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GAME SYNOPSIS


Beginning in the sleepy port town of South Harbor, Pendulum follows the journey of Schem Shea, a young man who is largely shunned by his community for possessing odd, supernatural abilities - namely, the ability to discover hidden secrets through "dowsing".  With the cool support of his father, Schem was able to live in relative peace within the town and even gain some notoriety in recovering lost objects, but with the terrible event that occurs during a dark and fateful thunderstorm, everything changes...


...Wow, that was serious.  Let's get on to the fun stuff.


CAST

• The awkward hero of the story is no other than Schem Shea, the dowser that no one in town likes.
  

• He is supported in theory by his father, Daddy Shea, who always believes in his son even though he won't defend him against the town.
  

• Father Mistrella may seem like a villain on the surface, but his motives are more familial than faithful. Besides, he's just saying what everyone else in the town is thinking. 
  

• Then there is the prodigal son Leicolm Mistrella who moves along the story as well as Nadia who moves along gameplay aspects because really none of even them like Schem enough to want him to stay in town.
  

FEATURES!


So far, this first part took me a little over 20 minutes to complete, but that was me knowing exactly where to go and where to do.  When I took a little time with the battles, it was more like 30+ minutes.  I would say you have ~40+ minutes of being moderately entertained to look forward to when you download this little jiggy.


And how are you going to be entertained?


WELL:


The biggest and most uncommon (to me, at least) feature of this playable section is the use of "dowsing" in order to locate missing pieces of a puzzle as well as hidden items.  Schem begins the game with the key item "Mother's Pendulum" which triggers the reveal of the unseen for 15 seconds.  




What's another feature, you ask?  Why, experiencing me figuring out how to even make a game, of course!  That's right, you get to explore an awkward town and pre-loaded maps once I realized that creating maps really, really wasn't my forte!  And fight enemies with equipment, items, and abilities that don't quite work how I wanted them to because I don't get how fighting and formulas work! 


And things like this!





But it's all in the process of learning, and I'll grasp it better one day.


I've been working on this for a week, which is probably a blink of the eye as far as game development goes, and this is my very first project in RPG Maker VXAce or any kind of game maker.  It's been really rewarding to make mistakes and learn from them as well as finding ways to accomplish what I want leading to discovering even better ways to do that, so I'm definitely proud of what I've done so far.  And DEFINITELY I am excited about jumping over all the hurdles I know I have ahead of me in the next part.


BUGS?


That's what the Bug Spray is for.  But really, there's only one I can actually think of, and that's one where Nadia can actually prevent you from getting back to town if you decide to go back before doing a certain thing in the forest.  Anything other than that is news to me, so absolutely share!


As far as ISSUES go, I mentioned the wonky maps and battle system, so if you have suggestions for those I absolutely want to hear because I know that's something I really want to iron out.  I absolutely would love to get feedback/criticism/ideas/etc. because I know the following sections are just going to get harder and harder and I want to learn!


CREDITS


In the screenshots you'll notice that some things are different!  


I was using the "Old & Rusty" window skin by Maker Systems – RPG Maker Source for the window skin for the screenshots.  But I made a last-minute decision to take it out because the first thing I want to do next is make one of my own that fits better with the title screen and overall feel of the game.  I wanted to have a little pendulum swinging instead of a turny wheel or blinky arrow  so I made my own, which is included in the download!


Also, you'll notice that in the demo, Schem actually has...expressions!!  This is thanks to Celianna's Faceset Generator.  Slowly I'll update everyone else's, though I believe I'll keep Leicolm's the way it is since I really like what's there.


SO...I THINK THAT'S IT.  Now young adventurer, you know what you must do...