Dead Content Empirus Chronicles Episode One // Emerald Skies

[Zadeon]

For a quarter of a millennium, our Empire has, remarkably, kept the peace. Peace is all we had known, all we had lived. We never knew major conflict, crises or war.

Everyone was someone in our society. Everyone was worth something.

Corruption in the government? Never heard of it. Our public officials were elected truly by the people.

But our orderly world was...not what it seemed. We thought we were a strong Empire able to withstand nearly anything.

We basically owned the world...but I am convinced now that there are things in this world that should not be seen, should not be touched, should not fall into the hands of humans.

And then came the whispers.

Whispers of arcane arts long lost to the winds of time. And a few spoke out...

Could it be? The ancient Magical arts were about to be rediscovered?

Magic? Hah. We ignored them, shunned them...told them to stop believing in the fairy stories. After all, we had our own kind of magic now...called "technology", made by humans and made for humanity.

And then a man...a Deceiver... rose in power. Through the ranks of the military he became very decorated, every medal and honour of any sort was pinned on his lapel. This man became somewhat of a celebrity to his fellow Altessians.

And he harboured a secret lust for the ancient magical arts.

Thus started the downfall of the Empire of Altessia.

Attempting to overthrow Emperor Mobius of Altessia in a coup d'etat, the Deceiver was banished from the Empire forever...

...rather unsuccessfully.

Seizing the capital of the South of Altessia, he claimed all of Southern Altessia for himself and called his new empire "Demagus". And he plunged his people into destitution.

And 8 years ago, my father was part of the resistance. Even though our area was not controlled by the Deceiver, my father knew secrets. Secrets that could push our world into another War of Arcana...if they fell into the wrong hands.

That was the prelude...to the second War of Arcana. My father was betrayed and my country invaded. But still, nobody knew the secrets of the Ancients.

And then...

Three bullets.

Three bullets meant for me.

Three bullets...that changed my life...and the history of the world forever.

Spoiler

Cale Leonis
Age: 18
Hometown: Zameda
He -was- a happy kid from the Empire of Altessia. But 8 years ago, this all changed when General Maxwell of Demagus killed his father, and took Cale prisoner in the Phil Theeman Institute for the Orphaned. Since then, he has been forced to make guns for the Demagus Empire. He has plotted to escape the Institute and avenge the death of his father.

Silas Denzare
Age: 17
Hometown: Solnoir
Though not an orphan, he was thrown in the Institute for protesting the Demagus Empire's military crusade to conquer the independent nation, Gem'suda. Now, in an ironic twist of fate, he works alongside Cale, forced to manufacture guns for the very war he resisted.

Aurelia Malloche
Age: 17
Hometown: Edenvale
A mage-in-training travelling the world to figure out the reasons behind the sudden return of Magic to the world of Terralia. She is trying to prevent another War of Arcana, as it could endanger her and her people.

Lera Dalmasca
Age: 23
Hometown: South Demiel
Lera works inside the Empire of Demagus to hinder its operations. Lera and her associates lead the raid on the Phil Theeman Institute in the beginning of the game. She helps you many times during your journey, even joining the party at one point, but her reasons for doing so remain mysterious.

Emperor Daerius Zadeon of Demagus
Age: 48
During the reign of the Altessian Empire, he was fairly high up in the Empire. A decorated general and a brilliant scientist, he became insane after a military campaign went too far. His insanity caused him to attempt an overthrow of the Altessian Empire, with some success. Now he rules the former province of Demagus, the largest of the three Altessian provinces, with an iron fist.

Emperor Alfred Mobius of Calbrenia
Age: 63
Hometown: Zameda
The former emperor of Altessia, he now only governs the province of Calbrenia after Zadeon seized power in the South. Once a proud man, he fears another violent invasion of his nation by Zadeon's forces. He now finds himself appeasing Zadeon's demands, as he no longer has the military strength to resist him.

More characters to be revealed soon!

Spoiler

Vash's Tales of Symphonia Menu System.

Part of the opening scene, the Invasion of Zameda

In Battle with ComSim Version 1.0

Zameda Grocery Store


More coming soon!

--A traditional front-view battle system (may change later!), use of magical and physical techniques, machina, thief skills and more!
--Novas, elemental creatures able to be summoned in battle
--Vash's Tales of Symphonia Menu Script
--Ccoa's Univeral Message System
--Resources by Strawberryquartz, zanyzora and others
--A modern/futuristic setting
--And much, much more...

DOWNLOAD THE DEMO NOW OR DIE
Emerald Skies Ver. 0.14 : 39.2 MB
1-2 Hours
http://www.mediafire.com/?vf8vr2q63s1fd0r

Do not forget to install the custom font contained inside!

 

[Cale]

Haha I'm The Main Character

 

[Zadeon]

My characters are coming alive and escaping my game for the real world!!!! :shock:

 

[Cale]

Oh No But I Have More Important Stuff To Do Like Trying to Kill the Guy Who Killed My Dad :/

 

[glorious caesar]

EMPIRUS CHRONICLES: EPISODE ONE: EMERALD SKIES
by Zadeon

right off the bat before i download it i think the title is a bit offputting. but if you actually do plan on releasing this in a more "episodic" format of a series of short titles, then i'm all for it. a bunch of games have seen quite a bit of popularity with that kind of format, and it keeps the author motivated. so i'm routing for ya champ. note that i will very likely be a total dick throughout this but i'm taking this journey with ya and jotting down my notes as I go for the sake of helping you make a great game. so let's dive in!!

extraction is ugly and unpleasant (i have to dfind the .exe in a folder that's loaded with pictures. did i do something weird with the installation?) and then the font doesn't work. luckily for you i've already decided that i was going to play this game so i'll install the font you so kindly provided with a little note. but dude please search for a font install script, i know that i have seen them before. you can't imagine how many players would just say "fuck it" because they don't want to spend two seconds to install a font. you don't want to give your players any reason to turn around before they even start playing.

title screen could use some polishing, but right now it feels classically oldschool and i'm totally fine with that.

open with exposition thinly veiled as a commander's rousing speech and cut to a young boy in a war zone. again there's a few boxes of exposition between the RTP son and father, and then we see the soldiers who CLASH HORRIBLY GRAPHICALLY WITH THE RTP CHARACTERS. fix that bro (i hope these are placeholders, right?), but clashing of graphical styles might have been fine in the days of lys86, but something like that could break your game in the rmxp era0.

Okay again more exposition. YOU, HIGH RANKING PERSON, KNOW FULL WELL THAT YOU CANNOT STOP US FROM DOING OUR PLAN: WHICH I WILL BRIEFLY LAY OUT IN DETAIL FOR YOU. dude you have a bunch of textboxes here that are totally unnecessary. imo it would help you if you really thought about the dialogue that you are writing. something as simple as "you are under arrest for treason. punishment...death" (obviously not as lame but you get the idea) could replace a bunch of the narrative you're pushing on the player.

and remember that this kind of stuff can always be explained later on to the player, usually even by talking to NPCs. do it right, and there's enough of a mystery to keep him hooked and it can improve your gameplay down the line. in essence: get the player in control of the hero as quickly as you can. provide CONTEXT, but avoid BACKSTORY.

"Hah! That was brave of you, Mr. Leonis, jumping in front of your son... We'll take the boy. We can make use of him." (now that just seems lazy when you could SHOW it happening to much more effect).

come on man you have to be capable of better stuff than this. especially if the boy becomes our playable character later on: if it's from his perspective, it should be less clear. none of this "as you well know sir, we are after you because yadda yadda yadda". take away the explanation and it becomes a lot more frightening and engaging from the perspective of the boy—from the perspective of me as the player.

but hey now it's eight years later...

awesome a jailbreak! we all love games that start with a jailbreak!

you have a really weird glitch with the menu: whenever i try to access the meny there's a second menu bar at the top and it lingers awkwardly in a really glitchy way.

iahahahahah calling it an ORPHANAGE. i like that. where they decide to kill the children.

i like the battlers. is this original? hopefully more battlers will be able to keep the style. I thank you for using low numbers in the stats it always makes for a more enjoyable playing experience to not to have to do much math. so after one uppercut the guard is down: THE VICTORY MUSIC MADE ME SHIT MYSELF HAPPY. it's just so ridiculously RTP. i find it awesome but it might turn a lot of people off.

I won 14SPADE.

Silas Denzre joined the party ^_^. i like anyone who says "yo", so he is a welcome addition.

So I'm in the break room. I can walk on the vending machine in the top right corner. also THANK YOU ROBERT FOR THE TIMELY EXPLANATION OF WHY I HAVE MAGICAL POWERS.

also the "this is status of the entire party" thing is really annoying. take it out completely or replace it with a scripted box that pops up to display that info and doesn't really get in the way.

the chest in the hallway changes graphics when you open it.

okay you have random encounter enemies and enemies that are visible on the map. you really shouldn't use both like that (even though i get what you're doing with the rats being random and the guards being visible). it just really makes for a gameplay experience that contradicts itself: running away from the visible events while still being hit with random battles isn't particularly fun.

there are a couple of spaces of walkable floor that go right to the edgs of the map and just end. that breaks immersion tremendously. previously you put an event that gave an excuse and turned the player around. you could at least do that again here.

that glitch with the menu screen is really really annoying dude. a lesser man probably would have quit playing because of it. the menu even STICKS AROUND in battle and it creates a total mess. how could you not have caught this during testing?

okay so i go to battle these gaurds and ahahahahahahahahahhah dude i fucking love you. that graphic—the dude with cornrows and the ice whip. the "interrogator". i totally designed that character i remember someone making that. i haven't seen that graphic in years man. where did you get your battlers that is awesome.

"...and that is why we must make these orphans work, for their labor drives our Empire!"

wow what a speech to be walking into. i mean yeah sure i guess having a general promote child labor in the name of the great Emperor Zadeon is a good way to say: this is the bad guy. oh, and then—naturally—he goes on to say that these children are manufacturing guns so that their empire can rules the world by force.

wait how would the general know that we were beating up guards? if he did then he certainly wouldn't have been making a speech like everything was going as scheduled.

"survive five turns"
thank you for that. seriously bro. i hate games that put you in winnable battles out of nowhere without warning and you go ALL OUT and get yourself killed. warnings like these should be mandatory. you rock.

(although all i needed to do was just keep selecting "guard" but hey alls well that ends well)

What! who saved me? someone mysteriously leads me into the sewer and then suddenly they're just NOT THERE? wait nvm i guess the guy who saved me was pedro, a petty sewer drugdealer.
:\

so the I make it out of the sewer, get a "ActiveMovie Unable to Locate Component" error message. surprisingly, the game still works. I was about to give up on you.

so i'm aboveground again, and when I go south I transport back to the sewers (the error pops up everytime i enter PTI Outside so it's gotta be something with the game). The map doesn't indicate that there's a door behind where i'm standing—it uses a regular floor tile. something's wonky with this teleport man, you should do something there to make it a little more cohesive.

"Those people who stormed the Institute told us to meet them here." Really? Maybe I missed it but I swore that there wasn't too much of an exchange between us and the mystery people who we didn't get to see at all.

So we meet the wardens, and their logic is: Let's storm these two children with swords! suuuuure but hey it's an RPG I shouldn't expect anything better right? gotta have a boss fight somehow:|

ahahahhahAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA the police chief has a machine called DEATHMECH which he uses to murder teenagers who escape from juvie?

Your dialogue is just way too expository:

- "we're on a beach north of the city of north demiel, where you were just imprisoned for the last eight years."
- "gee thanks for reminding me bitch"

"WE NEED TO FIND OUT WHO SHE IS, WHY SHE'S HELPING US, AND WHY SHE JUST DISAPPEARED BEHIND THAT TREE." dude you need to seriously revisit this dialogue. it reads like a fucking instruction manual.

the path that goes off to the right side of the beach just stops. at the edge of the map. do something there.

okay so i lost to the computer simulation and got a game over. from a COMPUTER SIMULATION. when she tells me beforehand that "If you can't best this simulation, then it won't even matter."

i died and i did not think that this game was good enough to continue playing. good luck with it, bro, and hopefully your next release will fix a lot of these issues.

 

[Zadeon]

Insert review here

Thanks for trying out my game, and for keeping your review real!

Fuck sugarcoating.

Here goes.

extraction is ugly and unpleasant (i have to dfind the .exe in a folder that's loaded with pictures. did i do something weird with the installation?) and then the font doesn't work. luckily for you i've already decided that i was going to play this game so i'll install the font you so kindly provided with a little note. but dude please search for a font install script, i know that i have seen them before. you can't imagine how many players would just say "fuck it" because they don't want to spend two seconds to install a font. you don't want to give your players any reason to turn around before they even start playing

Good call on that, I'll look for something that does that and clean up the folders in the meantime. I love the custom font and I think it goes really well with my game. I ain't switchin' to Arial or Times; I'd rather shove an ice pick under my toenails.

open with exposition thinly veiled as a commander's rousing speech and cut to a young boy in a war zone. again there's a few boxes of exposition between the RTP son and father, and then we see the soldiers who CLASH HORRIBLY GRAPHICALLY WITH THE RTP CHARACTERS. fix that bro (i hope these are placeholders, right?), but clashing of graphical styles might have been fine in the days of lys86, but something like that could break your game in the rmxp era0.

True. They're placeholders for the time being. You would have had a fun time with the very first demo, the orphanage's tileset was the RTP tower interior... lawl

imo it would help you if you really thought about the dialogue that you are writing. something as simple as "you are under arrest for treason. punishment...death" (obviously not as lame but you get the idea) could replace a bunch of the narrative you're pushing on the player.

and remember that this kind of stuff can always be explained later on to the player, usually even by talking to NPCs. do it right, and there's enough of a mystery to keep him hooked and it can improve your gameplay down the line. in essence: get the player in control of the hero as quickly as you can. provide CONTEXT, but avoid BACKSTORY.

This is what demos are for, what can I say! The dialogue will see an overhaul, I have a pretty big story so I'll make sure that it's more balanced in favour of context.

it should be less clear. none of this "as you well know sir, we are after you because yadda yadda yadda". take away the explanation and it becomes a lot more frightening and engaging from the perspective of the boy—from the perspective of me as the player.

Done.

iahahahahah calling it an ORPHANAGE. i like that. where they decide to kill the children.

i like the battlers. is this original? hopefully more battlers will be able to keep the style. I thank you for using low numbers in the stats it always makes for a more enjoyable playing experience to not to have to do much math. so after one uppercut the guard is down: THE VICTORY MUSIC MADE ME SHIT MYSELF HAPPY. it's just so ridiculously RTP. i find it awesome but it might turn a lot of people off.

I won 14SPADE.

Haha, thanks. I've never been a fan of high values in the stats until you get to higher levels. Glad you like the originality of the battlers. and 14 SPADE? Do you like the name of the money? haha

also the "this is status of the entire party" thing is really annoying. take it out completely or replace it with a scripted box that pops up to display that info and doesn't really get in the way.

the chest in the hallway changes graphics when you open it.

Done. Also, about the menu glitch, I'm going to contact the author of the script... I've tried to fix it myself to no avail. Most times the whole window erases, but you're right it's pretty fucking annoying. A quick fix though, is to repeatedly press the menu button.

okay so i lost to the computer simulation and got a game over. from a COMPUTER SIMULATION. when she tells me beforehand that "If you can't best this simulation, then it won't even matter."

haha, won't even matter in the sense that it won't matter what she's signed them up for, because they wouldn't be strong enough for it anyway. But if it seems unclear to a player then it's worth a change.
The beach will also get fixed up along with the few other tile issues. A question though, did you rest in the Rest Quarters before you fought the simulation? At level 5-6 you should be able to beat it. There is still one area left in the game, the city of Zameda, so try and beat the simulation and you'll have access to it. I'd like to hear what you think of the city.

But yeah, as I said, thanks a lot for your review Noise, I found it pretty helpful. I'll rework the dialogue and fix up those continuity issues! :grin:

 

[glorious caesar]

At level 5-6 you should be able to beat it.

yeah i was healed but i wasnt really trying hard because the woman hinted that i didn't really need to beat it. i doubt it'll be a particularly HARD fight if i paid attention

ok. you took that like a man so i'll pick it back up and play till the end.

 

[glorious caesar]

in AreaX52, there are some passability issues with the staircases.

WHAT. "in the demo version you can teleport—"BULLSHIT. if you're not ready to release a demo, then don't release a demo. the only reason this kind of thing would be acceptable is if you're showing off a big technical selling point or something. so this city better be impressive.

the door to the CLEANERS doesn't go anywhere. it looks like that guy is trying to block the entrance but he's not doing a very good job of it. same for the house next door with the guy sleeping in the front. this tileset is riddled with passability issues.

in the house with the fountain and the kid who threw away his allowance, the player should totally be able to throw away his money by looking into the fountain. how can you hint at that and not let me do it? even—especially—if it serves no purpose. to me, touches like that can improve a game tremendously. think about every interaction that your game world could provide. even something as lame as throwing away money gives the game environment an oppurtunity to alter the game's variables (like how much Spade is in your pockets).

the TV set is above Cale's head. another case of lazy passability testing.

in the city, the roads don't always lead somewhere. some do, some don't and just END at the end of the map. this is really bad dude and it should bhe obvious why.

the grocery store's cute though. i like that it shares a building with an ARMS DEALER.

WHAT is with this EMPORER MOBIUS guy. if he's the emperor it sure as hell would be easy to kill him. he's a really shtity emperor: "hey random person who may or may not have escaped from prison: want some information on a gang of hoodlums?" oh and i'd have to go through the SEWERS. what is with rpgmaker and sewers:| it's always the sewers

i just don't know if i can keep going man. i shouldn't have gone back to this game. i mean you're cool and all, but at this point it needs a lot of work, and more imporarntly: a lot of thought put into the logic of this game's story. i worry that you're just going to put the player through a gauntlet of RPG cliches with the thin frame of "but it's modern times".

you can do a lot better than this, bro. sit back and think about your game's story.

 

[Zadeon]

Well, shit. Good to know what needs to be fixed

 

[glorious caesar]

hahahah don't get discouraged dude. if i thought the game was a waste of time i wouldn't have played it in the first place :box: