RMMV ONYX|LEGACY game concept!

[Aphrael_Amarantha]

Hello everyone! I have been wanting to make an rpg kind of like the old Final Fantasy games (before 7 mainly). I came up with an idea and now I'm just sharing it here to see some reactions, feedback, whatever. It is quite early of course; hence why I am posting here since I am not in full development yet, I am still fleshing out the main scenario and a few other things.

My idea!

ONYX|LEGACY


This is an actual in game pic of the title screen I recently just developed! Actually, all the art I'm gonna post here was made by me unless I say otherwise just so you all know, thx.

Anyway, to the heart of the project!

PREMISE

Spoiler

The World of Darkness, Pollux is a place of high technology. The world and it's energy is sustained by the great Crystals, six mysterious objects that have existed since time immemorial. The rulers of Pollux have always had the responsibility of guarding the Crystals with their lives. The Princess of Pollux, Melchizedek Mars (everyone just calls her Mel since her name is hard to pronounce) has just reached her twentieth birthday and is charged by her father, the Emperor of Pollux, of becoming the new guardian of the Crystals. When she arrives at the Temple of the Dark to commune with the Dark Crystal, she discovers the Crystals have disappeared! Now she must set out to find the crystals before the forces of the World of Light, Castor, take advantage of their current weakness and lay ruin to Mel's world.

SETTING

Spoiler

The game takes place on two worlds, the World of Darkness, Pollux, and the World of Light, Castor. They are separated not by physical space but by an interdimensional rift called the Aethereal Plane. It is here that scientists believe the worlds' energy simply labeled Aether, comes from via the Crystals. The Crystals in reality are solidified pure Aether that have gained sentience and hence can speak with their guardians. Where they originally came from no one knows.

In addition, there is animosity between Castor and Pollux because there was a great war between the two of them somewhere around 500 years ago. No one really remembers how the war ended but they do know its most significant consequence was that the dimensional doors that used to link the two worlds have since closed, separating them. People of both worlds also have their own viewpoints of each other. The people of Castor believe Pollux is the source of the monsters that plague their world and are always trying to spread darkness and decay, so Pollux there is seen as evil. The people of Pollux view Castor as a pious, arrogant world attempting to force their way of life upon everyone that is not them and wish to have nothing to do with them. I hope that throughout the narrative I want to eventually show that they need each other in order to solve the great crises that will threaten both of their existences.

One other thing: there are several groups or individuals in the story that are aware that the Crystals have disappeared. Some have nefarious purposes; others just feel what they are doing is right. I won't say more because that may spoil to much. There is also a dark new religion starting to appear on both worlds that preys upon the weak-willed. They obviously do not have good intentions.

CHARACTERS (My favorite part :3 )

Spoiler

(The sprite size actually works in game, makes me so happy!)
MELCHIZEDEK MARS (Everyone just calls her Mel)
Princess of Pollux
Age: 19 (turns 20 early in the story)
Sex: Female
Weapon: Battlestaves
Personality: Happy, flirtatious, laid back, rebellious, dismissive, very temperamental
Melchizedek Mars is the Princess of Pollux and the next guardian of the Crystals. She is the protagonist thus the player will be playing through her eyes for the majority of the game. The concept behind her is that I kind of want her to be like a female Kirk (that captain guy from Star Trek lol), she loves to flirt with people and sleeping with whoever she wants all while saving the day. I have noticed that there are not many female characters that are like this or when they are, they are not shown in a positive light and I want to turn that double standard a bit on its head. I want her to be a positive character even though I also hope to highlight her dark moments as well.

PUMA AURELIUS (Sorry, I don't have art for the other characters yet)
Mercenary, sometimes serves the royal family of Pollux.
Age: 23
Sex: Male
Weapon: Aether Cannons
Personality: Serious, compassionate, greedy, protective, honest to a fault, blunt
Puma Aurelius is a mercenary who sometimes works for the royal family of Pollux as a bodyguard. He is a friend of Mel's but he tries to keep his distance since he doesn't believe it is proper to be too close to the princess (even if she says otherwise!). The concept behind him is I want him to be like a soft-spoken, walking Adonis who is also a badass and doesn't take names. At the same time though he sometimes gets too protective of his clients, suffocating them in the process.

DR. AIMEE MILLEFEUILLE
Cleric of the Church of Light
Age: 21
Sex: Female
Weapon: Short swords
Personality: Eccentric, arrogant, hyper, loyal, highly focused, moody
Aimee Millefeuille is a member of Castor's Church of Light. She is a very dedicated doctor and zealous follower of The Light with a strange obsession with blood and gore. Like, she loves blood, she likes looking at it and also slicing people and other things apart and directly handling their insides. She uses swords so she can precisely cut apart her victims as if she were using a surgical knife so she can leave the organs unharmed for her to study. Her method of using Aether arts that heal wounds requires her to actually stick her hands inside someone's organs and pump the Aether directly into them. At first it's painful for the recipient of her treatments but then they feel better than they ever have.

I wanted a female healer that loved blood and gore. I thought it would be a cool quirk to have for a healer and make them kind of uncomfortable to the player. Despite her weirdness, I want her to have a good heart. :3

(EDIT 1)

LEVAN
Unknown
Age: Unknown, appears to be in his late 20s
Sex Male
Weapon: Laser Swords
Personality: Brusque, silent, no nonsense, calm, level-headed, animal lover
No one knows who this silver haired man is, but he has a tendency of showing up in situations where Mel is involved in. Sometimes, he assists Mel out, other times he opposes her. His motives are clear only to him. His silvery-white hair suggests that he may be from Castor.

For Levan, I wanted a mysterious sometimes foe, sometimes benefactor for Mel. He is actually important to Mel's quest and to the world of Castor but if I reveal anymore it will be spoiler territory.

(More characters coming!)

BATTLE SYSTEM

Spoiler

This is a work in progress and I am not for certain what to do here yet. I originally wanted to use a side view battle system but noticed that the usage of side view is heavily oversaturated with RM games which is unfortunate. At the same time though, not as many people like the front view system either. Also, I had thought about using a plugin for an ATB style system or maybe something like Grandia 2's battle system but I have heard about the flaws regarding that as well (from my understanding, the Yanfly engine stuff for the battle system doesn't work at all or is too buggy?) So still thinking about how to do this. I would maybe like to do a system where you input commands for a character as soon as their turn comes up instead, but not for sure if that would work with the engine either. I have to do more messing around with this. Any suggestions anyone has I would appreciate that!

SKILL SYSTEM

Spoiler

So my favorite skill system in any game was from FFVII's materia system. I want to make a similar type of system in that game. The objects in question I will call shards and you can equip them into equipment that have sockets for them. I also want to tie shards into the strength of the weapons you can get. so for example, say you have the option of two Battlestaves, one has one slot and the other has two linked slots. You can use a Thermal shard to increase the attack on both staves, but you can have an even higher attack on the second stave if you also link a Double or Triple shard to the Thermal shard. Of course you wont be able to link two shards together if the two sockets are not linked. Also, gear has skill levels that can be maxed out as well, so getting that shiny new piece of armor may not always be beneficial unless it might have better stats in the long run. I am hoping this will add a bit of customization to the characters and create interesting game play results from it.

Anyway, let me know what you all think! I will take your thoughts and criticisms to heart (even if I don't always agree with it, so don't be sad if I don't use your suggestions, sorry). Again, it's a work in progress but I hope that I can actually finish it. Finishing it is the biggest obstacle lol.

 

[Muffel]

Hey ho.
I really like your art. The title screen looks amazingly futuristic, which is part of your story (sci-fi parallel dimension/universe-linked stuff if I understood correctly?).
The protagonist is a princess of the dark planet, the chosen one to protect and "serve" those dark crystals... which are gone and on that journey to find those, she sleeps with everyone she wants to (and even before the journey she did??)? I don't know what I should think about that one. It irritates me and I can't express my thoughts about that well...

About the battle and skill system: It doesn't matter THAT much what people think/use/prefer/etc. If you don't like sideview, don't do it. If you don't like ATB, don't do it. After all it's your game and you should (probably) know best what system might suit you, your story and game.
You can't invent everything new, so just make the existing (and even heavily oversaturated) things unique. You could probably do that aspect better than me with such drawing talents.

Anyways I'll be watching you and I hope you make progress.
Cheers

 

[Aphrael_Amarantha]

Hi, thx a lot! Yep, sci-fi, parallel world, techy stuff. Tbh, I had reread my story synopsis and sounded too similar to FFXV lol x_x

Anyway, I can understand that not everyone may like what I am doing with Mel for her characterization. It was a poor description of what she is like anyway, I was just jotting down the initial concepts I had in mind when creating her and the other characters and I'm certain there will be changes as I figure more things out. Thx for your concern though!

And yeah, tbh I am being drawn to a turned based side view battle system since that's what FF uses (I want the game to kind of have that FF feel). I want to use ATB but from what I gathered from my research, the Yanfly Engine isn't compatible to how RMMV does its battles and more often than not, it will just break which does me no good. I need something stable. For now, regular turn based will have to do. If I have time (I am expecting development to take at least three to four years) I may look to see if I can code something for myself that IS compatible.

 

[kaiijuu]

Hey, so Victor has some plugin's for ATB that you should check out, since Yanfly doesn't support their's anymore! Maybe look at that? This game though looks pretty neat and I'm interested in learning more about it

 

[Aphrael_Amarantha]

Thx! I have no idea who Victor is but I will look them up. :3

Oh, when I have more stuff to add here, do I just edit the op or do I just add a new post in this thread?

 

[RepG]

that's a great one. I like your art

 

[Aphrael_Amarantha]

that's a great one. I like your art

Thx!

Sorry, I will have art of more characters soon, I'm currently working on the scenario and game progression. In fact, lets look at the game progression flowchart :3



Sorry if its hard to read x_x

So progression through the game is kind of like this: You do the prologue which unlocks four goals that the player can choose from and completes. After three of these are completed, a major narrative event occurs and then the player unlocks the goals for Castor. Once all the crystals have been gathered, another event occurs and then the player must get the Crystal of Light. Finally, they then enter the endgame and will have to fight the last boss to beat the game and see the ending!

Anyway, one of the things I like about this structure is that it allows me to keep the narrative in a structured format and I can plan when stuff happens based upon the player's progress in the game. In addition, I can also easily set guides to determine enemy strength and game difficulty dependent upon where in the narrative the player is at. Then finally, the ability for the player to choose which goal they can pursue per world helps give a little freedom to the player in an otherwise linear narrative.

Let me know what you all think! :3

 

[Aphrael_Amarantha]

Sorry for the double post, I hadn't posted anything for a bit. I wanted to show what I am currently working on, which is the design for one of the villains in the game. I'm still in the sketching phase since I've gotten busy with other stuff, but I'm trying! Enjoy! :3

Spoiler

 

[Rehjul]

The characters and setting all seem interesting.
I especially appreciate the way you oppose classic gender roles with the characterization of your female protagonist.
Are you anticipating releasing a demo soon(if at all)?