Kharlia: Tale of Magnus The Mad

[MagnusTheMad]

Kharlia: Tale of Magnus the Mad

Back of the Box Story

Spoiler: Back of the Box Story Information

Follow the growth of a young pirate into a powerful king as he frees imprisoned dieties and takes part in restoring balance to a troubled world. Use a variety of spells, items, and combat techniques to overpower enemies and progress through the Hydran islands. Influence Magnus' growth as he levels, choosing to focus on each different area of his abilities! Turn him into a powerful Priest of Water or a deadly and accurate Swordsman!

Alright, no more sale's pitch. The basis of the story is in there, however. Magnus, a young pirate, uncovers an ancient and lost Goddess. Under her guidance, he restores her and finds himself - a powerful, revolutionary king. Uniting a collection of island tribes becomes the foundation of his kingdom. As any would expect, there are others that notice the growing power in the corner of the world. Just when Magnus has time to take a breather, new enemies come sailing over the horizon.

This is one chronicle in the world of Kharlia.

Rather than lay out the whole "story", I'm putting a brief gameplay outline. I like to keep the story itself in game best I can.

- After first releasing a portion of the Goddess, Magnus must gain favor with three island tribes, each with a different specialty.
- Once his reputation with the factions is high enough, he can align them into an alliance to defeat the core of the enemy cultists.
- After the battle, the island tribes become a nation under Magnus' rule. A semi-strategy gameplay portion allows the player to experience the first 3 years of Magnus' reign.
- A nation sails across the restored ocean and finds Magnus' nation. The newcomers immediately begin to attack.
- Magnus finds out the origin of the newcomers and who they are loyal to. He takes an expedition to the main continent in Kharlia.
- Magnus makes contacts with the many nations of Kharlia and pushes for Valikorlia, the most powerful nation and creators of the Alliance of Kingdoms, to force the enemy nation to peace.
- Magnus' pleas fail and he is forced to lead a massive attack on the enemy nation. The success of this seals his nation in the world and leads to many others creating pacts and treaties with him.
- The End

Features

Spoiler: Features

-Blizz ABS' this game features the most recent version of Blizz ABS and aspires to use the amazing system to its fullest
-A hybrid system of gameplay inspired by both Zelda and Secret of Mana style RPGs
-Choose Magnus' stats as he levels, allowing you to select your style of play and unlock powerful spells or more physical abilities

Script/Graphic/Music Credit

Spoiler: Credit

This game uses scripts from Blizzard and Ccao. The graphics uses are a mix of RTP and downloaded pieces from various resource sites. A huge contributor to this game's environments is The Inquisitor at RPG Palace. There are also many edited and custom sprite sets (including the entirely original main character). While a fantasy of mine is to have completely unique graphics, I am not the most amazing pixel artist and don't plan on going to that level unless someone finds some desire to make art for this game. If you see your work in the game, please let me know and I will gladly add you to the credits. Some of the resources I gathered were in packs and simply named "1.jpg", so I know very few of the original artists. There is no original music, as well - another fantasy I desire.

The design and storyline are mine.

Screenshots

Spoiler: Screens

Demo

Spoiler: Demo

This demo is, for the sake of version numbers, 0.35a. This is an alpha build. Many graphics are placeholders when it comes to battle and combat, but they function well enough for testing. This demo is about 3 to 4 hours long and contains almost all gameplay. I intend to increase the story related cutscenes, but I feel testing the meat and potatoes of the game is more important.

WARNING: This demo requires the RTP for RPG Maker XP. Soon, I intend to remove this annoying need. For now, I apologize to all who do not have the RTP.

Feel free to play it for a preview or for fun. Feel free to report bugs. If you do decide to report errors (which I would greatly appreciate) either in typos from text, event bugs, gamebreaking cheats, and so on and so forth, please Privately Message me the bug. Make the message look like this:

Bug: A wall in the Shrine has no collision
Where: Entrance map of Elan's Shrine
How to Reproduce: Walk into the wall section above the right stairwell

And that's it. Thank you!

Update: Minor bug fixes, another dungeon completed.
Update: Put in the modified HUD. Fixed a series of minor bugs, increased game difficulty, and put in "lag prevention". Hopefully it works.
Update: Fixed another couple of minor bugs and fixed Magnus' attack sprite.
Update: Fixed a ridiculous bug I somehow never hit. All better now. Was a teleport thing.

There are two versions of the game below. The first requires the RTP for RPG XP. The second does not. I have included both so that those with the RPT can make their download faster. The game will eventually transition to 100% stand alone and I'll remove the RTP version in the future.

K:Tale of Magnus the Mad RTP v0.30a

K:Tale of Magnus the Mad Standalone v0.35a

Alpha Game Manual

Spoiler: Game Manual

Here is a brief description of some important gameplay information.

Throwing Sword - Boomerang like sword. Damage is comparably to the knife, but it can retrieve items and has some decent range to it.

Hunting Spear - Super long range, high damage. To use the hunting spear, simply equip it and it will begin consuming itself. If you run out, you will need to buy more and get more from killing certain enemies. I intend to smooth out the hunting spear gameplay. This is the third version and it's still a little clunky. Feedback would be great.

Ball Lightning - While the range is more limited than the Spear, this spell can hit objects around corners.

Puddle Form - Spikes, fences, small holes can all be avoided/entered when Magnus is in this form. It also makes him highly resistant to damage, although he cannot attack. Press Defend to revert to his normal form.

Tempest Key - Burning Braziers allow Magnus to influence the environment or its weather. Certain braziers require Magnus to use the key, while others require him to walk up to them. Notice the color of the flame.

New spells are hidden throughout the islands and once the Hydra's Fang is uncovered, you can seek out hidden weapon masters to learn new Sword Techniques. The three Sword Techniques currently in game are below:

Pierce - Ignores armor and reduces it to zero for a short time.
Flurry - Confuses enemies and causes them to attack their own allies.
Finisher - Uses up all of your current SP, adding it as damage to your next attack.

The Helmet of Syren
This is Magnus' trademark ability. His helmet has the power to absorb enemy attacks and provide him with some form of benefit. Although all four helmet abilities are currently working at 100%, only 1 is in the Alpha. To absorb an attack, press the defend key and you will see a shine animation on Magnus. If they hit you in the small window of the animation, the attack will be absorbed and one of four effects will occur, based on what Helmet Power is equipped.

Absorption - Increases current SP.
Unleashing - Stores up energy to increase magical damage.
Rage - Temporarily increases physical damage and can stack up to 5 times.
Cleansing - Provides immunity to some Status Effects. Those it does not prevent can be removed by absorbing an attack.

This should be enough to get you started. Enjoy!

Thank you for reading. I will be updating this post with new versions as bugs are fixed. As the game nears completion, I will likely post Focus Testing demos. These will have limited gameplay to certain areas, so that people can focus test it, break the crap out of it, and give me more work to do. B)

If you have any questions, ask. Feedback, state your mind. Finally, a huge thanks to Blizzard for an awesome script.

Edit Updates: Version 0.30a is up and ready.

 

[Trachea]

On the title screen...it's very ugly, sorry. The colors just don't really flow. Also, your maps look pretty empty there.

 

[Nightblade]

Well, well. What a strange surprise meeting you here. I decide to pop over here on a whim after playing the brilliant RMXP game "Exit Fate" when I come to the project forums and see a familiar name "Kharlia". By someone calling himself "Magnus the Mad". It's been many years, many years since our stint in that crappy Graal Player world, hell even many years since my (awful) attempt at making a Valikorlia based game... But enough about the past.

I went ahead and game your gave a try and the first order of business: the controls need a lot of work. wasd may work for FPSs, but for an RPG it feels alien in nature. I suggest you revert back to the arrow key control scheme. The resolution seems a bit on the tiny side, and the dialog seems a bit bland and uninteresting, and the introduction scene droned on and on, threw out a bunch of names at the same time and used a bunch of tired plot devices : BUT it doesn't mean it can't be fixed. A few things to keep in mind!

1 - The sooner you give the player control, the better. World history, and all of the incidental information can be supplied gradually as the game progresses in many subtle and creative ways. Books, NPCs, common cutscene dialogue, etc. Introduction explanations (IE: Text + background stuff) are ok, but should never be too long.

2 - The resolution, again seems a bit weird. It makes the game look lifeless and overly sharp.

3 - Work on the dialogue a bit, I find it helps to read every spoken word line to yourself if you're ever unsure of anything.


I'll admit, the game didn't hold my interest for very long, so I can't comment on the actual gameplay, but there's still time to improve.

If my old character is making an appearance, feel free to ask me for a hand if you're feeling stumped.

 

[MagnusTheMad]

@Nightblade: Quite bizarre hearing from you, NB. Didn't realize you were still creeping about the RPG world. :wink:

I don't know why you think the resolution is wierd. I never even modified that aspect - it's just the default RMXP res. I do know that if I fullscreen it on my widescreen monitor it's wierd unless I fiddle with my video options. Have a widescreen monitor?

I most likely will leave the controls the same. The default controls don't work for the ABS system at all. There's just not enough buttons for Use Item, Use Spell, Hotkeys, etc. It might feel wierd at first, but give it another try. I find myself wishing other RMXP games had those controls now.

The dialog in general will be redone in the near future. I keep finding some typos or note things I want to change as I test. It's only the alpha and I'm pretty focused on getting the last 3 dungeon-like areas finished so I can call it a complete demo. At that point, I intend to go back and disect the dialog from beginning to end during my polish phase. I do appreciate the honest criticism, however.



@Trachea: The screenshot isn't the best quality.