As some of you know, last November, I started the full revival of my big project, Slayers' Reign, formerly known as Dragon Warriors of Cradonia, formerly known as The Eyes of the Dragon, formerly unknown as Dragonflight. During that time, I had the old 2003 demo taken down from both the Pavilion and the Magazine. That's because I have spent over 60 hours going over the old demo, and editing almost every cutscene. Some are small improvements, simply rewording some of the more off sentences and sequences ("him and two people"). Some cases, I now have characters moving around whilst they talk, to fix the old demo's issue of wordy cutscenes with nothing much happening. One instance, a villain's motives were greatly changed, and thus the cutscene had to be changed to fit the villain's new motives (that "it's time I destroyed the evil within you" line was lame, anyway). And then there's these two instances, where I completely redid the opening pre-title cutscene, and majorly spruced up one of the aforementioned wordy-no-action cutscenes using a pretty nifty effect that involved something like 60 Take Over commands.
Beyond that, I have successfully gone beyond the 2003 demo's length, for the first time since I first started this project way back when I used RM2K. I haven't yet caught up to the RM2K version's length, but I'm still proud of my progress. Now, there is an additional 20 minutes of gameplay/cutscenes to the already lengthy demo. It's not much, but now you can all find out where I really intend to take this story. Oh, and I added a custom menu with which to use items like MP-restoring items and equip throwing stars to one character.
Now for those not in the know, here's a relatively quick description of what Slayers' Reign is. Everyone else, just go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. Slayers' Reign is an RPG I started creating back in 2001 for RPG Maker 2000, before I knew of the reasons behind the tool's illegality, and it has gone through many changes and revisions as I worked on it over the years. Though a lot of the time I wasn't working on it, and it has been restarted from scratch more than once. The story starts off as your basic world in danger story, as the initial protagonist, Mick, stumbles across a plot of invasion made by dragons and their army of ghostly beings known as dragonites. Fast forward six years, and the dragons have partly succeeded, but only in that the dragonites now roam the land. The dragons, on the other hand, have vanished since that initial encounter, thus many people don't believe Mick's stories that dragons are involved, especially since supposedly dragons had been forced into another world centuries ago. But, wouldn't you know it, a dragon suddenly appears to cause trouble, and Mick and his reluctant dragon-slaying partner, Seth, go off to stop it. Some stuff happens, the dragon slayers Mick created become established, and dragons mostly disappear again, except for one that a small town is protecting for some odd reason...
So, anyway, by the time you've read this, I will have uploaded the new 2-hour-plus RPGM1 demo to both the Pavilion and the Magazine. Of course, when I first started reviving this project, I wound up practically begging for people to play the old demo, including in my signatures at both forums. Those of you who have already played it, I do not expect you to replay the demo just to see the redone intro and additional segments, especially being that you can't use the old demo's save progress with the new demo's and most of the gameplay has remained unchanged. Instead, I just want you to watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HITbNBWOq_o
(Thanks to TheAsianInvasion and Kittykicker for helping with the video, especially since they only had one memory card to work with a demo that requires two and had to do multiple takes.)
If you haven't played the demo, yet, play it and tell me what you think. I want comments on everything. The story, the battles, the maps, and whether I overdid it with these guys:
Of course, you don't have to leave any comments for me, but they would be nice. Good or bad, I don't care. Especially since, for all I know, I'm not making a game as good as I think, since my experience making this type of game is limited to a couple demoes. Again, it's a lengthy demo, over two hours in length, and on two memory cards, so keep that in mind if you decide to try it.
And now, introducing a new character revealed in the new demo.
This is Draygone. WAIT! Before you perform some act of violence against me, let me assure you that this guy is NOT me. In fact, when I created him, he had an entirely different name. I forget what that name was, but it probably sucked. I can't even remember which came first: me using this name for myself or me giving this name to him. But, when I created the name, I liked it enough to do both. Oddly enough, he does look like me (except I lack the braid), but that's just an accidental coincidence.
Now then, Draygone is a 19-year-old martial artist, specializing in claws. And no, most of the playable cast are not teenagers. And he has both a mother and a father, unlike many teenaged protagonists in video games. They are adoptive parents, but they're parents. He was raised in the town of Benld (pronounced Ben-eld) with his half-sister. Ever since an incident that took place when he was younger, he had been training as a martial artist, so he could protect his friends and family should something like that happen again. Especially since one of his friends happens to be a dragon.
Next, here are a few more brand new screenshots, some from the new part of the demo.
Finally, the following is a preview of the new portion of the demo. I should note that the rest of my post from here on contains a major spoiler (starting in the first sentence, even), so go ahead and skip the rest of this post if you don't want anything ruined for you.
{This transcript directly follows the end of the prologue, as Seth quietly walks away after hearing Mick's speech to the people of Rockford. First, the player is offered a chance to save game progress. The screen is left black as the next cutscene begins. BGM "Town 3" plays, a song that is a "fallen on bad times" type of song.}
And so the Dragon Slayers were created. This was twenty years ago. As the years passed, they grew in size and power, their influence spreading across the Zeron Islands.
{Fade in to the base of a tower, surrounded by a wall with an open gate. Two dragon slayers stand guard. The front door of the tower opens, and two different-ranked dragon slayers leave the tower and head out the front gate.}
Though almost no dragons were found since Seth's betrayal, the Dragon Slayers still had their hands full with the dragonites. And though they were created to protect the people from dragonkind, the slayers soon saw it fitting to upkeep the law to help furthur peace.
{The camera pans up to the top of the tower. An S mirroring itself can be seen on the front of the building.}
The Mirrored S. The symbol of the Dragon Slayers. Mirrored against itself, it resembles the wings of a dove. A sign of peace. Indeed, the Dragon Slayers are loved by the people, and hated by evil.
{The screen fades out, with the mirrored S remaining lit. The mirrored S then fades out as well.}
But what is evil? Are dragons really as terrible as believed? Seth turned against Mick in hopes of someday proving otherwise.
{Fade in to the town of Benld. A man with a bandana comes out of the bar and looks down the road. The screen pans down, and an armored man walks up the street.}
And though many are of the opinion that the only good dragon is a dead dragon...
{The camera pans down a bit more, as two dragon slayers come up behind the armored man. It becomes apparent that the armored man is leadind the dragon slayers.}
There are those, like Seth, who believe that dragons are no more evil than mankind.
{The two dragon slayers take the lead as the camera pans down furthur, revealing a low-ranked slayer watching the other slayers head north. The man in the bandana runs down to talk with him, though their conversation isn't heard.}
Some of whom will not stand for an innocent dragon being unfairly hunted.
{The man with the bandana runs into the shop across the street, while the low-ranked slayer runs into the house he was standing at. The camera fades out, and fades into a small room in the basement of the house, where Draygone is introduced to the story.}
And that's it. Hopefully I'm not overhyping this game too much.
Beyond that, I have successfully gone beyond the 2003 demo's length, for the first time since I first started this project way back when I used RM2K. I haven't yet caught up to the RM2K version's length, but I'm still proud of my progress. Now, there is an additional 20 minutes of gameplay/cutscenes to the already lengthy demo. It's not much, but now you can all find out where I really intend to take this story. Oh, and I added a custom menu with which to use items like MP-restoring items and equip throwing stars to one character.
Now for those not in the know, here's a relatively quick description of what Slayers' Reign is. Everyone else, just go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. Slayers' Reign is an RPG I started creating back in 2001 for RPG Maker 2000, before I knew of the reasons behind the tool's illegality, and it has gone through many changes and revisions as I worked on it over the years. Though a lot of the time I wasn't working on it, and it has been restarted from scratch more than once. The story starts off as your basic world in danger story, as the initial protagonist, Mick, stumbles across a plot of invasion made by dragons and their army of ghostly beings known as dragonites. Fast forward six years, and the dragons have partly succeeded, but only in that the dragonites now roam the land. The dragons, on the other hand, have vanished since that initial encounter, thus many people don't believe Mick's stories that dragons are involved, especially since supposedly dragons had been forced into another world centuries ago. But, wouldn't you know it, a dragon suddenly appears to cause trouble, and Mick and his reluctant dragon-slaying partner, Seth, go off to stop it. Some stuff happens, the dragon slayers Mick created become established, and dragons mostly disappear again, except for one that a small town is protecting for some odd reason...
So, anyway, by the time you've read this, I will have uploaded the new 2-hour-plus RPGM1 demo to both the Pavilion and the Magazine. Of course, when I first started reviving this project, I wound up practically begging for people to play the old demo, including in my signatures at both forums. Those of you who have already played it, I do not expect you to replay the demo just to see the redone intro and additional segments, especially being that you can't use the old demo's save progress with the new demo's and most of the gameplay has remained unchanged. Instead, I just want you to watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HITbNBWOq_o
(Thanks to TheAsianInvasion and Kittykicker for helping with the video, especially since they only had one memory card to work with a demo that requires two and had to do multiple takes.)
If you haven't played the demo, yet, play it and tell me what you think. I want comments on everything. The story, the battles, the maps, and whether I overdid it with these guys:
Of course, you don't have to leave any comments for me, but they would be nice. Good or bad, I don't care. Especially since, for all I know, I'm not making a game as good as I think, since my experience making this type of game is limited to a couple demoes. Again, it's a lengthy demo, over two hours in length, and on two memory cards, so keep that in mind if you decide to try it.
And now, introducing a new character revealed in the new demo.
This is Draygone. WAIT! Before you perform some act of violence against me, let me assure you that this guy is NOT me. In fact, when I created him, he had an entirely different name. I forget what that name was, but it probably sucked. I can't even remember which came first: me using this name for myself or me giving this name to him. But, when I created the name, I liked it enough to do both. Oddly enough, he does look like me (except I lack the braid), but that's just an accidental coincidence.
Now then, Draygone is a 19-year-old martial artist, specializing in claws. And no, most of the playable cast are not teenagers. And he has both a mother and a father, unlike many teenaged protagonists in video games. They are adoptive parents, but they're parents. He was raised in the town of Benld (pronounced Ben-eld) with his half-sister. Ever since an incident that took place when he was younger, he had been training as a martial artist, so he could protect his friends and family should something like that happen again. Especially since one of his friends happens to be a dragon.
Next, here are a few more brand new screenshots, some from the new part of the demo.
Finally, the following is a preview of the new portion of the demo. I should note that the rest of my post from here on contains a major spoiler (starting in the first sentence, even), so go ahead and skip the rest of this post if you don't want anything ruined for you.
{This transcript directly follows the end of the prologue, as Seth quietly walks away after hearing Mick's speech to the people of Rockford. First, the player is offered a chance to save game progress. The screen is left black as the next cutscene begins. BGM "Town 3" plays, a song that is a "fallen on bad times" type of song.}
And so the Dragon Slayers were created. This was twenty years ago. As the years passed, they grew in size and power, their influence spreading across the Zeron Islands.
{Fade in to the base of a tower, surrounded by a wall with an open gate. Two dragon slayers stand guard. The front door of the tower opens, and two different-ranked dragon slayers leave the tower and head out the front gate.}
Though almost no dragons were found since Seth's betrayal, the Dragon Slayers still had their hands full with the dragonites. And though they were created to protect the people from dragonkind, the slayers soon saw it fitting to upkeep the law to help furthur peace.
{The camera pans up to the top of the tower. An S mirroring itself can be seen on the front of the building.}
The Mirrored S. The symbol of the Dragon Slayers. Mirrored against itself, it resembles the wings of a dove. A sign of peace. Indeed, the Dragon Slayers are loved by the people, and hated by evil.
{The screen fades out, with the mirrored S remaining lit. The mirrored S then fades out as well.}
But what is evil? Are dragons really as terrible as believed? Seth turned against Mick in hopes of someday proving otherwise.
{Fade in to the town of Benld. A man with a bandana comes out of the bar and looks down the road. The screen pans down, and an armored man walks up the street.}
And though many are of the opinion that the only good dragon is a dead dragon...
{The camera pans down a bit more, as two dragon slayers come up behind the armored man. It becomes apparent that the armored man is leadind the dragon slayers.}
There are those, like Seth, who believe that dragons are no more evil than mankind.
{The two dragon slayers take the lead as the camera pans down furthur, revealing a low-ranked slayer watching the other slayers head north. The man in the bandana runs down to talk with him, though their conversation isn't heard.}
Some of whom will not stand for an innocent dragon being unfairly hunted.
{The man with the bandana runs into the shop across the street, while the low-ranked slayer runs into the house he was standing at. The camera fades out, and fades into a small room in the basement of the house, where Draygone is introduced to the story.}
And that's it. Hopefully I'm not overhyping this game too much.
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