(PS) Malevolent Beings, Long time W.I.P. Options

[Decedent]

Malevolent Beings

Abstract: A game some friends and I wanted to make in early high school. It never got past written ideas and some drawings, but I picked it up a few years later and have since worked on it by myself on and off for several years.
Genre: Fantasy
Engine: RPG Maker XP all the way!

Story
The universe was created by a family of gods, and like any family, there were problems. The youngest, a Child God called Asagiel became resentful of the other gods, and sought to destroy all of their creations. So ensued the Cataclysm war, one that tore apart the world of Reyal, destroying the Mother God Naygabess and her people and putting the denizens of Reyal into an almost ever lasting conflict with one another.

Many centuries have passed and a young King has taken the throne of Guinea, the long descendants of Asagiel's people. Although his father managed to keep a semblance of peace between the two nations, a dedicated organisation of people seek to undo all his deeds and throw the nations into a final war in which there can be only one victor...

Setting
The game is set on the planet of Reyal, which was created by Elbator the Father God. On it resides two nations, one created by Elbator (Crysta) and the other descendants of Asagiel's twisted and blood thirsty race (Guinea). It is played from the point of view of denizens of Guinea.

Characters

(One of Prowin's sets of armor later in game)
Name: Prowin Mizeret
Age: 17 (Game starts during his childhood)
Bio: (Main Character) Prowin's family are priests, a duty passed down from father to son, mother to daughter ever since the cataclysm war ended. These priests teach the core religion of Guinea, the worship of Elbator after their original god abandoned them. Naturally, he wishes a more exciting life, something forbidden by the confines of the law.


(Intfa in the Guinea Military uniform)
Name: Intfa Lionsbane
Age: 16 (Once again, childhood)
Bio: One of Prowin's child hood friends. As subtle as a brick in the face, Intfa speaks her mind and is more comfortable in a suit of armor and swinging a sword than a kitchen apron and broom.


(A default charset I plan to change the body of later)
Name: Patrick Agamay
Age: 17
Bio: Prowin's best friend. Skilled and destined to become a valuable member of the Guinea Army.


(Brias in his final suit of armor. Pretty nifty eh?)
Name: Brias Brandthorn
Age: 30's
Bio: A member of the Guinea army and hails from Prowin's home village. Though strict at times, he is patient when dealing with those less disciplined than himself.

There is one other temporary character and 2 more permanent ones and one hidden one, but that would ruin the story if they were revealed here.

Credits
Oh boy this is gonna be annoying o.O

Story:
Brad Booker
Steven Worley
Nathan Young
Myself
We had the idea for this, but it was so long ago it's hard to remember how much was everyone's ideas, but it's safe to say a lot of what is in this game is mine.

Scripts:
CCoa (Universal Message System), (State Icons with edits by Night Runner)
Amaranth (Scene_Splash)
Guillaume777 (Multi-Slot Equipment)
Blizzard (Easy Party Switcher)
Charlie Fleed (Battle System)
Minkoff and DerVVulfman (enhancments or some such to the CTB by Charlie)
TDS (rmrk.net) for a self control switch script
GlitchFinder (Glitchfinder's Gamepad Input Module) > makes XBox controller vibrate!
Brew (Colorfullwords)
Rataime (Mirror script that was based on Sprite_Shadow and modified by him, that's all it says)
Modern Algebra (Dynamic Sounds)
Jens of Zanicuud (tinkered and messed with his FF Style Item Window)
Night_Runner (Tid bits of script including a very helpful ignore state text)
Juan (map location window in main menu)
Redd (Redd's MenuIcons)

Font:
Levi Fonts at urbanfonts.com (Celtic Garamond the 2nd) > Not sure If there are still instances of this font in the game, so it's here in case
Abaddon can't remember, its one I picked up ages ago but I think its from font.com or something and I'm not sure if I use it once again

Additional Char sets:
Sithjester
ThallionDarkshine

Icons:
Lorc (has a ton on a site called Imgur)
Henrique Lazarini aka Ails


Music:
HMix.net
Dragndude9 who I believed had some collaborations with Allen Calmes unless that's his real name)
Joerao
Atelier Nonta

If I missed anything, It's not because I'm trying to take credit, so feel free to point it out if you notice it at any stage.


Screen Shots
The part I skip to just to see how much effort someone puts into a game :-)



Puzzle, by activating the center of the square (where the symbol is) you will raise/lower the adjacent squares. Sadly this is a little laggy when playing, so I hope when people get to this stage, when I make a demo, they don't scream at me...


Lovely curvy walls... A dungeon late game. (Note the white patch will appear as black in game).


A scene from a Royal Palace, decked with so much marble that it may insult the senses a bit :-S


Big fan of animated characters, who raise their arm, turn their head etc. Its a little hard to see, but these guys bob up and down with weapons drawn ready for... something... Also an example of speech, Main characters have their own color, everyone else is just plain red. Helps to identify who is talking without relying on name tags or speech patterns.

[Show/Hide] Screenshots

Clear waterfalls and caves.


The main menu. I'm rather proud of it, it's mostly the default menu with a lot of messing around by me. Remember how each character has their own color? That's shown here, each character has a colored window pane displayed for every instance you see their stats like this (when using an item, at the end of battle or looking at their stats. You can also see the status afflictions, and the map behind it with clear water that gets deeper, complete with swimming fish and a jelly fish you can barely see.


My heavily edited Save and Load screen. The scenery doesn't change, I COULD do that I suppose, but not worth the effort for how little you actually see the save/load screen... Notice the party members arranged with 1st in front, second on the right and third on the left?


Welcome to the World Map of Guinea. The player moves the cursor around to select the destination, or to try and find hidden locations.


Last and least, the battle system. Ive got it so the 'status' option on the second command window (those familiar with the CTB will know what I mean, it has skip, defend and stuff) will show the active battlers Status afflictions, cuase I dislike the size of the ones shown on the actual HP section, which I'll probably end up reorganizing or something later. It's my hope to give every character different poses for attack, defend etc, but that's an undertaking i'll leave off for a while.

Features
Here we go;
~Obvious ones are the side view combat system

Magic
Magic is learnt through using a substance called Magic Essence. Essence can either be consumed in it's raw form for the most basic level of that spell (Ie Fire Essence), or combined with a number to create a stronger form (ie 5x Fire essence combined to make 1x Bright Fire Essence.) When consumed, the player is taken to the 'Otherworld' where they face an inner challenge to be granted it's power, sometimes through puzzles, others through fights or both (Note this process is only needed to be performed once per type of essence, ie Once Fire Essence has been learnt once by one character, it will simply be taught to others when used.)

Some Magic will be rare, naturally, which leaves the player with the choice of giving everyone a low level magic, ie 3 characters with 'Death', or save the essence and combine it into one powerful spell 'Death All' to be given to only one character.

Combat Proficiency or C.P. and EXP
A small spin on the idea of levels. Unlike traditional RPG's, players can loose EXP and go down in C.P. for negative actions such as springing a trap, being KO'd in battle and one particular nasty Status Ailment that lowers EXP each turn (in battle) or each step (on Map).

Aura
Every character has an Aura that is changed by actions taken, such as attacking in battle, using a curative item, breaking into peoples houses etc. That Aura can be one of 5 types, Fiery, Calm, Enlightened, Holy and Dark. Usually increasing one will reduce it's polar opposite (Fiery <=> Calm, Dark <=> Holy), the only exception being Enlightened. A characters dominate Aura effects what Items they are allowed to equip, and at several instance what dungeons they are allowed to enter (ie there's one you can only bring characters with Calm into. Do you go in with one or two, or do you try to work on all three and bring a stronger team in?)

Examples of items that are affected are accessories like 'Eye Goggles'. A character wearing these, and with a dominate Fiery aura, will be immune to blind. Another body armor can only be equipped if the character has a dominate Holy aura and provides a HP bonus.

But how does one know what kind of Aura they have? Late game it will be simple, but throughout most of the game you have one of two options, by touching a piece of the legendary Cerpius stone, often found in churches, or by trying to equip something that can only be equipped with a certain Aura. Sure, that last method sounds like a full proof way, but items simply won't work without the right aura, and you won't know if it is working until some monster is trying to blind or put you to sleep, at which point it may be too late...

Outfits
Character will go through several costumes, depending on whats happening. Although this makes it harder for me, when there is climbing animations, weapon drawn animations and hopefully all the battle poses, it keeps the characters fresh and interesting. An example is when Intfa is promoted through the ranks of the military in the story, her uniform will change accordingly.

Each character is able to unlock a final outfit that will be the only one that actually provide benefits like increased HP.

Animations
After playing FF Tactics, I became a huge fan of what little animations simple characters can do. Expect a lot of people shaking their head, drawing weapons, throwing up, being axed by a giant spear, burning to a crisp etc, etc.

Frankenspriting
I Frankensprite to the max with this. A lot of stuff done to the maps is taken from the original RTP, recolored, or patch worked onto other RTP stuff. Some of those screenies do it justice, but it will be hard to see until a demo comes out. This will hopefully show how gorgeous maps can be with just a little (or a lot) of editing of the basic tile sets.

Puzzles and mini-games
FF7 rocked, and has been the best RPG I've ever played. Enough said. But what set that apart from others? In my opinion it was the mini games. Having to press a sequence of buttons with the right timing to beat someone else in doing squats, in order to get a blond wig to combine with other items so that the main character can dress like a girl to sneak into a mansion. Or climbing a frozen mountain top while regularly having to warm yourself up to keep your body temp from dropping and oh so many more. These put the characters life in my hands.

I hope to emulate these kinds of puzzles and mini games. An example is a bridge crossing scene in bad weather that get's progressively harder. First trip you just have to hold onto the rope when it gets windy or you loose your balance, the second it is raining so if your caught on a puddle of water, you loose balance even more, and finally there is lightning where if you don't move at the right time, you get shocked (made harder by the fact there is water and wind).

Challenging Battles
~Interactive
Introducing Terrain Obstacles. These can produce one of four results if the player risks to tamper with them. Either nothing will happen, You will discover an item, it will have a negative effect on the enemy (ie a tree falling over), or you will tick something off an cause an additional enemy/s to appear. These appear at random, and maybe not at all in some places.

~Not always Hack and Slash...
General battles are, but my goal is to turn every boss battle into something unique. Two examples;
Fire Sprite: You can collect some Ice Crystals before the actual fight. In the fight the Sprite will use a move that lays fire across the battle field, which will damage you from crossing it if you attack it. You can extinguish it with the Crystals, or wait it out.

Water Serpent: Has low def but shields itself from damage and spawns 3 water apparitions. After X amount of turns, the shield will weaken and make it vulnerable. After another few turns it will flood the battle with a powerful attack destroying the water apparitions, and starts the cycle over again, with the idea that you have to kill off the apparitions in time to unleash your full potential when it's weakened.

~Status Ailments
How often in an RPG have you run across an Antidote, and thought "What a waste of bag space...". Not here, I plan for a variety of effects (though very vanilla, ie Blind, Mute etc...), that are a persistent threat to the player. Some last only for a battle, others persist outside, and no save point is going to regenerate your health and heal your wounds. Either use items or visit an Inn, but those aren't always readily available...

Dungeons
Some are naturally unavoidable, but optional ones can be unlocked by searching on the map or being informed by helpful villagers. these optional dungeons I plan to grant no EXP at all in battle (so people don't outgrow the story line difficulty), but can provide treasures and money (and an optional character at one point...). Some of these will be simple, others not so.

Music
Eventually I will try my hand again at composing, I have one song already but for the most part I've managed to find a few beautiful pieces by users such as fellow RRR members Dragndude9 and Joerao, and some from other music sites. I guess this isn't much of a feature, but I'm avoiding using the standard music, and with some scores provided by these guys for everyone to use, have made the game that much better.

Ranks
A work in progress idea that is being fleshed out. There are different aspects to be ranked on, ie "Item Finder", "Citizen of Guinea" or "Dungeon Delver". The more points you accumulate in these, the higher the level you are, thus unlocking stuff. Ie high rank Item Finder may let you into a special pub for travellers in a main town where there are discounted items, or an old woman may give you certain items based on your Citizenship.



Influences
I'm not aiming for a 100% original game. There are ideas from other games I've played that you may see, simply because I thought it was awesome. Hopefully you will agree that most of them aren't shameless rips...

FF series from FF 7 ~ 10
FF Tactics
Legend of Dragoon
Tales of Phantasia
Chrono Cross

Demo?
The game is like 13+ hours on my last play through with only first 3 even having battles, and I haven't finished it yet either. I'm doing a run through atm and adding battles to the maps, fixing up sound effects, music and some eventing. I plan to make a demo when I get to a reasonable section (ie 5 hours in). It's just at that point where I gotta show something after all time of making it... Easily will have demo in under a month.