Cast Aside

[Anaryu]

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/titlebar.png[/IMG]

Presented by:
Anamei Productions
Anaryu and Yaoumei

Episodes[/FONT]

Before playing any episode, please be sure that you have either installed the FORTE.TFF from the game folder after extraction, OR download and install it from here:
http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/FORTE.TTF

Spoiler: Episode 1 (30 minutes)

Episode 1 is complete and ready for download! A fair warning, Episode 1 is heavy on character development, and doesn't feature the immediate and usually brutal thrust into combat and character customization I've worked on in the past. While there is certainly the features there, don't expect a lot of options yet, they will expand slowly as the story unfolds! That still said, there are some fun little puzzles and new things I doubt you've seen in an RMXP game before; and yes, there WILL be combat!

First Screenshot is ArtBane's Score to Beat at the Riceball Challenge.

Estimated Play Time: 30 minutes

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/CA-EP1.exe

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Story[/FONT]

The story of Cast Aside centers on the life and ever accumulating adventures of a young weaver in training from the Island Nation of Danarul.

Rayne Oha is a simple young girl, just coming into her late teens. A kitchen assistant for the only governmental building on the tropical Islands of Danarul Rayne also trains to become a weaver, although her skills are only average.

Yearning to make more of her simple life, Rayne leaps at the chance to accompany General Ozar and Chancellor Bonefaunt on this years Meeting of Nations, being held in the serf-based Holy Land of Ceylium.

Mini-Episodic Content System[/FONT]

A new take on an old system, Cast Aside will feature a Mini-Episodic based content system where the smaller release style of Nadir's Canon is mixed with the continuing story style of Master of the Wind. Each Episode should consist of at least 30 minutes of game play, and updating your old system with the newest will be painless and save files will be seamlessly transfered.

Characters[/FONT]

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Rayne_face.png[/IMG]
Rayne Oha: A young weaver who wants more from her life than being a simple kitchen assistant in her home country. The fate she creates for herself, however, will affect her and those around her deeply.

Due to it's Battle System and story line basis, Cast Aside will feature a hefty set of possible characters! Many characters will be optional, and there will be a number of secret characters as well.

The characters of Cast Aside will make use of several of the new party management and battle system features, as well as a deep character customization system. Details on the characters themselves can only come from one source however... the game itself!

Features[/FONT]

Spoiler: Active Tactical Battle System (Screen)

Featuring a brand new tactical battle system that doesn't depend on character turns, but instead uses only a character's own "Stamina" stat to determine how many actions, what skills, and how far they can move, you will find that this new battle system challenges you tactically and keeps combat from becoming tedious by having a fast-paced system where enemies will actively move around.

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/CAScreens/Screen12.png[/IMG]

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/CAScreens/Screen13.png[/IMG]
(New style)

Spoiler: Advanced Control Catepillar System (Screen)

Featuring a new Catepillar system that not only has your characters follow you around, but allows them to dynamically move and make use of Ccoa's UMSs Comic Style text functions; your party members will never have felt more alive or part of the game!

Advanced features include the ability to control any party member, form sub parties to move around. It's ability to move people around will come in handy for the Battle System, as when a fight is initiated it starts with your members where they currently are on the map!

Placing members in strategic locations before initiating combat will bring a new aspect to combat that you've likely never experienced in an RMXP game before. And don't forget that there's no limit to the size of your overall battle party!

In the screens below you see a picture of your party split up and the window you can pop up at any time to choose which one you will control. While in that split-party mode, talking to any member of your party will make them follow that character, and pressing L/R/X will make them all follow your current character. If you switch to a character that's being followed all characters still following them will continue to do so. The only way to make a character STOP following someone is take control of them and move them at least one square.

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/CAScreens/Screen7.png[/IMG]

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/CAScreens/Screen6.png[/IMG]

Spoiler: Advanced Character Customization (Screen)

Say goodbye to levels! Your experience is now spent on gaining new skills and stat boosts that YOU choose!

Once these skills have been purchased, choose which skills and which stat boosts to equip; dynamically change your character set up between fights to customize for tougher fights and elementally based areas.

With a wide array of possible characters, each with their own possible skills, and advanced choices as the game progresses and through special items and quests, customizing your characters has never been so easy... or in depth!

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/CAScreens/Screen4.png[/IMG]

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/CAScreens/Screen3.png[/IMG]

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/CAScreens/Screen1.png[/IMG]

Spoiler: Raziel's CMS and Ccoa's UMS Customized

Two of the more popular packages out there will be taken to new levels as new scenes and abilities are built into Raziel's amazing remake of the Chrono Trigger menu system, and Ccoa's powerful UMS are customized to work with the advanced party controls.

Spoiler: Custom Battlers and Other Features!

From limitations on the numbers of items you can carry to a brand new Summoning system that allows you to Summon Avatars that you can level up and resummon and customize to your heart's content, Cast Aside is already packed with more little "goodies" than you're ready for!

Graphically Cast Aside won't disappoint; using a multitude of customized sprite positions and emotions, sprites will come alive to make you feel the story.

All of the combat entities, enemies and allies alike, will be given make-overs in the customized style of art for Cast Aside. To see examples of these battlers, check the Concept Art and Art Work below!

Spoiler: Concept Art and Art Work

http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Art/07-ca-raine-battle.png[/IMG] http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Art/07-ca-kael-battle.png[/IMG] http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Art/07-ca ... battle.png[/IMG] http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Art/07-ca ... battle.png[/IMG] http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Art/07-ca-bat-battle.png[/IMG]
http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Art/07-ca ... battle.png[/IMG] http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Art/07-ca ... battle.png[/IMG] http://www.rmxp.org/anaryu/CA/Art/07-ca ... battle.png[/IMG]

Release Information[/FONT]

Episode 1 has been released and Episode 2 will start it's development cycle soon.

We are hoping for Episode 2's release within a month!

Credits[/FONT]

Facesets:
Gozaru (http://sozaimenu.gozaru.jp/english.html)

Animations, Windowskins:
Mea
StrawberryQuartz

Icons:
Whitecat

Characters:
Ccoa (Save-sparkle)

Scripts:
Ccoa (Universal Message System)
Raziel (Chrono Trigger Style CMS)
Near Fantastica (Path Finding)
Trickster (Animations)


Author's Comments[/FONT]

As our first co-creation game, Cast Aside has already been in the works well over a month with the creation of it's battle system. The story was taken from an old planned contest entry that had to be cancelled; but beefed up and planned out much more carefully.

Trying to get away from the "Save the world!" storyline, Cast Aside will concentrate very early on the adventures of our young Heroine and her interaction with the many people of the planet Terra; from the Holy Land of Ceylium and her own home of Danarul to the sun-blasted Deserts of Surzea and even the frozen tundra of Baylea, Rayne's adventure will encompass a long and many episode journey.

Development Journal and Project Updates

 

[Skyla Doragono]

O_O;

Gebus... um... wow. I have nothing to say, other than it already looks quite beautiful. Just the edit to the UMS alone makes me drool.

Can't wait for this one.

 

[Jstreet]

Geez...I don't know how you finished that tactical battle system so quickly, but you seem to make difficult tasks look like child's play. =\

Your "story" is a bit lacking in text, but knowing you, there will be no disappointments. I can't wait until this Episode One. It's always a nice treat when you post.

 

[Merk]

Impressive.

For future reference, please read the Project Discussion rules. One word posts are considered spam and are not allowed.

 

[Anaryu]

Geez...I don't know how you finished that tactical battle system so quickly, but you seem to make difficult tasks look like child's play. =\

Your "story" is a bit lacking in text, but knowing you, there will be no disappointments. I can't wait until this Episode One. It's always a nice treat when you post.

Yeah, I was pretty loathe to post even that much, we're trying to concentrate on making the story the focus and we don't want to give away too much of the early plot. Same with the characters, although once an episode or two is active we might post more of the ones that you will get on your team for sure.

I'm honestly not sure what more I can add without giving away too many details early on, I already mentioned more than I wanted to!

 

[ArtBane]

You already know how I feel about this project. For me the thing I usually look the most forward to in your projects is the gameplay but this time around sounds like your putting some serious consideration into the story. I remember playing a brief part of this storyline in your contest entry that never surfaced and I look forward to playing more of it. This is one of the most exciting projects coming out.

 

[Crystalgate]

This project looks incredibly impressive. All impressive things seems mainly related to gameplay so I think your game will be heavily gameplay oriented. I'm most curious how well you will manage the vast amount of customisation your game offers.

 

[Anaryu]

Thanks ArtBane, although you help with so many ideas have tested so many things for me you've already got a pretty big headstart on knowing what this will play like. XD

This project looks incredibly impressive. All impressive things seems mainly related to gameplay so I think your game will be heavily gameplay oriented. I'm most curious how well you will manage the vast amount of customisation your game offers.

Customization isn't as challenging at it appears as long as you set a standard limit; the key limit to this will be that "AP" listing you see in the character screen. That limits just how many skills you can have equipped to a character, and it will advance in value as the story advances, or through special events for characters themselves.

Using that value I can also key enemy difficulty to allow for enemies to grow in strength

with you; since I also keep track of how much experience you've gained total I can use that and how high your "master" (story) AP limit is, I can gauge how much of experience you should be gaining and slow down and speed up leveling based on how far ahead/behind you are.

The true key to making it balanced now is making sure the AP requirements of a skill will tie directly into how powerful it is. Players will find and abuse the path of least resistance, so things have to be balanced in such a way that many paths offer the same end result. I think balancing the customization of characters is one of the things I enjoy most when making a game!

My games so far have been pretty heavily game-play oriented; with this one we're taking a new approach and trying to make gameplay fit with the story itself; each episode will be short, but we're packing in a LOT of extras and story features that only are available or happen when you have the right person. Most of these gameplay systems are designed to work together so that the story happens WITH the gameplay, or at the very least that the story and gameplay don't interrupt each other.

 

[Yaoumei]

Added new screens for the Advanced Character Customization, and pencil art for Rayne's battler~ :3

 

[Makasu]

Hell just the screenshot of the kitchen alone is enough to grab my eye but then I see the tatics and all the rest and now I'm really going to be keeping my eye on this one. Very nice. ~enjoi

 

[Mr.Mo]

this seems to have a great gameplay and feautes and the story is simple but great!

 

[Roman Candle]

Can't wait to play the next Anaryu game ^_^ You've become a household name, as it were.

 

[Crystalgate]

Customization isn't as challenging at it appears as long as you set a standard limit; the key limit to this will be that "AP" listing you see in the character screen. That limits just how many skills you can have equipped to a character, and it will advance in value as the story advances, or through special events for characters themselves.

The true key to making it balanced now is making sure the AP requirements of a skill will tie directly into how powerful it is. Players will find and abuse the path of least resistance, so things have to be balanced in such a way that many paths offer the same end result. I think balancing the customization of characters is one of the things I enjoy most when making a game!

There is also the issue of how skills combine with each other. For example, with the default battle algoritm a passive skill that gives +X to Strength, a stat boost spell that raises Attack Power to 120% and a physical attack skill that uses 120% Attack Power and 100% Strength will interact with each other as multipliers. The usefullness of those three skills together (where the stat boost skill could be given to another character) would be more than the sum of the individual skills. Cases as such may make it harder to balance the AP requirement of each skill.

Most likely you were already aware of that. In any case, balance is not only the important thing with customisation. With customisation you can choose different builds, however, that a game allows a certain build doesn't mean said build works well. If a player thinks "cool, I want to try an agility based fighter" and it then turns out that agility based fighters performs noticeable weaker than strength bases fighters chance is the player won't find building an agility based fighter satisfactory. Tastes varies greatly between individuals and trying to satisfy as many as possible strikes me as a challenge.

I do believe you will manage the customisation well, but what I wonder is to what extent you will do it.

 

[Anaryu]

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UPDATE: Colored version of Rayne's battler is up! Check the art section in the first post!

There is also the issue of how skills combine with each other. For example, with the default battle algoritm a passive skill that gives +X to Strength, a stat boost spell that raises Attack Power to 120% and a physical attack skill that uses 120% Attack Power and 100% Strength will interact with each other as multipliers. The usefullness of those three skills together (where the stat boost skill could be given to another character) would be more than the sum of the individual skills. Cases as such may make it harder to balance the AP requirement of each skill.

Most likely you were already aware of that. In any case, balance is not only the important thing with customisation. With customisation you can choose different builds, however, that a game allows a certain build doesn't mean said build works well. If a player thinks "cool, I want to try an agility based fighter" and it then turns out that agility based fighters performs noticeable weaker than strength bases fighters chance is the player won't find building an agility based fighter satisfactory. Tastes varies greatly between individuals and trying to satisfy as many as possible strikes me as a challenge.

I do believe you will manage the customisation well, but what I wonder is to what extent you will do it.

Well, I've actually finished and am implementing the math behind all of the combat now. I've incorporated a lot of interesting twists to allow each stat it's own high level of utility. Strength of course, reduces the damage you take and increases the damage you deal; sounds over powering doesn't it? Well, you can't DO nearly as much as you can't really move. Your character will get out-distanced, and your hits will be much more rare because your Stamina will regen much slower and your attacks will cost the full amount.

STR = Enhances Damage, Enhances Damage Reduction
INT = Grants a NON-resistance bonus, Enhances Resistance Change (read below for resistance idea)
AGI = Lowers move Stamina cost, Increases Evasion (Evasion is a powerful defense, in it's own way more powerful than damage reduction)
DEX = Lower Attacking Stamina Cost, Lowers Casting Time, Increases Crit Chance

The first thing I did was set it up like I did with OC where everything is % based. Your stats translate into a % based on a "max" that's set in the game. The math behind it has a diminishing returns style build. For example, the "max" stat is 20, so at 5 STR you will do 37.5% of your weapon's damage, and at 10 you'll do abou 61%, and at 20 you'll do 100%... at 25 STR you'll only do 118.5%, and (if possible) 40 would net you 170% bonus. The growth centers more towards the "max" value regardless of which directions you go, so putting a few points in any stat can improve it to an "average" value quite easily.

The next thing I was careful of was making large gaps in stats punish without decapitating. Making stat differences kind of average out was a bit challenging, but I think I have it worked out quite well.

An advantage to the tactical and stamina-dependent style system is that it opens a whole new door to the customization field. With movement being so important, and all attacks taking a certain level of stamina to perform, people with high STR will find themselves unable to attack repeatedly. Your AGI fighter can rush in, take a few swings, dodge their counters, and leave before a second attack ever comes... assuming you can't just take them out!

Have a character with really powerful stat reduction skills? Dump on their DEX and suddenly they're getting Criticals to help balance their damage AND their skills cost a lot less and cast faster, allowing them to, while not match STR damage, hurt and break statuses without being useless.

On the point of Criticals, it's based on DEX... period! Your character's DEX decides their chance to critical, no opponent stats come into play. This is one way I helped to bring DEX onto the playing field; suddenly a high DEX fighter is way to capitalize on the strenghts you want to bring out in that fighter instead of a nifty side-line that keep on just because you like their design. Critical damage was reduced from a 2x amount to a 33% increase to keep criticals from becoming the new "standard."

To help AGI out, I balanced out the Evasion math. There are no "miss" chances anymore, either you hit, or you were dodged. Evasion, unlike STR, doesn't depend just on your STR and ignore the opponents, but includes their AGI to keep equipment upgrades as less important. The dodge chance also sits around a healthy middle-ground, even huge differences only present a potential ~60% chance to dodge, while a small/no difference leaves it around the 20% dodge rate for characters.

Resistance is something I've revived from an old project; for magic, instead of INT increasing damage and MDEF reducing damage, they work on a resist system based much like FFXI's resistance system. Your MDEF and INT can create a higher chance to resist a spell, which if resisted will (depending on how well you resisted it) do a step of damage like 50%, 25% or 10% instead of just static reductions based on your MDEF level.

INT also increases your chance of a No-Resist hit; in this case a hit is rolled based on your No-Resist value, let's say it's around 30%. If it hits in that 30%, it's full damage, the defense resist roll is ignored. If it fails, THEN the target rolls a seperate roll to see if they resist the damage or not based on their own INT and MDEF.

The tactical system really makes this possible, as any mix of stats can be a viable weapon when used in conjunction with tactical movement and use of skills. A Ninja that's based on DEX And INT? Sure! They can use "magic" to produce damage with No-Resist blows that don't depend on a Stat to keep the damage on par, and that DEX helps keep the cost of using those skills down and the amount of time you stand around casting them down as well, letting you escape quickly.

Want that with STR and AGI instead? No problem! Now you can run around hitting hard with enough movement cost reduction to keep from getting trapped or surrounded.

What about STR/INT? Sure! Your spells will hit when they're far away, causing hate and drawing enemies in to you, where your STR makes you a bastion of defense and a punisher of great magnitude.

And finally how about STR and DEX? Abusing physical skills to keep your STR in the equation as well as letting your STR absorb the damage, your DEX lets you up your damage more by giving you critical hits and keeping those physical skills from draining all your Stamina in one shot!

Of course this is all just what's SUPPOSED to happen. No matter how good the math players will find the most creative ways to exploit and break the system, but thankfully with many chapters to come I can "tweak" these values and stats to balance the game out based on feedback. If everyone builds STR-AGI fighters because it's so over-powered I can track down why and alleviate the problem.

Another point of balance is that you can get a lot of "other" skills to help balance your character without depending on a stat. Hate the cost of your skills but don't want DEX because you want to be sure your heavy nukes hit hard? Invest in some "SP Regen +" skills to keep your SP from going blank. Get hit a lot because your job is the hate tank? Want to take that character off of the 24-7 healing job? Give your tank some "HP Regen +" skills, or even some "PDEF +" stat skills to reduce the damage they take. Heck, buy a counter skill that makes your fighter use an item on themselves every time they get hit!

The aggro "range" can be changed in game, so some fights might have the whole field of enemies rushing straight at you due to the story. Have a character with skills that lock enemies in place and give them high AGI/DEX so they can scoot around locking enemies down while you wipe them out in managable numbers.

I'm really looking forward to the continued balancing of this game, one of the annoying things with previous ones has been that once a good pattern is found I have no way to fix the underlying problem. Since changing your character is so easy in this game, having combat take your "twink" team's game-breaking-powers and re-balance them doesn't break your team or their stats.

Geeze, went overboard, didn't I? :O

 

[Crystalgate]

STR = Enhances Damage, Enhances Damage Reduction
INT = Grants a NON-resistance bonus, Enhances Resistance Change (read below for resistance idea)
AGI = Lowers move Stamina cost, Increases Evasion (Evasion is a powerful defense, in it's own way more powerful than damage reduction)
DEX = Lower Attacking Stamina Cost, Lowers Casting Time, Increases Crit Chance

That sounds great. My criteria for a good choose your own stats system is:

1) Reward for focusing on any stat.
2) Reward for raising multiple stats.
3) Penalty for neglecting any stat regardless of skillset.

Naturally, both reward and penalty should be of a significant size.

It does seem your game passes all three of them. This is taking your more indept description of your game system into account as well.

Reading your descrition of what the stats does, it seems an abowe average manuverability is much more significant than in pretty much every other RPG with movement I've played.

Geeze, went overboard, didn't I? :O

I don't know. What you did was to describe not only what features your game has, but also how they add to the gameplay. It's also good to know what the stats actually does if I'm supposed to choose how to distribute them.

 

[Anaryu]

That sounds great. My criteria for a good choose your own stats system is:

1) Reward for focusing on any stat.
2) Reward for raising multiple stats.
3) Penalty for neglecting any stat regardless of skillset.

Naturally, both reward and penalty should be of a significant size.

It does seem your game passes all three of them. This is taking your more indept description of your game system into account as well.

Reading your descrition of what the stats does, it seems an abowe average manuverability is much more significant than in pretty much every other RPG with movement I've played.


I don't know. What you did was to describe not only what features your game has, but also how they add to the gameplay. It's also good to know what the stats actually does if I'm supposed to choose how to distribute them.

Now we just have to hope that all the math and enemy balance works as well as I have planned; best intentions are just that!

Been adding new screenshots to the original thread, udpated most of them from the Character Customization menu to an example/explanation of the new party control system, and the new look of the Tactical screen.

 

[Anaryu]

U P D A T E



We've been pouring content onto the first page and neglecting to update it! All of the 5 Battlers from Epsiode 1 are in the Art section, and many screenshots and some information has been updated.


Oh yeah, also, Episode 1 is live and up for download, check the first post for a link. (And be sure to install the font first!)

BUG FIX: Please download the latest version if you have downloaded the game before the time of this edit. (2:44pm EST, February 14th) I had accidentally uploaded the version just before the final one, which had a missing weapon definition. The currently uploaded version is the lateset.

 

[FzGhouL]

Ok...So I installed your font twice, and when I start up all I get is a lovely blue panorama which hurts my eyes.
After about... 5 minutes of letting it sit there while mashing enter, I get to some dialogue. All cut scenes seem to have the fontless problem. Weird, as I have the font...

Seems quite lovely so far.

 

[Anaryu]

Ok...So I installed your font twice, and when I start up all I get is a lovely blue panorama which hurts my eyes.
After about... 5 minutes of letting it sit there while mashing enter, I get to some dialogue. All cut scenes seem to have the fontless problem. Weird, as I have the font...

Seems quite lovely so far.

It uses the Forte font (one you installed) and Tahoma, which should be built-in. If you go to C:\Windows\Fonts and change the view to details can you find both Forte and Tahoma, both with a size greater than 0 bytes?

Is it just the names that don't show up? (Also, the opening dialog can't be skipped and is all done in the font that you need to install, which sadly apparently isn't working for you.)

 

[Roman Candle]

Spoiler: Bugs

You can get Rayne to walk over the holes in the first rock/pit puzzle (the one just after the wind) by reselecting Kael as the leading character.

Also, after I go to the screen afterwards, on the cliffs above the beach, I get stuck. Neither character can move.