What is it?
Pandora is an early project designed to fit into the genre that only seems to contain Pokemon: a monster catcher game. It is, however, a mashup of two genres, in that it is also set in a world much alike you'd find in Hunger Games.
In short, everybody is trying to kill you, while you've gotta catch 'em all.
Storyline
I, admittedly, don't have the plot worked out too well. Here's the basics:
The world is small, being kept intentionally small (i.e. culled) by the leadership in order to save resources. There are towns and villages, but outside of these areas is the "real world", referred to as the Grand Tournament, where there are no laws, no rules, and just one word of guidance: run.
The winner of the tournament gets their freedom, and the ability to live life in one of the towns and villages as if nothing had ever happened, perhaps raising kids who will play in a future Grand Tournament.
The losers... well, die.
People join the tournament on the year of their eighteenth birthday.
You don't seem to have this worked out much.
I don't.
What's done so far?
Tweaks to the VX Ace battle system to allow you to capture or loot enemies when you defeat them. If you capture them, your current monster flees and you're left with the one you just defeated.
I've done the basic introduction. A flashy cutscene, some wordy cutscenes, and then a tutorial of sorts, gets you into the Real World, where you can then catch one of a few monsters currently implemented.
What's the plan after that?
After that, making this into a full game is a case of adding:
- More monsters
- More areas
- Cutscenes in each area to provide a storyline
- An ending
Things are awfully easy/difficult to fight.
They need tweaking, and that's going to be the main work done in the game: balancing and tweaking potentially hundreds of monsters to get them all playing nicely. At the moment no monsters have really been given stats, only rats have to make their battles long enough for the cutscenes to work.
Can I play it?
There is a short tech demo available. It is only the initial scenes of the game, and ends just after you face the Chimera in the woods.
Download: http://afar.ws/personal/Pandora.exe
Can I have some screenshots?
Sure!
You're not going to find the demo much more thrilling to be honest.
Oh look there are maps in this game.
Credits
"Some of graphic data in this software are free game resources distributed by REFMAP(http://www.tekepon.net/fsm).
You must not use the graphic data which is in this software, for the purpose except playing this game. When you want to get these resources, go to the website above."
BBC test card - British Broadcasting Corporation.