Deus ex Machina

[seven]

Glad I could help.
Btw, if it's important that the player enter the balcony, you may want to use on of StrawberryQuartz's arrow sprites.

 

[Perihelion]

I think it'll be pretty obvious, since the main character is on it during the intro. But yeah, those sprites are neat.

 

[ShadowFish]

Okay, so my first thought was "yay!  A game that doesn't feature teenagers!"  This is because I am shallow, but honestly, that's enough to get me to keep reading :P  Second, I'm impressed by the detail of your plot and world design.  While the idea of houses and main character as heir isn't totally unique, it can still be interesting and isn't so overused that it's flashing a cliche warning.  Anyways, your character descriptions are interesting enough (Ph.D student?  Really?  Cool!) that it sounds good nevertheless.  That and coming up with something that's never-been-done! can just mean coming up with something that's so incredibly complicated that nobody wants to read it or so out there and weird that nobody bothered to think of it.
I recognize that you're trying to avoid any connection to fantasy settings in your descriptions (and I don't blame you), but I'm kind of unclear on what hacking actually does.  Kinesis makes sense, though.   All in all, it sounds pretty interesting.  I don't usually play SF outside of the Phantasy Star games, but this sounds like it will be really good and well-thought-out.  I look forward to your demo!

 

[Perihelion]

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. :D Yeah, I'm tired of teenagers too, and I notice that the older I get, the older my characters get. The MC of my last novel is late 30's by the end. Adults are generally much more interesting than teenagers because they already have established commitments and relationships, and plus they're less inclined to whiny angsting. And I'm a huge sucker for nerd characters. Ph.D. = instant badass as far as I'm concerned. I may have a strange definition of badass, but yeah. >_>;

I know that the Houses aren't original, but they're fun because they allow for all kinds of feuds and political maneuverings and stuff. I was also interested in how that kind of thing would translate into the future, and as such they have a slightly different flavor from the stuff you see in fantasy. They have soldiers for, um, some reason (probably because I started it when I was 14, haha), let's call it guarding their trading ships from pirates (ship weapons developed 'cause of pirates, you see) and arms racing with each other, but traditionally they've been economic and political entities, not military ones. They control the media, the Parliament, and most of the economy.

Oh, was I unclear on hacking? I'll go back and look at it when I get home (gotta go out in a minute), but in a nutshell it's mind-rape and as such highly unethical and extremely illegal. (It's also neato, so I turned it into a game mechanic!) You can mine someone's head for information and/or fry all the synapses in their brain, killing them. Anyone with a synchmod who's connected to the synchnet is potentially vulnerable, so everyone has loads of firewalls. As far as mechanics go, everyone basically has two HP bars, one for regular HP and one for synch HP (representing the health of the firewalls). Hacking is the main way to do synch damage, and it takes Mina out of the battle for a while until someone dies or you tell her to quit. Think of it working like telepathic berserk, I guess.

If that didn't answer your question, what are you confused about?

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

An lastly the hologram moniters have nothing supporting them.

 
Hologram moniters wouldn't need to have something actually seen on screen to make it usuable. The circuitry could be underneath and projected above the grass/floor or in the ceiling, which can not be seen by the viewer since the roof is assumed to be there so that the player can see inside.

@Viridian; You have the correct idea of a futuristic look to a hologram projector, the only problem is that it's not at the same angle that is used so far. I mean it's view is flat? Do you get what I'm saying?

You wanted to know what was so retarded about that building? Here it comes...

Spoiler

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg88/mustardy85/mistakes.jpg[/img]

PINK : There is white all around the overheadplant tile... WTH?

Pink: That's the way the autotile is. I'll see if she made an updated one or add some brown in. I think that's what you meant, anyway--that the plant doesn't appear to be in dirt?

It's the way I've designed the autotile.
It's supposed to be an easy way of making many large and varied shapes of potted/ plant-like arrangements easily and quickly. (like what you might see in malls or inside large buldings) It isn't the typical overhead foilage your thinking of/ used to.

anywho I've made one some time ago, with dirt, here it is for you Viridian.

Spoiler

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/Kiearaphoenix/0KPwhiteArbor-1.png[/img] http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... kArbor.png[/img]

About your story and information so far, I like the premise. I too do not like "magic" being used or explained for abilities.

About your mapping. To me, the stone/brick pathway on the grass and beach is too square or rigid along it's outer edges. Perhaps you could modify it so some of the sand and grass spills on the outer edges? It may be exasperating at times, but the more you do and the further you get, the more you'll think "what the heck was I thinking?!" (I've done this soo many times myself, with my own tileset no less -_- Just keep practicing and looking at other examples, perhaps even taking some to the mapping improvement thread and they'll help you there. (Or if you really are desperate you could always PM me, but I warn ye, I'm no expert myself.)

 

[Perihelion]

Oh, yay, it's she from whom the awesome tileset comes! I wasn't sure how the TVs were supposed to be used, so I bastardized a window to make a little holder thingy. What did you intend for that?

@Viridian; You have the correct idea of a futuristic look to a hologram projector, the only problem is that it's not at the same angle that is used so far. I mean it's view is flat? Do you get what I'm saying?

Right, it does look kinda strange. Thanks; I'll fix it. I'm honestly not sure what exactly I was trying to do with that, but I guess it came out looking like the orb is set in a flat disc, so I should run with it!

It's the way I've designed the autotile.
It's supposed to be an easy way of making many large and varied shapes of potted/ plant-like arrangements easily and quickly. (like what you might see in malls or inside large buldings) It isn't the typical overhead foilage your thinking of/ used to.

anywho I've made one some time ago, with dirt, here it is for you Viridian.

Spoiler

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/Kiearaphoenix/0KPwhiteArbor-1.png[/img] http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... kArbor.png[/img]

Thanks! I'll put it in.

About your story and information so far, I like the premise. I too do not like "magic" being used or explained for abilities.

Thanks, and yeah, I gotta come up with a better way to describe it. "Magic" gets the point across fastest, which is why I used it, but it irks me.

About your mapping. To me, the stone/brick pathway on the grass and beach is too square or rigid along it's outer edges. Perhaps you could modify it so some of the sand and grass spills on the outer edges? It may be exasperating at times, but the more you do and the further you get, the more you'll think "what the heck was I thinking?!" (I've done this soo many times myself, with my own tileset no less -_- Just keep practicing and looking at other examples, perhaps even taking some to the mapping improvement thread and they'll help you there. (Or if you really are desperate you could always PM me, but I warn ye, I'm no expert myself.)

Yeah, one of my biggest problems with mapping is getting lazy editing the tiles. :P You're right, though; it is pretty weird-looking. I'll see if I can figure something out.

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

How you used the hologram T.V. is fine, I really like your use of it ^^

 

[Perihelion]

Glad you approve! If you ever make sideways versions of the armchairs, let me know, 'cause my own attempts didn't go so well. :x

Anyway, I haven't gotten a lot done in the past few days because some stuff came up, but the script is going along nicely. I'll throw some sorta related graphical shinies up for your viewing pleasure while I'm here.

I believe I'm going to be making the portraits on some lovely Haven of Silindor bases as shown below:

Spoiler

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/ViridianMoon/demportbase.png[/img]

I dunno if these are big enough, though, so I'm going to figure out exactly what I'm doing with the menu before I sink the work in. And I'm probably going to doll the battlers as well if I can't get an artist I like to draw them all (so probably dolling them; I have a few samples if anyone's curious). This is pretty long-term stuff, so it may or may not be included in the demo.

In any case, I keep hearing about how great Lufia II's dungeons are, so I'm gonna play it and get some ideas, I think. Anyone know of any other games with great dungeon design?

Edit: I'm barely into this game, but the map abilities are totally awesome. Now I just need to resist the impulse to rip them off wholesale.

 

[ama55]

I really like your storyline and premise but you're going to need some help with graphics if you're going to pull this off.  Consistent and unique graphics can make a game shine and will help your rich storyline take off.  To be honest, this is hard to accomplish without paying someone, but I can tell you, that there are plenty of talented spriters here that are for hire.  Other than that, I wish you luck and hope to see more from this.  If you need any help, pm me. 

 

[Perihelion]

I really like your storyline and premise but you're going to need some help with graphics if you're going to pull this off.  Consistent and unique graphics can make a game shine and will help your rich storyline take off.  To be honest, this is hard to accomplish without paying someone, but I can tell you, that there are plenty of talented spriters here that are for hire.  Other than that, I wish you luck and hope to see more from this.  If you need any help, pm me.

I appreciate the input, but unfortunately I'm not gonna be able to hire anyone to do my graphics, and I can't really do them myself or I will never get anything done. I'm hoping that whatever other virtues the game has will help people overlook that, and I'll just do my best with what I have. Thanks for the kind words, at any rate!

Edit: For some idea of where we currently are, I'm working on the script through the demo and laying out the first dungeon. Had some delays over the past few days, but we're still trucking along. Don't have any new graphical shinies, though!

 

[Perihelion]

Y'know, I'm having second thoughts about the plot. As it stands, I'm adapting something that already exists, which has some advantages and disadvantages, and I'm starting to think the latter outweigh the former. While not having to develop a plot and characters from scratch is nice for convenience's sake (and also means I might actually get something done), it's also limiting, particularly since other people were involved. And the original thing is absolutely massive (like, 2000 pages in Word), so even if I cut a lot of it, the odds of me getting through it all are slim. Besides, now that the initial surge of enthusiasm has worn off, I look at this and really believe I can do better with worldbuilding and some of the plot elements.

So I'm not really sure what I'm doing on that front anymore, although it'll be SF. However, I'm still quite fond of my gameplay and features, so I'll be ripping them wholesale with maybe a few modifications to fit worldbuilding. I'm thinking the best course of action at this point is to start learning Ruby and working on the various systems I want to implement while I ruminate on plot. With that in mind, a project topic might be a little premature since I won't have anything concrete to show for a while.

I'll give it a few days before I say anything final, but that's where we are right now.