Serea - Heavy on Story, Light on Action: An Experiment - Updated with Demo

[AmbienceDesign]

Greetings,

First of all, I'd like to say that this project is merely an experiment to see if users in the RPGXP community would be open to a game heavy on the story, but light on action (by this I mean battles, leveling up, etc.). This goes along with my belief that games have become too dependent on facy effects and overpowering cinematic presentation and have ignored the fundamental element of what drives the human curiosity of alternate realities, which is the possibility that these things could relate to our everyday lives, thoughts, and feelings.

Second of all, I would also like to point out that some of the data collected by this experiment will be used for a essay I'm writing on the human psychological reaction to high fantasy lore and creative literature in modern media.

So, on with the story and characters, then!

Serea: The Story
Millennia ago when the world was new and the shadows still crept along the shores of the continents, masking the sea from those who walked on land, hatred, disease, and deceit spread through the people like a plague. Wars were fought over the smallest amount of coin and men were beaten to the brink of their lives for the mere act of blinking. When all was thought lost, a girl with a voice like song arose from the people to quell the hatred. Much like an angel, her word spread across the land, giving the people new hope to rise up against their torment, and for a time afterwards, the world was at peace. The shadows on the ocean grew thin until finally, the azure waters shone through like a blissful harmony. But it is not the nature of men to take their gifts at value and hold them dear. Hatred and deceit once again spread. In this, the Second Age, the Duke Hadugh has grown weary of watching his highmark neighbors talk their differences with word and song. He has amassed an army to quell their peace with bloodshed and violence....

Serea: The Characters
Dagas
Dagas is a Magi in service of the Duke's army. Unable to remember his past, the side effect of a memory destruction spell cast on all magi in the service of the Duke's garrison, he is often inflicted with broken flashbacks of a time that appears long ago, when his life was something that is no more. Assigned to destory a village and its people, Dagas will find himself thrust into a position he doesn't know how to fill...

Sara
The last remaining member of her family, Sara is gifted in the Art. Forced to cross paths with a Magi in the Duke's service and accidentally removing a spell placed upon him, Sara is forced to lead a revolt against the Duke, one that for all intents and purposes should fail before it succeeds.

Serea: The Art
Never before have I witnessed a discipline so entangled in the essence of the world as this ability they call the Art. It destroys the world, but creates it all at once; truly a paradox if ever there were one. They say it should be cherished as though it were your own child, born of your own loin and flesh.

And now, the rest...
I would like to add that I don't quite have a demo out yet, as much of the mechanics of the project rely on the replies I get from the community (to which I give my appreciations in advance).

Screenshots of the Demo
http://www.ambience-design.com/serea/se ... 01_ep1.png[/IMG]

http://www.ambience-design.com/serea/se ... 02_ep1.png[/IMG]

http://www.ambience-design.com/serea/se ... 03_ep1.png[/IMG]

http://www.ambience-design.com/serea/se ... 04_ep1.png[/IMG]

The Actual Demo
The demo is rather short actually, probably too short for most people. I think it's gives a good idea of whether the story will be good or not though. So, here it is.

http://www.ambience-design.com/serea/Serea.exe

Thank you!

This project has been indefinately postponed, see my last post for info.

 

[ryanwh]

Well I think Awareness proves this experiment, but nothing wrong with more games along that vein. I'd play it for sure, I've never been a fan of a "hero" that insist on killing everything that crosses his path. A 5 hour game with 10 fights total? I could get behind that sort of formula, easy so long as I was gripped by the story in between all that.

 

[Jstreet]

The concept is definitely one I can put my interest into. I for one am all for the idea of following more storyline then action (as was presented in Awareness). I have looked at many storylines that had potential, but were poorly executed. These same stories used numerous effects to shadow their short comings. So proposing emphasis on a storyline more then a fancy battle system is a pretty good idea.

 

[AmbienceDesign]

Actually, I was sort of thinking no battles at all and taking more a route that involves environment and item puzzles; quests that require you to piece clues together to come to the solution, or a quest that requires you to interact with the environment in a certain manner. I've never been a fan of RPGXP's default battle system (it looks sub-par even to RPGs of the old-era in my opinion) and I don't have the Ruby skills to work with a custom system, so would this be an alternative that people might be interested in, as long as like was mentioned before, the story is good?

 

[Volrath]

There are very popular projects here that have no gameplay whatsoever.

If those can take off, I'm sure this can. Get up some screenshots and/or a demo whenever you can if you want early interest, though.

 

[AmbienceDesign]

In that case, I should have a demo ready by the end of tomorrow. ^_^

 

[Rare]

In that case, I should have a demo ready by the end of tomorrow. ^_^

Looking forward to it.

 

[Jstreet]

Well to be honest your story seems to have a focus around battles. So, I take it you're going to have some astonishing cut scenes.

 

[AmbienceDesign]

Hmm, I should probably edit the initial post to be a little more specific. The story I gave was a the backstory to what's going on. Duke Hadugh is declaring war on the kingdom of Persefion and as a result of that, he's sent legions of his soldiers to raze the villages surround the Highmount, which is the hill where Highmark Castle is (the center of Persefion). In one of these villages, the captain of one of the legions calls upon a Magi named Dagus to kill the villagers and then seek out and steal the village's wealth, during which he runs into a young girl named Sara who unintentionally dissolves a memory destruction spell that's cast on all the Magi in the Duke's service. Now that he has his memory back, his true memory, Dagas sets off to find the answers to his past, with Sara kind of along for the ride.

There will be a bit of political story going on in the background, such as the motives behind the Duke's attack on Persefion, which will entangle itself with the story of a creative writing piece I'm doing for school, which centers around the Princess of Persefion, Lady Madelyn and her caretaker, Diedra.

And I should also add that my plan is to make this episodic in nature, although unlike some recent companies that come to mind, I'm not going to back myself into a corner by prematurely naming an episode number. :P

As for amazing cutscenes, I'm going to honest, I have hardly any artistic skill other than writing and basic corporate logo design, so spriting and drawing aren't my thing.

 

[Breeze_Arkayne]

Sounds interesting [although not a "revolution", it would be an achievement], yet I don't know how it's going to peace together without some talent in the database and art section. I've watched my fair share of intelligent movies and read some great books, but in general, the story of games blends with the gameplay and art [spread out through segments so that the player is not overwhelm] rather than being the core point, and that is how we've grown used to it. I'll be watching this project, especially to see if you can hold the player's interest from start to finish on completely story. Good luck to you!

 

[AmbienceDesign]

Well, I'm open to help if anyone is willing to give it. I have a few effects in mind for the demo that I think I can pull off alone, but for some of the more complicated things running through my head, it would be beyond my personal skill.

On that note, I would like to stick to the style of the default art set that comes with the program, as I feel it's more than enough to convey my points.

Also, I'm thinking of doing sort of a mouse system, by transparently shifting the player to a map where every tile is covered by an event and then turning creating a player sprite that looks like a mouse cursor. This was something I once saw in a RPG2000 game a long, long time ago.

As will always be the case, anyone is more than welcome to contact me via MSN or my email address.

 

[Breeze_Arkayne]

Heh, I would offer a hand but I'm just as stuck as you are on those subjects [just like you I have skill in writing, simple drawings, and slight database knowledge]. I agree though, there is no need to create a completely new art style and set of resources for a project such as this. But sometime sooner or later you'll find that the RMXP resources are seriously lacking when it comes to specific looks and designs :P .

 

[AmbienceDesign]

I added the demo and some screenshots in the first post. Comments/criticism is very much welcome.

 

[WeAreSuperhero]

There is a script already here which utilises a mouse, and it would lag much less than an event on every tile. I would suggest that, as it would makea much more fluid experience for the player. Apart from that, i really like this idea. The story is tres high fantasy, but its presented well. I'll download the demo and tell you more when i get through it.

 

[~Atlaswing~]

I like the story but you need to sharpen your eventing skills and the proper timing technique...

 

[WeAreSuperhero]

I tried to extract it, but about halfway the expract failed.

 

[Roman Candle]

If you really want to do a game based almost entirely on story, I strongly recomend looking for someone to help you with the dialogue.

 

[AmbienceDesign]

Thanks for the feedback. I've had a few of my friends tell me that I'm presenting too much information all at once...that I'm sort of using the characters for narration instead of actually building them them as characters. I've changed quite a bit of the dialogue around and added a few characters in the existing maps to sort of balance out the information flow and I'll be keeping that in mind when I need to give information in the future, as well as thinking of ways to build character through natural sounding dialogue instead of forcing it.

I'm rather new to RMXP and pretty much the entire community in general, so I probably won't take any harsh criticism personally. You can only get better, which I think a lot of people forget when it comes to learning something new.

 

[Volrath]

I wanted to check this out, but for some reason the download just wouldn't work for me. Any other way I could get a hold of the demo?

Edit: Ah, nevermind! Finally got it to work. And it was pretty short! Anyhow, here are a few thoughts.

I can see that you are new to RMXP. What you have so far does need a lot of work and the best way to improve it would be simple practice. The mapping was actually pretty decent for a new user, compared to some other stuff I've seen at least. The dialogue and event movement (which is especially important for such a story-driven project) are where you need to focus your efforts.

However, rather than start your game over, I would suggest simply going ahead at this point. In the meantime, though, play some other games on this forum and see if you can find any tips in seeing how others have told their stories. Once you've logged more hours into the project, you'll likely get more of a feel for it. I can offer more tips on dialogue writing in particular if you like. Good luck with this.

 

[AmbienceDesign]

The encouragement is really nice to hear, thanks. I worked briefly with RPG2003 a long time ago and the community that I presented my project to was very, how should I say, mean. I think I got more insults than anything else, simply for showing off my what I had done. So positive feedback is very much appreciated. ^_^