'TIME BREAK' - Detailed Synopsis

[MaRkNemesis]

INTRODUCTION TO TIME BREAK:

Time Break is a project that I started a year ago, and only now I've decided to post this. As I'm a huge fan of RPG's, I've decided to start an adventure in RPG Maker XP, and I have to tell it's tiring, but at the same time it's amazing! The opportunity to make our story, our own world , is just great. Well, I'll show here some brief aspects of my game. This game doens't have too much flashy stuff, like huge animations, great world map, amazing game modes or so. It's just a simple RPG with a compeling story, in my opinion the best thing in my game. A good RPG needs to have a great story! Well, I hope you'll like this presentation.

TEAM:

Ergh, just me... That's why I urge you to have some considerations in your critics... I'm doing the game all by myself, and I'm no expert in programming.

Spoiler

STORY:
The story goes around Alex and Shadow, two characters from the world of Gaia (year of action: 572). "The Pluto" was their master and mentor, training them all of his life until his tragical death. Already in advanced age, these warriors and friends get to know about the existence of a magical artefact, the Time Crystal. This artifact has the power to control time and space, and its user can summon it and fulfill the most dark desire. However, this artifact its independent, and can fulfill the desire of its summoner or can create a tragedy, and alter time and space.
By knowing the existence of this artifact, Alex and Shadow want immediatly its power, but each one with different desires in mind. Alex wants to control time in order to meet with his beloved master once again, and Shadow wants to control all humanity with her evolved dark powers.
Due to the beggining event, Shadow triggers the crystal, and she and Alex get lost in time. That's when we get control of Alex, the main character. They are now in Terra, year 2000., where they're objective is to discover what happened to the artifact, but the story is full of surprises.
I will now present you the characters.

Spoiler

CHARACTERS:
Alex

Age: ?
Birthplace: ?
Class: Telepath
Weapon: Mace

Alex is the main character for most part of this adventure. He's an amazing Telepath raised in Gaia, who accidentaly appears in Terra. His age and birthplace are a mistery. With his telepathy, he can hear most of people thoughts surrounding him, and he can use some amount of energy and throw it to a foe. He also possesses the power of fire which can be very useful abilities, combined with his telepathy. He evolved this powers along side Pluto, his master, a Mind Lord.
Alex is a very wise ancient with a nice personality. He's always ready to help the one in need, giving always his best. Through the story, he will meet several unique characters, getting the simpathy and respect of all of them. Everyone will see him as the leader.

Shadow

Age: ?
Birthplace: ?
Class: Dark Mage
Weapon: Mace

Shadow is the friend and rival of Alex. Her age and birthplace are unknown too.
The two of them received the best training from Pluto, despite Shadow don't have the same powers than her master and Alex. Pluto and Alex developed powers from the mind but Shadow always had dark powers, and these dark powers can be more destructive than her friend's telepahty. This is the power that will originate the distortion of time, leading Alex and Shadow to another time.
Shadow is an amazing mage ancient, however, she is obcessed with power. She is also lost in Terra like Alex, and their meeting is something that the two of them want more than anything.

Rayane Daraus

Age: 18
Birthplace: Rockwell County
Class: Holy Princess
Weapon: Nunchaku-Rod

Rayane is the first character to interact with Alex. She grew up in Rockwell, spending most of her time training in Rockwell Castle under orders of her parents, King Seik and Queen Oria. This hard training resulted in the awaking of her holy powers. Due to this events, she got the title of Holy Princess of Rockwell.
Rayane never traveled to another cities or countries, and now that she entered majority, she will want to travel and get to know the world. Interacting with Alex will be a huge help to get what she want.
Her speciality is healing powers, often useful for the team. Her dream is to be the captain of the "Angel Knights", Rockwell's Elite Force.
She is a very cheerful person, always smiling and optimistic.

Sir Dan of Rockwell

Age: 35
Birthplace: Rockwell County
Class: Angel Knight Captain
Weapon: Axe

Dan is a condecorated knight in Rockwell. His actions during the war that assolated the continent were the reason for this condecoration, and the King and Queen did the right thing, by giving this honor knight a proper promotion. He is the captain of the "Angel Knights", and during the story his main objective will be protecting and watching over Rayane.
Dan will join Alex on his quest, due to a sort of favor. He is also pursuing a mysterious organization that wants to attack the County. His abilities are very strong and useful, we can say he is the main brute force of the group. His axe skills are legendary among every knights, making of Sir Dan a fine and respectful warrior.

Cody Sint

Age: 22
Birthplace: Trybil
Class: Renegade Thief
Weapon: Knife

Cody is a confused and lost boy. One day, he realized that the only good ability he had was stealing, and he used that ability in his own village. Due to this acts, Cody was renegated and expeled from his hometown. He decided to wander around the world, until settling up in his village again, now hidden.
When the team has a strong encounter with Cody, he asks if Alex could show a way in his life, as he wants to remediate his acts from the past.
Cody his an extremely fast character, trademark of his abilities. He uses speed and intelligence to attack his opponents. He is very rebel, but a kind person.

Ruby Sint

Age: 23
Birthplace: Trybil
Class: White Mage
Weapon: Mace

Ruby is Cody's older sister. She is a sweet but futile girl, who gives too much important to material things. When Cody got expeled from the village, she was mad at him, but a short time after she began to look for her little brother. The brothers expect to have an emotional encounter.
Like Rayane, Ruby possesses white powers, which is the ability to heal and help the team. However, Ruby can attack foes too as she developed the power of Light, a devastating attack, the opposite of Darkness. She controls perfectly the powers of Light, and she and Rayane will be rivals in white magic.

Mark

Age: 20
Birthplace: ?
Class: Monk
Weapon: Gloves

Mark is a recongnized monk from the Cloud Monastery, an hidden secret monastery, only known by the great masters around the world. Mark decided to join this life of abstence early, still a child. He and Dwell were the best friends until each one departed for different routes and lyfestyles. By entering this monastery, Mark received the best training and education, developing an enormous power within, know as the "Chakra Raise". This power requires a lot of concentration and spirit, in order to perfrom skills to aid and to attack.
Mark is a very shy and quiet boy, but there's no one more trustful than him. Sometimes we think that he doesn't care about what's going on, but he has a lot of will to help and to give his best at any situation.
Now that he knows that Dwell might be nearby, he also wants to meet with his best friend.

Dwell

Age: 25
Birthplace: Snow North
Class: Sniper
Weapon: Gun

Dwell is Mark's best friend. They grew up together, until Mark decided to join the monastery. Dwell didn't accept his friend's decision and he decided that he wanted to be someone important too. When he found out about the existence of a rebel organization, he saw there an opportunity. By doing inumerous and dangerous missions, he developed an amazing skill with guns, becoming a professional sniper. Now he's a freelancer wondering around the world. Despite the friendship he had with Mark, he's now a cold-hearted person. Will their reencounter be what Mark desires?
Dwell has great and usefl rear skills thanks to his gun, gun that he uses like nobody.



OTHER CHARACTERS:

"Angel Knights"

The Angel Knights is the Rockwell number one elite force. Their mission is to protect the county from some possible menace to the King or the townspeople. They work always in group and very discretly. Dan is the captain and commands the following members, all trained in Rockwell.

Kira Kenir

Age: 25
Birthplace: Rockwell County
Class: 1st Class Angel Knight
Weapon: Axe

Kira is one of the major members of this elite force, and she is very trustful and obedient. Dan can count on her to lead the team when he's not around and she a strong personality. She doesn't get impressed easily and has a stamina made of iron.

Trevor Lance

Age: 30
Birthplace: Rockwell County
Class: 1st Class Angel Knight
Weapon: Spear

Alongside Kira, Trevor is an experient 1st Class Soldier. He never wanted to get a promotion, despite all the offers from the King. Despite being rude and a bit anti-social some times, Trevor is a fantastic and very talented warrior. In the battlefield he's rutthless and never loses his concentration.

Oshu Dori

Age: 20
Birthplace: ?
Class: 2nd Class Angel Knight
Weapon: Sword

This great warrior is the youngest member of the team, and he is from an unknown place. Despite the big mistery evolving this member, he is very cheerful and jumpy, the very opposite from Trevor. Oshu is a fine swordsman and he joined recently the team.

Deeva Adams

Age: 21
Birthplace: Rockwell County
Class: 2nd Class Angel Knight
Weapon: Sword

Deeva is a new member in the team, just like Oshu. She is original from Rockwell and she's a shy person. Later in the story, Deeva we'll have a crush on Alex.
Deeva manages a sword as weapon, and she's very promising and talented.

Kaito

Age: 25
Birthplace: ?
Class: 2nd Class Angel Knight
Weapon: Axe

Kaito is an unconformed member of the elite force. During the war, he made some very brave actions, but it was Dan who got the captain promotion. Once best friends, Kaito is now very jealous of his friend, but despite that, he is one of the best warriors there is. Using his axe, he can perform inumerous attacks, including some variations of Dark Magic. His origin is unknown too, but he joined the army very early.

King Seik Daraus

Age: 48
Birthplace: Rockwell County
Class: King and Tactician of Rockwell
Weapon: Staff

For most Rockwell people, King Seik is the true hero of the former war. He had the courage to expel all the invasors and to rebuilt the county, growing into an amazing place to live. He is the father or Rayane and very protective but also harsh on her education. Thanks to his training, Rayane can use great white powers.

Queen Oria Daraus

Age: 39
Birthplace: Trent Village
Class: Queen of Rockwell
Weapon: Staff

This simple and nice lady, is the mother of Rayane and the Queen of Rockwell. She was born in Trent, the village standing next to Rockwell. Many yeara ago when Seik was in the Royal Army, he went to a mission to Trent and there met Oria, now a great Queen.

Here it is, the extent list of characters that I think are the main ingredient for a good story.

Spoiler

SCREENSHOTS:

DEMO:

Here it is a small demo from Time Break. Correction: The name of the character Alessa will be Rayane in the original game.
There are some errors in the Demo... I'm sorry about that, in the original game it's all corrected.

Spoiler

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FV18H0FF

Cheers, hope you'll like it!

 

[So fist]

Okay gave it a little playthrough. Game ending bug, went to the west side of town/city south of the starting point and was trapped there. No transitions out. Maps would benefit a lot from more planning and practice. You are misusing a lot of tiles and it would be to your benefit to look at some example maps to see how some of these tiles are supposed to be employed. There are a lot of tutorials on this board you'd benefit from and you can always submit stuff to the mapping improvement thread. Your interiors particularly need a lot of work. Case and point everyone in your world lives in an empty square room that's bare of furnishings. Is your neighborhood like this? I think the first thing you could do is sit down with a notebook and plan out your areas more particularly the interiors. Consider who lives their and what their needs would be. Each room should have some obvious utility and seem more like people live in it.

Some other notes for your maps: you have way too much empty space and symmetry. The house exteriors are squares all arranged in lines and perpendicular to eachother, the fences all go perfectly straight, and a farmer watches over a perfectly square patch of weeds, and trees in the wild are arranged in perfect rows. Villages are commonly not designed in such a grid pattern typical of modern cities. You should try and vary the shapes of the buildings and stagger their placement more to create a more lively and organic feeling, and consciously avoid straight lines and right angles when creating your natural settings.

The last tip is to close all the useless open edges on your maps. First, it gives the impression of an exit. Second, it just looks terrible. Third, it will tend to confuse players as to where they are supposed to go. Hope you find this all useful.

 

[MaRkNemesis]

Thanks for the tips

 

[MaRkNemesis]

Oh, about the houses... At least in my town most of the buildings are well lined up simetric. :P

Cheers!

 

[ebhz.Ash.4rm]

Oh, about the houses... At least in my town most of the buildings are well lined up simetric. :P

Cheers!

He didn't mean that the symetry is a good thing, you should at least try and mix it up, if they're not living in a city with lines of streets then I doubt they'd build their houses so strictly and close to each other? Also it might just be me but tweaking the hue setting on charsets and battlers just looks fugly, if you want different coloured hair or skin you should try using gimp or paint.net to recolour 'em, as is it just looks tacky. Oh and your English in your story is not up to scratch, lots of errors in a short amount of time, you should fix that up.

 

[MaRkNemesis]

Thanks. I'm portuguese, so I make some errors. But I'll try to improve.

 

[Æ№∞₧]

No offense, but your mapping sucks. A lot. I make better maps. And I suck.

No offense, but this comment sucks. Refrain from making useless comments in the future. At least offer useful advice instead of insulting comments like this.
~Dadevster

 

[bacon]

Story: I like your story. For your first game, it sounds pretty decent. With a little fixing up, it would be good. What you should work on though is character development. Try adding more to the characters, and making them less cliche.

Graphics: This is its downfall and you break alot of mapping rules. Dont ever tint character, it a horrible idea and makes them look really bad. Try, instead doing a recolor.
All your interior maps are way too big. shrink them down, ALOT. You are also doing symetrical mapping, which isnt a good thing, especially in nature maps. In your village try adding some tress, flowers, ect. Ans a path is always nice too. You misusing the walls in the caves.

-If you have any questions or concerns, or need help with anything, PM me.

 

[MaRkNemesis]

Hmm, I see that people expect always perfect things! :P

Well, thanks for the tips, I'll try to improve in the full version.

Cheers

 

[MaRkNemesis]

No offense, but your mapping sucks. A lot. I make better maps. And I suck.

Let me see some of your work then.

Cheers

 

[Love]

Hmm, I see that people expect always perfect things! :P

No one can make a perfect game, and we are not expecting it from you. But we are here to help you to improve.

Your mapping really need a lot of work. You are being too symmetrical and isn't detailing enough. Although, your interiors are really huge and empty. Try to shrink them down and add more detail.

Although, there is something that *really* bugged me in this game. How the heck am I starting like that, without an introduction or any hint on how should I move? I was surprised when I clicked the New Game button to see myself already playing. Doesn't make much sense, you know.

Work on those and maybe you can get something in the end. ^^

 

[dadevvtsvre]

If you want to add some interesting mood and tone to some of your maps, you can also try adding screen tints. For example, in maps like the cave or the prison, you can adjust the screen tint to make the screen slightly darker. Or if it's a bright sunny day outisde, you can mess around with the colours and give the screen a more happy, light feel. Adding atmosphere is a great way of immersing the player in the game.

Just make sure not to overdo the tints to the point that they get annoying or the maps become hard to see.

 

[Tindy]

Hey there.

First: I kind of had to laugh at your character names - only because in this forum, we have a shadow, alex (and an alexis!), and a Pluto.

Secondly: Take a gander at some mapping tutorials. Everyone's told you that, but there's a convenient link in my profile (>_____>) to mine, and from there it's just a click away to others. You're making a very common beginner's mistake in thinking that you have to fill up the screen, and that houses and caves are BIG and w i d e. They're not in video games.

Thirdly: Your story kind of confused me. So even though Shadow got the crystal, it didn't grant either of their wishes?

 

[Arget Draumr]

OK! First off, You have heard it from everyone, work on your maps. Some of them are pretty decent but some of them need a lot of work.

Second off: When the guy meets that girl in the woods and saves her, why does he sigh? And adding more to their conversation there would be better. You know kinda make it more realistic! Lol it's kinda funny though I'll give you that!

Thirdly off: Your tints man....don't change em....

Fourth: You did a good thing by adding people...That makes Towns and such so much more realistic!

Fifth:....I think that's about it....It's a good work in progress!

 

[MaRkNemesis]

Thirdly: Your story kind of confused me. So even though Shadow got the crystal, it didn't grant either of their wishes?

Did you read the story part? The crystal has powers that can grant their wishes or can create a time distortion.

OK! First off, You have heard it from everyone, work on your maps. Some of them are pretty decent but some of them need a lot of work.

Second off: When the guy meets that girl in the woods and saves her, why does he sigh? And adding more to their conversation there would be better. You know kinda make it more realistic! Lol it's kinda funny though I'll give you that!

Thirdly off: Your tints man....don't change em....

Fourth: You did a good thing by adding people...That makes Towns and such so much more realistic!

Fifth:....I think that's about it....It's a good work in progress!

Thanks!

 

[Calibre]

*posted in wrong thread*

I was posting about your thread in feedback.

 

[Jason]

No offense, but your mapping sucks. A lot. I make better maps. And I suck.

Wow nice way to make yourself seem higher up in the world, by trying to put someone down by saying your mapping is better than theirs... bravo...

... Tard.

MaRkNemesis, your mapping isn't exactly amazing now, it's not the worst I've ever seen, trust me, atleast your maps look remotely how they're supposed to, and not just some random mess thrown together. I think you just need to work on which tiles to use in which areas, and maybe don't make your maps so "open", detail is the key.

The story doesn't seem TOO bad, I mean sure it's cliché, but what isn't these days, it's hard to think of anything without following a cliché, so you won't get marked down for that. I applaud you for not using characters between the age of 8-25 as most RPG's do around here, that really annoys me, I know the age is ? of your characters, but they obviously seem old due to their sprite and avatars, lol.

Now for one question... IS THAT A CAT ON THE ROOF OF THAT HOUSE !? :shock:

 

[DoctorChaos]

Well... the game is okey but your maps THEY SUCK! you really have to improve your mapping skills.
Just look at youtube for some tutorails. okey?!? :psy:

From a different post, but relevant here too: No offense, but this comment sucks. Refrain from making useless comments in the future. At least offer useful advice instead of insulting comments like this.
~wyatt

 

[Tindy]

Did you read the story part? The crystal has powers that can grant their wishes or can create a time distortion.

I reread it and I got that part now, but I'm still slightly confused. Having not played the demo, what is "the beginning event"? How does one trigger such an independent crystal? Is it like Aladdin's magic lamp? There's space enough for some really interesting story if you later delve into why the crystal is so independent.

But my question still is this: Shadow gets it, and it doesn't grant her wishes. Fine. But you said that it would either grant wishes or cause tragedy - getting sent back in time doesn't seem like so much of a tragedy to me! Sounds like the crystal just borked the wiring a little.

 

[Numb]

Well... the game is okey but your maps THEY SUCK! you really have to improve your mapping skills.
Just look at youtube for some tutorails. okey?!? :psy:

@DoctorChaos

Next time you criticize someone's mapping, it would be nice if you could tell them how they could improve.

Also, There's a convenient mapping tutorial by Tindy, placed conveniently right above this post. Take a look at it for some tips, and keep practicing. You'll be no better in know time. :]