Arise, my child. I'm sorry to wake you, but I need your help. My creatures... they are not the same as they should be. I cannot feel them and I fear for their safety. Please, find them and make sure they are alright. Be careful yourself, as well...
Demo: rar - https://app.box.com/starlightforest
zip - https://app.box.com/s/tntohd2zbj407w018fmo
Current version: 1.1
Version 1.0: zip - https://app.box.com/s/jlomxrtt503ekrt2xcr1
Storyline
The Elder Tree has created a "souling" - an extension of itself that is granted free will so that it can see beyond what the tree can. They are only created during times of distress from the forest and this time, something odd is happening to the creatures and plants in the forest. A darkness has overtaken them and the Elder Tree can no longer communicate with a great portion of the forest. He sends you, as a souling, to investigate the cause of this darkness. The problem grows in scale as you learn about it and you are granted permission to leave the forest, something that's never been granted to a souling before. What will you find as you create yourself as a separate entity from the forest?
Features
CURRENT
Choices - as you interact with your environment, you have choices as to what you say or do, which influences how future interactions will play out!
You can either offer support or be a complete dick to this flower.
Custom Battle System - depending on the choices you make, you'll have different capabilities in battle! Battles will play out like cutscenes with choices where anything can happen!
This isn't too impressive yet. >_>
PLANNED
Customized Level Up System - I want to create a system that is affected by the choices you make. If you're more mean and aggressive, attack stats will level up faster and you'll gain aggressive skills.
Credits
JStewartMusic * Site * Thread
- Slenderman's Lullaby
Title Theme & Starlight Forest - Twilight Glade
Starlight Forest Battle Music
Progress
This demo is very short! There are some issues here and there (some graphics are more or less placeholders for right now), but for the most part, it's a quick playable introduction with a few things to look at.
What I need from you is feedback, particularly on mapping! Here are the things I plan to work on:
2. Atmosphere - I do not feel like I've done a good job of making it feel like the forest is in any danger. That's really the first thing I want to fix. There's a ton of stuff I can do for this, mostly graphical, and that's going to be my next step.
3. Battle Eventing - The event page for it is kind of a mess right now! Partially because I can't call common events (wharrgarbl), but there's still some cleaning up I can do. I think it's pretty bug free, but I found one minor thing that needs to be fixed, but I really need to just organize it better in general! :cookie: :haha: :biggrin:
If you have any suggestions or feedback, please let me know! I'll admit that there isn't a whole lot to comment on, but I have a base to work from and improve on now. I'm going to focus on this scene with what little time I have to dedicate to working on the project until I get it into a state I like, then I need to figure out where I want the story to go. :magikarp: :kame: ;-)
Being born as a "souling" of the oldest tree in the forest, you have been called upon because the forest is not acting as it used to. The Elder Tree's vision grows more clouded and it is losing connections to its creatures that roam through the woods of Starlight Forest. As an extension of the tree, you have the vision of it, which means that anything which is excited or important in some way energetically will stand out in vibrant color while the rest is dulled. This allows the Elder Tree to guide its soulings so that they can act as its eyes and ears in places it can't see.
Trying not to give away spoilers (which may or may not be overly exciting), you, as the souling named "Lignu", are tasked with investigating the forest and trying to find out what is happening to cause the uneasiness. What you find extends beyond the reach of Starlight Forest, but the Elder Tree is wary that it will begin to impact them more greatly and wearily sends you beyond the reaches of the forest to find the cause of these events and try to stop them.
Some of the gameplay is going to be investigational, where you're trying to follow paths and clues to get where you need to be. There will be quite a bit of emphasis on the story in terms of who you are. Starting out, you are more or less a blank soul born from the Elder Tree. You don't have much to say at first and it isn't until you venture outside of Starlight Forest that you begin to break away from the influence of the Elder Tree. You also don't look like a normal human, which will lead to some interesting reactions when you try to enter towns and talk to people.
If I have the time and dedication, I would like to shape the story around how you react to each situation, which will lead to different choices as you venture further into the game depending on what you've done so far. Will you become corrupted and jaded, despising humans for their lack of acceptance, or will you try to aid them because you know of a danger that they don't? The further you go in a certain direction will influence how you can interact with everyone and influence how the game plays. (I'm thinking of setting up a system of variables for different attributes that increase or decrease based on options you choose to make it somewhat simple.)
I also wish to have most of the tilesets in black and white and, if something can be interacted with, that will be in color. In the screenshot above, the colored graphics are the player, the Eldest Tree, who you will be talking to throughout the game, and a flower in the lower left, which you can talk to. When the flower has nothing more to say, it turns to black and white. When I play a game, if a world is open, I feel like I should talk to everyone to see if they say anything important (which usually wastes a lot of time), so I want to alleviate some of that with this system. As you progress and different things become important or unimportant, things will go in and out of color.
I don't want a lot of battles. They should be more like special events than a normal part of moving around the world. I intend to go outside of the default battle system and attempt to event my own, which will let the player select various commands to interact with whatever they're around while they fight. For example, if you're behind a rock, you'll have the option to duck down to cover yourself. If you're out in the open, you can try to run for cover, which may or may not succeed depending on what the enemy does. I want it to feel like you're actually fighting for your life instead of just spamming attack or certain skills over and over again. I haven't decided how to handle adding further party members yet - that's something I'm going to have to figure out when I get there.
For leveling up, I may implement something similar to an ability grid that's influenced by how you act inside and outside of battle. If you're more offensive, you'll have easier access to offensive improvements. If you tend to be strategic and careful, that will open up a different path. And outside of battle, if you're more helpful to people, you'll gain skills to help yourself and others (healing, shielding, that sort of thing). While if you're generally nasty, you'll gain access to more harsh capabilities. It'll take me a while to balance everything, but I think it will be worth it if I pull it off correctly!
