Dorian Hunt. The Prelude. (a steampunk RPG in development)

[vogelmeister]

DORIAN HUNT is an existential steampunk RPG set in a fantasy world vaguely resembling Europe in the early 19th century.
It tells the story of Dorian Hunt, a young man whose ideals of liberty eventually lead the world to a revolution of unprecedented scale.

The year is 1823. The world is slowly shifting towards an industrial revolution. Never before have natural sciences been on such a high peak, while ethics and religion had never seen such a hopeless downfall.
The prominent metropolitan city of Falknor, run by the Royal Dynasty for centuries, has now been partly occupied by the legions of one Lord Ajani who also happens to be the monarch of a militant eastern nomad empire. As the fractions struggle for power, Lord Ajani issues a pact to close down the Royal Academy of Falknor, the cornerstone of modern education.
It is then when Dorian Hunt forms the Students' Liberation Front, a reactionary union with the goal to liberate education from the leading authority once and for all. He finds out, however, that there is no such thing as the leading authority, only an endless and ever growing chain of command.

As far as The Prelude goes, it is an introduction to Mr. Hunt's story. It covers the stretch of time when Dorian and his companion Augustus Ellingsworth are arrested and sent into exile to the desolate isle of Merrow's Eye for an unknown reason.
After surviving several assassination attempts and discovering that they had been banished by their own country, Augustus and Dorian go on a quest to uncover the truth behind their exile and eventually escape, only to become wanted fugitives. This is when their struggle against social injustice and absurdity turns into a full-blown revolution.

Dorian E. Hunt
Before Ajani's rule Dorian used to be a drama student at the Royal Academy of Falknor. He was known for possessing considerable theatrical ambitions, yet he never getting the chance to fulfill them. This, and his accentuated secrecy concerning his past and origins, leads many skeptics to believe that his revolutionary pursuits are in fact driven by deeply personal agenda.
In the Students' Liberation Front, however, he comes across as a vigorous and charismatic leader.



Augustus J. Ellingsworth
Augustus is a sarcastic philology student and an eager academic fencer. He is Dorian's one and only person of trust when it comes to the Liberation Front.
Every now and again he highlights certain details about his past, like the fact that he'd spent his childhood in St. Willem's Orphanage and is now looking forward to uncover his true identity.



Matilda Sherbourne
Matilda is a passionate Arcane Practitioner, a recovering drug addict and somewhat of a failed poet. She was born into the wealthy, prominent and dodgy-dealing Sherbourne family of the Merrow's Eye, and lately her only goal has been that of escaping the island known to be practically inescapable.



Dr. Agnus Fabrizzio
Dr. Fabrizzio is a psychopathic scientist exiled to Merrow's Eye as a supposed threat to humanity. In academic society he'd always been a bit of a laughing stock due to his unethical and often intuitive approach. He possesses a dangerously ingenious mind and is driven by an immense interest for the world's structure.

Spoiler

Original music by
Lovira
Alaric64
Eracilon
Stefano Giardiniere
Eric Satie
Lena Selyanina
Karass
Stefano Targa
Kostas Antonakoglou
Qarla Lucero
Amadeus
Richard Wagner

All music is either distributed under Creative Commons license and obtained at http://www.jamendo.com or in Public Domain.

SFX by
Hammerklavier
Acclivity
Dobroide
Gregswinford

Obtained from http://www.freesound.org

Additional tiles by
Lunarea
Celianna

Additional character sprites by
Avadan
Lyonn

Scripts by
Modern Algebra
BulletXt
Deity
Yanfly
PHLiM2

Battler graphics from http://lud.sakura.ne.jp.

You are very welcome to try out the first hour or so of the game to get the look and feel of it. It is available here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?w41981dwsiv1ct3

Thank you very much and I hope you'll enjoy it.

 

[vogelmeister]

Since this forum is not the primary home for the project, I've never bothered to post any progress updates here. However, it's been a while since the last update anywhere at all, so here it is.

Those of you who'd tried the demo might be familiar with Sir Willoughby M. Willoughby, otherwise known as the Mayor. He now has a face, which looks like this:

Spoiler

Other secondary characters that never made it into the demo now also have portraits.
This, for instance, is Jude Finnegan, a dodgy entrepreneur who runs a club in Port Merrow:

Spoiler

Whereas this is Port Merrow's law, order and healthcare system impersonated by one educated gunslinger, Dr. Ian Huskins:

Spoiler

These fine gentlemen mainly appear in some optional sidequests, which are pretty much the last thing yet to be done.

 

[gRaViJa]

Just letting you know that I played this and I enjoyed it. The characters (and their art) and dialogues are really good. I remember there are heaps of excellent steampunk tilesets etc. released by 2 guys, but I haven't seen those tiles etc. in your game yet. Are you planning on using them? I didn't play VERY far yet, so i might just not have encountered them yet.

 

[vogelmeister]

Are you talking about the Steampunk tileset by Celianna and Lunarea? If so, then I've used it through and through. When this game was still on an early stage of development, I remember having a hard time finding anything that has to do with steampunk, anything at all, let alone something consistent.
So if you know of any good steampunk resources other than those, please do let me know.
And thanks for playing. I'm glad that you enjoyed it.

 

[BaraYaoiManga]

Enjoyable. The story is simple but I enjoyed the characters, the way the dialogue is written is very mid-evil, like I traveled back in time. The music is simple but it brought this world to life, I like the battle theme. The only thing I didn't like is that the random battle happen way too often.

 

[vogelmeister]

The only thing I didn't like is that the random battle happen way too often.

You're quite right, and you're not the only person to say so. The encounter rate will not stay that way.

 

[Kingdom Ablaze]

i am a fan of steam punk, im gonna have to check this out.

 

[glorious caesar]

it kills me that you're using VX's garbage RTP because this game looks so fucking nice and polished.

 

[Digital Soul]

Well, I'm interested in this. I will probably be following this for a while and trying it out when I get a chance to do it.

 

[vogelmeister]

it kills me that you're using VX's garbage RTP because this game looks so fucking nice and polished.

You're quite right about the RTP. Yet it's funny how there's less and less VX's RTP stuff left in this project as I go along. Now, let's see. VX faces gone. VX battlers gone. VX menu gone. VX sprites going. Most of the VX tiles left though, but the definitive ones are Lunarea's anyway, so there's that. It just keeps gradually crumbling off for good.