Abstract- When Kaeri is set extremely off-balance and its structure is on its limit and about to collapse, Cookie Doku must hurry through her world to find six crystal tears that will restore peace. Genre- Fantasy RPG Platform- RPG Maker XP
Story In a faraway planet from a different galaxy... Sacred items known as the Crystal Tears are being stolen and destroyed, throwing off Kaeri's balance! The days and nights don't follow each other anymore, the weather is completely reversed and the three different layers of the planet, all containing many forms of life, threaten to collapse and destroy the world! Inside her castle, safely, the one that began all this laughs. All that they hope is that the awful, egocentrical maniac and her stupid friend don't even dare to make their move... Fortunately for all, that's not what Cookie Doku, the soon-to-be-queen of Kaeri, plans on doing! As soon as the first tremors start and she is mistakenly expelled from her own castle, she drags her best friend Miky Miyokie and the two go off to restore the balance. But, without their power in full, it will be a difficult quest, against the most powerful enemy they could ever face.. Will they succeed, or fail?!
Setting
Settings
Kaeri is the mystical world where it is said that the two queens of the Universe live. It is a very complex world, with eight countries, and three different layers: The Overworld: Home to the Angels and spirits of light, it is up in the clouds directly above the Underworld. It has three countries: Meryd: Country of Water, and home to Princess Cappuccino. Known for its constant freezing. Most of the beings that live there are water-adapted ones, like Mermaids, as the princess herself. Bris: Country of Wind, land of Princess Mya. Composed of mainly high peaks of hills, it leads directly to Lumine. Flying creatures make this country their home- it is also known for its vast population of elves. Lumine: Country of Light, where Princess Shiro lives. It's a vast chain of floating mountains, covered entirely of snow, at all times. Few creatures live here, due to the harsh conditions. The Spiral Staircase of this country leads to Bris. Besides the three countries, the Heavens are also located here. They're where Hikari Priestess Academy is located, and where light souls go after their death to become Angels.
The Underworld: Home to the Succubus and dark spirits, it's the widest, yet thinner, layer. Underneath it are the Cores. It has three countries: Thorne: Country of Earth, belongs to Princess Ami. It has deep forests and wide jungles, where nature sprouts like nowhere else in Kaeri. It is home to all kinds of creatures, except flying ones. Flemme: Country of Fire, like its Princess, the fiery Glow. Known for its seas of lava, deep volcanoes, hot weather and its vast desert, many kinds of beings come here, some even attracted by the Princess herself. Leads directly to Obsur. Obsur: Country of Darkness, ruled by Princess Kuro. It is, like Lumine, a wide chain of floating mountains, yet these of Obsur are thawed at all times. It is mostly deserted, with the exception of the castle town. Its Spiral Staircase leads to Flemme. In addition to the three countries, Succuris is also located in the Underworld. It is the main living place of Succubus and it is where dark souls go after their death.
The Cores: The innermost layer of Kaeri, it belongs entirely to the two queens. There are no wild monsters in these mystical worlds, only the castle people and the castle town. It has two countries: Mizuyari: Core of Light, belongs to the Queen of Light, Cookie Doku. It's a lush place filled with forests and also high peaks. It has a small sea and a very nice beach, all created by queen Cookie. Aiyari: Core of Dark, of the Queen of Darkness, Miky Miyokie. Though it may sound a bit glum, queen Miky checked that it would be as beautiful as possible herself. Aiyari is made of vast plains always blooming, and its castle town is called the 'City of Love'.
Characters
Chars
COOKIE DOKU: AGE: 18 CLASS: Warrior PRIMARY WEAPON: Sword SECONDARY WEAPON: Dagger HISTORY: Cookie grew up as an ordinary human, but since the first day of her life she had an insatiable curiosty and a strong will to be different from everyone else. One of her closest friends died when she was 14, and since that day she's blamed herself for it. She has her personal reasons, but Miky doesn't approve of them. She's the follower to Alice's reign of terror Kaeri, which means she is the High Princess of Light. Her deities are Mya Hittori, Cappu Crème and Shiro Itsumada. PERSONALITY: Cookie is a crazy girl. She likes to sell herself as strong and fearless, but she cries a lot for the weirdest reasons, and she can't sleep fine when there's no light. However, there's no doubt she's wise, strong and kind when she situation calls for, but due to terrible experiences in her past, she can also be cold and cruel. Rumours say that once, Cookie killed six people that she hated, but she says it's a lie. Usually she is very easy to befriend, and likes to annoy her best friends. She is very protective of Miky.
MIKY MIYOKIE: AGE: 18 CLASS: Witch PRIMARY WEAPON: Wand SECONDARY WEAPON: Bow HISTORY: Miky shares almost her whole past with Cookie, since the two have known each other since they were three years old. She also suffered a lot from the loss of one of her closest friends (who was also very good friends with Cookie), but unlike Cookie, she doesn't blame herself or Cookie for it, even though she knows the good reasons Cookie blames herself for. She's Anne's successor, and the High Princess of Darkness. Her deities are Glow Prettyshine, Ami Goldheart and Kuro Itsumada. PERSONALITY: Miky is stubborn, weird and rash. Though not as courageous as her best friend, she too often steps up when she needs to. Miky has a lot more sense of reality than Cookie, and due to being a magic user, she's very smart. However, she's great at messing up things and forgetting stuff, which makes her stubborn more of a fault than a virtue. Unlike Cookie, she can't remember the horrible things they went through as clearly, so she is a lot less cruel, but sometimes she can really hurt the people around her, even if she doesn't notice it. She protects Cookie whenever such is needed, but she likes to pick on her. A lot.
[Fuchsia Elfynnia]
[some old guy that has a spear as weapon. Dunno name yet]
Luc Ekite: Age: 25 Gender: Male Personality: A little snotty, yet very intelligent. He's very annoyable, and quite restless. However, Luc is very knowledgeable, and he always has a few words of wisdom to share. (That is, when nobody tells him to shut up.) Biography: Luc is one of the descendants of Myso, however, during the millenia, the lineage of the Ekite changed from Elves to Humans. Luc lives in Obsur's castle town where he studies the primary energy form of Kaeri.
Ta'nya: Age: 27 Gender: Female Personality: Outgoing and extremely smart, Ta'nya is the tactical element this party lacks much. She has a fiery spirit and is always willing to go on an adventure. Biography: She lives in Kasit, the desert town of Flemme, and is very experienced in fighting, as she is the Champion of the Flemme Battle Tournament. Rumors say she defeated Princess Glow in her dragon form, although she doesn't say anything about it.
[DUN DUN DUUUN TWO MYSTERY CHARACTERS ;D]
Credits Minkoff for Minkoff Battle Script DerVVulfman for Enhanced Script Leifthrasir for Title Screen Music
EDIT 15.11.2011: Updated last screenie; Added Ami's character art EDIT 16.11.2011: Added Shiro's character art EDIT 21.11.2011: Added info about Ta'nya; Changed banner; Changed Cookie's official art EDIT 09.07.2012: Changed logo, removed unused characters, updated Cookie and Miky's descriptions, updated story.
This post has been edited by Dragoncookie: Nov 25 2012, 05:33 AM
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The art is very cute, but your mapping needs work. Especially the last screen; it has way too much empty space. Spruce it up a little! As a rule of thumb, it's always better to compress your maps to as small a space as possible.
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the art is nice , the outer white look a bit jagged maybe can do something about that? yeah the map is very big , you also need to think does the player like to walk that place/seeing what they see? / do you like playing it? a plant growing above concrete tend to rise a question, and does a king audience chamber need to have book shelf beside it? player would certainly take notice of that right away.
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The art is like SOOO cute, and I FELL IN LOVE with the title screen. Like everyone else said, the mapping looks iffy, kind of rushed, really. It looks like you quickly shoved it together to get some screenies. Also, the courtyard looks a bit bland for a castle, doesn't it?
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@supercow: thanks! the outlines look jagged because I use pixel to do them, and as I don't have a program that can save transparent .png's, I must do them with pixels... so they always look jagged. well like I said before, yeah, it does have too much space, I'm fixing it already... and thank you for that advice. It'll surely come in handy (I'll start testing every map visually before moving onto the next one) well, it's a world where magic exists. Why not plants on concrete? ... really, the outside of the castle needed some extra decor. I can't remove the bookshelves, because one of them is actually a secret entrance to a shortcut leading to Aiyari.
@Guinevere: I'm glad you liked them ^^ I didn't do that!! xD really... the only thing that could be considered 'quickly shoved together' was the title screen. Even though I had a strike of inspiration right then :| it was kinda creepy. But I didn't rush the castle entrance! Really. Well it's just the main entrance and it's got a biiiig problem- it leads to a FOREST not a TOWN. Well it leads to a town but it's a forest town. so it's kinda... normal. Y'know. Just a... main... entrance?
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Paint.NET... Working on it! Thank you sooo much xD Thanks, really! I'm glad everyone seems to like the art, and I'm really really glad you like the places.
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Make a favor to yourself: scrap this horrendous RMXP default windowskin... there's so many great windows out there. Also, an better font, more suitable for the theme, would be great.
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Well, everybody has more or less stated my opinion. When I first read the "abstract" I couldn't help but wonder: How original? But after reading the story, it sounds like it can be a lot of fun and adventurous.
While the second one is the worst of the two screenshots, they could both probably use some work. However, I'm thinking that it's not really just the mapping, but how it clashes with your artwork. If you end up using a more cartoonish look for your characters, a cartoonish style of mapping (such as painting your maps and then adding them as parallax) may fare much better.
Another thought is that this may come off more successful as a hack/slash zelda clone, but creating an ABS can be very rough.
@Atoa: thanks for the advice! I'll be adding my custom windowskin as soon as I finish it. I'll change the font immediatly too.
@amerk: thank you so much but, I'm a little confused. I'd try to change my mapping, but how exactly do you add maps as parallax? I don't really get the concept of it (not to mention I'm not too familiar with the concept of parallax.)
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I'm not sure if it works as well with XP as it does in VX. In VX you can use Photoshop, resize the screen so it matches the same pixel resolution as it would in the editor, and either copy paste tiles that way so you are not confined by the 32*32 grid, or even paint your maps. Then save as a .png image to the Graphics/Parallax folder of the game.
In the editor, you would create a new map and there's a tab for drop-down parallax where you can select the map. Then all you would have to do is use a blank tile to designate un-passable areas.
I haven't used it much myself since I'm not very savvy with image programs, but it might be something you can handle seeing your artwork.
Here are a couple of links to describe in better detail (again, for VX, but perhaps the same thing can be done with XP):
You mean, hand-drawing them and setting them as the panorama? (I think it's panorama in XP and parallax in VX) But, don't they move slower when they're added as parallax? EDIT: Was this what you meant by painting and adding them as parallax? (also showing new font and unfinished windowskin)
clickie for screenie
This post has been edited by Dragoncookie: Nov 16 2011, 09:06 AM
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Yup, that's exactly right. Looks cute! Love the art style.
To comment on the windowskin, though, the icons at the corners look out of place; they're small and finely-detailed unlike the rest of the smoother art.
Thanks! I'll try to change the corners icons, but it won't be easy- RMXP windowskins are sucky to do. It has a really small place for editing the borders, and if you edit the center it'll stretch the image and it'll be really ugly.
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I appreciate the storyline, it isn't original but it's one where it doesn't need to be to have playability.
The art, however, isn't as good as it could be. I like it, don't take it that way, however the similarity between characters is so close that it simply looks like the main character put on a different wig and outfit. You should try changing the basic shape of each girls head and skin tone. Their eyes could have some color too. It's not a big deal, it might just confuse the player if one of the characters changed clothes at some point, it might be hard for them to notice.
The title screen is pretty good, certainly better than mine.
As far as the mapping goes, outsourcing has always been a great way to get things done without having to do anything. I'll be more than happy to map a few maps for you, free of charge. PM me if you'd like me to.
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Yeah, I was going to comment on the similarity of the characters, but I decided that maybe you did that on purpose, for some birth secret or something, seeing as Ami and Shiro looked rather different.
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The whimsical design is eye-pleasing, but it may not be as aesthetically appealing on different body types. I noticed that every character had a similar head shape and body structure. There's nothing wrong with this; I'm just wondering if you made a template and reused it as a base for each character design. As others have said, the map graphics and the window-skins seem sophisticated and out of place with the art. But, if you painted the maps as parallaxes, the sprites seem out of place.
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QUOTE (Dragoncookie @ Nov 16 2011, 08:40 AM)
You mean, hand-drawing them and setting them as the panorama? (I think it's panorama in XP and parallax in VX) But, don't they move slower when they're added as parallax? EDIT: Was this what you meant by painting and adding them as parallax? (also showing new font and unfinished windowskin)
clickie for screenie
That's very good. Not sure if you are able to paint your own sprites as well, but that mapping works much better than before, as it attempts to flow with your other artwork. It's a lot harder than just pasting in tilesets, and probably much more time consuming, but in the end I think it'd be worth the effort.
However, it is a bit hard to see the font with the transparency of the windowskin. Maybe a darker shade to the skin, or perhaps a brighter font?
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Nov 14 2011, 08:05 AM
, the outer white look a bit jagged maybe can do something about that?
, you also need to think does the player like to walk that place/seeing what they see? / do you like playing it?
