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Hellion [NEW DEMO]

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Hellion


There is something strange going on at the old temple in the remote village of Salidar.  You are the Mysterious Wanderer - a warrior chosen from destiny to face the evil within.  You fate is tied intimately with what lies at its depths.  Will you bring salvation to the forlorn hopefuls of Salidar?  Or will you unleash destruction, whether by design or disaster?  It is in your hands....

Hellion is best described as a cross between Dragon Warrior, Diablo and Dungeons & Dragons - you have a blank slate character with 8 classes to choose from at the beginning of the game.  You adventure solo.  You can hire hirelings.  The monster drops are random.  The graphics are NES.  The battles backgrounds are black.  There are traps.  There are locks to be picked and NPCs to be persuaded.

..:: FEATURES ::..
- Dragon Warrior NES-style theme
- Several outside of battle skills, including lockpicking, hiding, running, pickpocketing and persuading.
- A simple Alignment tracking system
- Random monster drops and chest contents
- On-map traps and monsters
- Unique Skill trees for the 7 character classes
- Fatigue-based Running System



..:: SCREENS ::..

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newbattle.png


skilltree_animagus.png
catacombs.png


outside.png
ability.png


caverns.png
screen4.png




..:: Outside-of-Battle-Skillsets (OOBS) ::..

OOBS, or outside-of-battle-skillset, is just some generic term I came up with for the skills and abilities that you use outside of a battle environment. 

Your outside-of-battle-skillset includes the following actions your avatar can make outside of battle:

Run
Detect Traps
Detect Hidden Monsters
Detect Hidden Doors
Disarm Traps
Unlock Doors
Unlock Chests
Hide
Pickpocket from NPCs
Pickpocket from Monsters
Preemptive Attack on monsters
Persuade NPCs
Find hidden treasure
Forage monster remains



The success rate and effectiveness of your OOBS are determined using your current level in ability points.  Abilities are capped at 31 (+ class bonuses). Upon leveling up, you receive more Ability Points to distribute - how many you get depends on class.  The abilities that you can beef up your character with are:

Lockpick - used to determine your success in picking locks on locked doors and chests.

Disarm Traps - used to determine your success in disarming detected traps without setting it off and taking damage.

Hide - used to determine the effectiveness of your Hide skill.  While hidden, you can pickpocket NPCs or monsters, or begin a preemptive attack on monsters.

Pickpocket - used to determine the success or failure of pickpocketing both NPCs and monsters. Failure results in being sent to jail (NPC) or a Backattack battle (monster)

Bash - used to bash locked doors, chests and traps when lockpicking or disarm traps fails.  Bashing doors results in taking some damage, while bashing locked chests may result in detroying the item inside.  Bashing traps may destroy the trap without taking damage or only taking 1/2 damage.

Decipher - used to decrypt scrolls (which in turn allow you to cast a spell one time) and read runes.  Some doors are locked using magic runes.

Persuade - used in conversation with NPCs.  This may result in a reduced price for goods and services, or progression in story arcs, or increased rewards for quests.

Stamina - used to increase your stamina bar, which drains when your are running or hiding.

Detection - used to detect hidden things such as traps, monsters, treasure, and doors (and a certain Hireling!)

Forage - used to improve the success rate of scavenging the remains of defeated monsters.  All monsters have drops, but only a high forage skill will allow you to capitalize on that.



..:: CLASSES ::..

The classes in Hellion are:

The Rogue
A moderately balanced fighter with a? strong outside-of-battle-skillset (OOBS).? The rogue gains 7 ability points/level up to distribute among the 10 abilities, plus his cost to increase abilities is low, making the rogue the ideal class for those who enjoy lockpicking, hiding, pickpocketing and preemptive attacks.

The Kensai
The warrior class.? The kensai is the foremost fighter in the game and a veritable tank.? He can equip most any equipment and further improve his fighting ability by dual wielding and attacking multiple times per round.? His OOBS is almost non-existant, though.

The Animagus
A secondary warrior class that has access to shapeshifting and totemic skills.? Though not a tank like the kensai, the animagus is more than able to handle himself in a fight.? Plus, turning into a dragon is cool.

The Cleric
The cleric is a surprisingly effective fighter (due to her ability to equip some great weapons and armor) as well as a proficient healer.? The cleric can further improve her in-battle prowess with stat-doubling skills.? She also has access to powerful anti-undead spells that lay waste to any ghosts and zombies lurking in the Pit.

The Warlock
With the ability to summon skeletons, ghosts and liches to fight by his side, the warlock rarely travels alone.? His access to the dark arts further bolsters his powers and his curses weakens his enemies.

The Elementalist
The fireball-flinging, lightning-casting, earth-shattering mage can unleash magical fury upon his enemies.? Which is a good thing because he can't fight very well.? A golem or fire elemental helps out in that respect.

The Mindfreak
The brilliant mindfreak is a master of misdirection.? Fear, confusion, invisibility and powerful psyche attacks are her weapons of choice.? With the aid of some skills, the mindfreak is also a fair OOBS specialist.



..:: DOWNLOAD ::..
Hellion v0.6



..:: NOTES ::..

Hellion is a dungeon crawler cross with gameplay elements inspired by Diablo and D&D games, using retro NES Dragon Warrior IV graphics, sounds and music.  You can view the project status over at RMN at http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/146/

Good luck!
 

mawk

Sponsor

what, another cool 2k3 game with hella unique systems? it's as if you have prior experience with rm2k3 or something.

this one looks really cool, actually. I don't think anyone's actually tried anything remotely western with any rm, and this seems pretty solid. I know I've made vague positive noises about your other games, "will try," etc., but I'm gonna download and play this one right now to see how it all works out.

also peri needs to post in this thread just for the name synchronicity
 

mawk

Sponsor

okay, I've played it a little, and man is this ever fun. the random itself from chests seem to favour me a little drastically (I have a lot of "x of x" equipment and I'm still at level one) but it's a work in progress so I'm sure you'll catch and fix the little bits of weirdness in the system. I'm not sure if the appeal'll last forever, but as far as I've played, this is really good, bro -- and this is probably one of the biggest dicks in the rm community saying this.
 
A common complaint from my beta testers was that OOBS (outside-of-battle skills) were underpowered with no real way of improving them - especially cross-class skills. I realize now that I didn't really think that one through too well.

So, the goal is to provide the player with a way of improving their OOBS. I have 5 ideas:

1. Have an OOBS trainer in the village that will permanently increase particular skills for a price

2. Have Hirelings give you a boost in certain OOBS when they are in your party
For example, Lars the Brute would give a bonus to Bash.

3. Increase the available skill points on levelups

4. Have more quests where the reward is a boost to OOBS

5. Have equipable (or consumable) items that can boost OOBS

What do you guys think?
 

mawk

Sponsor

alas? what's that supposed to mean? 2k/3's track record is much better than xp's or vx's. I've only seen three games worth playing from either iteration, but 2k and 2k3 have a lot of cool stuff and it just keeps coming.
 
jъГìsт":14yzw0ff said:
STOP MAKING THESE AMAZING RETRO GAMES SO BLOODY QUICK, I HAVEN'T EVEN FINISHED THE OTHERS YET !
It was more like a project dump. (Although I only finished my first project in March 2009).

Timelines:

Hero's Realm: Started April 2006 - Finished March 2009 (3 years, with some long breaks)
Generica Started March 14th, 2009 - Finished March 24th, 2009 (10 days start to finish!)
Hellion: Started September 2007 - ...(September 22nd maybe?) (Truly, I created the bulk of this project in 10 days (for a week long project - oops) in a mad frenzy. I've been piddling around with it ever since, slowly chipping away at it (eventing is tedious in RM2k3))

I also organized 3 community projects at RMN (the Befuddle Quest games) in 2009. Quite productive year for me in retrospect!
 
On the advice of people who responded to my last blog, I have made some additions to how OOBS can be acquired and boosted.

There is a new NPC named Higgins Obsmeister in the basement of the school. He is an aging treasure hunter who is a bit daft, but earnest. He will teach you 4 things:

1. Increases available Ability Points by 2 for a price (starting at 2500 gold, and doubling each time it is done)
2. Trains you in your weakest skill (+15 bonus!) after you reach a certain depth in the Pit (floor 8+)
3. Trains you in your cross-class skills (+5 bonus) after you reach a certain level (15+)
4. Trains you in 5 skills ONE TIME ONLY (skills depending on if you are good or evil) with a bonus equal to YOUR_LEVEL / 3 + 1

"Good" Skills:
-Disarm Traps
-Bash
-Decipher
-Stamina
-Detection

"Evil" Skills:
-Lockpick
-Hide
-Pickpocket
-Persuade
-Forage


Certain Hirelings now also give a boost to OOBS, as follows

Cristo --- Healer --- N/A
Lars --- Brute --- Bash +8
Jet Solo --- Thief --- Lockpick +5, Disarm +5, Hide +5, Pickpocket +5
Mara --- Mage --- Decipher +10
Sylar --- Pyromancer --- N/A
Julliet --- Illusionist --- Detection +9
Allanon --- Druid --- Forage +3
Thom --- Bard --- Persuade +7
Birgette --- Warrior --- N/A
Chow-Yun --- Monk --- N/A


I will be doing a new quest with an OOBS reward (like the Signpost quest). I just have to make another quest later on in the Pit.

The numbers and costs haven't really been tested yet, so they are open to change.
 
woohoo! i love seein 8 bit graphics for some odd reason, i dont know what it is? with all the hd games these days it still seems like graphics are still 2nd to a great storyline, the OOBS system sounds promising also, good luck on this project
 
I'll be releasing a major update to the demo to the general public on the 22nd. It will include 12 floors of the Pit (out of the total planned 16) and feature some minor revisions and polish.

Also, some screens:
arrows.png

The community can always use more arrow puzzles!

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Slide on the ice

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Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!
 

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