomes a lifeless shell of its former self since mana was also needed to keep the tree alive. As the demons drain the last bit of mana from the World Tree, soldiers show up from Genesis, a world renowned research organization. The soldiers come from the military branch of Genesis, and they are known as biotroopers due to their enhanced elemental abilities. The Genesis biotroopers slaughter the Gorlasks and save what's left of the World Tree. After cleaning up, they regret not being able to arrive sooner and thenimmediately depart as if nothing had happened. Purdrassil, the World Tree that came under attack, is left to rot away now that it has been drained of its mana.
The game opens in a small town called Hillsdale, which coincidentally sits not too far from another World Tree. The player assumes the life of Lucas Vandergard, a young man tired with the laid back lifestyle of the countryside. However, his boredom quickly turns into curiousity and excitement as Gorlasks emerge yet again to attack a World Tree. This time, it is the one just outside of Hillsdale. Lucas grabs his best friend and rushes off to investigate, even though it is forbidden to do so by the village elder.
While it sounds pretty straight forward, I have some big plot twists already written down. Anyone who has played virtually every Playstation era RPG will probably be able to predict the twists, but that's alright.
Major Characters
Lucas Vandergard
The main character and protagonist of the story. Lucas is from Hillsdale, a small countryside village. He grows tired of the simple lifestyle that he is forced into by living in the village. His heart lies outside of the village due to his dream of being an adventurer. His dream is fulfilled when unexpected events force him to flee from Hillsdale forever. Lucas is often observant and analytical, catching onto details most would usually overlook.
Aiden Lundberger
Lucas' best friend. Aiden shares the same dreams, but for different reasons. He mostly feels that he simply does not belong in Hillsdale, that his exciting and suave lifestyle only spells trouble for the laid back village. Aiden counters Lucas' relaxed attitute with his own lively personality. He frequently evokes a fiery passion for anything he feels interested in.
Neville Kichfelt
The CEO of Genesis. Little is known about Neville other than his dastardly good looks and love of science are the only qualities of him known by the general public. Genesis insiders however know that Neville is often a dark and brooding man, putting scientific research above all else. Despite how he may appear to Genesis employees, few doubt his integrity and devotion to improving the lives of humankind through science.
Wolfgang Belmont
Wolfgang Belmont, is the current Emperor of Angtol, the nation which most of the game will hopefully take place in. He is an aging man who finds himself near the end of his road as his influence slowly fades away over Angtol as the people begin to look more towards the charismatic military leaders. The Emperor is one of the few people who object to Genesis' research, claiming that they are accomplishing too much in too little time. He believes that this will be their undoing.
Combat, Levels & Skills
I've decided to make combat a bit more interesting by completely removing physical attacks completely, meaning there is no "fight" command in battles. Everything is skill based. A character's command set looks like this:
What is Action? It is essentially the same as any magic/special/skill command. This is where almost every action your character can make will appear. It's something like... Well, for lack of a better example the closest thing I can think of to compare this to is Chrono Cross. All skills are elemental based and do all sorts of different things. All characters will have one element that they specialize in, and they will learn skills of that element type as they level up. A wind elemental character will only use wind attacks unless an item is found that teaches them a skill from another element type (such as fire).
Characters will have 20 AP (Action Points, this is just MP) from level 1 all the way to 99 and most skills will only cost 1-5 AP. Now, this might sound like characters will end up with no AP very quickly, meaning they would not be able to take any action at all instead of using items. Well, no. The "Defense" command allows characters to enter a state of regeneration. When they use a defence skill, the character will glow blue (temporary, all characters will glow the colour of their element later) and regenerate a slight bit of AP each turn and their defense will increase slightly as well. Characters can still act while they are in this state of regeneration and are not restricted in any way.
As well as specializing in one specific element each, every character will also be weak against one element. Say that there is a character named Bob who specializes in fire elemental attacks. Well, if Bob gets hit by an ice spell, he's probably going to get banged up pretty badly. This introduces a slight strategic aspect to battles. Will you want to bring Bob to an ice cave? Definitely, because he would obliterate the monsters there with his fire attacks, even if he may take a bit of extra damage. However, if you have Billy the shadow magic user who is also weak against ice attacks... Well, what good is he if he won't deal any extra damage but will still be weak against the monsters in the ice cave? When there are more than four characters in the party, I'm hoping that this would introduce a bit of planning such as..
"Well, I'm going into the volcano. Which character should I take? Who will deal extra damage to the monsters in the volcano and who will damaged more? And which characters will sit in between, dealing mediocre damage while also being hit for average amounts?"
And then there is leveling. Aside from gaining new skills from leveling up, there won't be many more benefits. You may get a few increases every now and then, but the difference between levels 1 and 10 will be very, very little. You're still going to need stats increased, though. This is where "essence" items come into play. They will act as the standard "use this to increase a character's HP by X amount" items. They will be scattered all over the world and will be found in treasure chests, in loot dropped from bosses, and probably as rewards for completing sidequests. Finding a sufficient amount of essence will be very important to not getting your butt handed to you later, but don't fret.. I am not going to make it overly difficult to find enough of these items.
Though all characters will already have predefined roles to fit into such as Fred being a tank character or Ted being a mage, essence should allow you to redefine the roles if you choose to, but since that would work against the growth rates I'll be assigning each character, this would probably act as a "hard mode" of sorts if the players finds the game to be too easy. I can see something like this happening..
"This game is too easy! What can I do to fix that? Hey, I know.. I'll turn Peter the pathetic priest into an overpowered warrior!"
This sort of play style will be helped by equippable items.
There is no weapon slot, no shield slot, no armor slot... The equip screen looks more like this:
A
B
C
D
E
Letters. Each item will have an icon indicating which slot it fits into and no slot fits any specific role. If you want +INT items on all five slots, then by all means! Five +AGI items? Sure, do that too if you want. Also, almost everything that drops off of monsters will be equippable. If you want to wear a minotaur hoof or squid tentacle on your head, then you have the damn right to do so!
This is all being done to let YOU ultimately decide which characters will end up doing what.
Anyway, enough of that. The game is still very young and I haven't really finished a lot yet, but here are a few things I can show off.
A few parts of this chipset are likely to be changed. Regarding the tree canopy above, it is supposed to be from leaves on branches overhead. I may change the canopy a bit to reflect this better.
My own weird chipset that is a heavy modification of several other chipsets thrown together. This is inside the tree and shows that it's not supposed to be all warm and fuzzy inside. The character set is temporary until I put something together for Lucas.
Battle Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibXHWy3bZV4
These dinosaurs aren't real encounters at all. They're just test subjects. This video also restarts after about 10 seconds, but it is fine after that.
Boss Battle Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEHv36ejGqA
Just to show off how I want battles to look/sound. This isn't a real fight, but the mushroom monster will probably end up being the first boss.
Forest Walkthrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-03RF8uWtc0
I made this forest before I even began working on this game. Since I am using the same graphical style, I've simply absorbed it into the project.
Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TlvYzIFjqw
This is likely to change. I'll change the wording of a few lines and add some more effects later.
And that's it for now, I'll post more as I work on the game. I'm open to all suggestions, so don't be afraid to post any.
How is it award winning? Well, the first game was awarded the title "worst RPG Maker game of all time" in 2001 and I am very proud of that!
The two following games were pretty bad too because I made them both in 2001 and they were mostly all RTP but yeah... Eight years later, I'm hoping that I can make something a bit better than RTP shitfests. I really don't want to be remembered for a Final Fantasy fangame so this is probably my last shot at RPG Maker mediocrity!
So what's this game about?
Lost Chapters IV is about World Trees, which are colossal in size and even more so power. In a nutshell, the World Trees were created by an all powerful being known as the Creator who gave birth to the planet and all life on it. The Creator looked into the future of his world and saw that the infant homosapiens (humans, obviously) would one day grow into a greedy, violent race that would harm the planet in many detrimental ways. He was aware that if he did not intervene before this happened, the humans would eventually destroy the planet. It would go from lush wonderland to giant desolate rock.
Becaue he obviously did not want his world to suffer this cruel fate, he decided to plan for this inevitable fate of the world. Rather than erasing homosapiens from his world (which he would not do, since he values all life), he decided to plant eight seeds which would grow into the World Trees. These eight trees, infused with vast amounts of mana, would counter the influence that the humans would have on the planet's health. These trees would pump their mana deep into the planet's core, which enriches the planet and keeps it healthy. In turn, the planet returns the drained mana to the World Trees in the form of essence, which the trees recycle back into mana and the process repeats.
The game itself takes place seven days after one of these trees comes under attack by Gorlasks, a sub-race of demons. The local inhabitants near the tree watch in horror as the demons drain mana from the tree. Eventually, the tree becomes a lifeless shell of its former self since mana was also needed to keep the tree alive. As the demons drain the last bit of mana from the World Tree, soldiers show up from Genesis, a world renowned research organization. The soldiers come from the military branch of Genesis, and they are known as biotroopers due to their enhanced elemental abilities. The Genesis biotroopers slaughter the Gorlasks and save what's left of the World Tree. After cleaning up, they regret not being able to arrive sooner and thenimmediately depart as if nothing had happened. Purdrassil, the World Tree that came under attack, is left to rot away now that it has been drained of its mana.
The game opens in a small town called Hillsdale, which coincidentally sits not too far from another World Tree. The player assumes the life of Lucas Vandergard, a young man tired with the laid back lifestyle of the countryside. However, his boredom quickly turns into curiousity and excitement as Gorlasks emerge yet again to attack a World Tree. This time, it is the one just outside of Hillsdale. Lucas grabs his best friend and rushes off to investigate, even though it is forbidden to do so by the village elder.
While it sounds pretty straight forward, I have some big plot twists already written down. Anyone who has played virtually every Playstation era RPG will probably be able to predict the twists, but that's alright.
Major Characters
Lucas Vandergard
The main character and protagonist of the story. Lucas is from Hillsdale, a small countryside village. He grows tired of the simple lifestyle that he is forced into by living in the village. His heart lies outside of the village due to his dream of being an adventurer. His dream is fulfilled when unexpected events force him to flee from Hillsdale forever. Lucas is often observant and analytical, catching onto details most would usually overlook.
Aiden Lundberger
Lucas' best friend. Aiden shares the same dreams, but for different reasons. He mostly feels that he simply does not belong in Hillsdale, that his exciting and suave lifestyle only spells trouble for the laid back village. Aiden counters Lucas' relaxed attitute with his own lively personality. He frequently evokes a fiery passion for anything he feels interested in.
Neville Kichfelt
The CEO of Genesis. Little is known about Neville other than his dastardly good looks and love of science are the only qualities of him known by the general public. Genesis insiders however know that Neville is often a dark and brooding man, putting scientific research above all else. Despite how he may appear to Genesis employees, few doubt his integrity and devotion to improving the lives of humankind through science.
Wolfgang Belmont
Wolfgang Belmont, is the current Emperor of Angtol, the nation which most of the game will hopefully take place in. He is an aging man who finds himself near the end of his road as his influence slowly fades away over Angtol as the people begin to look more towards the charismatic military leaders. The Emperor is one of the few people who object to Genesis' research, claiming that they are accomplishing too much in too little time. He believes that this will be their undoing.
Combat, Levels & Skills
I've decided to make combat a bit more interesting by completely removing physical attacks completely, meaning there is no "fight" command in battles. Everything is skill based. A character's command set looks like this:
- Action
- Defense
- Item
- Row
What is Action? It is essentially the same as any magic/special/skill command. This is where almost every action your character can make will appear. It's something like... Well, for lack of a better example the closest thing I can think of to compare this to is Chrono Cross. All skills are elemental based and do all sorts of different things. All characters will have one element that they specialize in, and they will learn skills of that element type as they level up. A wind elemental character will only use wind attacks unless an item is found that teaches them a skill from another element type (such as fire).
Characters will have 20 AP (Action Points, this is just MP) from level 1 all the way to 99 and most skills will only cost 1-5 AP. Now, this might sound like characters will end up with no AP very quickly, meaning they would not be able to take any action at all instead of using items. Well, no. The "Defense" command allows characters to enter a state of regeneration. When they use a defence skill, the character will glow blue (temporary, all characters will glow the colour of their element later) and regenerate a slight bit of AP each turn and their defense will increase slightly as well. Characters can still act while they are in this state of regeneration and are not restricted in any way.
As well as specializing in one specific element each, every character will also be weak against one element. Say that there is a character named Bob who specializes in fire elemental attacks. Well, if Bob gets hit by an ice spell, he's probably going to get banged up pretty badly. This introduces a slight strategic aspect to battles. Will you want to bring Bob to an ice cave? Definitely, because he would obliterate the monsters there with his fire attacks, even if he may take a bit of extra damage. However, if you have Billy the shadow magic user who is also weak against ice attacks... Well, what good is he if he won't deal any extra damage but will still be weak against the monsters in the ice cave? When there are more than four characters in the party, I'm hoping that this would introduce a bit of planning such as..
"Well, I'm going into the volcano. Which character should I take? Who will deal extra damage to the monsters in the volcano and who will damaged more? And which characters will sit in between, dealing mediocre damage while also being hit for average amounts?"
And then there is leveling. Aside from gaining new skills from leveling up, there won't be many more benefits. You may get a few increases every now and then, but the difference between levels 1 and 10 will be very, very little. You're still going to need stats increased, though. This is where "essence" items come into play. They will act as the standard "use this to increase a character's HP by X amount" items. They will be scattered all over the world and will be found in treasure chests, in loot dropped from bosses, and probably as rewards for completing sidequests. Finding a sufficient amount of essence will be very important to not getting your butt handed to you later, but don't fret.. I am not going to make it overly difficult to find enough of these items.
Though all characters will already have predefined roles to fit into such as Fred being a tank character or Ted being a mage, essence should allow you to redefine the roles if you choose to, but since that would work against the growth rates I'll be assigning each character, this would probably act as a "hard mode" of sorts if the players finds the game to be too easy. I can see something like this happening..
"This game is too easy! What can I do to fix that? Hey, I know.. I'll turn Peter the pathetic priest into an overpowered warrior!"
This sort of play style will be helped by equippable items.
There is no weapon slot, no shield slot, no armor slot... The equip screen looks more like this:
A
B
C
D
E
Letters. Each item will have an icon indicating which slot it fits into and no slot fits any specific role. If you want +INT items on all five slots, then by all means! Five +AGI items? Sure, do that too if you want. Also, almost everything that drops off of monsters will be equippable. If you want to wear a minotaur hoof or squid tentacle on your head, then you have the damn right to do so!
This is all being done to let YOU ultimately decide which characters will end up doing what.
Anyway, enough of that. The game is still very young and I haven't really finished a lot yet, but here are a few things I can show off.
A few parts of this chipset are likely to be changed. Regarding the tree canopy above, it is supposed to be from leaves on branches overhead. I may change the canopy a bit to reflect this better.
My own weird chipset that is a heavy modification of several other chipsets thrown together. This is inside the tree and shows that it's not supposed to be all warm and fuzzy inside. The character set is temporary until I put something together for Lucas.
Battle Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibXHWy3bZV4
These dinosaurs aren't real encounters at all. They're just test subjects. This video also restarts after about 10 seconds, but it is fine after that.
Boss Battle Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEHv36ejGqA
Just to show off how I want battles to look/sound. This isn't a real fight, but the mushroom monster will probably end up being the first boss.
Forest Walkthrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-03RF8uWtc0
I made this forest before I even began working on this game. Since I am using the same graphical style, I've simply absorbed it into the project.
Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TlvYzIFjqw
This is likely to change. I'll change the wording of a few lines and add some more effects later.
And that's it for now, I'll post more as I work on the game. I'm open to all suggestions, so don't be afraid to post any.
Blackmoon Prophecy (Alive once more!)
author=WIP link=topic=775.msg10304#msg10304 date=1205008246
Man that original castle layout drove me nuts.
Yeah, I have no idea what I was on when I said "Hey, it would be cool to enter the castle from the BACK!! And make it really twisty and turny too!"
Blackmoon Prophecy (Alive once more!)
Blackmoon Prophecy (Alive once more!)
author=Tau link=topic=775.msg10290#msg10290 date=1204977291
When did you decide to start making his again, like how did you get the inspiration to bring it back, peer pressure? haha.
As my original post says, I just gave it a little play one day, and I had fun doing so... So I decided to start it up again.
At the moment Reminisce is just kicking around in limbo, and I think it will stay that way. People liked Blackmoon Prophecy more than Reminisce anyway.
Blackmoon Prophecy (Alive once more!)
Dig the new sound effects and animations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRg6mfcBfl4
If someone took something from your game
I had someone claim my charset edits were his own when he used them in his game. I didn't care that he used them at all, but he at least could have fessed up by admitting that they were MY edits. :p
If someone stole my maps or story or something of the sort though, I'd probably spread the word and make sure their project never gets off the ground.
If someone stole my maps or story or something of the sort though, I'd probably spread the word and make sure their project never gets off the ground.
Blackmoon Prophecy (Alive once more!)
This... is the story of the little fangame that could...
It was loved by many for its copying of an outdated mapping style that died almost 20 years ago...
And gameplay that would make Will Wright's head implode...
This little fangame eventually got canned by its maker...
And a game called Reminisce was made in its place...
But Reminisce was not as well received...
Eventually, the creator found the little fangame again and he played it...
And he had fun...
So he opened RPG Maker and life returned to the stagnant game...
So, here it is. In case you haven't been checking the screenshot topic or haven't seen my signature, my old-school FF fangame, Blackmoon Prophecy, is back with more nostalgia-inducing moments after being dead for nearly two years! :woop:
I am hard (yeah right) at work extending the length of the game, but I am not just making the game longer.. I'm also going through it with a fine comb and I am fixing up all the stupidly large caves, confusingly designed castles...
Here's an example.
Anyone remember that really screwed up layout for Branch Castle? You know, that place people used to tell me was laid out weird?
Well with Blackmoon Prophecy back from the dead and new places being made and all, I thought I should revisit older places and fix them up..
The weird out of place tower at the bottom left hand corner of the castle has been removed since I took this picture.
With the various caves, I have actually sliced off entire passageways, deleted entire maps, and narrowed them down a bit. What's the result? Well, for starters the first cave you visit isn't going to take you 30 minutes to complete anymore.. The way it should be.
I've looked at the ability/magic situation, where there were complaints about Vahn needing more MP or skills.. It has been addressed, as he has a handful of skills to learn, one being a spear attack that absorbs MP from the enemy, allowing Vahn to use his skills MUCH more frequently.
Another small fact I am happy with is that I've added all proper sprites and animations for when someone gets a status effect put on them. Poison, Blind, Mute, Berserk, Sleep, Petrify, Stun, Zombie, Haste, Slow, Regen, Protect, and Shell. The latter five flash the characters different colours. Red is haste, white is slow, etc... The only status ailment I haven't added yet is confuse. I might just stick a question mark over their head or something..
Another Little Tidbit: Character-specific weapons are no more. You want your black mage to use a spear? Well, by all means do so! I'm going to work to make sure that different weapon types benefit certain characters more than others though, such as rods giving intelligence bonuses.
So, what else is up in the game? Let's take a gander at some pictures.
For those who aren't familiar with Blackmoon Prophecy at all, here is my "designer diary" on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DanielBabineau
Bringing the new folks up to speed here...
I guess I never knew just how much people liked Blackmoon Prophecy until I found this:
http://fishspeaker.com/cultured/?page_id=845
Hit Ctrl+F and type Blackmoon. Wait until you see what you find.
Demo in the Spring. Not a lot of new stuff, I just want to see how all my changes and modifications fare. :cool:
It was loved by many for its copying of an outdated mapping style that died almost 20 years ago...
And gameplay that would make Will Wright's head implode...
This little fangame eventually got canned by its maker...
And a game called Reminisce was made in its place...
But Reminisce was not as well received...
Eventually, the creator found the little fangame again and he played it...
And he had fun...
So he opened RPG Maker and life returned to the stagnant game...
So, here it is. In case you haven't been checking the screenshot topic or haven't seen my signature, my old-school FF fangame, Blackmoon Prophecy, is back with more nostalgia-inducing moments after being dead for nearly two years! :woop:
I am hard (yeah right) at work extending the length of the game, but I am not just making the game longer.. I'm also going through it with a fine comb and I am fixing up all the stupidly large caves, confusingly designed castles...
Here's an example.
Anyone remember that really screwed up layout for Branch Castle? You know, that place people used to tell me was laid out weird?
Well with Blackmoon Prophecy back from the dead and new places being made and all, I thought I should revisit older places and fix them up..
The weird out of place tower at the bottom left hand corner of the castle has been removed since I took this picture.
With the various caves, I have actually sliced off entire passageways, deleted entire maps, and narrowed them down a bit. What's the result? Well, for starters the first cave you visit isn't going to take you 30 minutes to complete anymore.. The way it should be.
I've looked at the ability/magic situation, where there were complaints about Vahn needing more MP or skills.. It has been addressed, as he has a handful of skills to learn, one being a spear attack that absorbs MP from the enemy, allowing Vahn to use his skills MUCH more frequently.
Another small fact I am happy with is that I've added all proper sprites and animations for when someone gets a status effect put on them. Poison, Blind, Mute, Berserk, Sleep, Petrify, Stun, Zombie, Haste, Slow, Regen, Protect, and Shell. The latter five flash the characters different colours. Red is haste, white is slow, etc... The only status ailment I haven't added yet is confuse. I might just stick a question mark over their head or something..
Another Little Tidbit: Character-specific weapons are no more. You want your black mage to use a spear? Well, by all means do so! I'm going to work to make sure that different weapon types benefit certain characters more than others though, such as rods giving intelligence bonuses.
So, what else is up in the game? Let's take a gander at some pictures.
For those who aren't familiar with Blackmoon Prophecy at all, here is my "designer diary" on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DanielBabineau
Bringing the new folks up to speed here...
It all started in November 2003, Blackmoon Prophecy was originally going to be a game with an action battle system, like Zelda.. With FF4 themed graphics. After gathering resources and setting to work, it somehow turned into a Final Fantasy fangame, which I am no stranger to (I made a crappy one back in 2001 that was not well thought out or even planned). So, I just named it "Final Fantasy: Blackmoon Prophecy." Today, it's the "little fangame that could" with the graphics as the game's catch and gameplay that supposedly dispells the urban legend that all fangames must suck. This is not a "sequel" to FF4 or FF5, just a fangame that borrows graphics from each game. In the end though, I'd probably say that this is more of a tribute to the early FF games than a true fangame.
I guess I never knew just how much people liked Blackmoon Prophecy until I found this:
http://fishspeaker.com/cultured/?page_id=845
Hit Ctrl+F and type Blackmoon. Wait until you see what you find.
Demo in the Spring. Not a lot of new stuff, I just want to see how all my changes and modifications fare. :cool:
Reminisce
Yes, just advert, but I really want to have a demo ready later this month or sometime in August. DEFINITELY before September.
So why am I making this topic? Well, it is probably blindingly obvious that I started working on Reminisce quite a bit again two weeks ago. Since working on it, I have made over 100 new maps, introduced a new character, two new regions, and added at least an hour of play time, bringing Reminisce to (I hope) about 3 hours in total.
What I want to do is just show off some of the new things and what is going on story-wise.
First off is where the old demo left off, at the end of the Jomalle Cave, which leads into the Highvalley Region. The Highvalley Region is home to the Highvalley Monastery which up to where the demo ended, was the location the game basically revolved around due to Eleina's inevitable arrival at the monastery.
The demo ended with Duran and Eleina, again, fighting Omicron and Sigma. I received several questions and complaints about these two in the past. Who are they? Who do they work for? What are their objectives? Why the HELL do they talk so damn weird?! Most of those questions will be answered because, of course, they'll make another appearance when the player technically "beats" the Highvalley region. As I said, previous questions will be answered, but new questions will be asked thanks to.. the progression of the main story!
That's right. The storyline in the previous demo was barely even there - at all. All the player knew was that somehow Omicron and Sigma play a factor (due to Arden's flashback). In the new demo, players will learn of the main threat in the game (an evil empire, of course) which will be made up of a few different organizations as well as the necessary "every RPG must have them" military assholes who will stand in your way.
But enough about what's coming in the story.. I just wanted to stress that Reminisce will not revolve around "small town chores" carried out by Duran.
So what's coming up... First off, anyone who never found the town of Lakeside in the Jomalle Region will probably want to.
Lakeside is an abandoned town which you are able to build up by finding people willing to move in (hmmmmm Breath of Fire?). In the old demo, I think all I had for the player to find was a guard and an item vendor. In the new demo, there will be a priest (very minor guy) and... this guy.
Oalston the explorer, named after a character from my previous game, Blackmoon Prophecy. In fact, Reminisce now has a Hans in it as well, but I won't show him in this topic because he's spoilerific.
So, what does Oalston do? He moves into Lakeside and opens up an underground bestiary. In this bestiary, there will be numerous floors. Each floor contains monsters from specific regions and also has music from the corresponding regions. Example..
B1 (first floor) will have monsters from the first region, Vila. Vila's music will also play.
B2 will have monsters from the Jomalle region and will also have its music.
But no, you don't fight the monsters on the floors. Instead, when you talk to one, you will see...
A magnified image of the monster's battle image, as well as its name, classification, and where it can be found.
Press enter and you can either check its stats and weaknesses/strengths or battle rewards (exp, gold, item drop).
There will be a floor for every region in the game. Now, it will probably get pretty deep and after reaching your desired floor, you may dread the walk to get back outside.. so I will probably include red ooze-pahs which will warp you back to the first floor.
For people who are new to Reminisce, ooze-pahs are little smiling, jiggly slimes you will encounter throughout the game.
Blue Ooze-pah: These cheerful guys will offer to save your game. They are notably concerned about your safety, because if you opt not to save they will express their worry for your safety.
Red Ooze-pah: Insanely hyper blobs which will warp you around the world. Most red ooze-pahs will only warp you to one location, but there is one which you can send to Lakeside which will warp you to any major town you have been to.
Black Ooze-pah: These are stubborn ooze-pahs which live in the wild and will usually block your way unless you give them something or run an errand for them. They are very picky.
Now, new regions..
First off, there is the Highvalley Region which is made up of about.. 50 maps or so. I've received some criticism for the way I mapped it, and I have to say... sorry, but it's not changing.
So what have I been criticized for?
Look at the tree canopy along the sides of the map. Notice how I am not using the trees to accompany it. There are roughly fifty maps which feature this style of mapping, and I grew to appreciate it after a bit. To go back through the maps and resize them, add the trees, and still make sure the maps retained their original look while ALSO ensuring that monster spawn points wouldn't get messed up... it would take far too long. We're talking hours.
More of the Highvalley Region..
There is a picture of two ooze-pahs as well. Note their happiness. They are always a welcome sight! :)
The next region is the Daguero Hills region. It is a rainy pine forest full of shrubs, rocks, and other little things. It is probably the most diverse looking zone thus far.
The Daguero Hills will be nearly as large as the Highvalley Region, but will feature many more sidequests and an optional dungeon (a bog).
The next demo will also introduce a new character by the name of Rasche.
Rasche hails from Hillsdale (a town in the Highvalley Region). He is a brute who excels at combat and carries a halberd. He has no real magic skills except stat boosting spells. His attacks, except for his starting one, are all elemental based which means Rasche will be valuable in many situations given the fact that he will have a fire attack, ice attack, and thunder attack. He will easily be able to exploit the weaknesses of many monsters.
Also.. The player will eventually reach the Highvalley Monastery where Duran and Eleina part ways. There is a goodbye sequence which I hope will feel sort of authentic. If not, tell me and I'll work on it.
After this, Duran returns home and gets to return to two old locations in Vila.. First, he will have to search for his mother on an unexplored area of Mt. Vila, complete with new monsters. Afterwards, Duran will have to venture to the previously meaningless location of Sorrow Hill, which fully opens up and reveals itself to be three or four times larger than before. From there, Duran will return to the Highvalley region where he will finish a bit of work in Hillsdale and the monastery, and then he departs for Daguero Hills where he will run into new foes, new monsters, new sidequests, and new optional places to visit.
Duran, Eleina, and Rasche will learn new skills (Duran will get all five of his LV1 attacks, one of which can be upgraded in the next demo) and plenty of new pieces of equipment will appear. In fact, the game will start to look more strategic as most pieces of equipment will raise one stat, but will also lower another at the same time. Need attack power? Equip an item which boosts attack but lowers agility. Having trouble with those speedy monsters which get two attacks in before you get one? Equip an item which increases agility but lowers intelligence and beat them into oblivion.
The difficulty will also increase substantially. My bosses will continue to be overly difficult unless you do some powerleveling. Bosses at the end of the demo will come close to pushing 200 hit points. The last bosses in the old demo only peaked at about.. 30 hit points or so, which indicates how steep the stats evolve in the new demo.
Characters
Duran Wolfbane
The main character from the village of Vila. His father, Arden Wolfbane is the most famous person from Vila due to his extraordinary blacksmithing skills. Duran is being trained by his father to replace him one day, but Duran does not really want to be a blacksmith, he would rather travel to a large city. He is romantically involved with Eleina Waeyn, a local girl.
Eleina Waeyn
From the village of Vila, she is romantically involved with Duran. Recently, the Church offered to train her as a priestess - something that nobody from the small town of Vila ever managed. Unfortunately, if she were to accept, she would have to leave Vila. Because of this, she does not know if she wants to truly leave Vila, where her family and boyfriend are.
Rasche Skygrave
Rasche, considerably older than Duran, is the son of Elder Mirn in Hillsdale. Rasche decides to assist Duran several times when trouble leads him to the Highvalley region. Duran is well aware that Rasche hides something, as he mentions "him" several times throughout their time together. Rasche is exceptionally strong and relies on only a halberd to do his work.
Arden Wolfbane
Arden Wolfbane, father of Duran, has always been an exceptional blacksmith. Ever since he was just a child, Arden has been able to forge weapons that rivaled the competition's. Even though he is a successful businessman, he has chosen to remain in the small village of Vila where he has enjoyed a peaceful life.
Rin the Hermit
An old man who raised Arden Wolfbane and taught him how to become the blacksmith he is today. After Arden surpassed Rin, he decided to retire to his old shack in the woods where he enjoys a quiet, peaceful life.
Omicromn & Sigma
Mysterious dark knights who show up at random times in Duran's adventure. Their motives are not clear, and their characters are very strange - they do not talk like ordinary people. In fact, their speech is so strange that they almost make no sense or repeat themselves.
Vice Grayson
Leader of the Imperial Army of Archaron. Vice is often seen as a tough, cold-hearted warrior, the "bad seed" of the Empire. In the past, he has been accused of torturing criminals of war. Vice fell into his current position when Emperor Edgar Belmont's brother, who was the previous man in charge of the military, vanished.
High Priestess Alynda
Alynda (last name coming eventually) is in charge of Highvalley Monastery and takes all new students directly under her wing. She is incredibly gifted and is one of the most skilled magic users in the land.
Hikash
A mysterious man who kills for incomprehensible reasons. His motives for doing so are impossible to understand.
Here are some other screenshots which serve no purpose other than to show off other stupid aspects of the game.
So.. demo later this month or at a random time in August. We'll see.
We Did It First screenshot thread
author=Forever An Ill Fate link=topic=5.msg1138#msg1138 date=1182880863
I'd suggest moving the tree one tile over to the left. You've got the hero covered a little.
Yeah, I noticed how that looked after I took the screen. He doesn't stay in that one spot, and the event can be triggered from either where he is standing or the tile above him so it isn't as bad as it looks. ;)
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