RPG Maker Forums
RETURN TO SENDER
Demo V1.01
Do you ever feel like you're in the wrong world? Like you just don't fit in? Sometimes the universe makes mistakes and you get misplaced, but if you stick in there, you'll find your way to the parallel world you belong in.
Return to Sender is an episodic comedy adventure/rpg where you take the role of Eric Matier as he finds himself traveling to a parallel world where he'll fit in better. More on that in a second, but first, let's meet our main characters. (Also, only up to the first episode has been thought out, so more characters and story may be added later on).
~ Characters ~
Eric Matier is your average Joe. He works a 9-5 job in marketing, religiously orders take-out and shares his one-bedroom apartment with his cat. Oh, and also he's being transported to a parallel world where he fits in better with a problematic stowaway...
Shard is, well, a shard of broken memory who has somehow found his way onboard the Purgatory Express (a train that transports souls between worlds). Obviously, those who are travelling from one world to another are supposed to have all their memories purged (minus general things like breathing and the existence of your mother) so a shard of a memory can be really bad, especially when you're traveling to a new world. Being a piece of the memory has given Shard a unique outlook on what he considers life, which obviously means he berates Eric and is heavily sarcastic at every turn as their relationship is more parasitic at the start.
Truss is not one character, but unlimited beings. Every world has a Truss, who are the keepers of the Fountains of Time for each world. They are pretty much in charge of the respective world's continuity and only venture outside of their Fountains when something world-shattering occurs. It's not known who made them or how they stay activated for so long, just that they're really, really bored waiting around for the odd person to show up.
~ Story ~
As you may have guessed, the story starts with Eric at the Fountain of Time, feeling as though he doesn't belong in his world. After having his memories erased, he wakes up on the Purgatory Express (a rarer occurrence then not fitting into a world). The PE is currently transporting him to the world he's being transplanted to, and sometimes that trip can last longer than the anesthesia. Feeling bored, he decides to look around the train, where he hears someone call out for help, that isn't one of the employees. Trapped in a room, Eric finds a vent that leads to it and discovers it's not a person at all, but a floating, sentient shard named, well, Shard.
Shard isn't supposed to be on the PE since you aren't supposed to bring any memories from other worlds with you during the transplant process, but Eric hides him because he can't come to terms with the idea of a sentient being getting destroyed. Plus, they aren't sure he's even a memory of someone on the train, so what's the harm? Eric passes out again as his stop comes up and he wakes up in the same apartment he occupied with the same cat and the same overflowing garbage can he remembered. New to him, however, is he's got a different job, as a graphic designer instead of just a marketing assistant. New skills, new friends, all of which he foggily remembers.
Shard wants to find out whose memory he belongs to and thus become whole again, but Eric just wants to live his life. After a brief argument, Shardy accidentally cuts Eric's shoulder causing him to remember the Fountain of Time and piece together that he wasn't originally in this world. Eric freaks out and runs into the park next to his apartment complex, only to see another shard of memory and after putting it back together, he realizes, it's his memory.
What he doesn't realize, of course, is gaining this memory has actually put the world and all the parallel universes in heavy danger. With continuity gone, the worlds get closer together and start to collide and combine. In the Fountain of Time, it's keeper, Truss, starts to realize something is up when another Truss appears in his temple (One Truss per world).
Can the worlds be stopped from colliding and causing all parallel life to cease existence?
Whose memory is Shard?
Will Truss finally have someone to play checkers with after this is all over?
Find out in Return to Sender!
Game Features
The bulk of the game is Adventure driven. Find and combine items to make new items in order to get new things or progress the story. Some items can be picked up and some must be procured by fighting "Disturbances" which are creatures that don't belong in the world you're in. Because of this, there are two main modes of play. By using Shard, you can figure out where the Disturbances are and level up, but that means he can't be used to help point out objects you may not notice. For example, in the first area, there is a key that you can't reach and you have no idea how to get it. After you rescue Shard, he'll point out spoons and a tong that can be combined to make a "Super Tong" that can reach the key. But, to find Disturbances, you'll have to use Shard like a monocle that points them out. Since, obviously he has a face, he has to go into meditation mode (honestly, he just goes to sleep) so you can look through him.
Since combination is a major focus, you'll also be able to combine items to create battle items, new weapons, techniques and healing items. Every common item in the game can be combined together into something, no matter how useless. In contrast, you will not lose key items if you try to combine them and they just don't work.
Now, the feature I like most is mapsplitting, which I don't know what the actual name of it is. Since this game uses overlays and pictures for various means, there would be a lot of slowdown if you loaded everything at once. To get around this, most maps are split. So three rooms in a map, two would be covered up to save memory and make the game run faster while giving the illusion that there are more maps then there are. In test areas and maps so far, slowdown occurred majorly before this was implemented. This also means by using a common event, every transition loads a few more images so by the time you go through 4 or 5 (depending on the cluster of maps) you've loaded everything, meaning that it's one fluid game that looks pretty nice in my opinion. Of course, I could just be a noob and that was already known by everyone and I got excited over nothing, haha.
Since combination is a major focus, you'll also be able to combine items to create battle items, new weapons, techniques and healing items. Every common item in the game can be combined together into something, no matter how useless. In contrast, you will not lose key items if you try to combine them and they just don't work.
Now, the feature I like most is mapsplitting, which I don't know what the actual name of it is. Since this game uses overlays and pictures for various means, there would be a lot of slowdown if you loaded everything at once. To get around this, most maps are split. So three rooms in a map, two would be covered up to save memory and make the game run faster while giving the illusion that there are more maps then there are. In test areas and maps so far, slowdown occurred majorly before this was implemented. This also means by using a common event, every transition loads a few more images so by the time you go through 4 or 5 (depending on the cluster of maps) you've loaded everything, meaning that it's one fluid game that looks pretty nice in my opinion. Of course, I could just be a noob and that was already known by everyone and I got excited over nothing, haha.
Screenshots
Please Note: Screenshots might not represent the environments of the final game and do not show the full first episode.
~Credits~
Graphics:
I'm using an edited version of the Train tilesets from the Season Pass along with VexedEnigma's great POP! Horror packs (Still waiting on that sewer expansion, haha). I'm also making edits and original graphics both based on ideas for the story (see Shard) and making graphics from other tilesets/characters sheets included in RPGMV.
Plugins:
Yanfly
Yoji Ojima
Todd Damien Design
KANNAZUKI
REXAL
MASKED
Sound Sepher
DreamX
HIMEWorks
Story:
My friend Juro and I are collaborating on the story and polishing it to hopefully be pretty fun!
Mapping and Eventing:
Kinda, sorta, just me right now, haha.
Changelog:
10/4/2016: Original Post.
10/14/2016: Working on getting Demo up before end of October.
10/21/2016: Nearly finished eventing the demo, just a few more loose ends for the puzzles, the opening graphics and the main character battler left to do.
10/25/2016: Demo version 1.01 is complete! There may be some glitches I missed. Right now, there are a few known glitches that aren't game-breaking, like you can get multiple materials for one of the items, but it'll be taken out in the next version.
10/14/2016: Working on getting Demo up before end of October.
10/21/2016: Nearly finished eventing the demo, just a few more loose ends for the puzzles, the opening graphics and the main character battler left to do.
10/25/2016: Demo version 1.01 is complete! There may be some glitches I missed. Right now, there are a few known glitches that aren't game-breaking, like you can get multiple materials for one of the items, but it'll be taken out in the next version.
Also, thanks for taking the time to read all of this and I'd love to hear what you guys think. It's not a traditional RPG, but I hope it'll be a fun little adventure in a few short bits!
Thanks and have a great day!
-Nate
Latest Posts
-
RMMV An "animation substitution" plugin to allow for a "photosensitive players" option (1 Viewer)- Latest: EthanFox
-
-
-
Latest Profile Posts
Our latest feature is an interview with... me?!
forums.rpgmakerweb.com
Spotlights/Features - RPG Maker Feature: Nick 'Touchfuzzy' Palmer
Spotlight: @Touchfuzzy (Tagging yourself is...
People4_2 (Capelet off and on) added!
forums.rpgmakerweb.com
Tonbi's MZ material factory
That is ok. I know the rest of the Actor 3 Set...
Just beat the last of us 2 last night and starting jedi: fallen order right now, both use unreal engine & when I say i knew 80% of jedi's buttons right away because they were the same buttons as TLOU2 its ridiculous, even the same narrow hallway crawl and barely-made-it jump they do. Unreal Engine is just big budget RPG Maker the way they make games nearly identical at its core lol.
Can someone recommend some fun story-heavy RPGs to me? Coming up with good gameplay is a nightmare! I was thinking of making some gameplay platforming-based, but that doesn't work well in RPG form*. I also was thinking of removing battles, but that would be too much like OneShot. I don't even know how to make good puzzles!
one bad plugin combo later and one of my followers is moonwalking off the screen on his own... I didn't even more yet on the new map lol.
