How to Be a Teenage Hero (A Studio Kaius JRPG)

[onewingedcaius]

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Overview


How to be a Teenage Hero (working title) is a classical-style RPG with social-sim and visual novel elements. Set in the year 2018 on the fictional Mieka Island. The player takes on the role of a first-year college student moving to the island to begin his new life, when a plethora of mysterious, possibly supernatural events are taking place. It's up to you and your friends you with gather along the way to figure out what exactly is going on and take down whoever is behind it all.


Think Chrono Trigger + Persona 3/4 + The World Ends With you, and you got the basic idea.


The Hero


Our hero is an 18 year old first year at Mieka Island's local college. While not a silent protagonist, he is ultimately whoever the player wants him to be...to an extent. From gameplay to story, this guy is your own character as much as he is his own person. Want a swift-acting fighter, a heavy hitter, a master of casting? He can do it. Want a charming, witty yet respectable ladies man? That's him. Or how about a deep methodical tactician? Sure, why not.


Meet Mr. Soraku, your new local teenage hero!





Features

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  A Character-Driven Mystery Story: A strange new island home with randomly occurring comas, disappearing residents, and fighting demonic projections of your own subconscious? What exactly could be causing all this craziness? It's up to you and your new friends to figure it all out...while still finding time to hit up the beach, put on a rock concert, or find yourself a date.
  
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  Classic Yet Refined Battle System: Mastering the 2 elemental triangles (Physical & Mind) is the key to victory. It's not just about winning. It's about winning the the fastest and most efficient way possible.
  

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  Socializing and Bonding: You can't spend all your time fighting supernatural beings can you? Explore Mieka island, and get to know your teammates as you grow on your journey together. Stronger bonds means stronger fighters.
  
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  Manage Your Time Wisely: Your don't have all the time in the world to save it. Time will progress as you play, and if your not careful you might miss something for good. Hang with friends? Raise your personality stats? Explore dungeons and battle the unknown becoming stronger? It's up to you how you spend your time.
  

Goal


I'm not out to create some grand 60 hour epic to be challenge the hardcore JRPGs out there. I'm here to make a game that is fun to play from beginning to end, whether that takes 10 hours to 50 hours of more. I want to make a game reminiscent of the best of JRPGs, borrowing the best elements from the likes of Chrono Trigger, to Persona, to The World Ends With You and so on. I want whoever picks up my game to have a laugh, cry, and just have a blast doing it. If I've made you smile while you play, as far as I'm concerned, I've done my job.


Project Status


As you can image, right now, the game is still in SUPER early pre-production stages, so there might be some big changes headed my way. BUT I have enough of a prototype built to where I feel it's time to start getting some proper feedback as I build. Naturally this means I don't have a ton to show you all at this point.


….Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, what the heck, I'll show you some stuff anyway.


(Keep in mind, this is still super-early stage stuff, but hopefully it gives you an idea of what you can expect.)

Screenshots
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Spoiler

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[Wavelength]

Tons of potential for greatness here - I feel these Persona-styled adventure/strategy/slice-of-life hybrids are a pure joy to play, and I especially like that you're going with a college theme.  The general problem is that a lot of such games are announced for RPG Maker and then they die on the vine because they require such an enormous amount of hand-crafted content to make them deliver on any of their appeal (unlike many other types of games which require a great internal system but far less unique content).  No one is going to laugh, cry, or have a blast with a Persona-style game that feels really limited.  So I hope you have the grit to truck through the hard work and long time it will take to make your dream a reality!


I enjoy your graphical style in general, especially your HUDs, though I can't read the character stats at all on the bottom of the battle screen.  Your enemy models are... kind of weird to me.  I think the biggest offender is the fact that the masks look like they were sloppily cut-and-pasted onto enemy models that have a completely different shading scheme - in other words they don't look like they belong on these enemy models and it is visually jarring.


As time goes on you should add more information about the other characters in your game, as these teammates and NPCs are often a large part of the appeal in this sort of game.


GOOD LUCK!!  You are off to a good start and I'd love to play this one day.

 

[Iliketea]

Oh, this looks fun!


I hope there will be a Demo soon ^^ 

 

[ThePotatoOfFire]

This look very promising! Artwork and menus look fantastic!

 

[onewingedcaius]

The general problem is that a lot of such games are announced for RPG Maker and then they die on the vine because they require such an enormous amount of hand-crafted content to make them deliver on any of their appeal (unlike many other types of games which require a great internal system but far less unique content).  No one is going to laugh, cry, or have a blast with a Persona-style game that feels really limited.

First of, thanks for the honesty, Helps me out immensely with trying to identify what needs to be worked on. Secondly, you're absolutely right, which is actually a trap I have fallen into in my past years of game developing. The reason I have more confidence in this project because I have had a stable pre-production and planning phase as well as focusing on getting the game actually built and existing in it's most basic and playable form before I stat going in to add any crazy features that, while fun, are not necessary to have a great experience.

I think the biggest offender is the fact that the masks look like they were sloppily cut-and-pasted onto enemy models that have a completely different shading scheme - in other words they don't look like they belong on these enemy models and it is visually jarring.

I hear you. The reason they look like that because that's exactly what they are.  Like I said I'm still technically in pre-production at this point, so there's a lot that is subject to change. For the sake of properly building, testing, and balancing the battle system, I needed some a specific few types of enemy design, so I whipped them up in no time flat. Rest assured these are by no means even close to the final enemy or (hopefully) battleback designs.

This look very promising! Artwork and menus look fantastic!

Much appreciated! I'm doing everything I can to live up to that promise.

Oh, this looks fun!


I hope there will be a Demo soon ^^ 

I hope to have some kind of prototype out as soon as possible so I can get some more hands-on feedback. That will probably come closer to the end of pre-production, though.


Thanks all for the feedback. I'm working vigorously to make this something fully worthy of people's time, money, and excitement.