Crestfallen
Member
A brief introduction to the project...
Crestfallen:
In spite of only recently re-joining the RMXP world, I've decided to try and bring back my old project.
I'm short on resources for the entirety of it, since 3 years have passed, hundreds of formats, new hard drives, and other complications have arisen since.
Enjoy!
Izy:
Whereas I have backed most of the concept work we did up. So I shall now use that material to re-write this whole post...
So, this is where I kick in. I've now sat down and gone over everything that Crest' has done with the story and Atziluth. We've gone over various systems together and what-not. Taking all of this into account and the previous concept material I have come up with a means of conveying more of a story to you, as opposed to a vague concept. So, if you're ready I'm now going to spill it all in your brain-holes in a swift and concise manner.
* * * *
Story::
Of the nature of the world...
The game itself takes place in a dual-world setting; in this game universe there exists two worlds, the higher world of Atziluth and the lower world of Assiah.
The higher world of Atziluth is a world torn apart by conflict and violence, the effects of nuclear warfare in the world has meant that the survivors were forced under the rule of one government body and confined to a small number of rebuilt cities, living under the false concept of peace.
The lower world of Assiah on the other hand was created by the government of Atziluth for various reasons and is a world designed to reflect the past choices of humankind and further enforce the importance of peace in Atziluth.
The catastrophic effects of war...
Atziluth was once a flourishing world of lush landscapes, all manner of climates supporting all manner of lifeforms.
Now it is a devastated wasteland, with people living forever confined, afraid of creatures which lurk in the wastes beyond the city walls. The 'Final War' as it would be deemed in later days was, as these things usually are, caused by the weakness of mankind. When two opposing world powers finally got so heated that they turned arms upon each other it was never imagined that it would escalate to the point it did. Events transpired that led Atziluth into a global conflict and they never managed to climb out of the abyss. It was after 7 years of fighting on all fronts that the end days came to pass. It was unknown who fired first but the launching of various nuclear devices within a short time frame set in stone the end of Atziluth, leaving the surface of the world scarred forever.
When the chaos settled it seemed the conflict continued, as the various surviving groups pointed fingers and squabbled amongst themselves as to who struck first. With tensions raising and not a single person involved backing down or claiming responsibility the conflict would never be resolved, all the while the situation was growing ever more desperate with the vast wastes of Atziluth polluted and only limited food supplies and space in what remained of the cities.
It was at this point that the Grand Office stepped onto the stage...
The discovery of Kao...
The Grand Office came speaking of a new power source and a concept of peace. The power source they spoke of was the Kao, first found as a strange crystalline formation growing beneath the surface of Atziluth the Grand Office had discovered that this naturally formed substance could be refined into a source of energy. Using this as leverage they rallied support from the common people, those without any power in the old world who had survived.
So it was that a coup d'etat took place which left many of the survivors who had tried to retain their power from the old world pushed out and left with nothing. In their place the Grand Office took the throne, speaking of global unity they took control of society as a whole. An uneasy peace followed, with the Grand Office leading the people into the future with the use of Kao energy, rebuilding the cities, discovering new sources of sustenance and other tasks. The world was growing again, the people were happy and so it was that the flag of the Grand Office came to fly in the skies of every part of Atziluth.
In reference to the Genesis Project...
Again the weakness of mankind won over the state of peace and civil unrest grew, as the Grand Office continued with the rebuilding of cities and other tasks the population grew weary that they were not being rewarded for their efforts and in a sudden rush of selfish thinking decided to turn on the Grand Office. Another coup and another fallen leader, the overseer of the Grand Office was slain during an assualt on the citadel by revolting citizens.
It was at this time that the son of the overseer stepped forwards, speaking of freedom, that man may never need to work again. Again it was that the Grand Office took power through the promise of a brighter future. The new overseer took command and over time he fulfilled his promises with various new systems being implemented. The citizens of Atziluth were provided with a set supply of food, living premises and various forms of entertainment, they were only asked that they do a small amount of work each day. The people once again rejoiced, unaware of how their newly gained lives of perceived luxury were provided to them.
Behind the scenes the son of the old overseer had been working on a new research project, utilising the power of Kao, which he referred to as 'Creation Energy' due to its discovered link to the planet's natural energies and those of all things upon the earth he banded together a group of the Grand Office's best available scientists to take on the biggest of all projects.
The creation of a world...
The Genesis Project was finished soon after the son had taken control of the Grand Office and was able to push more resources into it's continued research. When the project was finally completed the result was the world of Assiah, it existed as a material world created within, or rather implanted into, the core of the Kao, or 'Creation Energy' which swelled beneath the surface of Atziluth. It was from this crafted world, which they named Assiah, that the Grand Office, utilising a method of material transfer from the Kao to the physically conceived world, began using the people of Assiah as slaves in their own world.
In the case of failure...
During the initial creation process of Assiah, there had been a number of initial test species placed in the world.
Of these 'prototype humans' all but the final iteration had been failures but one test, though a failure, had been something of great interest. The Qliphoth as they had been named during the test period had been the first species created and had been granted some of the power of the Kao, it was due to this that they could manipulate the world they existed in. As the Qliphoth bred and evolved they gained increasing knowledge of how to manipulate the Kao energy within their world and soon were deemed as 'out of control' by the Genesis team. Due to their knowledge of Kao though, the Qliphoth were capable of avoiding destruction by the Genesis team and so it was that in an effort to somehow purge them from the system the Qliphoth were sealed away within a non-physical aspect of Assiah, known as Yetzirah. The realm of Yetzirah was linked to the mental aspect of Assiah, the subconcious of the world itself and all those upon it. By these means the Qliphoth were able in some part to affect the world of Assiah, using the Kao energy to alter the perceived reality of any number of people. Unable to completely remove them from the world the Genesis team had to leave the Qliphoth sealed within Yetzirah for the duration of Assiah's existence.
Cutting forward to the present...
In the present iteration of Assiah's 'human' species things are going smoothly, the population continue to breed and multiply and they keep themselves adequately occupied that they do not notice the loss of their numbers on a regular basis. Always a war somewhere within Assiah or another event of that type will allow the Grand Office to remove enough people to use as slaves without it seeming suspicious, casualties of war, more MIAs to be forgotten and various other reasons that nobody would suspect anything untoward.
It is however in Atziluth that problems are forming, with the discovery of the Genesis Project by external sources.
A terrorist organisation under the name of 'Freiheit' have slowly begun to form in the shadows of the 'peace' that the Grand Office try to maintain. 'Freiheit' know of Assiah and seek to free it from the Grand Office's slavery.
And so, finally, it is that 'Freiheit' discovering a means of making short burst transmissions to Assiah make contact with two people there.
Thus the story begins...
* * * *
Izy: So, after a long calm walk through the city I call home I've decided to sit down here and write up a general description of the various systems which I have planned for Atziluth. From here on things get interesting, or at least I hope you'll agree. So I'll start with the basics, because right now there's little actual physically available resources to show, most of what I will detail here is purely conceptual and still within the bounds of mine and Crest's shared vision of the game.
So, to begin...
* * * *
A simple choice to start with...
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/5097/titlefu5.th.jpg[/IMG]
The beginning, as always, is the best place to start... Here we see the basic formings of the title screen... not much in terms of the actual game but it will be one of the first things that the player sees so I feel it should be brushed over briefly.
Before the title screen there'll be a short sequence of pre-introduction credits, as could be expected really.
Next...
When viewing one's surroundings...
Right now, I've stripped away everything that I'd already coded in terms of the player's HUD and such. I'm in the process of redesigning everything for that aspect of the game as previous concepts turned out to be too space dominating, and when you're dealing with a simple 640x480 pixel area you need to retain as much free space as possible to allow the player to see the field. In terms of what the HUD will be though is simple, it will display information for all of the player's current party. Graphical bars representing Health, Stamina and Sanity (I'll cover all that later.) A simple character portrait in the centre. It's going to be a lot less space hogging than my previous ideas. It's more as a basic overview of character status than an in-depth read out...
So, moving on...
How we manipulate the pawns...
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/5896/menuwipow8.th.jpg[/IMG]
In terms of the menu system, it's pretty simple for the most part... As you can see when you look over it, everything is spread out before you, to the right you have areas for in-depth character statistics, listing information such as the character's Name, Level, Health, Stamina, Sanity and other such tidbits.
Now as the help text states, each character has their own personal inventory. It's not party shared, each character holds their own items, if you pick up an item as a specific character then that's who will be holding it. It won't be accessible to anyone else unless you initiate an item transfer. That's a main part of the Inventory screen in the menu, dealing with which character has which items. Through the menu you can quickly and easily select an item from one character's possessions and then transfer it to another character in your party. Also, in battle characters can pass items to one another, but the how and why of that will be explained later, as I can imagine right now you'd be thinking why on earth that would be needed.
Moving on...
Weaponry and Equipment, I believe, are completely self-explanatory... The only things I think I need to go over here are the weapon creation system and tools.
Weapon creation is precisely as it sounds, under the Weaponry menu you can access a crafting system where by you will use weapon components (whether found or purchased) to create the weaponry that will be used by the characters. So for example, different hilts and blades will make different types of sword class weapons etc. A basic system to include but it will offer countless customisations for your weapons, whatever you as a player deem best suits the character.
Tools on the other hand are simple equipment items that you can assign to an individual character to allow them to manipulate the world or provide benefits to the character, such as for example a bag of explosive charges to take care of otherwise impassable obstacles or a tool for rapid reloading of ammunition based weaponry etc...
Now, moving ever onwards...
Thaumaturgy, this is an interesting menu that I don't think I'll be able to fully explain when trying to keep this description brief, but basically this is how the player will manipulate a character's repertoire of aether abilities (previously referred to as simply Space, or spacial abilities) as explained in the backstory, with the discovery of Kao the Grand Office had found an unmatchable energy source which was naturally forming beneath the planet's surface. Now, to explain Kao is easy, Kao crystals form where there's a swell of natural planetary energy, this energy (commonly referred to as the 'Aether') is believed to be the very essence of the planet itself and all life upon it. Thus why the Grand Office terms the energy they extract from Kao crystals as 'Creation Energy'. This energy is what forms the base foundations for the world of Assiah, and by training one's attunement to the flow of Aether through the world of Assiah one can alter certain properties within the very structure of the world itself. This is what forms the basis of Thaumaturgy, to change the properties of something within the physical world.
Now in terms of what this part of the menu will cover, it will hold a list of a character's available aether abilities along with a list of the required materials needed to invoke the required result. Materials are needed by every aether ability, from small items to the very surroundings of the character. As an example, a simple earth element ability may require only a small amount of soil or rock, the character would through aether manipulation alter the structure of these materials to create the desired result (or in general RPG lingo, to 'cast' the 'spell') but advance through the skills and a higher level earth element ability could be used simply by the character being near a source of that element, for example a nearby rock formation or even the stone paving beneath one's feet. I'll go over this more thouroughly as it develops, right now it still is just a concept, I have as of yet not even begun to look into how I would go about coding this in RMxp, but I believe it will be quite possible.
And finally...
Status... need I really cover this? It lists a character's statistics. Strength, Fortitude, Dexterity... etc.
When violence is the only option...
So we arrive at the concepts of the battle system. Now this is where I've invested a lot of time and my own imagination. The quickest way to describe the battle system concept is a primarily turn-based tactical battle system that operates in pseudo real-time.
Characters and enemies all appear on the main map, the player being free to engage enemies or try to avoid them.
When an enemy does discover the player or the player chooses to attack, then battle mode is engaged, free movement of characters is then disabled and all movement and battle actions must be selected by the player. The battle itself is split into phases, each phase each character and enemies stamina is partially replenished. Now stamina deems what a character can and can't do. All actions, even the most basic of movements require some amount of stamina to perform.
So, you're no doubt confused. So here's an example...
After the initiative checks Darius is first to act, he has 100 stamina points, this is the first phase of the battle so he is selected to make a simple dash towards the enemy and go for a frontal attack. This is a relatively basic attack, the movement costs 1 stamina per tile moved (so for the sake of argument let us say 4 in this case) and 5 stamina points for a basic single attack. This leaves Darius with 91 stamina by the end of turn 1 of phase 1.
Next the enemy chooses their moves, in this case let us say that this is a particularly defensive enemy and so they simply activate a passive evasion skill and use 6 stamina points in doing so.
The turn ends when all actions have been set for each character and enemy in range of the battle and all actions play out on the field, damage values and such are then assigned and it moves on to the next turn.
Again though, as with Thaumaturgy, this is still a work in progress and purely conceptual at the moment. More information and screenshots will be posted as it is developed. Various changes may have to occur in terms of the limitations of the software used (i.e. RMxp)
Now onto other topics...
A mind is a terrible thing to lose...
Yes, each character has a Sanity statistic. The reasoning behind this is that the characters of Atziluth are not the typical RPG hero stereotypes. These aren't grog swigging sword swinging barbarians for hire or whatever it is you'd expect in your typical Dungeon and Dragons campaign. These are your run-of-the-mill ordinary every day kind of characters, they come from normal backgrounds (well, comparatively...) and are as susceptible to mental trauma as you or me. Now to have these characters then plunged into the centre of a world shattering situation of epic proportions and expect them to remain mentally sound is a bit over-expectant at best... Imagine you were one day attending classes at the local college and then the next day you were forced to fight against creatures from the nether regions of god knows what forsaken hell-hole. It will slowly dwindle at one's mind. In this way, nearly every action in the game can adversely affect a character's sanity. Bearing witness to certain events, facing creatures of unexplainable origin or of shapes so grotesque you cannot bear to look, using previously unknown unexplainable 'magicks', learning more and more about the nature of Assiah... As a character's sanity drops they will begin to experience negative effects, from temporarily being stunned to hallucinations and other afflictions. I hope to incorporate this concept into the game in a fairly intricate manner, it won't be a hinderance (as one can of course regain their senses) but rather it will be yet another reason for the player to strategise during battles and throughout the game in general. (Call of Cthulhu players and general Lovecraft readers will know where I come from with this whole concept.)
* * * *
Izy: So, once again I thank whoever may be reading this for actually taking the time to... As always, any feedback is welcome.
Thanks.
Crestfallen:
In spite of only recently re-joining the RMXP world, I've decided to try and bring back my old project.
I'm short on resources for the entirety of it, since 3 years have passed, hundreds of formats, new hard drives, and other complications have arisen since.
Enjoy!
Izy:
Whereas I have backed most of the concept work we did up. So I shall now use that material to re-write this whole post...
So, this is where I kick in. I've now sat down and gone over everything that Crest' has done with the story and Atziluth. We've gone over various systems together and what-not. Taking all of this into account and the previous concept material I have come up with a means of conveying more of a story to you, as opposed to a vague concept. So, if you're ready I'm now going to spill it all in your brain-holes in a swift and concise manner.
* * * *
Story::
Of the nature of the world...
The game itself takes place in a dual-world setting; in this game universe there exists two worlds, the higher world of Atziluth and the lower world of Assiah.
The higher world of Atziluth is a world torn apart by conflict and violence, the effects of nuclear warfare in the world has meant that the survivors were forced under the rule of one government body and confined to a small number of rebuilt cities, living under the false concept of peace.
The lower world of Assiah on the other hand was created by the government of Atziluth for various reasons and is a world designed to reflect the past choices of humankind and further enforce the importance of peace in Atziluth.
The catastrophic effects of war...
Atziluth was once a flourishing world of lush landscapes, all manner of climates supporting all manner of lifeforms.
Now it is a devastated wasteland, with people living forever confined, afraid of creatures which lurk in the wastes beyond the city walls. The 'Final War' as it would be deemed in later days was, as these things usually are, caused by the weakness of mankind. When two opposing world powers finally got so heated that they turned arms upon each other it was never imagined that it would escalate to the point it did. Events transpired that led Atziluth into a global conflict and they never managed to climb out of the abyss. It was after 7 years of fighting on all fronts that the end days came to pass. It was unknown who fired first but the launching of various nuclear devices within a short time frame set in stone the end of Atziluth, leaving the surface of the world scarred forever.
When the chaos settled it seemed the conflict continued, as the various surviving groups pointed fingers and squabbled amongst themselves as to who struck first. With tensions raising and not a single person involved backing down or claiming responsibility the conflict would never be resolved, all the while the situation was growing ever more desperate with the vast wastes of Atziluth polluted and only limited food supplies and space in what remained of the cities.
It was at this point that the Grand Office stepped onto the stage...
The discovery of Kao...
The Grand Office came speaking of a new power source and a concept of peace. The power source they spoke of was the Kao, first found as a strange crystalline formation growing beneath the surface of Atziluth the Grand Office had discovered that this naturally formed substance could be refined into a source of energy. Using this as leverage they rallied support from the common people, those without any power in the old world who had survived.
So it was that a coup d'etat took place which left many of the survivors who had tried to retain their power from the old world pushed out and left with nothing. In their place the Grand Office took the throne, speaking of global unity they took control of society as a whole. An uneasy peace followed, with the Grand Office leading the people into the future with the use of Kao energy, rebuilding the cities, discovering new sources of sustenance and other tasks. The world was growing again, the people were happy and so it was that the flag of the Grand Office came to fly in the skies of every part of Atziluth.
In reference to the Genesis Project...
Again the weakness of mankind won over the state of peace and civil unrest grew, as the Grand Office continued with the rebuilding of cities and other tasks the population grew weary that they were not being rewarded for their efforts and in a sudden rush of selfish thinking decided to turn on the Grand Office. Another coup and another fallen leader, the overseer of the Grand Office was slain during an assualt on the citadel by revolting citizens.
It was at this time that the son of the overseer stepped forwards, speaking of freedom, that man may never need to work again. Again it was that the Grand Office took power through the promise of a brighter future. The new overseer took command and over time he fulfilled his promises with various new systems being implemented. The citizens of Atziluth were provided with a set supply of food, living premises and various forms of entertainment, they were only asked that they do a small amount of work each day. The people once again rejoiced, unaware of how their newly gained lives of perceived luxury were provided to them.
Behind the scenes the son of the old overseer had been working on a new research project, utilising the power of Kao, which he referred to as 'Creation Energy' due to its discovered link to the planet's natural energies and those of all things upon the earth he banded together a group of the Grand Office's best available scientists to take on the biggest of all projects.
The creation of a world...
The Genesis Project was finished soon after the son had taken control of the Grand Office and was able to push more resources into it's continued research. When the project was finally completed the result was the world of Assiah, it existed as a material world created within, or rather implanted into, the core of the Kao, or 'Creation Energy' which swelled beneath the surface of Atziluth. It was from this crafted world, which they named Assiah, that the Grand Office, utilising a method of material transfer from the Kao to the physically conceived world, began using the people of Assiah as slaves in their own world.
In the case of failure...
During the initial creation process of Assiah, there had been a number of initial test species placed in the world.
Of these 'prototype humans' all but the final iteration had been failures but one test, though a failure, had been something of great interest. The Qliphoth as they had been named during the test period had been the first species created and had been granted some of the power of the Kao, it was due to this that they could manipulate the world they existed in. As the Qliphoth bred and evolved they gained increasing knowledge of how to manipulate the Kao energy within their world and soon were deemed as 'out of control' by the Genesis team. Due to their knowledge of Kao though, the Qliphoth were capable of avoiding destruction by the Genesis team and so it was that in an effort to somehow purge them from the system the Qliphoth were sealed away within a non-physical aspect of Assiah, known as Yetzirah. The realm of Yetzirah was linked to the mental aspect of Assiah, the subconcious of the world itself and all those upon it. By these means the Qliphoth were able in some part to affect the world of Assiah, using the Kao energy to alter the perceived reality of any number of people. Unable to completely remove them from the world the Genesis team had to leave the Qliphoth sealed within Yetzirah for the duration of Assiah's existence.
Cutting forward to the present...
In the present iteration of Assiah's 'human' species things are going smoothly, the population continue to breed and multiply and they keep themselves adequately occupied that they do not notice the loss of their numbers on a regular basis. Always a war somewhere within Assiah or another event of that type will allow the Grand Office to remove enough people to use as slaves without it seeming suspicious, casualties of war, more MIAs to be forgotten and various other reasons that nobody would suspect anything untoward.
It is however in Atziluth that problems are forming, with the discovery of the Genesis Project by external sources.
A terrorist organisation under the name of 'Freiheit' have slowly begun to form in the shadows of the 'peace' that the Grand Office try to maintain. 'Freiheit' know of Assiah and seek to free it from the Grand Office's slavery.
And so, finally, it is that 'Freiheit' discovering a means of making short burst transmissions to Assiah make contact with two people there.
Thus the story begins...
* * * *
Izy: So, after a long calm walk through the city I call home I've decided to sit down here and write up a general description of the various systems which I have planned for Atziluth. From here on things get interesting, or at least I hope you'll agree. So I'll start with the basics, because right now there's little actual physically available resources to show, most of what I will detail here is purely conceptual and still within the bounds of mine and Crest's shared vision of the game.
So, to begin...
* * * *
A simple choice to start with...
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/5097/titlefu5.th.jpg[/IMG]
The beginning, as always, is the best place to start... Here we see the basic formings of the title screen... not much in terms of the actual game but it will be one of the first things that the player sees so I feel it should be brushed over briefly.
Before the title screen there'll be a short sequence of pre-introduction credits, as could be expected really.
Next...
When viewing one's surroundings...
Right now, I've stripped away everything that I'd already coded in terms of the player's HUD and such. I'm in the process of redesigning everything for that aspect of the game as previous concepts turned out to be too space dominating, and when you're dealing with a simple 640x480 pixel area you need to retain as much free space as possible to allow the player to see the field. In terms of what the HUD will be though is simple, it will display information for all of the player's current party. Graphical bars representing Health, Stamina and Sanity (I'll cover all that later.) A simple character portrait in the centre. It's going to be a lot less space hogging than my previous ideas. It's more as a basic overview of character status than an in-depth read out...
So, moving on...
How we manipulate the pawns...
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/5896/menuwipow8.th.jpg[/IMG]
In terms of the menu system, it's pretty simple for the most part... As you can see when you look over it, everything is spread out before you, to the right you have areas for in-depth character statistics, listing information such as the character's Name, Level, Health, Stamina, Sanity and other such tidbits.
Now as the help text states, each character has their own personal inventory. It's not party shared, each character holds their own items, if you pick up an item as a specific character then that's who will be holding it. It won't be accessible to anyone else unless you initiate an item transfer. That's a main part of the Inventory screen in the menu, dealing with which character has which items. Through the menu you can quickly and easily select an item from one character's possessions and then transfer it to another character in your party. Also, in battle characters can pass items to one another, but the how and why of that will be explained later, as I can imagine right now you'd be thinking why on earth that would be needed.
Moving on...
Weaponry and Equipment, I believe, are completely self-explanatory... The only things I think I need to go over here are the weapon creation system and tools.
Weapon creation is precisely as it sounds, under the Weaponry menu you can access a crafting system where by you will use weapon components (whether found or purchased) to create the weaponry that will be used by the characters. So for example, different hilts and blades will make different types of sword class weapons etc. A basic system to include but it will offer countless customisations for your weapons, whatever you as a player deem best suits the character.
Tools on the other hand are simple equipment items that you can assign to an individual character to allow them to manipulate the world or provide benefits to the character, such as for example a bag of explosive charges to take care of otherwise impassable obstacles or a tool for rapid reloading of ammunition based weaponry etc...
Now, moving ever onwards...
Thaumaturgy, this is an interesting menu that I don't think I'll be able to fully explain when trying to keep this description brief, but basically this is how the player will manipulate a character's repertoire of aether abilities (previously referred to as simply Space, or spacial abilities) as explained in the backstory, with the discovery of Kao the Grand Office had found an unmatchable energy source which was naturally forming beneath the planet's surface. Now, to explain Kao is easy, Kao crystals form where there's a swell of natural planetary energy, this energy (commonly referred to as the 'Aether') is believed to be the very essence of the planet itself and all life upon it. Thus why the Grand Office terms the energy they extract from Kao crystals as 'Creation Energy'. This energy is what forms the base foundations for the world of Assiah, and by training one's attunement to the flow of Aether through the world of Assiah one can alter certain properties within the very structure of the world itself. This is what forms the basis of Thaumaturgy, to change the properties of something within the physical world.
Now in terms of what this part of the menu will cover, it will hold a list of a character's available aether abilities along with a list of the required materials needed to invoke the required result. Materials are needed by every aether ability, from small items to the very surroundings of the character. As an example, a simple earth element ability may require only a small amount of soil or rock, the character would through aether manipulation alter the structure of these materials to create the desired result (or in general RPG lingo, to 'cast' the 'spell') but advance through the skills and a higher level earth element ability could be used simply by the character being near a source of that element, for example a nearby rock formation or even the stone paving beneath one's feet. I'll go over this more thouroughly as it develops, right now it still is just a concept, I have as of yet not even begun to look into how I would go about coding this in RMxp, but I believe it will be quite possible.
And finally...
Status... need I really cover this? It lists a character's statistics. Strength, Fortitude, Dexterity... etc.
When violence is the only option...
So we arrive at the concepts of the battle system. Now this is where I've invested a lot of time and my own imagination. The quickest way to describe the battle system concept is a primarily turn-based tactical battle system that operates in pseudo real-time.
Characters and enemies all appear on the main map, the player being free to engage enemies or try to avoid them.
When an enemy does discover the player or the player chooses to attack, then battle mode is engaged, free movement of characters is then disabled and all movement and battle actions must be selected by the player. The battle itself is split into phases, each phase each character and enemies stamina is partially replenished. Now stamina deems what a character can and can't do. All actions, even the most basic of movements require some amount of stamina to perform.
So, you're no doubt confused. So here's an example...
After the initiative checks Darius is first to act, he has 100 stamina points, this is the first phase of the battle so he is selected to make a simple dash towards the enemy and go for a frontal attack. This is a relatively basic attack, the movement costs 1 stamina per tile moved (so for the sake of argument let us say 4 in this case) and 5 stamina points for a basic single attack. This leaves Darius with 91 stamina by the end of turn 1 of phase 1.
Next the enemy chooses their moves, in this case let us say that this is a particularly defensive enemy and so they simply activate a passive evasion skill and use 6 stamina points in doing so.
The turn ends when all actions have been set for each character and enemy in range of the battle and all actions play out on the field, damage values and such are then assigned and it moves on to the next turn.
Again though, as with Thaumaturgy, this is still a work in progress and purely conceptual at the moment. More information and screenshots will be posted as it is developed. Various changes may have to occur in terms of the limitations of the software used (i.e. RMxp)
Now onto other topics...
A mind is a terrible thing to lose...
Yes, each character has a Sanity statistic. The reasoning behind this is that the characters of Atziluth are not the typical RPG hero stereotypes. These aren't grog swigging sword swinging barbarians for hire or whatever it is you'd expect in your typical Dungeon and Dragons campaign. These are your run-of-the-mill ordinary every day kind of characters, they come from normal backgrounds (well, comparatively...) and are as susceptible to mental trauma as you or me. Now to have these characters then plunged into the centre of a world shattering situation of epic proportions and expect them to remain mentally sound is a bit over-expectant at best... Imagine you were one day attending classes at the local college and then the next day you were forced to fight against creatures from the nether regions of god knows what forsaken hell-hole. It will slowly dwindle at one's mind. In this way, nearly every action in the game can adversely affect a character's sanity. Bearing witness to certain events, facing creatures of unexplainable origin or of shapes so grotesque you cannot bear to look, using previously unknown unexplainable 'magicks', learning more and more about the nature of Assiah... As a character's sanity drops they will begin to experience negative effects, from temporarily being stunned to hallucinations and other afflictions. I hope to incorporate this concept into the game in a fairly intricate manner, it won't be a hinderance (as one can of course regain their senses) but rather it will be yet another reason for the player to strategise during battles and throughout the game in general. (Call of Cthulhu players and general Lovecraft readers will know where I come from with this whole concept.)
* * * *
Izy: So, once again I thank whoever may be reading this for actually taking the time to... As always, any feedback is welcome.
Thanks.
