Big Update: How quests are handled, who will be in the party, exploration, and something else! ...Oh yeah and the new logo!
Right, so yesterday I said I'd enlighten you on some of the ideas we've got down, and if I could I'd talk about something else, which is new, I mean, we're not really in the position to do so yet since there isn't even a prototype or anything, but I'm sure we can get it to work, so I'm gonna' go ahead and blab anyways, because y'know, typing is fun!
First up on the agenda, how quests are handled:
There are going to be two types of quests in the game, main quests and side quests, nothing special there, right? But the way they're handled is going to be completely different, I'll break them down for you now...
Main quests are story related, they're going to use their own set of maps, since the game is open world, so y'know, they're instance based, to keep the story contained and so players don't accidentally go somewhere they shouldn't be... we've not decided on just how many there's going to be yet, but yeah, the entrance to them will appear on the world map, for example, the entrance to a cave, and when you've finished a main quest, you can return to the area it took place in and explore, maybe we'll add some treasure chests that you couldn't reach during the quest... who knows!
Side quests are, well, they're not story related, easy enough, right? These take place in the open world, we've not actually talked about a layout for the map, but we HAVE got a few ideas for some locations... we should really think about planning the world map before adding the locations, lol, but whatever... back to the quests; at the moment, I'm thinking up a side quest of some sort for each member that gets added into the game, you'll all have something that you need help with, and obviously it's the player's job to do so, duh! Side quests are going to feel pretty special because of the reward you get for doing them, but that's coming up later.... that's the "something else", so stay where you are!
Next... who's in the party?!
Right, now this is how it's going to play out, as you know from the main post, the player is a "new member", that way nobody is favoured over anyone else, however, this next part might sting... unfortunately not everyone can join the party... that's right, only certain members will be in the party, sort of... here's how it's going to work;
Since we're still figuring out a battle system, the idea I've got, and this may or may not interest people... is that each quest is going to give you a different party with skills more suited to the situation, however, on the final quest, the big showdown pretty much, you'll be free to select your own party... this also ties into the "something else", we're getting closer, sort of.
Exploration now!
Not really sure why I'm saying anything about exploration, it's pretty self explanatory... you walk around and look at things, maybe even find things too! But no seriously, I think we're going to put a little bit of emphasis on exploration, since some locations are going to be visualised based on areas of the forum for example, so maybe you'd be interested in seeing what the rec room would look like as a fantasy location, lol... there's going to be treasure chests set around the world, and Potion is in charge of puzzle design, so they won't only be in quest instances, but actually out in the open world too, and you'll have to solve some puzzles if you want to find some rare items and riches more than you could imagine! I'm really hoping to get the quest areas to be explorable too once you've finished the quest, I mean, it should be easy enough to do, and more locations to look around is always great for the player!
Right, so here we are, the "something else" I've mentioned... first I'm going to open up by telling you how it's related to side quests and the party, then ask a question, if your answer is yes, you know exactly what I mean, if not, reread it!;
Basically, in the game there's a central hub city, it's going to have a castle in the center, which is story related... but the city starts off fairly empty. As you do sidequests for members and complete them, you'll "recruit" them to join your city, and they'll spend their time around the city, maybe they'll open a weapon shop, or have a minigame for you to play, some people might just walk around and make small talk, who does what hasn't been decided yet, but that's the plan so far... now, how does the party come into this? Remember I said in the big showdown you'll be able to pick your own party? Well an idea I've got is that you can't actually start the final quest until you've recruited everyone to your city, you need as much morale and support from the people as you can get! Once you've finished all of the quests except the final one, and you've recruited everyone, whenever you talk to someone, a new option will appear asking them to join your party, so you'll be able to walk around and select who you want to join you defeat the evil whatevermajig!
Now here's the question: Have you ever played Digimon World for the PS1?
And finally, to finish off this update... we do have a new logo, I mean, it's extremely similar to the normal HBGames logo, which is what I was going for, but since I didn't have the actual logo to work with for resizing and such (Resizing a .png image makes it look disgusting due to aliasing and such), I decided to remake it myself, it turned out pretty well I'd say... so yeah, here's the new logo for HBGames: The Videogame;
I've replaced the old logo in the top post with it by the way, but if you want to see the old logo again, I've left a link in the top post, right at the top under the new logo. Oh, and here's what it looks like in the game window... ignore the title of the project and the map itself for being boring, I just put it into my Over The Horizon game to see how it'd look... you'll notice I added a fourth option to the menu too, "Visit HBGames", it's basically just going to open a webpage to our homepage, that way if the game is distributed among other forums and such, they may press on it and give us a visit!
Image removed: I'll place a better one here once I've made a proper map for the title background
Hopefully you guys will like it, since it took me longer than I'd care to admit to actually get it to look how it does, lol... anyways, as for the next update... I'm not sure when it'll be, but if we start working on something else, I'll be sure to tease you with it before saying anything else! Unfortunately I've not really done anything on it today though, I've actually spent all day on my PS4 pretty much, lol... oh well, we've not got a release date for the game anyway, so there's no rush just yet, although I suppose having a release date and deadlines would produce results faster... hmm, maybe, maybe not, we'll see!
