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The Hourglass of Ages: The Awakening

Here's my first project I've made using RMXP it's a solo project and I'm looking at around a 10hr game nothing big cos I also want to keep moding games and various other things

DEMO

http://www.filefactory.com/file/d935fc/

TRAILER VIDEO

No audio and it's a bit laggy but here you go it's a video of one of the first cut scenes in game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umI3C9sPKPI

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/9794/hourglass1dn2.png[/img]

Background Story:

In an aged passed, an age of great turmoil and grief, civil wars across the nations and the death of countless thousands caused an evil of great power to break her seal. This evil was named Breesha by her followers by all others she was despised as Ashling the Dark Mistress of Dreams.

She and her followers claimed lands quickly, pitting their human emotions against them; one by one she tortured, bribed or compelled them to fulfill her wishes.

In four Months from her escape she had control of the greatest nation in the world, and was moving onto Thorn’s rival Nations. The only deifiers left with their sanity and lives were the Clans and a small group of Heroes.

These heroes were Bearach the Captain General, Cara of the Eagle Clan, Luan the mysterious mage of Sheere, and the Chosen Prophesied one Nyla.

This small group waited until Ashling had sent her forces against her opposing Nations, and then they ventured into the dark twisted realms of Ashling which was once their beloved Kingdom, there they were fighting for their very sanity.

Once they reached Ashling they fought a battle that shook the very founding’s of the land itself. Ashling overpowered them and all hope looked lost, until Nyla fulfilled her prophecy and sacrificed herself to seal Ashling’s Prison.

The age passed and entered a new age of peace and prosperity, and little of this conflict is remembered except by the clans.

If ever again the lands are in such turmoil Ashling will feed on that power and break her seal, the only one then able to stop her would be the Prophesied one.
                                                               Prophecy of the Dark Mistress
                                                               098 The 7th Age Maolcholm Stra.


The clans have questioned whether or not they can rely on humans and so they have drawn out the very grains themselves from the Hourglass of Ages to make a weapon that can questionably not just seal Ashling but destroy her. This weapon is guarded by the fierce Wolf Clan

On the Continent of South Adeall Thorn and Lean questionably the two most powerful nations in the world have had border conflicts and countless wars started and ended and once again the attacks have started, but not just on this Continent.
Reports have been flowing that the Continent of Radona is getting ready for war, and everywhere the clans are despised, called half breeds and in human scum for centuries now humans have been doing inhuman racial acts against the clans.

The clans are growing few in numbers and some have gone all but extinct. The only animal clans left are clans that either have the gift of wings or shadows.




Storyline:


Maeva is the Princess of Thorn, a descendent to the throne, when she was young she was married to Alabhaois to help strengthen their two houses. Alabhaois wasn’t going to wait until the king dropped dead and he knew the King would choose Breandán over Maeva for the throne because of Maeva’s husband. He waited and planted seeds of doubt and then on a day he was sure the kingdom would back him up, he brutally murdered Breandán, the King and any followers. The Kingdom is his. Maeava travels to a place she is sure will protect her...

There she meets up with Andell the son of one of the Generals of Thorn and a friend of her fathers, he takes her back to their village and it's just before the joyous occasion of Ole Tine the celebration of Spring and life, which was being run by Andell's Aunt.

On this celebration something occured on which neither Andell nor Maeva would ever of wished for, this shaped their destiny...this shaped the world...


Charecters:


ANDELL:
Race: Cat Clan Member
Class: Undetermined
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Andell is a young warrior of the cat clan; he is polite and a good judge of charecter. Andell's father is a General for the royal guard of the Empire, and so he taught Andell self defense and weapon training at a young age. But on his 16th birthday Andell's Father decided it was time for Andell to learn some of his Clans ways so he sent him back to the Cat Clan in the northern Mountains. Andell meets Maeva early on in the plot and takes her back to the village (Note Clan people don't look like their animals but they can "transform"-I'll change the term later- into their Clan animal)
Andell fights with dual daggers and has an evolutionary system of chain attacks that require the first attack to be used to than be able to use the 2nd and the 2nd needs to strike to used the 3rd.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1755/andellbl4.png[/img]
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/9233/pyedit025um6.png[/img]

MAEVA:
Race: Human
Class: (Yet do be determined, some type of support magic user)
Gender: Female
Age: 19
Maeva is a kind hearted princess; although she has a great mind for politicts and she wishes people to see their actions rewarded though if these were misguided action her rewards are deadly. She has a determination for revenge on her ex lover Alabhaois who quickly in the game becomes the new King of Thorn. She loves her brother Breandán and as a young girl was always found following in his shadow.

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj30 ... Maeva1.png[/img]
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/3339/maevauy5.png[/img]

Name to be determined
Race: Human (Unless I change in the future
Class: Hunter
Gender: Male
Age: To be determined
Traits are to be determined
As a hunter he has some condition skills poisoning ect the enemy but his main power are his skills which require the enemy to have conditions on these can hit for quite a punch but miss completly unless they have the required state on them

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/679/archer1ma9.png[/img]
Battler yet to be made

More info and more Charecters to come soon
NPC's:
ALABHAIOS:
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Alabhaios is Maeva's husband, and so a Prince of Thorn, he comes from an old royal house full of greedy conniving Nobles. He was married to Maeva at 21 by his Mother seeing the connections it would make to the royal line. Since then he has been planning how to gain the throne, he knew the king would never lawfully give it to him.
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/341/luciuscv0.png[/img]

Ruark
Race: Cat Clan member
Gender: Male
Age: 43
Andell's Father is one of the Generals of Thorn, when he was young he seeked adventure and left the Clan, he was find on the road by a kindhearted young leiutanant at the time getting harrased by some bandits who were showing racist acts towards him. The leiutanant quickly chased them off and took the young boy in (he was only 17 than) The leiutanant (who is now the Chief War General of Thorn) taught him the ways of the sword, the deadly arts of the body, war tactics and politicts. Rian quickly gained ranks despite being despised by his fellow peers as "inhuman scum" and at the young age of 21 he was first Leiutanant of the Blue Brigade, he took a years absence and visited his Clan, there he met Andell's mother and stayed with her for 3 years, he than went back to the capital, Andell was sent up to meet his father at the age of 6 and didn't travel back home till after 10 years.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/766/etesk1.png[/img]

Rian:
Race: Cat Clan
Gender: Male
Age: 46
Rian is Andell's Uncle, and Fiona's brother he has taken care of Andell during his time in the village, Rian lives with Andell, Andell's mother Fiona, and his wife Shannah. He is the local blacksmith and is a brave man, Andell has a great amount of respect for him.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8434/asnpc52civilian02vh3.png[/img]

Fiona:
Race: Cat Clan
Gender: Female
Age: 41
Fiona is Andell's Mother, she loves her son very much and treasures him, she is a compulsive control freak and only wishes the best for her, her family and the village, in doing so she has often undermined the Vilage Wise One, Senan's authority on numerous occasions. She works as the Chief Cook at the local inn, though it doesn't get any buisness anymore.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7350/120civilian20rm3.png[/img]

Shannah:
Race: Cat Clan
Gender: Male
Age: 44
Shannah is Andell's Aunt, and sister in law to Fiona, she is a lively women and is often known to be running fun events for the local children, she is like a second mum to Andell.
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4566/shannahie3.png[/img]

Senan:
Race: Cat Clan
Gender: Male
Age: 72
Senan is the local Wise One, and is the chief of the Cat Clan, the village has such a peaceful lifestyle though in the northern mountains that it's on rare occasions he has to stamp down his authority everyone gets on well with him except sometimes when Fiona is calling him an "old fool".
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/5720/civilian10yr8.png[/img]

Breandán:
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 24
Breandán al Sahvin, Defender of the Straha Harbour, High Lord of House Sahvin, heir to the throne. Breandán is Maeva's sister and is a pickle for rightousness, Thorn would prospell well under his rule. As a young boy Breandán was always suceeding extremly well in all of his classes academicaly and physical, Maeva was always in his shadow following him around, they have a great love for each other.

Bartes:
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 52
Bartes al Sahvin, Welder of the Iron Fist, High Lord of House Sahvin, King of Thorn. King Bartes is Maeava's father and he is a peaceful man, always believing words do better than the sword. He has a friendship with many of the Clans and has made peace with them despite the protests of many nobles. He was distraught for two years in solitude when his wife died giving birth to Maeava but since than he has dedicated his time to the well being of his nation, sparing little time for his children


Features:
Stealth event system
Realistic Lighting System
Lockpicking Minigame
Dynamic Night and day with event changes depending on night or day
Soul Rage Battle Addon
UMS
Mog's menu and titles
Crafting System
Frontview Animated Battle System
Cross Command Battle Menu

Scripts:
Blizzard' s Tons of Addons 4.98
Blizzard' s CRSL
Moghunter Menu and titles
Near Fantastica's Particle Engine
Prexus's Prexcratf
Eilei's Lockpicking Script
Ccoa's UMS
Some of Sand Golem's Addons
Sand Golem's Autobattle edited into a cross command system by Nortos
Cross battle Command (Still in development won't be in demo)
Minoffs Animated Battlers - Enhanced by DerVWulfman (heavily edited by me)
Moghunter's Menu's
Script Editor: Nortos

Graphics:
Enterbrain (Just mainly charsets and tilesets)
LandofShadows
The Inquisitor (World Map)
Blizzard
Nortos
Various Other's
Audio:
Arena Net's Guild Wars Soundtrack
Bioshock Soundtrack

All other credit's, e.g Mapping, Storyline go to me.

Updates: 30th December 07 Thread Update
1st January 08 Thread Update
2nd January 08 Frontview Animated battle system complete
10th January Thread Update and Storyline Update
 
I can't play the demo now but I'll tell you what I think from everything you have here.

Your story is pretty cool, Nice strong back story, though a bit long. How does the princess escape, what kind of safe place did she find, how did she meet up with Andell? they might be answered in the demo but maby post them here.

those are some nice screen shots there, your mapping is good considering it's your first project, you will naturally improve as you progress anyway, I don't know why but I really like that thrown room the lighting may be a bit too dark for it though, and don't rip houses out of the tile set you have a strip of shadow going through the houses, I like that you used Krafts lightings. Your battle system I must say looks wicked, but I think your battlers are way too small you might want to enlarge them, or you could shrink the enimies and enlarge the characters slightly then they will be even and still look pretty good.

On to your characters, is Andell a cat man type thing? If so he should have a tail or something on his sprite, and as I mentioned before how does he meet with Maeva? Make sure not to make Maeva a white mage, it will be to cliche when combined with the kind heartiness, you should list Alabhaois in your characters, and add more personality to their bios.

It looks pretty good over all, that was a longer bit of feedback then I thought. Good luck~
 
This looks rather pretty.  I like your clever use of Golden Sun recolors.  They're inspiring.

But yeah, please use some spoilers.  It's hard to read when you have that much text.  Gotta give you credit for separating the paragraphs like you did though, but still feels overwhelming.
 
Background Story: Looks okay, although I'm personally not a fan of prophesied chosen ones. It's really overdone in fantasy, and basically every game has it, although of course it's up to you and can be fine if done well. I'd just like to see more fantasy heroes stand up and do the right thing because of their own strength of character and succeed or fail on their own merits, not because some dusty old prophecy says they have to. Having an ancient sealed evil come back is also really cliché, but it can work if you write it extremely well, I guess. You also didn't actually say what the clans are, which confused me, so I think you should clear that up. There's no mention of a prophecy in your storyline, which I like, but from the fact that you mentioned it here, I'd assume Maeva or someone turns out to be a prophesied savior.

Storyline: Who's Breandan, and why would the king choose him over the rightful heir? I think you said the king wouldn't pick Alabguy because he was Maeva's husband, which makes no sense to me. If you cleaned this up and made it clearer, this could be pretty interesting. Make sure you develop Alabguy and give him some human motivations, though, like maybe he thinks he's better qualified to run the kingdom than the king or Breandan, and maybe he's partially right. Say the king was somewhat ineffective in certain areas, and the kingdom was suffering because of it, but he was overall a pretty decent guy. Moral ambiguity is much more interesting than black and white.

Characters: Your hero sounds pretty cliché, although being nonhuman (?) is a little interesting. I'd seriously consider not making him a naive village boy. Is it in any way critical to your plot that he is? Wouldn't it be more interesting and original if he were experienced and actually in a position to influence the plot instead of passively letting stuff happen to him as most village boys do?

Screenshots: Your screens are a bit dark but pretty good otherwise. You do have some empty space you're not doing anything with, though; your maps might tighten up if you got rid of some of it or added something for more visual interest. I'm particularly looking at the floor of the dungeon place, which should be smaller or have more stuff on it (different kinds of floor?), imo.

Grammatical niggle: You're capitalizing words in the middle of sentences that shouldn't be capitalized. Only proper nouns (i.e. the names of people, places, and special things) should be. For example, months, nations, and continent should be lowercase, and maybe clans too (unless they're special Clans and not generic clans).
 
good criticism all  ;D k lemme see I know the story is a bit cliche but about the point of prophecies and stuff I'm going more for the view which a lot of people will say in the game :P that prophecies are more of a guideline and that even if the prophecied one does everything right they only have a small hope also, there is still that weapon which is guarded by the wolf clan.
Oh and I'll fix my first post to clear up some points but put them here as well.

The princess escapes pretty simply teleports :P oh and she is a white mage in the demo but only because I'm still thinking my thoughts were that she could be a white mage even though its cliche but hey cliche sometimes works, or an aeromancer???not sure if spelt correctly or some type of valkerie. Still i'm open to lots of suggestions what do you guys think??

I'll fix the battlers in the next demo I'm gonna shrink the enemy battlers as I can't really enlarge my battlers, also what do you guys think of the battle layout? Eventually it's gonna be a frontview animated cbs also with a cross command battle command system.

About Andell, what else do you think he could be if not for the naieve village boy? (He is a cat clan member, and the Clans are all different animal ones e.g wolf clan, cat clan, raven clan being some major ones) atm he's the son of the village warrior and his father has trained him.

Oh and Breandan is Maeva's brother sorry that wasn't clear I'll fix it up, and yeah my charecters are also gonna be in shades of grey with people getting seduced, blackmailed and stuff by Ashling or for personal gain.

Sorry for long reply I tried to make it as readable as possible  :P ok, I'll get to fixing the spoilers and first post
 
Cool, that clears it up a little, but Breandan should be before Maeva in the succession if he wasn't already. I'm still leery of the prophecy business, but I have a rather active dislike of them, so I'm biased.

As for the princess's fighting abilities, I'd pick something that makes sense and isn't totally cliché. I'd vote against white mage because that is rather trite, as you said, and I'd avoid clichés without a good reason. As for Andell, I have no idea what he does in your plot, and it depends on that. I can't download the demo now because I'm not on my own computer. More summary might be useful.

Edit: Going to bed now/soon, so I'll check this in the morning.
 
Andell's the main charecter with Maeva but you sort of play from Andell's point of view, I could always do the "orphan whose parents left him there" but that's even more cliche, I don't know what else I could do because the cat clan is in forest country and sorrounded by hills in the top left of the continent
EDIT: Btw once I make the next demo which'll be around 1hr should I get this moved into the demo section or...just make another thread there??? or just not worry about it and keep it here?
 
Yeah, but...what does he do? Sounds like the answer is "not much" so far. In that case, I would make him something that gives him some stake in what's going on with Maeva--someone connected to her somehow, like, I dunno, a member of the palace guard who followed her, or a figure at court like a diplomat from the cat clan, or something. That alone isn't going to determine whether he's a good character or not, though; that depends on how you develop him, but just changing him to "not village boy" isn't going to magically make a big difference in the caliber of your plot. I can give you advice on characterization if you want, but it might be beyond the scope of what you're trying to do here.

If you want to keep him as a village boy (as you said, *much* better than orphan), it's probably not going to single-handedly kill your game. I happen to be very anti-cliché since I'm primarily a writer (and primarily a SF writer at that because I have an inordinate dislike for generic fantasy), but since no one else mentioned it, I assume clichés are more or less accepted here (maybe?). I'm new, y'see, so I don't really know how things work here yet--how clichés are generally taken or how high people's standards for plot tend to be. *shrug*
 
As I see it cliche's are so often done because they are easy, I'm not that active on this forum but I'm on some others and the way I see it the only people who don't have cliche's are storys that r so outside the generic fantasy like Calintz's Well in the Woods- A story about friendship (which is looking good so far). Oh and maybe I could make it something along the lines of (as Andell is the young village warrior his father before him) that Andell's father as a young boy seeked adventure and traveled to the capital he than signed up for the guards and climbed the ranks quickly evently he became a General for Thorn and knew the royal family well. Than maybe he left or retired because there was so much racism between nobles thinking they know better than a "inhuman cat scum". So as he was getting on left the capital and travelled back home where he met his wife and lived a peaceful life. What do you think of that? It's a bit less cliche
 
That gives Andell a place in your plot, yeah, but it has its own set of clichés. If the father was discriminated against, how'd he get promoted so rapidly and land the position of freakin' general in the first place? But I ask you this: why does he have to be retired? Why not have the dad involved in the plot, too?

If it were me, I'd have the dad currently be a general, and Andell lives with him in the capital. If you're set on the village, the dad could've sent Andell back to there to live with his cousins part of the time so he wouldn't grow up knowing nothing about his clan's culture. But living at court at least part of the time gives Andell some context for understanding the politics going on around the assassinations, which I think is a good thing, because it makes him more engaged in the plot. It also lets the dad get entangled in all of the political business as well, which gives you an additional plot element to work with and again more reasons for Andell to care about what's going on.

Also, if Andell is a current general's son, he has a much better reason to be trained to fight than some random village kid. (If the dad retired because he's sick of his job and everything associated with it and just wants to live a peaceful life with his family, would he really train his son in loads of super deadly martial arts?) You have more room to give him skills that actually make sense with his background this way, which is much more fun than giving skills Just Because. You can also make him more worldly and experienced this way, which is much more interesting than being naive, in my opinion.
 
hmm I had something to do with the father that happened to him and it set Andell's mind but I could easily change it, I do like the idea that when Maeva and Andell travel they have an ally in the Empire I'll get to changing my first post now
EDIT: ty for help and any more constructive criticism or compliments from anyone is appreciated  :)
 
It's up to you, of course. I just like plots that engage the characters on as many levels as possible.

Edit: You're welcome, and no problem. =P
 
UPDATE!
battle system complete, using Minkoffs Animated Battlers - Enhanced by DerVVulfman which I heavily edited into a front view cbs to my liking
 
Video Trailer Into Added, enjoy :) Demo v2.0 is soon to be added, also complete rework of most maps so screenshots will be changed
 
Very nice! I like it, the animations for the magic were excellent and well placed with what you were doing with the characters. You should change when Maeva says, "Don't call me my love you bastard!" Should maby be changed to, "Don't call me that you bastard!", I think it sounds a bit better. I still can't try your demo, but I'm looking forward to it. You should report this for a move, I'm pretty sure it has all the requirements.
 
k ty :) and yeah I'm still having a look at some dialogue and I'll probably swap it thanks :), also how do you report for a move? click on the report to moderator and than ask it to be moved?
 
yea, just click the report to moderator button at the end of your first post, (i'm pretty sure that's how you do it).

Oh yea, your dialogue is pretty good from the cut scene, just that one thing stuck out a little.
 

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