Oracle - Resurrected

[Skyla Doragono]

A paladin and a dark knight, a bitchy white mage and a queer black mage, a world in crisis, and a chaos goddess in human form make up the general recipe of what Oracle is shaping up to be.

Oracle originally started out as a test of what RPG Maker VX was capable of. It's since been hacked apart, given an actual planned storyline (complete with sidequests), and is in the process of slowly being pieced back together. A demo is not available yet, however, if the pace continues, it will be shortly.

~CHARACTERS~

Spoiler: The Heroes

Rebecca
An inexperienced paladin connected to a small church on an island, Rebecca closely follows not only her faith, but her own feelings. She is sent by Father Daniel to a small shrine to investigate an odd air coming from it...

Oracle
While you play as Rebecca, the story is actually told through the eyes of the dark knight, Oracle. Stubborn to a fault, he avoids people like Rebecca for the "obvious reasons".

Irial
Irial is the adopted princess of the kingdom of Imial. She's stubborn, headstrong, arrogant, and just down right bitchy. What makes it worse is that she's also a white mage. How she managed to pass her training is anyone's guess.

Jareth
MAGIC PANTS! Jareth couldn't be any more flamboyantly gay if you handed him some crystal balls. Despite his questionable character, he's a powerful black mage, though that doesn't keep Oracle from threatening bodily harm every time Jareth hits on him.

Spoiler: The Good Guys

Father Daniel and Miss Callie
The brother and sister seers are the head Father and Sister of the island church that Rebecca serves. Father Daniel is a kind and gentle soul, while Miss Callie is mysterious, almost unnervingly so. Miss Callie has much more talent as a seer than her brother does.

The Crown Prince, Ian
The crown prince of Imial and Irial's brother. Though you just see him sleeping in the beginning of the game, he proves himself a powerful ally after his sister joins your quest.

The Wandering Idiot
A harmless fellow that wanders around the world just to see common monsters... and then drinks himself into stupidity when he realizes just how common they are. His is a sidequest that spans the entire game.

Spoiler: The Bad Guys

Mysterious Cloaked Figure
You see him in the opening of the game. Seemingly the leader of the Order of Waking, there's not much else known about him...

Delgon
Servant to the cloaked figure from the beginning of the game. He's (?) a first class jerk, and Oracle hates his guts with a burning passion.

The Order of Waking
"Not nice guys", to quote Oracle, who left the Order for reasons he keeps to himself. They're a big part of the Tribe of Evil, so if you are an evil bastard or know things that are only whispered about in dark corners, then you'd probably love these guys.

~SCREENSHOTS~
All screen depect a work in progress, and may be updated in the future.

Spoiler: What, no balloons?

Spoiler: Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

Spoiler: If you encounter the Buddah in a random battle, you must kill him.

Spoiler: Start of the wandering idiot sidequest.

Spoiler: Rebecca does not do well with drunks.

Spoiler: Finding a log for the ferryman's broken oar.

Spoiler: In case you missed Oracle's sunny personality.

~DEMO?~
Eventually! I swear!

~STATUS~
* Monster planning
* Plotting out skills -- will need someone to help code them
* Currently mapping Dulc Pass

 

[Vampdzl]

That's a pretty solid design you have there nice screenshot's as well, I also like the fact that you've fleshed out your characters and gave em each distinct personality's , good job keep it up :]]

 

[bacon]

I think that its a good start. One thing that Im not a huge fan of are your character. It may be that you don't provide enough but it seems that you might be doing some stereotyping. I think that you provide a decent base but just remember to expand and avoid cliches. I think this can also tie into your classes that you have available. They are typical Jrpg. Mix them up. Make them exciting and different and take that risk.

The mapping you provide so far is a mixed bag. I think that your exteriors could use some touching up. your first map was really nice, its just that the later maps can either be shrinked up or there isnt enough atmosphere and tone to define it from a typical village or forest. I know that there are a billion tilesets at rmvx, it might be a good idea to check those out.

Your dialogue is cute though. I can never do dialogue right and from what you have, its somewhat natural and witty. I am curious to see the final result.

Anyways good luck. Its a good start though i think that it needs a bit of tweaking.

 

[mawk]

Oh holy shit, it's you! Good to see you among the living again.

I gotta echo bacon's sentiment about the characters, first off. It seems unreasonably anime to make a character who's nothing other than a funny gay man, and I doubt something like that could stay entertaining for long. I appreciate the nod to David Bowie, but I hope you have bigger plans for him than what it says in the profile.

Putting the characters aside for now, your writing certainly seems to have some character. You should be careful, though; some places it seems to be skirting the line between self-awareness and 4th-wall-explaining-the-joke-for-the-player-style clowning, and nothing gets old faster than the latter. It's probably really hasty to say this based on a few screenshots, though, so take this thing I just said with a grain of salt.

I'm gonna admit my bias right now: I hate VX's RTP almost as much as XP's. If I had the opportunity to beat something intangible with a stick, it'd be one of the two. You seem to be doing about as well as most people could with the same tools, though, although I'm going to once again echo bacon and say that the outdoor spaces might benefit from a bit of condensation. VX's RTP is just unsuitable for most things, I'm afraid.

I think I can propose something that might help with that, though: If you find that the RTP map is too restrictive, Mack's VX tileset is wholly compatible with the graphical style and much prettier and easier to work with. He addresses issues like the blockiness and the stupid-as-hell lack of smooth transitions between different terrain quite elegantly, I think. Here's an old example from my testbed, although it doesn't show off nearly everything it has to offer and you're really better off trying it out on your own.

 

[Skyla Doragono]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Yes, there is much more to the characters than what I have posted. What I wrote was just a small blurb; everyone gets their own moment in the spotlight and character development. Jareth's going to have his Crowning Moment of Badass too, so he's not just the flamboyant gay man.

As for mapping... ksjdfkwie I have the worst trouble with it. Right now, I'm just going to go through everything on the maps to get an idea of what I want, and then going through later and tweeking it as needed. When that time comes, I welcome any and all suggestions on how to make it better.

As for VX's RTP issues, I have a script that helps make that better. More on that when I finish the latest maps.

 

[glorious caesar]

hey dude been a long time.

now on a technical level this looks very solid and i have no reason to doubt you. you clearly have an understanding of what you're doing here: no noobish mapping errors (excepting the choice of using the VX RTP-zing!), your grammar and spelling seem on target, and really i am totally positive that this game will be polished and well put-together. great!

BUT your characters have a style of humor that befits an anime fanfiction community, and your writing appears to be to the target audience of tvtropes users and people who like that kind of humor. if that's what you're going for then awesome.

frankly, skyla, i think that you should be beyond this kind of stuff. you've been at this game for years now, and i would really love to see what you are capable of.

 

[Skyla Doragono]

Yo.

Well, considering it's me, I thought anime humor was about par for the course. I'll try to tone it down for those not acclimated to it, though.

It's not meant to be a serious game; yeah, it's got some serious themes, but it's supposed to be lighthearted and fun. Hopefully that doesn't come off as too forced.

 

[RoseGuardian]

This game looks very good! I love your story line and the characters are very well thought out. Can't wait to see the demo.

 

[Skyla Doragono]

I got stuck by inspiration lately. I'm still not entirely sure when a demo will be released, as I still need to do the monsters and get help coding the skills, but so far the story has been coming together well.

Spoiler: It was the best raft he could come up with on short notice.

Spoiler: Kingdoms have people in them... right?

Spoiler: Insert obvious joke here.

Spoiler: Oracle: Victim of Bad Timing.

Spoiler: And the plot thickens!

Spoiler: ...and then it gets dark and fuzzy.

Spoiler: And then things got worse.

Spoiler: It'd dead, Jim.

Spoiler: Hacking apart too many bushes makes Oracle extra snippy.

Spoiler: Oracle is officially the mutt of the party.

Spoiler: To quote a Doctor: Spoilers!

 

[BaraYaoiManga]

I really want to play this. It looks funny as hell.

 

[Skyla Doragono]

I know it's been awhile since I've updated, but I haven't had the drive to try and work on this until just recently.

Right now I have one more dungeon to map and event, and then the story part of the demo will be done. After that, I'll be working on assembling monsters and coding skills, while I am totally not looking forward to. XP

But yes, there has been some progress! Hopefully I'll be able to show some of it off soon.

 

[Skyla Doragono]

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!!!

Yes, small announcement in that I haven't given up on this one yet. Now that I actually own VX Ace properly through Steam, I'm converting everything over to that. Slight difference in the way it looks, but mostly minor like I'm using a different battle system and different menu. Same plot, same story; just going to take a little longer to get out due to conversion and the fact that I'm working on it when Pokesona 4 pisses me off.

 

[Ellie]

Good to hear. I dunno if anything's copyable across or hackable between vx and ace unfortunately. Be a shame if you can't.

 

[Skyla Doragono]

Eh, it's just some extra work, that's all. Shouldn't take me too long to get back to the point I left off at.