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Swan the bard is only considered an “adventurer” due to the fact that she pays her dues on time and has a membership card. Otherwise, everyone in her remote country town more often than not laugh at the notion of her going on an adventure...


That is, until a mysterious tower appears on the outskirts of town. The “real” adventurers go inside, only to vanish. As the only remaining adventurer in town, Swan is sent inside to see what happened.


Inside, Swan discovers the existence of Muses, patrons of bard magic...which she didn’t even knew existed until then (thanks a lot, public school system). Now armed with the knowledge that her talents are actually special, Swan sets out to beat the eight worlds held within the tower's paintings, save her comrades, and sing some awesome tunes while she’s at it.

SWAN

The main heroine of our story! Gifted with a great musical talent, Swan is also cursed with the least popular adventurer class- bard. Sparsely recruited for theme music duty and more utilized in the birthday party capacity, the very-jaded Swan was about to hang up her lute and call it quits...That is, until now.


DRAVEN

The apparent lord of the tower, Draven’s dark powers are something to be terrified of! He commands the beasts you fight in the tower and has created the worlds you explore within his lair. If it wasn’t bad enough that you have to not leave the jerks who make fun of you in their cages, you have to fight this guy to save them.


MATILDA

A traveling witch who has found her way into the tower, Matilda is someone who wants to stop people like Draven from giving mystics like her a bad name. Found inside special tents within the tower, Matilda will make you recovery/enhancement potions...provided you get her the ingredients first. What? She’s old! It’s a miracle she can get up all those stairs!


LORELEI

The “manager” of the tower’s worlds, Lorelei is all but key in your quest to save those jerks your fellow adventurers. In addition to providing you a means to upgrade your stats/songs, she opens the way to a given world’s boss. Helpful? Maybe. On your side? Only time will tell.


THE ADVENTURER'S GUILD
Nine jerks who live in the same town Swan does and the reason she has a much-used punching bag in her shed. Though elitist as they are smug, they’ve been captured and locked away in separate cells in the tower. Despite this divine justice, they still don’t deserve a picture on this forum post. They’re that terrible.

Much of this game’s exploration aspects takes cues from old Rare N64 games (Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, so on). The tower is more or less a hub to eight diverse worlds you explore by jumping into special paintings.





Each world is opened by adding color to their painting (each painting missing some colors when the player initially finds them), which requires special/magical paint made by Matilda, which requires ingredients you need to find.


The worlds include...


Firefly Wood
The first level you explore. Inhabited by firefly people, you progress though this level by opening up river ways, restoring wilted plants, and negotiating a truce between other bug people.


Giant’s Dream
One of the more peculiar worlds, Giant’s Dream takes place in the dreams of a large statue. The environment of the world depends on what you do to the statue. If it feels hot, the world becomes a lava world. If it feels cold, it turns to an ice world. And so on.


Clockwork Road
A giant machine of a pathway, Clockwork Road spans between and around two mountains- Mount Sun and Moon Mountain. The machinery itself alters itself depending on the time of day/night. As such, the level is always changing, one path not being like the other during a different time.

SONGS
A huge focus of the game. There’s a total of thirty songs in the game, every three being taught by one of ten Muses and each one having a special effect. They are implimented not unlike the ocarina in Ocarina of Time (five buttons correspond with a note), though the action doesn't pause while you play and you don't have to enter a special stance to play your instrument.


To learn these songs, the player needs to locate a Muse Alter-





-and gather notes by completing quests in worlds. Each song costs a certain amount of notes to be learned and can be learned in any order the player wishes.


There’s three types of songs you will learn. The first is mandala songs, which have a certain effect when played on a special mandala related to the Muse the song is connected to. For example, playing the Minuet of Blooming while standing on a Minuet mandala will make nearby plants bloom.


The second type are special songs, which have certain effects on and off the battlefield (some of them last for a certain amount of time, while others last until you leave the room). Only one special song can be used at a time, and an example of such a song is the March of Speed, which gives you super speed for thirty seconds.





The third type are projectile songs, which can be better discussed alongside...


FIGHTING
The game has an action battle system (such as the one found in Legend of Zelda or Secret of Mana), thanks to Quasi/nio kasgami's upcoming ABS system. But a key part of combat is the usage of songs you learn throughout the game.


Swan has a melee attack that she can upgrade, but attacks like projectiles have to summoned by certain songs.


For example, let’s take a look at the Bolero of Flames, the first attack you learn in the game. It sends a fireball in the direction your facing at the time. You have to play the song every time you want to shoot a fireball.





Sounds daunting, right? Worry not! Projectile songs are each three notes long, and are thus very quick to be played and are no more complex than a projectile move such as a hadoken. (Think of it as being a combo move, but with notes instead of hits.)


The enemies aren’t typically in large groups, so you don’t need to worry about being swarmed while having to spam a certain song. Rather, combat is more about strategy and skill, rather than sheer power.


Each attack song has a certain effect/pattern, which allows for more chance to use strategy. For example, if you do find yourself surrounded by enemies, the whirlwind created by the Aria of Cyclones moves in a circular pattern around the player. This knocks the enemies back and allows players the chance to recover.





BOSSES
If you want to free your fellow adventurers (and no, you don’t really have a choice here), you’re going to have to face a given level’s boss, who is the strongest enemy of said level.


This is where Lorelei, the so-called “manager” of the worlds comes in. She can open the way to these mega baddies for you, said way being a special event that will lead you to the boss fight. In order for her to do that, Lorelei will have a special task for you to complete. For example, to face the boss in Firefly Wood, you’ll need to heal the forest’s biggest, oldest tree.


Don’t worry. Some good has to come from saving those jerks...

The current goal of Swan Song is to get a demo out to the public, the project itself likely eventually making its way to Kickstarter (or maybe Indie-go-go).


I (likely) have a composer on board, but will seek out help in the art, sprite, tileset department. (Maybe scripting too... >3>)


As it is, I see this game being marketed towards teenagers or older kids, in that there’s some more serious themes like guilt, maturity, and regret in the game’s story.