BLANK: The RPG

[King Sangos]

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GENRE and FLAVOUR:
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DARK FANTASY RPG
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SYNOPSIS:
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Abandon your comfort zones, and enter a world where grotesque, eldritch abominations and unnerving scenarios run rampant. Taking inspiration from titles and franchises such as Earthbound, Pokemon and OFF, BLANK follows the story of a female warrior known as Veta, the Harbinger. Throughout the game, you will be guiding Veta throughout many hellish places and go on a journey that may make you wish you never went at all.
 
Mechanically speaking, BLANK is a simple RPG at its core. It doesn't deviate too much from the already established RPG formula in most role-playing games and instead focuses on refining it and making in an overall enjoyable experience.

STORY:
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Spoiler

Spoiler

"This world is dying, girl..."
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Within the mythical land of Transech, there exists two ancient beings of great power. Known to its denizens as Lumenax, the Lightbringer and Sonuvox, the Songweaver, these Guardians took it upon themselves to create this world and nurture it into a paradise of their own. As decades passed, one of their youngest races they birthed achieved sentient dominance over the land, who would late be known as the Demans. But from the ashes of a great and bloody war rose a great distrust between the creators and created. The two Guardians have relinquished contact with the Demans and left them to their own devices. And to make matters worse, a mysterious pandemic has begun to sweep across the land, transforming anyone who comes into contact with it into hellish creatures.


You as the player must take the role of a young female warrior, called Veta. After having her home village of Finima become consumed by the corruption, she must leave the safety of her home and embark on a journey to find a being who can cure the plague known as corruption.
 
Sounds easy enough... right?

CHARACTERS:
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Spoiler

Spoiler

Party Characters
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Veta the Harbinger
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Veta is the protagonist of the story and the character the player will be
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controlling for the entirety of this adventure. After witnessing just how destructive
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corruption can be, she made a vow to find a cure for this mysterious plague.
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Desolun, the Spirit of Solitude
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A mysterious spirit with a unknown past, Desolun is bound to a ring given to
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Veta and forced to server the latter as both a servant and a fighter. It is the
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embodiment of Isolation.
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Furajinn, the Spirit of Animosity
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A mysterious spirit with a unknown past, Furajinn is bound to a ring given to
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Veta and forced to server the latter as both a servant and a fighter. It is the
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embodiment of Rage.
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Contasma, the Spirit of Cupidity
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A mysterious spirit with a unknown past, Furajinn is bound to a ring given to
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Veta and forced to server the latter as both a servant and a fighter. It is the
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embodiment of Greed.
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Major Characters
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Chieftain Tenark
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The mysterious leader of the village of Finima and the father of Veta,
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Chieftain Tenark is rather enigmatic character who only wishes
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to see his people safe and happy.
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The Lieutenant
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A proud warrior from the capital city of Decillia, the Lieutenant is an
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old friend of Chieftain Tenark's and a proud mentor of
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Veta's.
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Cariella
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A little girl who considers herself to be good friends with Veta,
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Cariella will try to find any excuse to play with her.
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FEATURES:
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A dark, unnerving world: Transech is full of many surprises, and the denizens and secrets of this world may not always be the most beautiful in appearance.
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A simple, easy-to-pick-up interface: BLANK features a very streamlined and simple user interface. That means almost anyone can jump into the game and experience what it has to offer without any troubles.
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A nostalgic, Game Boy Color Era art-style: With a few exceptions here and there, BLANK's art style mimics titles seen during the Game Boy Color Era, and almost all the artwork is done on Microsoft Paint.
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An dark original soundtrack, composed by the excellent Adam Halpin (StygianWhite): With over 25 songs and more still yet to come, these tunes will help immerse you into the dark world of Transech.
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SCREENSHOTS:
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Spoiler

Spoiler

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CREDITS:
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Spoiler

Spoiler

Scripts:
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Dekita (Weather-in-Battle)
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Tsukihime (Item Rarity, Tile Swap, Summon Troops and Script Fast Forward)
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Rycochet (Tile Swap)
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Vlue (System Options Menu)
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Yanfly (Slippery Tiles, NPC Chase & System Options Menu)
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Zerbu (Text Window Sound Effect)
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Wavelength (Encounter Rate Items)
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Crow5Derlock (Font Change)
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DOWNLOADS:
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BLANK RPG - Version 1.2 (RTP included):
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(360 M
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http://www.mediafire.com/download/xugf1u08fgd4b52/BLANK+%281.2+-+RTP%29.rar
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BLANK RPG - Version 1.2 (No RTP):
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(171 M
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http://www.mediafire.com/download/4b9z94u7k2kv2v1/BLANK+%281.2+-+No+RTP%29.rar
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BLANK RPG - Official Video Game Soundtrack:
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(288 M
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http://www.mediafire.com/download/eapu559hz25oq8r/BLANK+%28Original+Video+Game+Soundtrack%29.zip
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CRITIQUES AND FEEDBACK WELCOME:
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I am always looking to improve my work, so any feedback, critiques or reviews are welcome!
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[TMS]

That's an interesting art style. It's a different kind of retro from what we usually see. I think the game looks interesting, and I may give it a try. I'm all for simplicity of gameplay (as long as it isn't boring, of course), and can appreciate creepiness, so this seems like a good fit for me.

 

[OM3GA-Z3RO]

The style kinda reminds me of Earthbound hope it has the eerie creepy feel of it.

 

[Kes]

I've played through about 30 mins or so, and here is some feedback.

There are several places where words are omitted from sentences.  The examples I found are in the spoiler, so this post doesn't look enormous.

Spoiler

I shall put the missing word in [ ]

Opening map: I['d] better go outside.

Village:

Cariella: Anyway, my daddy... the Chieftain's been looking for [you].

Sorry, can't remember now where this one comes up, Perhaps part of the same dialogue?

Veta: I hope haven't been keeping him too long.

 

Woman in McLaughlin Residence: ...after splitting with my husband.  It's not something I like to [talk] about.

 

Village Hall, when speaking to the man on the right at the reception table:  Yes. He said [he] needed to see me...

 

Chieftain: What's interesting is that neither the victims [n]or guards...

 

Starting map - why is the room shaped like that? The left side in particular looks weird and there is nothing in the external shapes of the houses to indicate the need for all these indentations.

 

As the books are telling a strictly sequential story, but the player is unlikely to access them all in the correct order, perhaps you could run them as a common event, so that whichever bookcase you check, you get the history in an understandable way.

 

On the second floor of the Village Hall an NPC says "So the chieftain's sent you out to investigate..." except I haven't been upstairs yet, so the chieftain has said nothing.  Perhaps a switch here?

 

Having read the diary entry about herself, I would have expected something - some bit of dialogue if she then interacts with the chieftain, but as it is, she could just as easily have been reading a shopping list for all the impact it seems to make on her.

 

In the battles I usually succeeded in inflicting blind, but the enemies never missed once.  Is Blind set up correctly?  I would have expected at least a 50% miss rate.

 

The transfer events back into the village don't work.

 

Very big variations in the number of steps taken before a random encounter happens, from a large number down to 3 or 4.  There is a simple way of sorting this out using a switch and a tiny change to the default Game_Player script.  If you don't know it and would be interested in using it, say and I'll post something here.

 

General

Engaging, promising, I like the visual style.  But I think you need to take more account of the consequences of your minimalist graphics.  Walking around that village, with its really large, open spaces with nothing much to look at or interact with, was not interesting, and took a long time, even with holding down 'shift'.  I think you could usefully make that village much more compact

 

[King Sangos]

@ksjp17

Thank you very much for the feedback.

I did have concerns with how open and big the beginning village (Finima) was and I would've liked to go back and change things around to make it much easier to navigate through. I chose to keep the layout as it is though, because I wanted to see if others felt the same way as I did about it. Now that I know, my next plan is to go other the village's layout and tweak it to be much easier to navigate through. I'll also be doing the same thing with the interiors of the houses, since now that I look back it, there are a few out-of-place tiles, here and there.

All the other comments you made have been noted down, and I'll be editing those changes very shortly. But what you said about have a Switch and simple script edit to sorting out the enemy encounters intrigues, and I would definitely like to know more about this. 

 

[Kes]

Okay, so what you do is this:

Choose a Variable Switch and name it e.g. Encounter Rate.  For the sake of this example, we will assume that it is switch #99.  Do this in an event at the very beginning of your game e.g. in the one which has your intro.

Set it to what seems a reasonable number of steps to take e.g. 25. 

The place where the code is which determines how many steps are taken before a battle is in Game_Player and is this:

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------- # * Create Encounter Count #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- def make_encounter_count n = $game_map.encounter_step @encounter_count = rand(n) + rand(n) + 1 endNote, this sets an average not a minimum number of steps.  Which is why you can get these big variations, even when you have input a specific number in Map Properties.

There are 2 ways you can tackle this.

Change line 195 to read

@encounter_count = rand(n) + rand(n) + 1 + $game_variables[99][SIZE=10.5pt]This would simply add the amount in variable 99 to the encounter count. This would increase the average by that amount and ensure that many steps have been taken before a battle.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]The other way would be to change it to read[/SIZE]

@encounter_count = [rand(n) + rand(n) + 1, $game_variables[99]].max[SIZE=10.5pt]This would ensure if the number of steps determined by the script/engine is less than the variable amount, it is set to the amount in the variable. This would probably result in a fair number of battles at that minimum amount of steps.  Using this second method would give you much greater control over what happens and effectively gives you a guaranteed minimum number of steps.  You might still get times when there are more steps taken before an encounter, but never less than the number you put into that variable switch.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Hope that's clear.[/SIZE]

 

[King Sangos]

@ksjp17

That is absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for helping me out with this!

 

[King Sangos]

I'm updating this thread, since there's been a bunch of changes made to the game since the first alpha build demo was released, and I wanted to let everyone the changes that were made after this.

 

BLANK Update: Changelog

 


Hey everyone!

 

It's been almost a week since I released the very first version of BLANK to all of you guys, and the feedback and thoughts you've given back to me has been tremendous. Many of you have expressed interest in the future game itself, and also commended the simple, but abnormal style of the game. You've also made comments on a few spelling mistakes I've made here and there, some questionable design choices I implemented in-game and some of the battle mechanics.

 

Well now I am here today to let you all know what's come of your feedback. Let's get started, shall we?

 

Major Gameplay Changes:

 

1. Finima Village has been revamped!: Many of you expressed concerns and confusion at the sheer size of the starting area. I wanted to make the players feel as though they had plenty of places to visit within the starting village, but ultimately this proved to be both confusing and frustrating for the player to navigate through.

 

To make a comparison, here is an image of the old Finima Village layout:

 

 

Quite the size, huh? This starting area measured exactly 50x50 Tiles in size, and featured far too much empty space for the player. Now let's look at the newly revamped village layout!

 

 

Now that looks a little more confined, doesn't it? This new layout has removed much of the empty space, and lessened the number of houses for the player the visit. It's a shame that some of these NPCs and houses had to go, yes, but the end result of this is that now players will have a much easier time to go where they need to be.

 

2. The Founding of Transech Books are now sequential.

 

Remember how annoying it was to have to have always backtracked to specific houses, just to read that story in the correct order? Well that's no longer a problem, because a mere Common Event call has saved the day. Now no matter what bookcase in Finima Village you read from, you will always get the story in the correct order.

 

NOTE: This is still a work-in-progress, and I haven't fixed all of the little bugs and glitches yet. I'll let you all know immediately when I have this sorted out.

 

3. Haunt is being re-worked.

 

Haunt has been a sort-of buggy spell, and that's mostly my fault. Haunt is a simple, but incredibly reliable ability that's designed to Blind the enemy. The intended effect I want to have is a "Blind" proc that will severely reduce the accuracy of the affected character's attacks.

 

Many of you, however have reported that this skill is for the most part, very buggy. I've gone back and revamped the effects of Haunt, so hopefully I'll be able to do this skill justice!

 

4. Random Encounters are now relative to your previous encounter rates.

 

Ever kicked yourself in the head for getting cruddy enemy encounters, either by them being far too frequent or spread out? Well with a few tweaks to the battle system, I've made it so that the system now calculates how recently you've had an enemy encounter, and factors that in for generating a new encounter.

 

To put it shortly, if you got alot of encounters before, the encounter rate will drop and vice versa.

 

5. All audio is now being normalized.

 

A few complaints popped up here and there, regarding the varying audio levels in the game's songs. I've shifted through all of the music/sound assets to make sure that nothing is too quiet, or loud for the player. This will be a continuous process throughout the game's development.

 

Minor Gameplay Changes:

 

1. Player is now able to return to Finima Village upon entering the Wilds.

 

2. Multiple spelling and grammar corrections. (These will continue throughout BLANK's development.)

 

3. A few events have been fixed/updated, including Chieftain Tenark's bookcase.

 

Well that's all I have to say for now. Stay tuned for more updates!

 

[King Sangos]

UPDATE:

Apologies for haven taken a while to update this page, but I just wanted to announce that the second demo for BLANK has finally been completed and is ready for testing. If you're interested in seeing what this new demo has to offer, simply click underneath the spoiler below for a small list of changes and details in this new Demo Build.

Spoiler

BLANK: Second Demo 

- Second Story Chapter (Harbinger): With the reveal of the phenomena known as "Corruption", Veta has now been sent by her father, Chieftain Tenark of Finima to find a cure/solution to the problems her home now faces. She's been told that in the neighbouring town of Solena lies an old and powerful friend of Tenark's, who may be able to help her.

 

But with the rise of corruption, Transech's wildlife and citizens are becoming restless. Will Veta find this mysterious ally before Finima is consumed by the darkness?

 

-New Follower (Furajinn the Spirit of Animosity): Wield the power of BLANK's newest (and grumpiest) addition to Veta's family, Furajinn. This angry spirit specializes in tanking abilities and buffing the party's defense. As an added bonus, Furajinn can also taunt enemies into attacking him, redirecting all enemy attacks away from Veta and Desolun.

 

-New Enemies (Scary Beasts): From the claws of the Lupenumbra to the jaws of the Nagalos, Chapter 2 is home to some of the nastiest baddies that Veta will ever see. These creatures will be naturally be resistant to most attacks and even return some heavy hits of their own.

 

-New Items (Glug Glug): As compensation of the lack of items in the first demo, the second demo of BLANK will include a whole new plethora of items, including status-reducing ones, permanent stat increase ones and better consumables.

 

-Official Soundtrack: While this isn't true for the second level as of yet, thanks to the incredible work of Adam Halpin (StygianWhite), BLANK's first level now has its own original soundtrack. While I can't reveal specifics about the songs yet, I can say that they are superb in quality.

 

NOTE: The OST for BLANK is made for the game itself, and should not be distributed as of now. There will be consequences for anyone found doing this and publicly posting it online at this stage.

 

-Weapon Rarities and Drops (Juicy Loot): Thanks to the latest updates in the game, BLANK now includes weapon rarities and drops for certain enemies. Bosses like the Corrupted Jackalite, Cariella and other new bosses will have a chance to drop a Unique/Legendary Weapon or Gear. These can be as minimal as increasing your ATK and DEF, to giving you entirely new abilities for you characters!

 

NOTE: I should address this before-hand that only Veta can wield weapons; the Spirits can only equip armour and accessories. Also because this is still a work-in-progress feature, I implore you all to let me know immediately if you feel the drop rates are either too strict or too generous.

 

-Other Updates (Yum): A bunch of new changes will also be included in the new demo, including a new system settings tab, changes with dialogue and numerous bug fixes.

 

In addition to this, I've also updated the first post of this thread to coincide with the new changes.

 

[King Sangos]

UPDATE:

This topic has now been moved to the "Project Development Forum". The game is roughly around 55% complete and many of the game's primary's assets have been completed. I have also updated the first post to include new information and new downloads. As always, I will be updating this thread in good time. : >

 

[King Sangos]

Yikes, it's almost been a year since I announced this game, hasn't it?

Ahem.

Sorry that was lazy way to start off a bump post to a thread that hasn't been touched in about a third of a year's time. Well I'd like to apologise upfront for that, seeing as how I've updated other sites on the game's progress but not this one. I feel like I should really give this thread and site some love again.

So what's happened to BLANK since these last few months? Well the short answer is quite a lot, actually.

At this stage, BLANK is currently sitting at 80% completion. The fourth and fifth levels have been completed and with only two more left to go (with the last being considerably shorter in length than the others), I'm confident that I'll be able to reach the completion date of mid-November. But if I feel at any point that the game's not going to make the deadline or stand as a sloppy release by then, I'm more than willing to delay the game for a few more days/weeks/years/centuries. I've been working on BLANK for over a year now and I really, REALLY don't want the game be ruined with meddlesome bugs that I failed to notice in the final release (Of course I'm always willing to do post-updates for the game, but it'd certainly do a number on my pride as a yearning video game designer.

But as you might expect, a few more levels isn't all that got added to the game. I've also taken the liberty of adding new abilities, enemies, dialogue and sprites into the game. Tagged below in a spoiler are just some of the examples of what's new in BLANK.

Spoiler

NOTE: I will update the thread to include these new changes, but the demo will remain as the same versions as before.

So as you can see, I've been hard at work creating new characters and scenarios as well as tweaking and fixing any previous things in the game as per-request from some of the game's early BETA testers. Your feedback has been incredibly insightful for me as a Designer and I can't thank you all enough for helping me out with this game. BLANK may be my first RPGMaker project, but I'm determined to make it the best it can be with all my abilities and skills as a Video Game Graduate.

 

[Milennin]

Some of those screenshots have a very Pokemon gen I like vibe. Did you mimic their colour palettes for some of the maps?

 

[King Sangos]

Some of those screenshots have a very Pokemon gen I like vibe. Did you mimic their colour palettes for some of the maps?

Aye, I did.

At first my plan for the game was to limit the colour palettes to the ones of the GBC (so I could only use the limited colours that the GBC could have) to mimic that pixelated style, but as I continued working on the game and colour started becoming more visually important for the different levels, I later scrapped that design method. But originally I did mimic Pokemon's colour palettes, yes.

 

[King Sangos]

I've updated the original post with new details for the game and also had the thread moved to the Completed Games forum. BLANK is now fully complete and can now be played from start to finish. Thank you to everyone who's been patient with the game's development and I hope you enjoy it. 

 

[Nagasari]

i'd always love the unique concept, arts and stuff that breaks free of rm games. like this one. i'll give it a shot.

 

[King Sangos]

Hi everyone!


So it's been a few weeks since the release of BLANK and I'm sure some of you have already read up on my previous update regarding a certain update that was to be coming for the game. Well I'm happy to announce that this post is regarding that very same update.


Now what will that update hold, you ask? Well to make things easier to read, I've decided to split the changes up into specific categories. Some can be about sprite changes, others can be about battle changes. So without further ado, here are the patch notes for BLANK (1.1).

 
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Spoiler

BLANK 1.1
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Basic Changes
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• Increased the number of saves the player can have from 15 to 30.
  
• Added a new chest inside Veta's home that contains a Key Item known as the Prime Manual. This item is simply a lore-friendly book that helps to teach new players the game's controls and some small details that'll keep them better informed.
  
• Updated Crystallized0Rose's name in the credits to "R Mary Larson".
  

Sprite Changes
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• Added a new overworld sprite for a stuffed rabbit doll that can be found next to Angeral in almost all of her scenarios.
  
• Added new overworld sprites for Lumenax, the Lightbringer and Sonuvox, the Songweaver.
  
• Added new battler sprites for the mini-boss, the Goliathan and the common enemy, the Florrupted.
  
• Cleaned all of Veta's overworld sprites (This includes her normal and corrupted variations).
  
• Cleaned the Dead Deman Guard overworld sprites.
  
• Cleaned Justin's overworld sprites.
  
• Cleaned the Deman #3 overworld sprites.
  

Game Changes
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• Added a new sign onto the Finima Barracks building.
  
• Added a new shopkeeper NPC in the Finama Goods in Chapter 7.
  
• Extended the True Ending.
  
• Added new dialogue between Veta and the New Lumenia Guards to involve a few sarcastic remarks here and there.
  
• Added new dialogue for the Finima Village Hall Guards after speaking to Chieftain Tenark in Chapter 1.
  
• Added the ability to open the chests in Illune Manor in Chapter 4.
  
• Cleaned up the layout of items in the Shop Menus.
  

Battle Changes
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• Updated several abilities to have their Attack types changed from Certain Hit to Physical/Magical.
  
• Updated the Blind Status Effect. Blind will no longer Seal basic attacks. Blind will now decrease your Hit chance by 50%. This affects both Physical and Magical attacks.
  
• Changed Contasma's ability, Uncertain Gift. It now affects enemies instead of allies and removes all positive status effects on them, but also increases their ATTACK and DEFENSE for two turns.
  
• Increased Contasma's DEFENSE and SPELL DEFENSE.
  
• Reduced Contasma's Target Rating from 100% to 85% (Same as Desolun's).
  
• Increased Shatter's Stun proc chance from 15% to 25%.
  
• Lowered Shatter's MP cost from 35 to 30.
  

Bug Fixes
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• Fixed/Updated several grammatical errors and typos found within Chapter 1: Calling.
  
• Fixed the chests found in Illune Manor disappearing after speaking to either Liam or Serah after the Illune Graveyard event.
  
• Fixed some empty tile spots found in the Dream World.
  
• Fixed the item description for Lavender Concoction.
  
• Adjusted the volume levels for the Solena Town theme.
  
• Fixed T not giving you the Epilogue after defeating him in the False World.
  
• Fixed a few typos found in the True Ending.
  

That's pretty much all I've got for you lovely people as of now, but do keep note that there's still plenty more ideas and content I've got planned for the game. And as always, if there's ever anything you'd like to see be added or changed in the game, just simply leave a message here on the game's profile page or contact me directly via E-Mail (angus.mccallum1@btinternet.com), Steam (FEARxTHExKANTUS or King Sangos) or Skype (fear-the-kantus).


I've updated the original post to include the new download links for Version 1.1 of BLANK.


Enjoy! ;D

 

[King Sangos]

Hey everyone! So funny story... Turns out I left a pretty significant error in the game, regarding the Finama Goods Shop. If you try going upstairs and back, the conversation between you and the shopkeeper will glitch out and you'll be stuck in place forever. Now normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem for me if this place wasn't so important... But it kinda is, especially if you're heading towards the True Ending of the game. So here's a quickie list for what's changed here. 
 

Spoiler

BLANK 1.1a Bug Fixes 
 

• Fixed/Updated the Finima Goods Shopkeeper encounter event.
  

So yeah, I apologize for this screw up on my part. Hopefully this error hasn't been too detrimental for your experience and you can found the new download links to the Patch 1.1a of BLANK in the original post of this thread.

 

[King Sangos]

Hey everyone!


Tonight I have some exciting news for you all! After a few weeks of planning and discussing, myself and Adam Halpin (The composer for BLANK) have decided to now officially release the soundtrack of BLANK.

BLANK - The Official Video Game Soundtrack
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Composed by Adam Halpin (StygianWhite)
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Containing 60 songs in total that range between calm and melodic to blunt and tense, the BLANK soundtrack is a grand collection of songs that are sure to tug at your heartstrings (or your very being, if that's the way your body works).
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Here is the link to the download page!
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http://www.mediafire.com/download/eapu559hz25oq8r/BLANK+%28Original+Video+Game+Soundtrack%29.zip
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The soundtrack is around 288MB in size and is completely FREE for you to download. Myself and Adam are happy enough knowing that you took an interest in the songs themselves!
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Anyway that's all for now! If there's anything else you wanted to ask or know, just simply leave a reply on this thread and I'll get back to you as soon as possible!

 

[Lars Ulrika]

Ooooh now that's a game that looks tasty as hell ! Gotta give it a try!

 

[King Sangos]

Ooooh now that's a game that looks tasty as hell ! Gotta give it a try!

Hold on a second, Lars. The No RTP link's bugged. It's an older version, so I've just updated the original post to include the new download link.


Version 1.1a should be the correct one.