Save Our Souls

[1ce]

This is my Anything Goes 2015 contest entry.

Save Our Souls

Jeff Ryan is traveling back to America on the SS Cynthia after spending some time in Britain under an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) internship. The experience didn't go well for him, unfortunately, as he still copes with the guilt of letting someone die on his watch in a car crash rescue gone wrong. Turns out that's the least of his problems; a rogue wave hits the ship, and it's only a matter of time before it sinks! Motivated by the desire to atone for the person he couldn't save, Jeff attempts to rescue everyone he can before the ship sinks!

My inspiration for making this game came from Duel's game, Bon's Dorito Dash. In that game you must escape a sinking ship at one point by collecting passengers, items, and getting off before it sinks. So I guess you can say that I'm taking Duel's idea and fleshing it out into a full complete game.

The gameplay consists of the player navigating the ship, trying to get passengers and lead them to safety. The main challenge comes from the clock; every time you switch between rooms you lose time (which can be checked in your inventory). After a certain amount of time the ship sinks deeper and more hazards like fire and water appear. This continues until the ship goes completely under.

Like all good disaster movies, the wave doesn't hit right away. Instead you can roam the ship and get a feel for the game and talk to people. Most people have something they want taken care of; do it for them and it'll help your rescue efforts later. For example, helping an elderly lady get some food will keep her out of the kitchen (which will be drenched in flames when the wave hits) and instead in her room, safe and sound. You can also obtain some useful items that can help you later.

Besides managing your time, you must manage your resources as well. You can only have one passenger and hold one item at a time. You may have to choose whether you want a life vest for unlimited swimming or a crowbar to access blocked off routes. To complicate matters, passengers often won't follow you right away, instead needing some convincing or help. A little boy won't go with you until he knows his grandma is safe, but if she's in the kitchen it's going to be a while before you can get her out safely. And when you do, do you leave grandma behind or come back for the kid later?

Fortunately once you do get someone on your side they'll do whatever they can to help. Each passenger has a special ability that can help you locate or save other passengers. The boy can crawl in the air ducts to reach inaccessible areas, grandma can motivate others to follow or help, and the sailor has the strength to move obstacles or barge open doors.

This is a project I've had in my mind for about a year, but I didn't have the proper motivation to actually start making it until the contest was announced. It's been almost two months and I'm nearly finished with the "before the wave hits" part of the game. That doesn't sound so great, but I've finished most of the planning for how the game plays, the gameplay structure, the level design and how the ship will gradually sink, characters positions and story. So pretty soon I'll be working on actually sinking the ship and getting more of it squared away, which should be much easier since I have a good idea where I want the game to go.

So leave a comment or question if you have one. I likely won't get around to updating this very often, but I'll gladly reply to anything you send my way.

[Wavelength]

Re: Save Our Souls

It feels a little weird to me that you're using the single RPG Maker that can't keep track of time to make a game whose core concept is about racing the clock. It's kind of like forging and then using a scimitar to cut a clove of garlic! But regardless, it sounds like an extremely cool concept for a game, and I really like how you'll be able to see the ship in different stages throughout the game. Just be careful about walking that game balance tightrope... if the flames and floods and such are going to make the same tasks harder the closer you get to a Game Over, it's going to be really hard to hit that sweet spot where most players are cutting it really close to the wire.

[1ce]

Re: Save Our Souls

You know what….you're absolutely right. Of all the RPG Makers, only the first one doesn't have a way to track time. Huh. Never realized that until you mentioned it. It's not a huge deal since you can control time instead and plan out your moves, but it may seem a little dated on release.

The reason I went with RPG Maker 1 was for speed and efficiency. Rather than learning a new system while trying to make a new game, I could easily fit the game idea into system parameters I already know. That would also help me get it finished in time, since the deadline is a little tight. If it's received well I'd love to try my hand at porting it to another maker.

You're dead on about balance. Hopefully I'll have enough time to find a sweet spot for it. Right now I'm on schedule and doing well, so even if the contest doesn't get an extension (unlikely as that may be), I'll still be in good shape.

[Duel]

Re: Save Our Souls

I think this is a really cool idea. Go for it. Creating the ship section in Dorito Dash was a challenging and fun process. It was inspired by an SNES game called S.O.S. I just really like the idea of a game centered around a ship that is sinking.

[1ce]

Re: Save Our Souls

I have that game, that's really neat it was your inspiration for the section in BDD. I played it for ideas and inspiration too. I also watched The Poseidon Adventure for inspiration as well. What an awesome movie it is.

For some reason I love disaster stories. Tales of a handful of people beating incredible odds really resonates with me. There are too few games that capitalize on this genre.

[1ce]

Re: Save Our Souls

So, with the Let's Play with Draygone for Josh's Adventure got me motivated to come back to this game. This may or may not be short lived, however. I simply wanted to post an update about the status of this game and why it's been quiet for so long.

I still have everything I've created for this game. It's not cancelled, but there are some significant blocks preventing me from working on the game.

First is how little free time I have. Six or seven years ago I had plenty of free time, simply did my day job and had the rest of my day to tinker with things, which resulted in lots of development time for Josh's Adventure. Now that I'm back in college, that free time is gone. Maintaining a high GPA in college requires a lot of time and effort, and as a result I have little to no free time for playing games, period. It sucks, but that's how it goes. Plus, as a struggling actor I'm now in poverty and constantly scrambling for my next job, whatever that may be. Much different from JA where I had a consistent job. I have my future to think of, after all.

The second thing holding the game back is that the Informer took off. It scratches that creative itch with both less work and more payoff. It's simply difficult to go back to making a game that will take a long time to make and have minimal rewards at the end.

The third problem with the game is how it's designed. This thing is a statistical nightmare. There is so much coding and numbers required to get the game to work as it should. It's a small game that won't take long to finish on one playthrough, but there's so much complexity to how the game is made. Coming back to it is simply exhausting, because I have to constantly re-remember how things work and the complex system of keeping everything in line.

A different maker might alleviate some of these problems, but thanks to problem 1, I have not the money or time to learn a new maker.

Now with all of that said, I'd still like to finish the game. I think it has potential. I could see a few people playing and enjoying what it would have to offer. What I'd like to do is get a stretch of time and finish it for an anything goes contest. We'll just have to wait and see. If the game concept sounds neat to you, send some positive vibes. Thanks.

[Ωbright]

Re: Save Our Souls

Sounds like an interesting idea, and I like that it was inspired by someone else's game here. Personally I can't stand timed challenges because I suck at deadlines, but I would give this a shot.

Didn't someone get around the time tracking thing in RM1?

[1ce]

Re: Save Our Souls

So this uh, actually saw some development today. Crazy, I know. Summer vacation now leaves me with some spare time. A strange feeling washes over me, something I once lost has been returned to me.

I've been getting motivated to get back to game development after seeing some of the awesome entries for the Anything Goes 2015 contest. I've been playing with RPG Maker VX Ace and this project.

I'd still like to release this project, but there were a few roadblocks holding it back. Today I took time to streamline how the game works behind the scenes to make it way easier on me. The game used to track your every movement, which was pretty important for making sure you were in the exact right spot when the ship sank. That's been pared down quite a bit. When you enter a room with multiple ways in, you'll almost end up at one spot instead of the door you came out of. It saves me so much time and energy to take this route. Sometimes it is important though, so some areas still have checks, but it's not nearly as complicated as before.

The game was basically at a point where I had to fix something, or cancel it. Fortunately things are looking much better for the project right now. We'll see how far I get in the coming weeks. I'm hopeful. This game seems to have some promise, so I hope I can release it down the line.

[1ce]

Re: Save Our Souls

This project has been seeing some small updates here and there. So, it's not dead, that's good news!

It's mostly been in the vein of changing how the game runs. The difficulty was ridiculously hard, but I'm finding ways to pare it down now. Losing your HP only removes one time item, rather than the ship sinking. Entering a room will take away one time item rather than two. Little changes like that.

I'm currently looking to make the game in RPG Maker 1, and then convert it to RPG Maker VX Ace. That will help give me a good foundation to work on a system I'm unfamiliar with. Whether that means the game will be finished and released on 1, I can't say yet. But things are looking good so far.

[Pagerron]

Re: Save Our Souls

1ce,

It seems like you can progress little by little with Save our Souls, which is better than no progress at all right?

You have been so involved here with helping out others, I hope you can find the time to see this game to fruition if that's what you want to do.

I have a quick question, when you say convert it to RPG Maker VX, you do mean to make it over again correct? Or is there a way to take and RPG Maker save and convert it using program of some sort? (This is totally newb question I'm assuming).

Anyway, the premise for your game does sound interesting. The fact that your choices in the game lead to different outcomes for certain characters/NPCs sound different.

Good luck, my friend.