Legacy of Blades (working title)

[Scythe]

Demo Available:

MegaUpload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZZKD5CXZ

Wanted: Graphic Artist, Composer - Post in this thread or PM me if interested

As you may know from another thread, I've been fooling around with making my own computer RPGs for, oh, many years. Well, I may or may not take the current one further than usual. Whether I do or not, I'd like to get some input on making an RPG without many of the usual clichés or trappings.

Now, just for the record, it is going to be fantasy, which is cliché enough in itself, and it is going to be fairly vanilla Japanese style console fantasy in terms of monsters and the like, since I'm working with existing graphic templates. What doesn't have to be cliché is characters, plot, world, in other words, content. I'm going to list some clichés I want to avoid, can you think of others you consider overdone or for other (good) reasons would like not to see (again)?

Characters
One cliché I'd like to avoid at all costs is the "main character is really a prince/princess." Yeah, like we didn't see that one coming from a mile off... I know I'm having a female main character, but she is NOT a princess! In disguise, secretly, or otherwise! And she's not going to fall in love with a prince! In disguise, secretly, or otherwise! Damn it!

The comic relief sidekick. You all know the comic relief sidekick. Yeah, comic relief is fun. Those kind of characters cannot have depth. If they do, they are no longer comic relief. I'm not happy about characters with no depth.

The hardcase badass, "you can't touch this" über-dude. There may be such a character, but not one that's a badass just to be a, well, badass.

Shallow characters. Notice how two characters get well developed in most RPGs, while the others are superficial followers? I understand this one totally, you're telling a story, a story can have only so many main characters. I think just having four player characters at most will be helpful, and allow for more fleshing out. There may be visiting characters, but permanent PCs, I would limit to an absolute maximum of four.

World
You know what I really hate about many game worlds? That they're "the whole world." How many RPGs have you played where you could walk (or fly) around the entire world, and it turns out to encompass three kingdoms separated by seas, with a dozen towns all in all? That's the kind of world I don't want, because it has zero realism. Obviously, I can't have dozens and dozens of villages all over the place, filled with hundreds of NPCs, but it's not going to be the whole world, just a small part, the relevant part.

In my more chaotic moments, I've thought about making the whole damn RPG take place in one town. That's it. Just one town. (That's done before, I know, but rarely in console style.) But that's probably going too far, and would be an artificial limit that isn't helpful.

Grand Plots
Save the world. You know it. Sure, the RPG may be about two starstruck lovers getting together... and saving the world. Or traveling from one end of the map to the other... and saving the world. How about a plot that doesn't turn out to be about... saving the world?

Can you not have an epic story about less than that?

The Romance Thing
Yes, it's clueless boy meets shy girl, with cocky girl (usually your comic relief, see above) being all over clueless boy and shy girl being enamored/pursued by darkly brooding, but awfully handsome (in an evil way) boy. I'm a romantic. I want romance in my RPG. But it can be romance that falls outside that god awful, seen 1,000,000 times before mold.

Random Monster Rampage
Funnily, this is one of the areas where we're often given some kind of explanation. Such as, monsters fall from the moon, come from the mists, from the boundaries between worlds, cross over from that "other" world, from the sealed cave that was opened, manufactured by the evil empire... The least cliché here would be that monsters are part of the world and were "always" there. That would mean their backgrounds would have to be developed to fit inside the world (many are just animals, of course).

Gods & Goddesses
Now me, I tend to drop the subject of religion like it's red hot iron scalding my hands. Which is why I'm not really going to say much here. There's usually some sort of divinity opposed by devils. I'd like to avoid that, or have it be so much in the background that it doesn't have to be brought up in any way.

Misc
Ok, it's suddenly very late. I have work tomorrow. Depeche Mode is all good to listen to, but sleep would probably be wisest. All the things I overlooked will have to wait. And this thread is general for now, but may at some point turn specific and go somewhere else, be called something else, and be about me working on this game for real.

[SFault]

I'm going to list some clichés I want to avoid, can you think of others you consider overdone or for other (good) reasons would like not to see (again)?

The list contained about every thing I have seen too many times in RPGs, especially 'Saving The World'. I don't have anything to add the list, but I can give you some ideas how to avoid or twist those clichés. The greatest thing about clichés is that you can take advantage of them or turn them upside down.

I kinda like the idea that whole plot focuses only to one town. But perhaps it needs to be a city. Also the world can be something extremely strange, like placing in a stomach of a giant beast, underwater, one big ship or in a dream. This of course can affect on the weapons and monsters.

What comes to saving the world and killing everything that moves on the side I would say, that most of the console RPGs are fun because you can develope the character to level 400+ by beating up monsters. The whole plot behind this XP collecting is totally insignificant. People talk and I beat the Skip-button. I want action. I talked with my friend about the monster killing and he noted that it's strange that it doesn't matter how much tougher you get the enemies get as tough too, so you actually don't get any better and anything doesn't get any easier.

Saving the world can be perverted by making the main character 'evil'. He's mission is to become world dominator or something like that. I don't want to say someone is evil (as natural born mean), rather 'evil' (thinks differently and acts chaotic). One anti-cliché could be making the hero a monster, like an orc with a badass troll-sidekick and all the humans, elves and dwarves are evil.

[Scythe]

The greatest thing about clichés is that you can take advantage of them or turn them upside down.

I have a very specific idea about that, actually. You're absolutely right, there are ways to twist clichés.

Also the world can be something extremely strange, like placing in a stomach of a giant beast, underwater, one big ship or in a dream. This of course can affect on the weapons and monsters.

Nice ideas, but in my specific case, I'm limited by the graphic templates that come with the engine.

What comes to saving the world and killing everything that moves on the side I would say, that most of the console RPGs are fun because you can develope the character to level 400+ by beating up monsters. The whole plot behind this XP collecting is totally insignificant. People talk and I beat the Skip-button. I want action.

Perfectly reasonable attitude. But not what I want. I want plot, depth!

Saving the world can be perverted by making the main character 'evil'.

Well yes, I've been playing Disgaea recently, and playing the bad guy has its funny twists. Me, I like playing heroic characters myself. That's just a trapping of my mind. Excellent twist though, and it's not something that's overdone.

Good comments, don't hold back, I'll take anything into consideration, and would enjoy hearing your points of view regardless of whether I can personally make use of them or not.

[Maz]

How about turning it other way around... Making the goal to be avoiding fights. Each fight you get into would lower your experience O_o.

Although this would be more suitable approach in an adventure game...

[eMTe]

Regarding your game in general. This mysterious engine is RPGMaker?

Regarding characters.
One thing I really hate about console rpgs is character's "evolution". No matter what his profession/occupation/age/life experience is he always starts at point zero. His combat abilities are zero, his experience is zero, his knowledge about outside world is zero. We meet him in his village or castle in newborn baby state, as if he never sticked his nose out of his home. He goes to the to armory and hears that he should look out, because there's plenty of monsters outside. He goes to buy some food and hears from the keeper that fishes cure poisons. So what, mother and father were keeping him closed at home through all these years before überpowers decided that he'll become a hero? Weird. Or to be honest - simply stupid.

Regarding world.
One town is too less imho. This won't work. Personally, I wouldnt want to play such game. Rpg game needs small dose of epicness.
Gameworlds in rpgs are so vast, because hero is always trying to save "whole" world. And this is because evil powers always threaten whole world. I dont know why game creators didnt abandon this idea, because saving world became incredibly boring long time ago. I would like to see "hero" with his own problems, trying to unravel the plot that touches him personally. This is regarding grand plot.

Regarding romance.
I'm not sure if this is really needed. If you need it it must be well implemented and suit the plot. But strange thing I noticed is that rpg heroes are usually monogamic. Big hero, big evil, big love, one girlfriend. Ask yourself: if you were a hero fighting the greatest evil ever existing, if you were visiting many lands... Wouldnt you have girlfriend in each town?

I'll say it straightforward. Rpg games lack brothels.

Regarding monsters.
One thing that annoys me is that "monsters" always attack you for no reason. Wait, they are possessed by evil powers. But this is very thin explanation. Decrease number of encounters? This might work. Make some of the "monsters" following their own agenda and attack you only if you threaten them? Might work too. Give some of the monsters personality? Yep. Allow to avoid battles thanks to bribery/small talk/other tricks? Yep.

Regarding gods.
See my thoughts about evil. There's too much forces majeures in rpgs.

Misc.
If you're limited by engine and cant code I really doubt you'll be able to avoid all cliches and finish game in reasonable time. But you can avoid most cliches and make original game with tool that never helped to build anything original. If it's RPGMaker.

[Zyx]

All this talk reminds me of Kingdom of Loathing, the browser-based stick-figures-but-otherwise-text-based so-full-of-pop-culture-references-it-hurts parodying-all-and-everything, difficult-and-entertaining, rpg-adventure game. It's borderline silly, but I've found it has more story and challenges than many other games. Oh, and did I mention it's free? =)
It's the only rpg I've really enjoyed, but then again, I prefered Pratchett's novels over any real fantasy.

[Scythe]

How about turning it other way around... Making the goal to be avoiding fights. Each fight you get into would lower your experience O_o.

I have certainly toyed with the no EXP for battles idea. Which is not the same, but somewhere along that road.

Regarding your game in general. This mysterious engine is RPGMaker?

It's RPGMaker 2K or RPGMaker XP. 2K because I've scripted the game so far using that, and because I generally know how to make the script do what I want, but I'd rather do XP because it's been less used and just plain looks better.

Regarding characters.
One thing I really hate about console rpgs is character's "evolution". No matter what his profession/occupation/age/life experience is he always starts at point zero.

You know, looking at my design so far, it looks like I actually set the heroine's starting level at 5. But the character will start with almost zero knowledge, though there's a good plot reason for that. And it's NOT amnesia!

Sadly, I discovered that I have not been keeping it vanilla, but shamelessly stolen graphics and tile sets from other games. *tsk, tsk*

Regarding world.
One town is too less imho. This won't work.

I disagree, but like I said, it puts an artificial constraint on the game, which isn't helpful. Which is why I'm not going that route. With this game at least.

I would like to see "hero" with his own problems, trying to unravel the plot that touches him personally.

Yup, this is what I am doing. Or trying to anyway. Let's see if I don't get stuck with delusions of grandeur and end up saving the world.

Regarding romance.
I'm not sure if this is really needed.

It's not needed. I just want it there, because I'm a romantic, and I put romance in all my stories, pretty much.

But strange thing I noticed is that rpg heroes are usually monogamic.

My heroine is probably going to be monogamous, and not visit very many brothels.

Misc.
If you're limited by engine and cant code I really doubt you'll be able to avoid all cliches and finish game in reasonable time.

I know, I know, I just want a nice, not overly cliché plot. I'm not trying to reinvent the world, just avoiding at least SOME of the most typically seen "faults" or redundances if you will, plotwise.

You know, I could possibly make a demo of the beginning... I may look into that.

[SFault]

Just remembered one annoying thing, Heal potions. Hero goes to shop buys himself 99 bottles of heal and goes hunting monsters. During swordplay he drinks a bottle or two at the same time and instantly heals. I would rather see that the hero needs to go to a healer and cannot by the healing service with money. Also it would be great that non-suspicious looking merchant sells healing potions, once in a life time and all the potions are fake.

[eMTe]

I think this example with heal potions is not the best.

Why? Because "reality" is not what you expect from good game. Especially if youre making one and youre limited by your abilities and program features. There was once a game, "Robinson's Requiem", where you died constantly due to various diseases. Now that was reality. Game was quite unplayable though. I think game creator should focus on avoiding these really huge cliches that make majority of rpgs unplayable and simply boring. Reality is unobtainable and in this case (RPGMaker) sounds like conquering the moon with bike. But Scythe perfectly knows it as I see from his last words.

[Scythe]

It wasn't an RPG, but I spent about a day playing "Biosys", in which you were stuck in a biosphere and had to adjust the environment for your survival, grow your own food and stuff. There was no instant healing, and you had to cope with whatever injuries you got in the long term. On paper it sounds... heck, I don't know what it sounds like, ok, but I bought it. In any case, in reality it was beyond unplayable, beyond dull. I'm afraid that in this case, instant healing comes with the territory.

The fake potions idea however... consider that stolen!

[Maz]

RPGmaker... I have never looked at it.. (Nor have I looked any other game making engines...) Anyone here who could explain the main idea of it in a few words? What does it do? What it requires to modify things produced with it? Should I look at it some day?

[Scythe]

It allows you to create console style RPGs. You make maps, decide stats for characters, monsters and items, build scripts for events, etc. You're limited by the graphic templates, but can easily insert your own (if you can make/rip them). Any MIDI music can be used in it, and it comes with several pieces.

If you really know what you're doing, you can pretty much do anything with it. I've seen Breakout made with RPGMaker... but in general, most RPGMaker games look very much alike.

The best thing about it is that doesn't really require you to be very skilled. I've figured out most of it by experimenting, and I haven't coded anything since C64 Basic.

Laxius Power was made with RPGMaker 2000. So were the Legion Saga games. Those are probably the most well known.

[Scythe]

So, the game is now called Legacy of Blades (ohhh, original...), and is mostly in planning stage, though some initial "programming" has been done in RPGMaker 2000.

Just so you know it, this project will take time, and not be finished in the foreseeable future. While I can do everything myself, using ripped what not (like it or not), I'd love these helpers to make it from scratch:

Graphic Artist: This is a daunting task. We're talking a full length RPG with character design (3 frames in four directions for simple walking animation), face tiles (a few emotions for some chars, all still), terrain tiles (landscape, interior, etc.), monster graphics (don't need animations), battle background stills, title page, in game cut graphics (not needed, but cool)... Huge? Yes, but it will be your chance to put your personal touch on pretty much every graphical aspect of an entire game. (I only left out things such as spell animations, explosions, etc. RPGMaker has decent ones, but hey, if you want complete control, there's nothing to stop you from doing those too.)

See the examples below, and if you're a very brave person, and can at least match those, don't hesitate to contact me. I can show you examples of the "tiles" I'm talking about. I'm working within the restrictions of RPGMaker 2000, which puts demand on exact tile size. If you think you can do just some of the work, hey, that's cool too. It's a mismatch already, so more mismatch won't ruin it.

Be aware that your graphics may soon be ripped after release, disclaimers or not.

Composer: Another daunting task, I imagine. I'm as good at ripping music as the next guy, but original? Hey, nothing beats that! RPGMaker 2000 works purely with MIDI music, that's the important restraint you need to know about. Preferably, I'd love a main theme, some character themes, battle music, boss battle music, and terrain mood music. But anything is better than nothing, and I can fill in the blanks from RPGMakers own selection and what else I have.

There are decent MIDI sound effects in RPGMaker, but if you'd want to make your own... I wouldn't stop you.

Be aware that your work may be ripped quickly after release, regardless of any disclaimers. That's freeware for you, I guess.

Now, look at the screenies below. First is original RPGMaker graphics, second is the current (ripped) graphics. Looks really exciting, doesn't it?

[Chroelle]

Well I would love to fool around with some music today and see what I can get for you...
If you feel I have done something worth keeping then I would love to help you. I wont promise total originality but at least something worked on.
Also pleae tell me if you need it translated into Dani....Oh never mind

[Scythe]

I look forward to listening to anything you come up with.

[Chroelle]

What kind of moods do you want covered?
And what kind of chars should I think about? I mean there is no need for me to sit down with some gloomy music if the scaryest character is a flower or something.

I will work with something scary since I have some soundfiles for that lying on my desktop. Did some sound effects for our christmas party at work...

[Scythe]

Just to give you ideas, if all is well, and you taste blood in the water, we can talk the full enchilada:

Main Character: Katrina - a young orphan trained by her foster father to become a DarkBlade (an assassin/spy/diplomat). She's well read, but has lived in a secluded corner of the world, so she's ignorant of much of real life (intelligent, but not wise).

Main Character: Drax - the last of the DarkBlades. Katrina's foster father. He's an ambiguous character, fatalistic, sinister, yet Katrina's (who's a good person) father figure.

Main Character: Tarseis - a young, failed knight, now a bounty hunter. While appearing confident and suave, a real ladies man, this is a cover for his insecurities. His sense of nobility is in conflict with his bounty hunter occupation.

Main Villain: Fomalhaut - supreme sorceror. More than a hundred years old. Master manipulator, no scruples. Power hungry, evil, you name it.

Main Villain: Victoria - supreme knight. Young, headstrong, used to getting her way. Ruthless in battle, but not without a sense of honor. Likes glory.

Opening Theme: A castle in flames, Drax escapes a deadly ambush with baby Katrina, while his fellow DarkBlades are killed around him.

Boss Theme: Drax in a showdown with Leland, Victoria's father, the supreme knight of that time.

From there, the scene shifts to focus on Katrina, 19 years later, her birthday party with Drax, and then her DarkBlade Test in a haunted dungeon.

That give you ideas?

[Chroelle]

Yep it does. Do you want some fast music during the escape of the burning castle or do you more want to emphasize the sadness of it?

I think I could look into that...

Or maybe a boss theme. I wont go with sound-effects as you can propably not time those right, right?
What is the setting of the showdown? Dark night/bright day - Windy/still - fastpaced/slow - thunder+rain? - inside/outside - dungeon/moor - Are they the only ones there? Should there be cheers?

Also the haunted dungeon: Same questions more or less. I am guessing it is inside.
Mostly it would be good to know wether I should be thinking fastpaced or slow...

[Scythe]

You know, when I read what I've written, I can't help but think that this thing is going to be filled with the clichés I wanted to avoid.

Opening theme should be fast music, I think. It should be dramatic rather than sad, give a sense of urgency (escape fast!).

The boss theme should be even more urgent (fight or die!), pick up the beat, and could well be a faster paced variation of the opening. Thunder wouldn't be amiss. The showdown is in the burning castle. No cheers. You're supposed to fight the battle yourself, so any sound effects are in the battle program. If you have good ones, I can use those in place of the RPGMaker ones.

Haunted dungeon on the other hand should be mysterious, scary and sad sounding. It's sort of an underground prison (a "real" dungeon) that was abandoned long ago, filled with the skeletons of prisoners that were left to rot.

[Maz]

Any news about the project Scyth? When will we see the first trailer/beta/demo version?