An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

[Perversion]

Series 1: Destiny Beckons is my first RPGM project. It was made on RPGM3, and has a bunch of features lacking in most of the RPG3 games here at the pavilion. First, I made two different guilds that you can join, a fighter's guild and a mage's guild. Each guild has different side quests, and different spells/skills that you can learn. I also made an alignment system. Depending on what your alignment is, some characters will react to you differently. Also, it will be easier to raise (to good) or lower (to evil) your alignment depending on which guild you are in. These alignments also have a bearing on which spells/skills you learn and which items you acquire. They also have a direct bearing on which ending to the game you get. There are 10 different endings possible, depending on which guild you join, and what your alignment is at the end of the game. It is also based on choices you make during your adventure. Almost every time you have a choice to do something, your alignment will go up or down depending on the choice you made. I believe that the game will be 15-20 hours long, depending on how thorough the player is.

As I've mentioned, there is one main quest, and side (guild) quests for you to go on. There are also a few puzzles in the game, one for an optional side quest, and one for part of the main quest.

The story involves a young girl, Valencia, who was taken from her mother at a young age and imprisoned, never seeing the light of day. One day, a man comes to train her in the art of combat, and tells her it is her destiny to become a warrior. Eventually she is released by the king, who gives her a quest to undertake, of which he tells her it is her destiny to fulfill an ancient prophesy.
The story is based around two gods, Alluria, goddess of the light; and Krato, god of the netherworld. Valencia must find out how her destiny fits in with the events unfolding in Arethema, the land she lives in. Her destiny beckons to her, wanting her to fulfill the prophesy and drive evil from the land.



I am still playtesting this game, and should be done within the month. I am at 99.5 memory usage as I type this, and all I have left to do is balance some monster battles. The story is done. My girlfriend and one of my friends are playing through it, and I will post the game to the site when they complete the game. This will allow me to catch any typos, bugs, etc. in the code I've inputted. So far, it works extremely well, as I have very few bugs.
I hope that I've given anyone reading this a taste of what my game is, and hopefully they will download it when it is released in late April/early May.

Thank you for your time.

[KennyKen]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

your number one on my rpgm3 playlist.

15-20 hours, thats pretty good length.

[watashi no sekai]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

As a proverbial "guinea pig" in playing this game I am impressed!
I'm glad to be helping you in this game and I can't wait to see the end!

[AbstractOrigin]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

What you have here is very nice, Perversion!

I especially like the allignment system you're planning on implementing.

I look forward to playing this!

[hitogoroshi]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

Pulling this off with RPGM3? I'm impressed, especially with the alignment system. I'm guessing you used a variable, but without obivous "Greater then:" or "Less then:" Var control branches, this obviously took a bunch of work.
Nice job.

[Perversion]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

Seeing as how people seem to be saying that the alignment system is a big draw in my game, I'll say a few words about it.

First, I drew inspiration for Series 1: Destiny Beckons from a few sources. I liked the guild quests in Morrowind, so I incorporated them in my game. I also like the good/evil dynamic used in games like KOTOR and Fable, so I used that as well.

As for my game, seeing as how there is no way to change the menu display, I had to go about letting you know what your alignment is in a roundabout way. There is a character in the first town that when you talk to him, tells you that your alignment is neutral, and that every time your alignment goes up or down, he'll tell you where you rest on the good/evil spectrum. As you have to return to this town at least two other times during the game, it's a decent fix for the problem. Also, the mechanics of using an alignment system were not hard in the slightest. What was hard was keeping track of maximum alignment, either good or evil, in either guild. If you manage to raise or lower your alignment to supremely evil (value 0) or supremely good (value 200), you are eligible to receive a special weapon from characters in the game. So I had to make sure that within each guild, achieving that high or low was possible. Oh, and depending on which guild you are in, you will not be able to achieve the highest/lowest good/evil score or ranking. In one guild, it's easier to be good, and in the other guild, it's easier to be evil. This is where (I think) my game has some replay value, by trying the other guild, trying for a different alignment, and trying for a different ending.

Anyway, that's enough on the nuts and bolts of my game for now. After it's released, and if people have questions on how I did something, I might answer them here. Of course, they could always go into the edit screen and SEE how I did it!

As for the story, I realize that the mechanics of the gameplay are the main draw to my game, but I think I did a decent job with the story. Three out of the four main characters have a motivation driving them, and depending on your choices, react differently to the other characters. I have some cutscenes that flesh out the storyline a bit, and I also incorporated a piece (maybe 2 pieces if I have enough memory remaining) of my poetry that seemed like it fit with the storyline. Anyway, that's all for now.

[Vonwert]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

Sounds very interesting. I like the different play options and guilds.

I defintally looking forward to how all these things will work together.

[Perversion]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

*sigh* As stated in another thread, it's a bit hard to try and change any "code" once you are up to 99% memory capacity used. Just to add one line of code to the first mode, it tells me memory capacity exceeded. I forgot to add one variable in order to trigger my second cut scene, so I was kind of stuck. Even when deleting things outside the character, and getting memory down to 98%, it still tells me that I've exceeded capacity. So what I had to do was, (and I hate doing it), but I had to delete all the information from night, and put something in to tell you to come back during the day. It worked out okay in this case, because I said that the guy you are supposed to talk to was meditating, and you would come back during the day as not to disturb him (trust me, it makes sense in my storyline). But I hate anything PLOT-related having to be done only at night or day. I ideally would use the different night/day modes to say something different depending on the time, or to have something hidden that you can only find during a certain time of the day. Anyway, that's how my game is coming. As I've been playing through it, I've amassed a half a sheet of paper's worth of little details I want to fix. I see tedium in the near future. But I want to get this game perfect, so I do not have to put out a Ver 1.1. I'm a perfectionist by nature anyway, so I want it to be right. As long as I buckle down on this, I'm still shooting for end of April/beginning of May to get this behemoth posted. Thanks to anyone who is reading and keeping up with my trials and tribulations.

[Perversion]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

What am I doing?!?! I have less than 2% memory left, and here I am creating another town with another character with two events just to create another "easter egg." Why do I have to keep tinkering with the game, and not just finish it already? I'm trying to cram as much as I can into this thing, and then get upset when I have to delete stuff to make room for other stuff. *smacks self* Think, Perversion, think. Just get it done and posted. Stop trying to make the best game of all time. Although, this little easter egg is pretty interesting. I hope someone finds it. If not, hey, it's there for anyone who goes to the edit screen of my game to find. Signing off.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

Stop trying to make the best game of all time.

I think we should all strive to create the best game we possibly can. If you really want to, I say don't stop working on it until you can't do anything to make it better.

[Perversion]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

I say don't stop working on it until you can't do anything to make it better.

Or until I run out of memory...whichever comes first (and this is no chicken vs egg; I know what's going to come first).

[Perversion]

Re: An intro to Series 1: Destiny Beckons

The other night, I figured out a way to make my gambling minigame seem more random, but unfortunately, only being given 50 lines of "code," it would not fit. I was thinking that after playing one hand, the game would look to see how many wins you have, and if it equaled a certain number, then instead of going to the next mode for the next hand, it would jump ahead 3 modes, etc. I was going to do this with every outcome, but that was WAY too much script than would fit. A few of my buddies tested out the gambling minigame to see if they could discover a pattern, and they really did not, so that was a good thing. My friend brought up the valid point that if anyone REALLY wanted to know the pattern, they could just go into the edit screen and figure it out anyway. So I still limited you on how many times you can win, but made the number higher than it was before.

I'm wrapping up this whole project. The final boss battles are finally balanced, and I might throw a few random characters in that really don't do anything in order to fill up my towns a bit. Hey, I still have .5% of memory left, so I should be able to make a few, anyway. That's the update. If things go well, I will post this game this weekend, and hopefully it will be available for play next week. That's all for now.