RMVXA [RSE] Eremidia: Rise of the Deep

[TheoAllen]

Title: Eremidia: Rise of the Deep
Devname: AED2 (Another Eremidia Dungeon 2)
Developer: Theodoric / TheoAllen / TheolizedRGSS3
Genre: Dungeon Crawler, RPG, Shonen (R13+)
Alternative pages:

• RMN Page
• Itch.io Page

Introduction :
This project is planned for a continuation of my previous project. Unlike the previous project, this is not a demonstration of my system, but I build it purely as a game itself. Also as a medium for my writing exercise. The storytelling might be a little weird, but at least I tried

The Story :
Important note! The story contains a spoiler of how the ending of my previous project. So, open at your own risk!

Spoiler

Three young people bravely explored a ruin called the Skyward Temple in order to obtain an artifact of great value, the Skyglyph. After some fierce battles during their exploration, they managed to reach the last floor to find Skyglyph. However, they were trapped by a magical seal that threw them into the Interdimensional Void Rift. While trying to make a way to escape from The Rift, they find that there is more secret to uncover that soon will decide the fate of the Eremidia Kingdom.

The Characters :

Spoiler

Soleil Alfred
Key signature: High-burst damage, fire, slash, melee
Reference: The Sun
A hot-blooded boy that often lose his temper over a thing. Always eager to fight, and does not really have fear. Granted, he often can't read the situation he is in.

Lunar Emille
Key signature: Calm, composed, magic, supportive role
Reference: The Moon
An adept sorcerer from Runica Academy. Has a wide knowledge about magic and history, and always eager to learn more.

Stella Douglass
Key signature: Ranged, guns, explosive, agile
Reference: The Star
A self-proclaimed master of a marksman. Ironically, her speed is better than her accuracy. She doesn't have any experience in raiding dungeons yet. Sometimes, she always fights with Soleil just because of a little thing.

A NEW CAST

Terra Erde
Key Signature: Impact, team defense, high aggro
Reference: Earth
An unknown girl that the party encountered. Her background story is currently unknown.

Screenshots :

Spoiler

Videos:
Intro sequence.

Showcasing most of the features.

Features :

• Free turn system - Actor will act as soon as you give them the order.
  
• Two rows battle system - Battle divided into two rows. One is for offensive, one is for support. Skill changed depending on the actor position. Actor in the back row can not do a normal attack
  
• Controlled aggro system - Using two rows system, some actors may get attacked more often than the others depending on the actor position.
• Armor HP - Everyone has armor, and everyone has armor HP. Everyone can have the best defense they could have, but they will be vulnerable when their armor is broken.
  
• Linear progression - No branching storyline will be present at the moment.
  
• Map hazards - Map will have various effects such as a damaging effect or others.
  
• No puzzle - Because I hate puzzle in RPG. You will be focusing solely on the battle, grinding, exploring, and surviving.
  
• Random visible encounter - Visible encounter will be spawned randomly near your position and chase you after you walked after you've done certain steps and not engage a battle for a while. You can do evasive maneuver if you wish not to enter battle and it will be gone if you managed to evade for a few seconds.
  
• Perk system - Each character has its own unique perk to acquire when you level them up.
  
• Action Point - Instead of MP, the game uses Action Point instead. No need to worry about running out the resources.
  
• Artifact Collection - Explore the world and discover some unique artifact effect to improve character performance.

Credits:

Spoiler

Audio Files:

• Kadokawa/EnterBrain
• TheoAllen
• Oscar/Osucarus
• Freedom house MIDI
• Aaron Walz
• Soleil Musique
• Hannya
• Tam-music
• Moonwind

Graphics Files:

• Kadokawa/EnterBrain
• TheoAllen (Character design)
• Makapri (Charsets)
• Ayene (Tilesets)
• Celianna (Tileset)
• Timmah/Lexus (Animations)
• Kaduki (Charsets template)
• Thereisnoname (Charset)
• richter_h (Battler & Charsets)
• Taisen Frontier (Animations)
• Milano Cat (Battler)
• Whitecat (Iconset)
• Caitlin
• Asato
• Liberty RTP Edit
• FBU Tile pack
• Artificial Providence (Animation)
  
• Hadecyn (Animation)

Scripts:

• Kadokawa/Enterbrain
• Yanfly
• TheoAllen
• Shaz
• Galv
• Moghunter
• Chainsawkitten
• Zeus
• Estriole

Others:

• SCP-1050 - SCP Foundation

Special Thanks:

• Eremidia Circle
• richter_h
• shikami
• GrandMadeb
• RPG Maker Web Forum
• TheGamedawg
• Wavelength
• Indonesian Game Prime 2018

Developer's Note:
I plan to make this game is unencrypted. I have nothing to hide. Feel free to look at how I did the game. Be warned that scripts are exclusively made for this game, and it will likely not work if you copy paste it as is into your VXA project.

This game is also a planned prequel for Eremidia: An Empty Tome.

Q: Do I need to play the previous game?
A: No, you don't. The previous game barely even has a story. You should be fine starting off straight from this game. Although it may help to understand the situation. The previous game is mostly for nostalgia like how the game has been improved from the prequel.

Q: It's unencrypted. Can I take these and those stuff for my game?
A: Do whatever you like, but if you're using the system from this game as a base to develop your game, be sure to give the clear credit by linking back to either this page, itch.io page, or my RMN page. And I'm not responsible with any script compatibility or the weird behavior that happen to your project by using this game as the base of your game.

The Demo :
Get on my itch io page

 

[EpicFILE]

The use of TP instead of MP opens up a whole new battle strategy.
And the change of skills from switching rows looks fun too.
Love the funky music!

I have an idea. How about letting the frontliners act twice per turn?
2 characters act twice per turn. That's equal to 4 characters act once per turn. (plus the back row character, that's like 5 party members)

I've downloaded the prequel. Gonna play it during holiday.
(after that, I'll play this one)

 

[TheoAllen]

(after that, I'll play this one)

This is unplayable just fyi
Act 2 times a turn sounds like an idea. Let see if I won't make it too broken (because that what happened in prev project lol).

EDIT: Alright, act two times for front row does seem to improve a bit the satisfaction and give more reason to put a character in front row a bit longer. Now I'm thinking to balance each skill proportion now

 

[EpicFILE]

Alright, act two times for front row does seem to improve a bit the satisfaction and give more reason to put a character in front row a bit longer. Now I'm thinking to balance each skill proportion now

Glad to hear that. Good luck on balancing the skills!

 

[TheoAllen]

Update!
After trying to work on first encounter troop, I realized that giving action two times, it's either
> Too easy, because enemies would die almost without making move
> Too slow, I buffed the enemies so that they wouldn't die fast. Turned out battle took longer because it also means 2 times longer playing animation. 2 times you need to selecting action (especially when u need to select skill again).

I'm rolling back to one time act, I just need to design an enemy that would suit best to kill by 2 frontliners alone. hmm ....

 

[Nightblade50]

Oh, very nice!

 

[Countyoungblood]

The different rows remind me of an old game called ogrebattle. It was different in that you had very little direct control over combat but you could setup your troops in complimentry groups. Ogrebattle had a lot of troops so there were lot of combinations. Its worth a playthrough.

For 3-4 characters i could see this still being a fun mechanic to make battling almost like a puzzle.

Just a few combination suggestions

Classic combo
Front dps(highest physical damage)
Front tank(draws attention/blocks
Back row magic healer(restores hp)

Or
Glass cannon
Front mage(highest magical damage)
Front tank(draws attention/blocks
Back dps (restores tp/buffs dexterity)

Or
Full offensive charge
Front dps attack
Front mage attack
Back tank ( buffs defense)


A fourth character would make this even more fun but would need to be designed around the mechanic.

 

[TheoAllen]

Yep, finally someone get the idea the system I'm trying to build. I'm playing around the element effectiviness as well, so u might want to switch depending on the enemy. Front row tank need def buff since troops I'm making can hurts your actors asf (and I already planned one).

I want everyone in can do dps in frontline. Because if not, there will be only some characters that sit on the back without switching it. Also, I made front row get the chance of getting hits more often than the back row, so if you are nearing knocked out, might be wise to switch at the back, although AoE attack will still hits you

Forgot to put this, already tried in real practice and it wasn't bad. This is nearing pass the prototype phase and going to development phase soon

Spoiler

I wonder if there is an idea how to make enemy to counter this two row system. Like they would give effect that only affect back/front rows only / whatnot. So far I haven't had one

 

[Countyoungblood]

Switching in battle could be done very smoothly and feel natural to adapt to the situation. It could be as easy as a switch move on all characters. Use switch pick a character.

Logically speaking physical melee attacks would be hard to land on the back row but arrows or magic could be more likely.

If it were me id design the monsters around character configurations. Like a monster that hits so hard it must be solo tanked to survive. Like a turtle

Front tank (taking hits using tp specials)
Back 1 dps (tp regen)
Back 2 healer (hp regen)

Or a bomb that instakills if the party doesnt spit out enough damage fast enough.

 

[TheoAllen]

Logically speaking physical melee attacks would be hard to land on the back row but arrows or magic could be more likely.

If I assume correctly, you're trying to say that melee attacker in back row would have low hit rate, i.e, have higher miss chance?

Also, currently enemies has no rows system. So it's only actor side system. The justification is the world set in a chaotic place, so enemies has little to no sense of strategy. Besides making enemy AI would be quite challenging.

Or a bomb that instakills if the party doesnt spit out enough damage fast enough.

This is kind of punishing. Instant kill might be ok though, but as long as it can still being mitigated like you need to stun or remove a certain buff from the enemy. So it wont use special attack. But if it's because not fast enough, I don't think I'd make it

 

[Countyoungblood]

Ah sorry i wasnt very clear.

Reguarding the back row physical attacks i was talking about receiving physical attacks since there would be someone in the way. But it could be workable in the other direction too. Just as another way of defining what changes between the rows. For the characters

Reguarding te bomb i didnt explain the monster clearly enough it would be punishing but maybe not as much. Could be a countdown on the screen or x number of turns before the bomb blows. So the fight becomes a challenge of damage output rather than just keeping hp.

As in kill this in 10 turns or you lose

 

[TheoAllen]

Sounds good, but I think I'm gonna make it by using higher evasion rate for back row characters. Because evade seems to give more satisfying feedback to player than a miss.

I will think about the bomber foe. It sounds good, but I guess I'm gonna tweak here and there to suits my need.

 

[TheoAllen]

I might want to up this for some kind of feedback. I'm close to pass the prototyping phase and soon I'd like to get this moved to game in dev future, but not so soon.

Anyway, I'm planning on making a states information. Like basically tells the players what a state do to them. After watching some LPs and replayed my own game for after years, I realized that I can't really tell what these states do (I forgot what I did lol). Since I made the states name an unique one and not just plain and self explanatory like ATK down or DEF down.

Before we start, let me explain my UI I have
The last UI from my previous game and I'd like to copy in this project as well

Spoiler

If you pressed SHIFT, it would be displaying the skill info

Spoiler

In this project, I haven't implement it yet, but I plan to do the same. However I changed the free turn icon on the upper right into field effect name. since free turn icon is not really necessary.

Spoiler

So, basically SHIFT is reserved for skill information, and you can't display state information on the right side. Question is, how you make the player get the info about state information on the fly during the battle? I'm afraid if help window description enough would be sufficient to tell, so I was planning on something like this

Spoiler

I'm thinking of press a certain button when you target an enemy / ally and pops a window telling the states affecting them. And for the record, I don't have scan skill (and I don't like the concept of scan skill tbh).

Would that acceptable? Or any other approach? Like, pressing a certain button to display a popup telling a general / global battle situation like Enemy A or Actor A is under X state that reduce the damage? Or do you prefer a separate menu for information like adding a new menu in main menu that basically tells you everything about the game glossary?

 

[EpicFILE]

Glossary can only be accessed at map screen. So it'd be less informative I suppose.
Imo the former is the better approach: showing the details on battle by pressing certain key (if the player choose to).
As the game focuses on battle mechanic, I think it's better to have the necessary informations on battle itself.

 

[TheoAllen]

I will about status information later. I already have some idea, but kinda lazy to implement it now
Anyway, a first look of gameplay is here (and sorry for the bandicam logo

Spoiler

Mod, please move this to game in development please

 

[TheoAllen]

*Le bump
Demo is up!

<snip> - last update : Jan 28th, 2018 - (24mb, requires RTP installed on your system)

What's inside the demo?

• Around an hour of gameplay, including cut scenes, exploration, and battles
• A basic proof of a concept of two rows battle system.
• Two boss battles
• A first few maps made in haste, it may change later to add more spices and flavors
• A basic skill level up system. Some information might be inaccurate. It's hard to keep the track when you still change the skill balancing quite often
• An introduction to the fourth character
• An introduction to the world concept, The Void Rift
• There is no much content to explore yet aside from the battle itself. I plan to add more features later.
• Some resources are placeholder (such as NPC design and faceset), and will be replaced in later development
• The project is unencrypted, and I will keep it like that. It's no shame, people are free to look at how I did the stuff or 'steal' my scripts. But keep it mind, some resources are reserved, especially the custom one

Any comments is appreciated

 

[DarkKxng101]

@TheoAllen you games are epic bruhh, and your battle system is just awesome and i like the storys of your games gonna give Eremidia: the astral plane a try out

 

[TheoAllen]

I tried my best to write XD

 

[TheoAllen]

Bumping this thread up. After months of getting stuck because I have no idea on where to bring this game. I decided to rewrite almost everything that happened in the game. So in short, I managed to flesh out some new story scenarios that is not the same as previous demo.

So I'd just want to tell you that the old demo / build is likely to be irrelevant anymore. To avoid confusion, I'm taking down the old demo so it won't be spreading anymore. But if anyone still want the demo, you could PM me. However take any content in game demo with a grain of salt since there will be a major change later.

Again writing is not my forte, but I have decided to use this project as an exercise. And probably take much longer than my previous game to finish since the prequel has minimalistic story.

As a bonus, here is a sanctuary theme that might be used for this project
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uak9tvjws09in0z/AED2 - Theme Sanctuary.mp3?dl=0

 

[cradth]

The battle system is pretty awesome! I'm waiting for the demo.
I've been following the Eremidia story since its RMVNs were still in rmid.
Going to miss those days, (Though most of the time, i'm a silent reader .lol)
keep it up!