I've outlined the basic story, and I'll be editing the original post whenever we add an idea. This hopefully will make things less confusing for us and also for newcomers who would like to help with this game.
Plot Outline
Layer 1
Beginning town "Final" Dungeon -3 option room -Puzzle room/enemy room Final Boss Battle -At one point opens the box? Game Crash
Layer 2
Introduce the characters -One of them at the computer -Some guys come over or something? Stealing the Game -Introduction to stealth puzzles, although this only has two people as opposed to a group puzzle Characters Decide to go to the beach -Junkyard puzzle Beach -Find the hidden area Junkyard owner gets shot Return to Layer 1? Rogue Program begins altering layer 2 -Layer 1 mixes with Layer 2
Layer 3
Introduce new world Rogue Program Hacks the System -Pressure plate puzzles -Attempting to shut power off Power is shut off -Robot gets possessed? -Scary darkness puzzle? Final boss fight
Character Outline
Layer 1
Ragna [Johnny
"]Name: Ragna Class: Warrior (balanced) Bio: A well balanced character build. He takes the game very seriously and has made sure his attack, defence, and speed are all very high. Because of this he is able to do quests without the assistance of others (perhaps we could include a room where only Johnny is present?) Appearance:
Melon [Rosetta
"]Name: Melon Class: Cleric/Priest Bio:Very low defense but has high speed, accuracy, and magic. This class relies on the other classes to protect her. (We should make skills that can take damage for other players). The class also has various status effect moves that can drain enemy health or slow them down. Appearance:
Glade? [Maya
"]Name: Glade?? Class: Wizard/Mage Bio: This class relies on magic power to deal damage. Their physical strength is second lowest in the game [unless they take the battle mage subclass]. This class of mage has taken the ice skill path in order to unlock some extremely deadly ice moves. Appearance:
Trick [Kevin
"]Name: Trick Class: Thief Bio: Thieves have a very high speed and a moderate attack. They are not known for their defence but this does not mean it's terrible. Thieves are one of the most popular classes because of their abilities that affect the game outside of battle. They can use the sneak ability to not be chased by enemies and can also pick locks, which is crucial for certain quests. Appearance: This might actually be his layer 2/3 appearance.
Edwin [Jessica
"]Name: Edwin Class: Fire Mage Bio: This class uses magic power to deal damage. Unlike the other mage, this one emphasizes physical power at the expense of magic strength (Jessica has done a number of very strange class building moves so now her physical damage is nearly as strong as her magical, except on fire weak enemies). Appearance:
Kaiju [Eddy
"]Name: Kaiju Class: Monk Bio: Monks basically use unarmed attacks (lock weapon as Unarmed, two handed). As they gain levels, their unarmed damage increases the number of attacks they can deal (swap weapons by event, giving them gradually ones with more attacks). They can double as healers, but unlike the priest, most of their healing effects are self-only. They also have a Ki Attack which deals holy damage to one enemy. It's basically a DPS class, not doing a great amount of damage but with multiple hits there is less miss chance, and criticals are devastating. Appearance: This is probably not the layer 1 Eddy
Yuki
Name: Yuki Age: Playable Character: No Bio: Acts very cute and submissive, and sells drinks to the main characters. The males of the party all want to save her, before finding out the truth. Uses broom as a weapon. Strengths: High speed and moderate attack Weaknesses: Low defense Appearance: The guy on the right isn't important for now
Gelanda
Name: Gelanda "Sky Princess" Class: Wind Mage Age: 20-something Playable Character: No Bio: Gelanda is the self-proclaimed ruler of the sky (not that there's very much to rule over up there). She has the ability to fly in high altitudes using her wind magic (so this means that she can't use her powers to hop over obstacles or barriers). She tends to be somewhat bossy towards nearly everyone but her closest friends or other wind mages. But despite this, she's actually quite reliable as a party member, if you can catch her at just the right time to get her assistance. Strengths:
Spells
Boosting breeze: Ups party's speed slightly.
Twister barrier: Raises def slightly, changes into fire twister if hit by fire, changes into liquid twister if hit by water, activates Debris Fling if hit by an earth attack (2x damage if debris was metal-based), changes into static twister if hit by lightning, some other types of attacks like dark/light/neutral magic, psychic/ attacks, and other non-tangible types of attacks do not interact with Twister barrier or any elemental off-shoots. Also, any said off-shoots can not be changed to another. Only lasts 2-3 turns.
Debris fling: A bunch of light debris blown towards an enemy by the wind.
Disorientation: Enemies with long unrestrained hair/other floppy thing near eyes 's accuracy lowers greatly due to the wind blowing it around. More effective on enemies with both hands full.
Erosion: Light debris is rushed around an enemy for 2-3 turns, making them lose small amounts of health.
Whisk away: Removes light enemies from the battle
Great stone twister: A large barrier of rocks whirl around the party. No elemental changes. Whole party is protected by most physical attacks. Direct attack attempts from either side causes damage. Ranged physical attacks may either fail, succeed as usual, or be redirected at a random battle participant for x2 damage (most of the time towards an enemy). Tangible elemental attacks are diminished but not prevented. Most effects work against both parties. Only lasts 2-3 turns. Costs quite a bit of MP.
Appearance:
Luxis
Name: Luxis Oswell(Luxferre de Oswell) Age: Playable Character: No Bio: A katana-wielding Airship captian of the Sahgahin Fleet. Luxis comes from a wealthy family, but after his big brother Secil left then he decided it was time to live his home, finally finding a new living he commands the Sahgahin Fleet to achieve his dream of facing his brother with his newfound strength. Everything has been according to plan until he met the programmers. He is serious in front of royalty and nobles, but when he is with his freinds he is funny, loud, and is protective of women. He now is stuck in his new home waiting for the next call. Strengths: He can call upon the powers of the Muramasa and create dark waves of energy, doppelganger and he fights with his scabbard as well. Weaknesses: If he uses this power too much he will "overheat" and go beserk. Appearance:
Rasquel
Name: Rasquel, emissary of the Exiles Age: 30? Playable Character: No Bio:
Full bio
Rasquel came from "the village of the Exiled ones" and for many years was an aimless traveler, visiting every town that he could to try and change the opinions of the masses with regard to the ones of his hometown, which was originally a wasteland where those who had chosen the twisted path of dark magic were all exiled to by the order of *insert powerful political official here*. He attempted to tell them that over the generations, the exiles had forgotten their old ways and were no longer a threat to society. But, of course, nobody would listen to his words, assuming that he was lying or something. The soot black skin of an Exile is said to have been a curse mark passed down from the original exiles, who accepted it in order to pursue greater dark powers, not knowing or caring that it was hereditary. But not many commoners knew this and assumed that Rasquel practiced the dark arts as well. Many times he was ostracized and kicked out of places simply because of his origin. One day while he was sitting in a secluded pub, a cloaked individual approached him. He had heard of the adversity and strife that Rasquel had faced and presented him with a curious looking box. It was made of a sturdy wood and had a relief carved into it that looked like a rose. It was also gilded at the corners and had a peep-hole at the top. The cloaked one got him to peer inside. What he saw was in glowing letters: "Persuasion". He was told that he would get what he had seen if he opened the box up. He didn't particularly believe the cloaked one, but he was also very desperate for a solution. When he turned to accept the box, the cloaked one was nowhere to be found, leaving the box behind. Rasquel took the box with him to an abandoned alleyway, feeling power emanate from the cracks. Hesitating first, he slowly opened the box. What happened next was unknown. When he woke up, it was dark and he was lying in the mud, still in the same exact alleyway. He peered back into the open box, and saw nothing inside, just ordinary wooden walls with no decoration. He then closed it, picked it up, and started walking towards his camp site. Why would somebody just give away a box like this? And why would it knock someone out? Had something escaped? As Rasquel was leaving the city, a drunkard jumped him, barely able to hold the knife in his hand in his perpetual stumble. Tonight this poor man was going to be a hero and take out his financial frustration on an unarmed kin of the Exiles. Rasquel was grabbed by him before he could turn to run. The man slowly weaved and wobbled his knife towards him with a satisfied look on his face, glad to finally bring justice down on the one who had done nothing wrong. As the knife closed in, Rasquel yelled "STOP!" This caused the man to immediately halt the trajectory of his blade, accidentally tearing his own shirt with a miscalculated back-swing. Amazed at what had just happened, Rasquel yelled "LET ME GO!", and sure enough, the drunkard released his grip, just sort of staring at his arms as Rasquel scampered away.
Some days passed and he had already mastered his new found gift of persuasion. It didn't exactly work the way that he had hoped it would, but it still was very useful. It could not change thoughts directly, but it could cause others to act through his own will, via the power of suggestion. Not all were susceptible to it, but it did work on quite a few. He utilized this ability to band together some allies to protect himself. There were many who were wary of his company and his intentions and plotted against him. His mighty lackeys disposed of any who conspired against him. Not all of his recruits had to be persuaded. Some of his more powerful associates had ulterior motives and there were some that joined in order to try and warn him about the nature of his abilities. They were ones that had previously obtained the box in some fashion. All of them needing something, got something, lost control, and eventually lost everything to their name. Rasquel had abandoned the exiles who did not follow him to establish a kingdom of his own, not that far in the east. In that mountainous region, his vast army of mindless drones trained, awaiting the day that the land that had forsaken him would strike back.
If you guys find any details that need to be changed, just post them.
Appearance:
Image set
Layer 2
Name: Sherry Marlow Age: 14 Playable Character: No Bio:
Text
Sherry is an avid fanfiction writer who enjoys watching various anime. She belongs to an upper-middle class family and doesn't really fit in with the other kids at the private school that she goes to. While she's not writing or doodling, she is usually daydreaming. When she heard about a particularly popular online game, she was extremely excited because there was a class of mages that could fly and wear wavy cool dresses. Despite how disconnected she is with her parents, she always seems to be able to weasel them into buying her what she wants. Thanks to this attribute, she has become quite spoiled and will often spend entire weekends watching entire box sets of her favorite anime shows. Most people that happen to read her fanfiction will find that often she finds some way to shoehorn her self-insert into the story to become the protagonist's main love interest. Because of this, her fanfiction often ends with her kissing the protagonist for five hours straight or something equally ridiculous and/or slightly romantic.
As it can probably be seen, she does not have a boyfriend yet. Then again, she's been so wrapped up in her fantasies and anime and poorly written fanfiction to be interested in finding one quite yet.
Appearance:
Image
Layer 3
The Father
Name: "The Father Age: 47 Playable Character: No Bio:
Text
He is the big wig behind this expensive project. Using the computer science (and a dash of business) expertise that he had collected over the years, he was able to start a small company to fulfill his dream of being self-employed. Before Project Matryoshka was started, he and his colleagues worked on the back-ends of numerous online games, designing the framework for packet transferring, log-ins and log-outs, the handling of server-side details, and many other numerous things. They would get these jobs from separate gaming companies looking for some techies to make their multiplayer games work. As time grew onward, his company grew little by little and eventually started to work on their own games, instead of just being the grunts behind the machines of the other guys. "The Father" once had a wife and child, but was always sort of distant to them compared to his devotion to his work. Despite these rough edges, he still cared for them very much, making sure that they had the "absolute best" available to them.
This all changed when the incident happened. It left his child in a coma with no hope of recovery. In desperate guilt, he attempted to research and work on a solution to this problem as if it were just another puzzle to be solved. With the arduous assistance of his team, they were able to develop a virtual world with a method of "full mental immersion", which would essentially put the player directly into the world, instead of just letting them control a proxy, or avatar.
But this task was definitely not an easy one. He spent countless days and nights plugging away, never even returning home to his wife at any time between. His wife left him after watching him obsess over his project and his general disregard for the immediate members of his family and friends.
As perhaps imagined, "The Father" became fairly wealthy with his company's server work, netting him and his colleagues quite a bit of coin. It was because of this that they were able to stay financially afloat during the great grind of Project Matryoska, not to mention the power bills associated with the life support machine that they installed in the building for his child.
At first, the world that was the base for Project Matryoska was an older game that the team had worked on before, taking place within a modern suburban setting: supposedly perfect for raising a child. From there, they built unique landmarks, scripted numerous essential events, and programmed a great deal of realistic characters for him to interact with. They did not give the child privy to the world beyond the one that he now resided within. Instead, they watched from afar, using avatars to masquerade as characters within that world.
Now with the brunt of the hard work with Project Matryoska slowing down, "The Father" is starting to doubt himself a bit. Even though he saved his child from certain comatose doom using his company's technology and hard-working research and development, the fact did not change that his child was physically still in deep sleep, likely to stay locked within his virtual world until the day that they run out of resources to keep the child and the project's server in working condition. He feels that this "great distraction" is merely borrowed time, not nearly close enough to "the best" for his child. But even so, he continues, along with most of his team, working on Project Matryoska.
Appearance:
Big Pictures
Bark/Floyde
Name: Bark/Floyde Age: Mid 20's-early 30's Playable Character: No Bio: "This stupid jerkface is annoying as heck, we only keep him around cause he knows how these programs work better than the rest of us." -One of the more irritable members of the Layer 3 team. Bark was raised in a wealthy home and was homeschooled by his father, resulting in a very wide range of knowledge, but a lack of social skills. He graduated college early and went on to become an engineer. He made simulators in his spare time that had become very popular in recent years. He was then hired by the Layer 3 company to create their extreme reality simulator. Strengths: Understands how to build a realistic virtual world. He understands the small details that are able to make Layer 2 so believable. He is also a very fast sprinter, just in case you were wondering. Weaknesses: Being slapped by other members of the crew. Spider allergies. Appearance:
Sophie
Name: Sophie Age: Mid 80's Playable Character: No Bio: Gives a whole new meaning to "senior" member, she's older than the rest of the members by at least 40 years, and the younger of them by as much as 60. She's fairly knowledgeable, but her true strength comes from the fact that she's Father's mother. Even if she messes up a program, which she has done on occasion when her mind wanders enough, he hasn't the nerve to fire her, as she had a real temper when he was younger. (I'm not sure when layer 3 is set, so I can't tell much about her past) Strengths: Fairly decent programmer (she learned it when she was younger, so despite her senility she managed to retain it). Also the person to talk to if you want Father to do anything (he's still afraid of her). Weaknesses: She's kinda senile, and mistakes various programmers for past lovers, children, etc. Sometimes it affects her programming. Appearance: Something like this.
Sharla Dean
Name: Sharla Dean Age:26 Playable Character: No Bio:
Text
She works at (insert name for the facility here) where the stuff for layer 2 is developed. She specifically designs the layout of outdoors areas. They say that she hid several special "easter egg" areas that can only be accessed through special directions or through the completion of complex spacial puzzles. She often laments how she is one of the very few females on the team; sausage fests being a common sight within the realm of computer science. But despite having to work with all these MEN, she passionately labors long hours on her landscapes. She tends to be one of the slightly more fashionably inclined of the group.
Many of her co-workers would describe her as being somewhat reserved but very much tenacious. Also, she likes to watch various soap operas and sometimes will just not shut up about the latest plot twist. At home (which probably will never be mentioned or seen due to her lack of relevance to the plot), her aging mother has been staying in the guest room instead of at her own house for some reason. She really wants Sharla to go get a boyfriend or something, but she claims that "her only love is her work" or something like that. Secretly, Sharla outlined some specs for an NPC in layer 2 that would be her theoretical "dream boy". She left the specs in a spot in the office for somebody to find, but this dream boy hasn't been programmed in yet. She can only hope and wait for that lucky moment to come when she can visit her dream boy in layer 2 someday. Then she would be able to practically be in her own soap opera, minus the soap ads. (Note: If the dream boy ever does get implemented and interacts with Sharla, he will most likely reject his predefined purpose as a "solution to her problem" and dump her or something. No easy happy endings here.)
Appearance:
Big Pictures
Thomas Hooker
Name: Thomas Hooker Age: Playable Character: No Bio: Strengths: Above average speed and health, and has medium defense. Weaknesses: Low attack Bio: Programmer of the above barkeeper (Page 1), Ambrosia Brahmin. More than a bit eccentric, and possibly cackles maniacally saying "Soon it will be time..." Typically projected on layer 2 as an avatar using the opposite gender (as a maid working at a cafe), and likes cute things. Probably NOT a main programmer. Layer 2 characters probably realize who he is when the programmer serves them the same type of tea Yuki did. Appearance: Thomas and "Yuki"
Other
Bulmabriefs144: (I made this last night from an anime. Can we put it to use on layer 1 or 2?)
Bulmabriefs144: First one is junkyard dealer (here's wearing welding armor), the others are various forms in Layer 1 or 2, and the very last is the corrupted code form if several of them are killed off. You might only see this form if you're in a sort of in-between area of the layers where the program really exists.
Shinyjiggly: I made a different version of the corrupted form.
Bulmabriefs144: Her [Sharla's] dream guy (I figured between fantasizing about him and the fact that he's created from scratch, there's probably some underwear scene).
I've just taken the information and put it into this chart, none of this is final. [This is only what I've taken from the Game Characters thread]
This post has been edited by MEands: Oct 25 2012, 04:57 PM
Group: Global Mod
Posts: 4,600
Type: Writer
RM Skill: Intermediate
Rev Points: 5
It'll probably get explained by the programmers (the cached thing) after a while, but I guess initially the L2 characters will split up to explore what they believe is their home town (even though they know it was destroyed) and start seeing weird things (like themselves living out memories, people ignoring them, etc) This could even be how Johnny finds out he has a physical presence (sort of) in layer 3, because he listens in on a conversation that is being repeated in front of him. Maybe Kevin or someone else tries to stop him from hearing, they get into a fight, etc. At some point they'll get together and try to communicate with the programmers, who will explain what's going on.
I agree we need a separate battle thread. I'm in the middle of moving house though so I really don't have time (or internet) to contribute to that until next week really
__________________________
Warning!this post may contain sarcasm, please re-read it in a funny voice The old spoiler was out of control, it had to be stopped.
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Oct 24 2012, 04:31 PM
