Project Godblade Genre: Fantasy Action 2D RPG Well, since few of us have enough time to spend reading some long thing, I'll just give a brief status report of some of the details of my RPG. 1. "Within the heroes, therein lies the gods." This concept represents the game's levelling systems-using the spheres of divinity, the hero becomes more and more removed from humanity, and becomes more and more godly. Spheres of divinity are formed by combining solidified blood (red spheres) with prismal spheres (white spheres), gained from solving puzzles and completing quests for different factions. When combined, the green spheres of divinity are whispered upon by the attribute of your character you want to improve, and then they shatter and the pieces fall into you. Character development also happens here. As the player gains power, he also gains arrogance, and loses humanity. Thus, morality becomes more and more important throughout the game, especially considering use of magic. 2. "Whosoever wisheth to affect a world, shall have the world shape him." This concept means that you have the opportunity to affect the world, and vice versa. If you destroy a camp of warriors who have stumbled upon the next scientific discovery, you will affect the flow of technology by centuries. But if they find out it was you, you'll be hunted for quite a hefty amount of time. The world is (partially) sandbox. It is a beautiful cel-shaded world, with emphasis on detail, a deep variation to standard fantasy environments, and a large world. The game revolves around the themes of the hero's sword, the power of time, energy, and epic scope. 3. "He who takes down the colossus will be blessed in all eternity as legend." This concept basically means that for destroying enemies and bosses, you are rewarded. You can either take their equipment off their bodies, making their spirits disappear, take their souls, or both. However, there are repercussions to having an excessive amount of items and/or souls. There is a dynamic system for such "loot." If you have an apprentice and/or accomplice with you, he can carry (a limited amount) your spoils to your base of operations. If not, you can break the limit for items, but this may severely slow you down or temporarily disable you. 4. An epic sound and sound effects are vital to this game. (Forgive me for the lack of some wise religious adage in this one). If you want to, you can creeate your own music. Simple as that. Use a flute, ocarina, recorder, or guitar. We are studying the layout and musical styles of certain instruments to allow that. The game is filled with sound effects; from the chirp of a bird to the sound of talking, from the smashing of your sword against an enemy shield to the peaceful chime of a bell. And when these sound effects are played at once, combined with the ability to hear your own music for as long as you want using magic to store every sound, dynamic and epic scenes are created. 5. "..." You play as a character who is a new recruit to an organization called the Heroes XIV. He has just begun formal training in the use of the sword, but not magic. He has a paranormal vision, the subject of which cannot be revealed, but it is strong enough to compel him to wrap up his training and set out on an epic quest. Against dozens of soldiers at a time, which range from swordsmen to saboteurs, there is a fast-paced combat system, which uses a unique magic system, consisting of combining the powerful forces of red and blue mist. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I have to go to bed now, so I'll just ask these: 1. What do you think of my ideas? 2. Humor and dynamic content are very important. How do you feel about these? Well, that's all for now.

Ok, I'm really bored now with no replies. :(

So far it sounds like something I'd play. Sounds very Herculean.

I'd like to play it !
The idea is real good there are some point to re-think like :
Does the hero have an impact on its organisation and why an hero organisation. However it seems like a huge project, you need a lot of ressources and time.

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Spheres of divinity are formed by combining solidified blood (red spheres) with prismal spheres (white spheres), gained from solving puzzles and completing quests for different factions.

When combined, the green spheres of divinity are whispered upon by the attribute of your character you want to improve, and then they shatter and the pieces fall into you.

Colored spheres seem a little too "gamey" to make a realistic world. This isn't necessarily bad, but it will hurt the believability of your game world and its inhabitants, which in turn affects your ability to create deep story or a sense of personal investment in the moral conflicts you mention. Do these magical colored spheres that turn people into gods actually "exist" in the world, or are they just metagame representations of leveling? If they actually exist, then it seems odd that people would be handing them out as rewards... why would anyone keep these things in their cupboard and hand them out to helpful adventurers when they could instead use them to become gods and solve their own problems?

Quote:Character development also happens here. As the player gains power, he also gains arrogance, and loses humanity. Thus, morality becomes more and more important throughout the game, especially considering use of magic.

Does the player get to decide what moral actions the character takes? If so, then you can't say "as the player gains power, he gains arrogance and loses humanity". Either the player decides if the character becomes arrogant and inhuman, or the game just makes your character do arrogant and inhuman things in cutscenes you have no control over. I think you'd need to decide between the two, otherwise you'll frustrate and confuse people who roleplay a good guy when they have the choice yet are forced to watch their character act like a murderous fiend in a bunch of cutscenes they can't control. It's possible (say, the character is losing his own mind and can't control his evil impulses, like a werewolf or possessed person), but that sets up a particular mood and forces a personality onto the main character that many players might not appreciate.

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This concept means that you have the opportunity to affect the world, and vice versa. If you destroy a camp of warriors who have stumbled upon the next scientific discovery, you will affect the flow of technology by centuries. But if they find out it was you, you'll be hunted for quite a hefty amount of time.

This is a common dream of many would-be developers, but I think you'll run into a problem when you try to envision the presentation to the player of all this happening. If the player doesn't realize that the warrior camp had some great technology, and he doesn't realize that the assassin spawns are because of that, then it's wasted effort. If the player does get an assassin spawn that says "I'm here to kill you because you killed warriors in the village of Blah ten game hours ago", he will be annoyed if there was no warning that such a consequence might occur, especially if there was no apparent evidence beforehand (maybe he never even saw this important technological artifact) or the consequence doesn't feel realistic to him (if he destroyed this entire camp of warriors, then where are these infinite assassin spawns coming from?) or there is no way to rid himself of the annoying consequence (there should be a way to apologize and stop the infinite assassin spawns, otherwise the player will just feel the need to reload a very old save game and start over until he hits the next annoying consequence).

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The world is (partially) sandbox. It is a beautiful cel-shaded world, with emphasis on detail, a deep variation to standard fantasy environments, and a large world.

Just a nitpick, but if your game is fully 2D and doesn't use 3D rendering and lighting, then it's not really "cel-shaded". You could say it's cartoony, or "has a cel shaded look", but cel-shaded actually means 3D that is made to look like hand-drawn 2D. So, your game would be 2D made to look like 3D that was made to look like 2D. ;)

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There is a dynamic system for such "loot." If you have an apprentice and/or accomplice with you, he can carry (a limited amount) your spoils to your base of operations. If not, you can break the limit for items, but this may severely slow you down or temporarily disable you.

Can you drop all your excess loot quickly when you get into combat and then pick it back up when you're done? If so, then your inventory system is merely annoying and not particularly tactical. Players will feel compelled to carry all the treasure they feel they've "earned", and will just be annoyed by the fact that they have to keep dropping it and picking it back up every ten minutes on their way back to town. Inventory management systems can be cool in certain game structures, but an open-ended RPG usually doesn't gain much by having a strict system.

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2. Humor and dynamic content are very important. How do you feel about these?

Humor can be good, and it might be a good way to minimize the believability strain of magical colored orbs and mists, because you can have the characters in the world make "third wall" jokes about how their world seems to be a game. But it can also make it hard to make the player care about the moral choices you're trying to put in the game. If you make evil seem silly and harmless, it's not much of a real moral choice. I'm not sure what you mean by dynamic content. Dynamically generated? Or just content with many choices? Many choices can be good, but the more branches you put on each quest, the fewer overall quests you will have. You'll need to decide between a very replayable game that you can beat in 10 hours or a very linear game with a story that lasts 80 hours, or something in between.

I understand that the game is wildly ambitious, but I am not taking the ideas as far as some people think. First of all, there are only few, scripted events (e.g. the technology-warrior incident). There is NO excessively complwex algorithmically generated content or pathfinding, as much as I would want it. However, we will focus more efforts on scripting to create the illusions of algorithms. Dynamic content is content with several paths it can take. Again, these are scripted.

Yes, the game is cartoonish. The green spheres are created by the gods themselves, but can be synthesized by men using the aforementioned types of spheres. The spheres do not make people gods. Besides, only strong willed people can resist spheres enough to fuse with them. Those people are either your enemies, your few allies, or completely independent of you.

Excess loot...well, the inventory system can get large enough to carry every item ten times, and is sizeable at the beginning. The accomplice helps you carry equipment to a cart of storage area or whatever outside dungeons. If you want to, just leave all your equipment at the storage area and go to hunt in your undergarments. (No, not literally, but you get the point.)

I know how I would feel if an infinite amount of assassins came to hunt my character. For that reason, negotiation is a simple alternative to fighting. And there is not a limitless amount of assassins in the world either. If you want to wipe out the world's population, you could. It would get boring, but oh well. Besides negotiation, if there is no evidence to support your "crime," no one will chase you. I've always HATED psychic guards and enemies.

And one last thing that I should have addressed-the player is made more arrogant and destructive by the constant use of powers for purely destructive purposes. Destructive powers used for self-defense (against enemies) is not counted unless senseless brutality is used.

Any other questions?