- Joined
- Feb 8, 2014
- Messages
- 39
- Reaction score
- 9
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
Days of Alcoholia
Theme/Genre
Fantasy RPG. I am going for an old school vibe, but with modern features, such as a journal tons of optional side quests, and semi-linearity.
Story
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The central focus of the story is how the difference between good and evil is often times little more than perspective; the only difference between a hero and a villian may depend on who's opinion you ask.
The main character, Brennivin is dissatisfied with the lack of accomplishment thus far in his career as a magician. He was regarded as remarkably talented, but signed on to a well paying, comfortable job that he deservedly feels nonetheless wastes his talents. For years, he has been preparing in terms of research and buying reagents to summon a heavenly guardian to give him the guidance he seeks. Shortly after the game begins, he gets his last pay check in order to buy the final piece. In the summoning, he will make a slight but serious error in the ritual, and instead inadvertently make a pact with a demon prince, Intoxicos.
The pact requires Intoxicos to act as an advisor and mentor to Brennivin. Brennivin asks Intoxicos to aid him in growing his skills, earning respect as a magician, and also to prosper. Intoxicos mentors Brennivin in developing his personal power and establishing himself as a man of influence. Despite being an unabashadly evil demon with nothing but abject contempt for humanity, he performs capably and honestly as a mentor. Although he will add in his own personal two cents and constantly express disapproval, he does not try to manipulate Brennivin or to exploit or twist the terms of the pact. Much later on, it comes out that the reason Intoxicos does not try to twist the pact, lie, or deceive Brennivin is because he finds it unnecessary to do so. He finds that the best way to spread strife in the world is just to let a man grow powerful enough to do as he wants, and then let human nature take its course when they try to bring forth their vision of how things "should" be. Further, ironically he finds that the more "good" people try to do, the more strife is created.
Accordingly, Brennivin will grow richer, more powerful and influential in the world and will be seen as a hero by many. Brennivin will eventually be able to upset a precarious balance of power in the world when he challenges what is seen by many as an oppressive and corrupt oligarchy--which may or may not be the lesser of two evils. His own backers will hail him as a leader, a freedom fighter and a hero, while people in favor of the status quo will see him and those behind him as extremists who are upsetting an imperfect yet carefully balanced peace and must be stopped for the greater good before it leads to war.
The game will be lighter and less serious at first, but as the game goes on, the seriousness will grow, consistent with the theme that the greater the consequences of your actions, the graver the consequences. Or as otherwise stated, the bigger the omlette you are making, the more eggs may get broken. By late game, Brennivin will be weary of all the responsibility he has placed on himself and realize that despite getting exactly what he asked for, that he can't believe he ever wanted it.
Also, I will deviate from the standard old-school RPG paradigm where the hero is a swordsman and instead will be the mage. I will have this color the quests and game play and events, like for example, placing curses on strategic items and plot events based on whether certain spells are known. I am also intending the game to have a darker tone, particularly on the subject of magic which will be ever present since the main character is a magician. Magic will not be treated whimsically or in a light hearted nature--there will be no Disney magic. It will be dark, grave, dangerous, and feared. People won't see your main character as a whimsical wondermaker. They will be scared of him.
For example, relatively early in the game, I am planning on giving him the ability to summon spirits of the dead and question them. The introductory side quest after gaining this ability will be where he is to find the body of a missing girl for her family. In order to do so, you will contact her spirit which is mad with grief over her own death and demands that the person she feels is responsible be drowned just like her. This will putting you in the position as the judge for the accused (whose guilt isn't clear cut) and also raising questions of whether the spirit can find peace. The choice of how to resolve it, including the method, will lie with you.
I have been told that the tone will have similarities to Death Note (and from what I have heard, I can see it) but that is purely coincidental. I have never seen it or read it. Finally, as you probably have picked up on, alcohol is a theme with virtually everything and everyone named after some kind of beer, liquor or wine. Beers will restore HP, wine MP, shots of liquor will boost stats, and moonshine will revive dead PCs.
Gameplay mechanics/features
The game will have a main quest, and will have a large number of optional side quests. Quests will largely have multiple ways of being solved. There will be a social skill system where through practice, Brennivin will get better at intimidating, persuading or appeasing others in conversation. He will also get more famous, leading to different dialogue options, better quests being offered and better rewards.
In terms of combat, there will be a combo-skill system, which would be reminiscent of Chrono Trigger. Combat is going to be on the tougher side. Except for boss fights, subject to how it goes in play testing, I am thinking that fights will be short, brutal and there will always be some element of risk but also offsetting reward (perhaps through a valuable or unique items dropping with respectable percentages). Brennivin will be able to create spells (and access new combo attacks) by bringing the right combination of runes and items to Intoxicos. There will be an extensive crafting system.
Characters
Brennivin- A very talented magician. Currently works for the town of Lowenbrau as their resident magician. Is highly paid, but dissatisfied since he feels his talents are wasted on trivial matters and has no opportunity to grow his skills. He is highly ambitious. Although he does have a strong (although slightly harsh) sense of justice, he morally flexible and has a mercenary outlook. Despite that, he has a strong sense of professionalism. He starts his journey in Beeronia, but is a foreigner from a region of Liquoria which is modelled after Viking age Scandinavia (fun fact: Brennivin is named after the national liquor of Iceland. It's good stuff if you can get your hands on it). This gives him some detachment from the initial setting of the story, which is helpful to him since it is teetering on civil war.
In terms of combat his physical attacks will be pretty useless and he will rely on spells. As a combat mechanic, his MP regenerates so that players won't feel the need to avoid casting spells in order to conserve MP. Players will be able to cast weaker spells (which should be roughly as strong as a hard hitting normal attack from a warrior type) frequently needing an occassional breather, or cast fewer big spells but need to take a breather sooner. He won’t be able to take much punishment and will be a glass cannon.
Beck – A militiaman who was expected to be a very talented warrior in his youth, but never really focused or sacrificed enough to get much recognition or fulfill his potential. He isn’t quite middle aged yet, but if he was going to make a mark, it would have happened by now. He still acts and thinks like a man much younger than he is, and this immaturity is a double edged sword. He is bolder than most men his age, and hasn’t given up on "making it" although he hasn't really expended any real effort into it. He is physically just as capable as he ever was and his potential is still there. But, his immaturity makes him impulsive and rash, it also takes a personal toll on him because he never really settled into being a family man. He follows Brennivin because it allows him to go on greater adventures and to escape from what he considers a boring life. His children miss him while he adventures, which pains him. His wife resents his absence since it leaves her to take care of the kids alone, but she makes her peace with it because she doesn't love him anymore and she is happy with the money his adventuring brings in.
Combat wise, he will be able to take the most punishment. Unless he uses a two handed weapon his default attacks will be notably weaker than Brennivin's go-to attack spells and his special attacks will hit roughly as hard as those go-to attack spells (but not nearly as hard as Brennivin's big spells). If equipped with a two handed weapon, his attack power will increase considerably while meaningfully reducing his defense but still leaving him rather sturdy. Also he will act as a secondary healer.
Frangelico – A priest who is Brennivin’s oldest friend. Although highly talented, he is lazy and irresponsible. He sought the priesthood because he thought it would give him an easy life and he tries to take lower profile, easy postings. He is, despite all things, a someone with a real moral compass and will agonize over whether his actions are right or not when confronted with a serious situation. His natural reaction is to remain uninvolved in events rather than insert himself, however after a while he finds that remaining uninvolved is itself an active choice which he has to live with, something that gets harder and harder and that returns to haunt him. Travels with Brennivin mainly out of loyalty, but also because it grants him a degree of freedom despite the danger and frequent dilemmas.
Combat wise, he will be heavily armoured and prety durable although not as much as Beck. He will the party’s healer and will play the main support role. His attack will be relatively weak except he will have a real advantage against undead and demons. Frangelico won't make it into the demo, so his description is more tentative.
Malbec – Beck’s cousin. He is currently a member of a crime syndicate, the Seagrams organization. He started out as a thief, then an assassin, then started running some of their businesses. He was quite successful, which led to challenges and conflicts with other organizations and rivals within the same organization. As a result, he has spent much time working on his fencing skills in a top studio, and has mastered the dual sword style. He is intelligent and surprisingly refined for a member of a syndicate. He will willingly compromise his morals for money. The only thing he care more about money is his girlfriend Chianta, for whom he would do anything and can be quite overprotective of leading him to make, although well intentioned, rash decisions and overreactions when she is involved. Chianta eventually leaves him, and he begins to persue another woman, Metaxa which then becomes them most important thing in the world to him and for which he would compromise anything.
In terms of combat, he will be strong attacker but with somewhat weak defense. He will differ from Brennivin in that his special attacks will tend to do heavy damage to a single target (and will be the most damaging single target special attacks) but will be limited in group attacks. Malbec won't make it into the demo, so his description is more tentative.
Intoxicos – An ancient demon prince that has entered into a pact with Brennivin. Has millennia of wisdom, experience and resources. Having acquired vast power, resources and even his own realm of hell to rule over has left him with a key problem. He is really bored. He responds to Brennivin’s summons because it would be a fun diversion for him to see how much he could build up a mortal and watch the effects, which in his experience usually turn out to be that the mortal causes vast amounts of chaos and strife once given the power to do so. For him, Brennivin is nothing more than the main character in a game he is playing. He is intensely proud, and looks down on anything he perceives as foolish, undignified, or weak. He has a distaste for "low" or crude evil, such seeing as unnecessary violence as being cheap and unsophistacated, but respects intellectual, manipulative or creative acts even if they aren’t necessarily evil. He will mock and criticise Brennivin for anything he perceives as foolish, but he will abide his contract to serve even if he is forced to do something as loathesome (to him) as promote altruism or worse, charity. At a key point in the story, Brennivin will see that he isn’t very different from Intoxicos, and even more disturbingly, not many people are.
Intoxicos will provide a support role. The journal (accessable through the menu) will be kept by him (including his color commentary), he will teleport the party to places where they have placed his sigil (towns and save points), offer advice on quests, teach Brennivin magic when the proper reagents are brought (see other features, below), and will be the driver of some portions of the plot. He will be sort of like if Matthieu from Suikoden was the devil, and had distaste for pretty much everybody, including Brennivin.
Credits
Thalzon (Battlers) Japanese website (Facesets (Sorry, don't read Japanese, but you rock!)) Asdasa (party leader script), Hime (large choices), Coelocanth (crafting), Craze (Elemental Merger), Retcon (Journal), Yami (Skill Shop), Celianna (Tilesets), Avadan (sprites, tiles and faces)
Special Thanks to DoubleX for his Unison Skill script, which he customized after I had asked him if something was possible. It's the closest standalone you can find to a Chrono-trigger dual or triple tech and has great customization options. Please take a look at his scripts. He (or she) is fantastic.
DOWNLOAD
*** Update Feb 13** Updated to fix certain bugs, including one causing crashes when opening the skills menu.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bfss6orflns0ra1/Project1.exe
Theme/Genre
Fantasy RPG. I am going for an old school vibe, but with modern features, such as a journal tons of optional side quests, and semi-linearity.
Story
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The central focus of the story is how the difference between good and evil is often times little more than perspective; the only difference between a hero and a villian may depend on who's opinion you ask.
The main character, Brennivin is dissatisfied with the lack of accomplishment thus far in his career as a magician. He was regarded as remarkably talented, but signed on to a well paying, comfortable job that he deservedly feels nonetheless wastes his talents. For years, he has been preparing in terms of research and buying reagents to summon a heavenly guardian to give him the guidance he seeks. Shortly after the game begins, he gets his last pay check in order to buy the final piece. In the summoning, he will make a slight but serious error in the ritual, and instead inadvertently make a pact with a demon prince, Intoxicos.
The pact requires Intoxicos to act as an advisor and mentor to Brennivin. Brennivin asks Intoxicos to aid him in growing his skills, earning respect as a magician, and also to prosper. Intoxicos mentors Brennivin in developing his personal power and establishing himself as a man of influence. Despite being an unabashadly evil demon with nothing but abject contempt for humanity, he performs capably and honestly as a mentor. Although he will add in his own personal two cents and constantly express disapproval, he does not try to manipulate Brennivin or to exploit or twist the terms of the pact. Much later on, it comes out that the reason Intoxicos does not try to twist the pact, lie, or deceive Brennivin is because he finds it unnecessary to do so. He finds that the best way to spread strife in the world is just to let a man grow powerful enough to do as he wants, and then let human nature take its course when they try to bring forth their vision of how things "should" be. Further, ironically he finds that the more "good" people try to do, the more strife is created.
Accordingly, Brennivin will grow richer, more powerful and influential in the world and will be seen as a hero by many. Brennivin will eventually be able to upset a precarious balance of power in the world when he challenges what is seen by many as an oppressive and corrupt oligarchy--which may or may not be the lesser of two evils. His own backers will hail him as a leader, a freedom fighter and a hero, while people in favor of the status quo will see him and those behind him as extremists who are upsetting an imperfect yet carefully balanced peace and must be stopped for the greater good before it leads to war.
The game will be lighter and less serious at first, but as the game goes on, the seriousness will grow, consistent with the theme that the greater the consequences of your actions, the graver the consequences. Or as otherwise stated, the bigger the omlette you are making, the more eggs may get broken. By late game, Brennivin will be weary of all the responsibility he has placed on himself and realize that despite getting exactly what he asked for, that he can't believe he ever wanted it.
Also, I will deviate from the standard old-school RPG paradigm where the hero is a swordsman and instead will be the mage. I will have this color the quests and game play and events, like for example, placing curses on strategic items and plot events based on whether certain spells are known. I am also intending the game to have a darker tone, particularly on the subject of magic which will be ever present since the main character is a magician. Magic will not be treated whimsically or in a light hearted nature--there will be no Disney magic. It will be dark, grave, dangerous, and feared. People won't see your main character as a whimsical wondermaker. They will be scared of him.
For example, relatively early in the game, I am planning on giving him the ability to summon spirits of the dead and question them. The introductory side quest after gaining this ability will be where he is to find the body of a missing girl for her family. In order to do so, you will contact her spirit which is mad with grief over her own death and demands that the person she feels is responsible be drowned just like her. This will putting you in the position as the judge for the accused (whose guilt isn't clear cut) and also raising questions of whether the spirit can find peace. The choice of how to resolve it, including the method, will lie with you.
I have been told that the tone will have similarities to Death Note (and from what I have heard, I can see it) but that is purely coincidental. I have never seen it or read it. Finally, as you probably have picked up on, alcohol is a theme with virtually everything and everyone named after some kind of beer, liquor or wine. Beers will restore HP, wine MP, shots of liquor will boost stats, and moonshine will revive dead PCs.
Gameplay mechanics/features
The game will have a main quest, and will have a large number of optional side quests. Quests will largely have multiple ways of being solved. There will be a social skill system where through practice, Brennivin will get better at intimidating, persuading or appeasing others in conversation. He will also get more famous, leading to different dialogue options, better quests being offered and better rewards.
In terms of combat, there will be a combo-skill system, which would be reminiscent of Chrono Trigger. Combat is going to be on the tougher side. Except for boss fights, subject to how it goes in play testing, I am thinking that fights will be short, brutal and there will always be some element of risk but also offsetting reward (perhaps through a valuable or unique items dropping with respectable percentages). Brennivin will be able to create spells (and access new combo attacks) by bringing the right combination of runes and items to Intoxicos. There will be an extensive crafting system.
Characters
Brennivin- A very talented magician. Currently works for the town of Lowenbrau as their resident magician. Is highly paid, but dissatisfied since he feels his talents are wasted on trivial matters and has no opportunity to grow his skills. He is highly ambitious. Although he does have a strong (although slightly harsh) sense of justice, he morally flexible and has a mercenary outlook. Despite that, he has a strong sense of professionalism. He starts his journey in Beeronia, but is a foreigner from a region of Liquoria which is modelled after Viking age Scandinavia (fun fact: Brennivin is named after the national liquor of Iceland. It's good stuff if you can get your hands on it). This gives him some detachment from the initial setting of the story, which is helpful to him since it is teetering on civil war.
In terms of combat his physical attacks will be pretty useless and he will rely on spells. As a combat mechanic, his MP regenerates so that players won't feel the need to avoid casting spells in order to conserve MP. Players will be able to cast weaker spells (which should be roughly as strong as a hard hitting normal attack from a warrior type) frequently needing an occassional breather, or cast fewer big spells but need to take a breather sooner. He won’t be able to take much punishment and will be a glass cannon.
Beck – A militiaman who was expected to be a very talented warrior in his youth, but never really focused or sacrificed enough to get much recognition or fulfill his potential. He isn’t quite middle aged yet, but if he was going to make a mark, it would have happened by now. He still acts and thinks like a man much younger than he is, and this immaturity is a double edged sword. He is bolder than most men his age, and hasn’t given up on "making it" although he hasn't really expended any real effort into it. He is physically just as capable as he ever was and his potential is still there. But, his immaturity makes him impulsive and rash, it also takes a personal toll on him because he never really settled into being a family man. He follows Brennivin because it allows him to go on greater adventures and to escape from what he considers a boring life. His children miss him while he adventures, which pains him. His wife resents his absence since it leaves her to take care of the kids alone, but she makes her peace with it because she doesn't love him anymore and she is happy with the money his adventuring brings in.
Combat wise, he will be able to take the most punishment. Unless he uses a two handed weapon his default attacks will be notably weaker than Brennivin's go-to attack spells and his special attacks will hit roughly as hard as those go-to attack spells (but not nearly as hard as Brennivin's big spells). If equipped with a two handed weapon, his attack power will increase considerably while meaningfully reducing his defense but still leaving him rather sturdy. Also he will act as a secondary healer.
Frangelico – A priest who is Brennivin’s oldest friend. Although highly talented, he is lazy and irresponsible. He sought the priesthood because he thought it would give him an easy life and he tries to take lower profile, easy postings. He is, despite all things, a someone with a real moral compass and will agonize over whether his actions are right or not when confronted with a serious situation. His natural reaction is to remain uninvolved in events rather than insert himself, however after a while he finds that remaining uninvolved is itself an active choice which he has to live with, something that gets harder and harder and that returns to haunt him. Travels with Brennivin mainly out of loyalty, but also because it grants him a degree of freedom despite the danger and frequent dilemmas.
Combat wise, he will be heavily armoured and prety durable although not as much as Beck. He will the party’s healer and will play the main support role. His attack will be relatively weak except he will have a real advantage against undead and demons. Frangelico won't make it into the demo, so his description is more tentative.
Malbec – Beck’s cousin. He is currently a member of a crime syndicate, the Seagrams organization. He started out as a thief, then an assassin, then started running some of their businesses. He was quite successful, which led to challenges and conflicts with other organizations and rivals within the same organization. As a result, he has spent much time working on his fencing skills in a top studio, and has mastered the dual sword style. He is intelligent and surprisingly refined for a member of a syndicate. He will willingly compromise his morals for money. The only thing he care more about money is his girlfriend Chianta, for whom he would do anything and can be quite overprotective of leading him to make, although well intentioned, rash decisions and overreactions when she is involved. Chianta eventually leaves him, and he begins to persue another woman, Metaxa which then becomes them most important thing in the world to him and for which he would compromise anything.
In terms of combat, he will be strong attacker but with somewhat weak defense. He will differ from Brennivin in that his special attacks will tend to do heavy damage to a single target (and will be the most damaging single target special attacks) but will be limited in group attacks. Malbec won't make it into the demo, so his description is more tentative.
Intoxicos – An ancient demon prince that has entered into a pact with Brennivin. Has millennia of wisdom, experience and resources. Having acquired vast power, resources and even his own realm of hell to rule over has left him with a key problem. He is really bored. He responds to Brennivin’s summons because it would be a fun diversion for him to see how much he could build up a mortal and watch the effects, which in his experience usually turn out to be that the mortal causes vast amounts of chaos and strife once given the power to do so. For him, Brennivin is nothing more than the main character in a game he is playing. He is intensely proud, and looks down on anything he perceives as foolish, undignified, or weak. He has a distaste for "low" or crude evil, such seeing as unnecessary violence as being cheap and unsophistacated, but respects intellectual, manipulative or creative acts even if they aren’t necessarily evil. He will mock and criticise Brennivin for anything he perceives as foolish, but he will abide his contract to serve even if he is forced to do something as loathesome (to him) as promote altruism or worse, charity. At a key point in the story, Brennivin will see that he isn’t very different from Intoxicos, and even more disturbingly, not many people are.
Intoxicos will provide a support role. The journal (accessable through the menu) will be kept by him (including his color commentary), he will teleport the party to places where they have placed his sigil (towns and save points), offer advice on quests, teach Brennivin magic when the proper reagents are brought (see other features, below), and will be the driver of some portions of the plot. He will be sort of like if Matthieu from Suikoden was the devil, and had distaste for pretty much everybody, including Brennivin.
Credits
Thalzon (Battlers) Japanese website (Facesets (Sorry, don't read Japanese, but you rock!)) Asdasa (party leader script), Hime (large choices), Coelocanth (crafting), Craze (Elemental Merger), Retcon (Journal), Yami (Skill Shop), Celianna (Tilesets), Avadan (sprites, tiles and faces)
Special Thanks to DoubleX for his Unison Skill script, which he customized after I had asked him if something was possible. It's the closest standalone you can find to a Chrono-trigger dual or triple tech and has great customization options. Please take a look at his scripts. He (or she) is fantastic.
DOWNLOAD
*** Update Feb 13** Updated to fix certain bugs, including one causing crashes when opening the skills menu.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bfss6orflns0ra1/Project1.exe
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