- Joined
- Sep 17, 2016
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A couple years ago, I started working on a harem comedy game in VXAce. I was not super happy with the battle system or the chibi sprites, so I ended up giving up on it. But now, MV has emerged, with its glorious sideview battle system and Yanfly plugins, and I'm more comfortable with my artistic abilities, I can definitely make character sprites and portraits for my own game. So, I'm going to try doing the game again in MV. The thing is, the VXAce was largely based on what I had available, which RTP characters I liked the best, what side-view combat sprites I could find, etc. Now, I have a lot more choices, and I'm kinda overwhelmed by them all, and I'm hoping we can share some ideas about what direction to take this game in.
First, here is the VXAce DEMO: http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/bdb303db1320d126a28f3d6e6cc1a7d5 (I tried to remove a bunch of unnecessary RTP graphics, so hopefully I did not remove anything important, but let me know if there's an error) EDIT
oops! turns out a missed a bunch of necessary audio and graphics. As of 10/28, these should all be fixed.)
I like the dialog so far. There are some minor things I would tinker with, but overall, this is the mood that I'm going for. One thought is that the original plot was goofy and not raunchy, because the graphics in hand did not lend themselves to raunchiness. I could definitely produce graphics that would make raunchiness more plausible, but I feel like goofiness would go over better here. If I do include raunchiness, I would make you work for it, it would be something that only shows up towards the end of the game or after tough optional dungeons. In any case, R18 is not allowed, so it will not be R18.
The idea is that you would have 7 characters, your main character (the wildman) and 6 girls. The main character would be locked into the party at all times, so you have 3 open slots for party members. The original line-up was going to be Ninja (Kiri), Paladin (Artheia), Dragoon (Gorviki), Mage, Healer, and Pirate. Each character/class could equip multiple weapons and have one type of special weapon that only they can wield, like only Kiri can wield shuriken and only Artheia can wield zweihanders. Each character also gets their own set of TP skills. Re-examining this now, I feel like I could do better. I don't like the idea of a dedicated healer, because that means needing the healer in your party most of the time, while I would rather let you pick your teams based on looks and personality. I'm not sure about the Paladin either. When I think of hot, cool, fantasy ladies, knights and paladins don't really top my list, and the Dragoon character seems like should could fill the same role. Replacing Artheia would be tricky, since she is intwined with the plot. I'm not sure about the Pirate either. Pirates are hot, but I don't have a strong idea of what skills or what special weapon the pirate would have. Other ideas for characters include a Kung-Fu girl, like Lei-Fang or Chun-li, a Barbarian girl, though I would want to make her somehow distinctive from the Wildman, a Magic Knight, an Elf Ranger, or more than one Mage character, like separated into witch, alchemist, sorceress, druid, pyromancer, magical girl, etc. I do find it easier to work from the RTP than to make something completely original, so it's likely whatever they are will be reminscent of past RTP characters, though not necessarily VXAce or MV.
It's my preference to replace the present equipment system with something more similar to Grind Storm's where you get 3 equipment slots and 3 orb slots instead of body-part specific slots. Lately I had been musing over a Elemental Jobclass system, where holding a Fire Mana transforms you into a magic-user while an Earth Mana transforms you into a tank, but I'm not sure this is the right game for it.
Like I said, I didn't care for the original battle system. That will be replaced with Yanfly's CTB and Row Dynamics.
The game plot was meant to be pretty simple. An ancient evil badguy has revived and threatens the safety of Saga City. I'm tired of games where the fate of the world is on your shoulders, so it will just be the fate of Saga City. Originally, the main character is just an outsider who makes it his mission to inform King Saga of the impending danger, but as he makes connections, he is roped into helping out.
I originally set up a guild for you to take assignments as an expositional help tool, but now I'm not so sure that's an easy way to do it. I'm already not that happy with the guild cliche, so I'll have to think about other ways to do it.
In addition to the main adventure where you romp through dungeons with a team of 4 like normal, there would be special Duo Dungeons where the main character and one of the girls take on a dungeon by themselves. The two dungeons in the demo are Duo Dungeons. Each girl will have a Duo Dungeon encounter as her introduction, but additional Duo Dungeons would be optional. Duo Dungeons would contain plot points related to the particular girl character, backstory, romantic advancement, etc. There will also be chances to obtain weapons or skills that only the special girl can use. The game might limit you to a certain number of Duo Dungeons, so you can't go all the way with every girl in one playthrough, but I don't know if I really want to go through the trouble of figuring that out.
Here are some maps
Saga City:
Part of the plan was that a lot of the adventure happens within Saga City, it's not just a place to go shopping and sleep. Little hide-outs or abandoned buildings or shady mansions might be crawling with baddies and loot. The Ace the Super Villain that gets to play Saga City says "wow! cool idea, that will be awesome!" The Ace the Super Villain that has to make Saga City says, "come on, seriously? That's gonna be a lot of dungeons to make."
Since I'm faced with rebuilding Saga City for MV anyways, I'm not sure I like this cramped, chaotic set-up. I might try to use more transfer events and divide the city in more defined districts. I like Radiata Stories, so I might do something kinda like that with Magic District and Warrior District and so forth, but I would have to think about what I really need. An alternate idea might be Fire, Water, Earth, Air districts, but I need to think about if I have the tiles to make that work. I thought about using the SF tiles for Saga City MV, but I felt like they were too shady and gritty. I like the bright happy Saga City better.
Greater Saga City Area
I didn't want to bother with huge overworld maps, since I feel like those are out of date. You can quickly go from one place to another. Points of interest in the Greater Saga City Area include the Relic Tower, Slumbering Forest, Destroyed Village and Swamp Road, Desert Oasis, Ancient Pyramid, Sky Rock, Castle Ruins (destroyed by the badguy) and the Obsidian Spire. It occurs to me that the MV world tile doesn't have an equivalent of the Obsidian Spire graphic, so that will have to become something else. I always liked the idea of using sci-fi stuff as the final dungeon in fantasy games, so I'll probably use some SF stuff for it. The idea is that something will hinder you from entering the Slumbering Forest until you've gotten something from the Relic Tower, and so on, until you can defeat the boss and beat the game.
King Saga's Island
You can take a ship from the Saga City Harbor to King Saga's Island. This is sort of a vacation island with dungeons not related to the main story (although the main story will drop you off at some point by means of introduction. Attractions include the Crescent Port, Island Tower, Mount Vulcan, Goblin Fortress and the Jungle Shrine.
Here are some examples of the new character style:
I haven't made any Saga City characters yet, since among other things, I don't know which characters I'm keeping.
Here's a sample of my static art style:
I'm no Archeia, but I think it'll get the job done. I'm actually feeling a little out of practice, so that might get a little neater and cleaner as I go. Although, I'm not sure how much I want to do with big 2D images. I might keep this mostly spritey.
First, here is the VXAce DEMO: http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/bdb303db1320d126a28f3d6e6cc1a7d5 (I tried to remove a bunch of unnecessary RTP graphics, so hopefully I did not remove anything important, but let me know if there's an error) EDIT
oops! turns out a missed a bunch of necessary audio and graphics. As of 10/28, these should all be fixed.) I like the dialog so far. There are some minor things I would tinker with, but overall, this is the mood that I'm going for. One thought is that the original plot was goofy and not raunchy, because the graphics in hand did not lend themselves to raunchiness. I could definitely produce graphics that would make raunchiness more plausible, but I feel like goofiness would go over better here. If I do include raunchiness, I would make you work for it, it would be something that only shows up towards the end of the game or after tough optional dungeons. In any case, R18 is not allowed, so it will not be R18.
The idea is that you would have 7 characters, your main character (the wildman) and 6 girls. The main character would be locked into the party at all times, so you have 3 open slots for party members. The original line-up was going to be Ninja (Kiri), Paladin (Artheia), Dragoon (Gorviki), Mage, Healer, and Pirate. Each character/class could equip multiple weapons and have one type of special weapon that only they can wield, like only Kiri can wield shuriken and only Artheia can wield zweihanders. Each character also gets their own set of TP skills. Re-examining this now, I feel like I could do better. I don't like the idea of a dedicated healer, because that means needing the healer in your party most of the time, while I would rather let you pick your teams based on looks and personality. I'm not sure about the Paladin either. When I think of hot, cool, fantasy ladies, knights and paladins don't really top my list, and the Dragoon character seems like should could fill the same role. Replacing Artheia would be tricky, since she is intwined with the plot. I'm not sure about the Pirate either. Pirates are hot, but I don't have a strong idea of what skills or what special weapon the pirate would have. Other ideas for characters include a Kung-Fu girl, like Lei-Fang or Chun-li, a Barbarian girl, though I would want to make her somehow distinctive from the Wildman, a Magic Knight, an Elf Ranger, or more than one Mage character, like separated into witch, alchemist, sorceress, druid, pyromancer, magical girl, etc. I do find it easier to work from the RTP than to make something completely original, so it's likely whatever they are will be reminscent of past RTP characters, though not necessarily VXAce or MV.
It's my preference to replace the present equipment system with something more similar to Grind Storm's where you get 3 equipment slots and 3 orb slots instead of body-part specific slots. Lately I had been musing over a Elemental Jobclass system, where holding a Fire Mana transforms you into a magic-user while an Earth Mana transforms you into a tank, but I'm not sure this is the right game for it.
Like I said, I didn't care for the original battle system. That will be replaced with Yanfly's CTB and Row Dynamics.
The game plot was meant to be pretty simple. An ancient evil badguy has revived and threatens the safety of Saga City. I'm tired of games where the fate of the world is on your shoulders, so it will just be the fate of Saga City. Originally, the main character is just an outsider who makes it his mission to inform King Saga of the impending danger, but as he makes connections, he is roped into helping out.
I originally set up a guild for you to take assignments as an expositional help tool, but now I'm not so sure that's an easy way to do it. I'm already not that happy with the guild cliche, so I'll have to think about other ways to do it.
In addition to the main adventure where you romp through dungeons with a team of 4 like normal, there would be special Duo Dungeons where the main character and one of the girls take on a dungeon by themselves. The two dungeons in the demo are Duo Dungeons. Each girl will have a Duo Dungeon encounter as her introduction, but additional Duo Dungeons would be optional. Duo Dungeons would contain plot points related to the particular girl character, backstory, romantic advancement, etc. There will also be chances to obtain weapons or skills that only the special girl can use. The game might limit you to a certain number of Duo Dungeons, so you can't go all the way with every girl in one playthrough, but I don't know if I really want to go through the trouble of figuring that out.
Here are some maps
Saga City:
Part of the plan was that a lot of the adventure happens within Saga City, it's not just a place to go shopping and sleep. Little hide-outs or abandoned buildings or shady mansions might be crawling with baddies and loot. The Ace the Super Villain that gets to play Saga City says "wow! cool idea, that will be awesome!" The Ace the Super Villain that has to make Saga City says, "come on, seriously? That's gonna be a lot of dungeons to make."
Since I'm faced with rebuilding Saga City for MV anyways, I'm not sure I like this cramped, chaotic set-up. I might try to use more transfer events and divide the city in more defined districts. I like Radiata Stories, so I might do something kinda like that with Magic District and Warrior District and so forth, but I would have to think about what I really need. An alternate idea might be Fire, Water, Earth, Air districts, but I need to think about if I have the tiles to make that work. I thought about using the SF tiles for Saga City MV, but I felt like they were too shady and gritty. I like the bright happy Saga City better.
Greater Saga City Area
I didn't want to bother with huge overworld maps, since I feel like those are out of date. You can quickly go from one place to another. Points of interest in the Greater Saga City Area include the Relic Tower, Slumbering Forest, Destroyed Village and Swamp Road, Desert Oasis, Ancient Pyramid, Sky Rock, Castle Ruins (destroyed by the badguy) and the Obsidian Spire. It occurs to me that the MV world tile doesn't have an equivalent of the Obsidian Spire graphic, so that will have to become something else. I always liked the idea of using sci-fi stuff as the final dungeon in fantasy games, so I'll probably use some SF stuff for it. The idea is that something will hinder you from entering the Slumbering Forest until you've gotten something from the Relic Tower, and so on, until you can defeat the boss and beat the game.
King Saga's Island
You can take a ship from the Saga City Harbor to King Saga's Island. This is sort of a vacation island with dungeons not related to the main story (although the main story will drop you off at some point by means of introduction. Attractions include the Crescent Port, Island Tower, Mount Vulcan, Goblin Fortress and the Jungle Shrine.
Here are some examples of the new character style:
I haven't made any Saga City characters yet, since among other things, I don't know which characters I'm keeping.
Here's a sample of my static art style:
I'm no Archeia, but I think it'll get the job done. I'm actually feeling a little out of practice, so that might get a little neater and cleaner as I go. Although, I'm not sure how much I want to do with big 2D images. I might keep this mostly spritey.
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