[VX] Halloween Project: Dead Moon Rising (DEMO)

Halloween Project!


Gameplay: About 15 to 30 minutes (Goal) (May go up as soon as I think it's enough!)
Gametype: Time-based Mystery/Horror
Age advise: +12, scary content
Deadline: October 31st

Spoiler for lyrics: Sentenced - Dead moon rising:

The darkness comes out of her shell
Yet another cold night in Hell with all the pain
The dying light is losing its glow
And my last glimmer of hope now fades away

It is starting to rain again
I'm coming closer to my end with every breath
The creepy shadows are growing pale
And the rising glow brings along the sense of death

I can feel Her presence now

Dead Moon Rising
Bleeding red light over the sea
- I hope this time She came for me
- I hope this time She sets me free

My wounds are open wide
The freezing wind blows right inside and feels like ice
The eerie glow fires up the sky
And She takes away my sight with Her shine

I can feel Her all around

Dead Moon Rising
Bleeding dead light over the sea
- I hope this time She came for me
- I hope this time She sets me free

Dead Moon Rising
Bleeding dead light over the sea
- I hope this time She came for me
- I hope this time She sets me free

Story:

It's up to you to find out what the story is... No, it's not a moral choice game!!
The problem is that I can't tell you the story without spoiling

Spoiler for For those who need the spoil!!!:

You find yourself waking up in a prison, locked in a cell. Through the window, a faint red glow from the moon. That doesn't mean anything good! You don't remember a thing. Why were you locked up? What the hell is going on?
You decide to escape and find out what you need to know! When escaped from the prison, you'll find there are no human beings around town....
And this is the point where I stop telling anything else as it will spoil the entire story in the game!

This is a spoiler only for people who will help me create this and not PLAY the game.

Spoiler for history and Dead Moon:

The Dead Moon is not the name of a red moon, it is the name of the event that occurs when the red moon has risen to its highest spot on the sky. It occurs only once every 666 years and the event that goes with this moon is a battle between God and Lucifer, or at least between "those who were sent". It is when the red moon starts to rise, all humans on earth die or dwell into a vast sleep until the battle is over and the verdict has fallen. Humanity doesn't know who wins these battles and so they will never know who to believe. Some follow God while others follow Lucifer, but who is to trust?

Every Dead Moon has it's own prophecy. This one has one too!
All will be over when the moon rises high,
Blood red tears from the light in the sky,
When the girl who is both, united as one,
Learns the truth about how it all began!

And a quote from Sentenced: "And She takes away my sight with Her shine." we now all know it is not Lucifer who is evil and trying to rule the world, it is God (or should I say Goddess?).

Goal:

Same thing here. Though, I can tell you that your goal is to finish the game before the dead moon has risen. So it is a time based game.

Characters:

Spoiler for Main characters:

Unknown

This is you, a 17 year old girl.
All you remember is that you are smart, bright, cowardly, shy and observant.

Again: these next spoilers are solely for people who will help me in making the game, not for players!

Spoiler for Player:

Florentina Salviati

Florentina Salviati is a 17 year old girl. She has no family left on earth as they have all died.
She is the last descendant of some of the most well-known families in the world.
The further we go back into her history, we'll find Francesca Salviati to be the first connection. This goes to the di Medici who lived in Firenze, Italy, and on to the final connection: Alexandr Von Helzing.
But there's another link, another final connection: Fallen Angel Lucifer himself! How that is possible, nobody knows, but it's the truth.

Spoiler for Other characters you need to know about:

Alexandr Von Helzing

It is the first man who was sent by God herself. God created him to take revenge on Lucifer for his betrayal. Alexandr was a human made after Archangel Gabriël and he also possessed some of the same powers Gabriël had. He is the person who ended the second Dead Moon, he murdered Count Vladimir Dragul, also known as Count Dracula.

Lucifer Salviria

Lucifer Salviria, Archangel Lucifer himself, went down to earth right before this very Dead Moon. It is he who is Florentinas father. Though, many people don't know but Florentina's mother, Maria Catharina, knew of the prophecy and the curse that with her lied upon their family. It is she who put the spell on her own daughter so that she would forget and be protected of the coming Dead Moon, she had paid with her own life. Because of that, Florentina was raised by Lucifer and her grandmother.

Lucifer had returned to the underworld when his own love died.

Credits:
D&P3
Sentenced (Band)
Sonata Arctica (Band)
Aaron Krogh
Archeia Nessiah
GrandmaDeb
Companion Wulf
Kazzador
Enterbrain
Mr. Grim
Avadan
Closet
Synthesize
EvilEagles
Fall from Eden (Marc)
Sky00Valentine

Links:
Unikorn Productions Blogpost
Recruitement topic

Screenshots:

Spoiler for:

Downloads:
Dead Moon Rising 1.0 + RTP (72.72 MB)
Dead Moon Rising 1.0 (39. MB)

Logbook

October 24th: Haven't been on my comp for a while due to school. But! Thanks to my boyfriend I have, as from today, the greatest theme song ever for this game... He's only been working on it for about 15 minutes but it sounds great!! Now I only need to finish the rest. UPS!
October 20th: No time. School does take up loads of my time. Though, I've been listening to music just to get more ideas and, well, thanks to Sonata Arctica, from whom I'll be using another song, I got this great idea!! Also got loads of graphics from Devision Heaven to use in combination with this song!
October 19th: Been adding new graphics and, due to a dentist appointment, I had no time to update anything... Had quite a lot of pain when I got home.
October 18th: I had no time to add new information as I've been working for school most of the time. I did however search for new graphics to add and things like that.
October 17th: For practical purposes, I changed this logbook as it's easier to add a new entry at the top than keep scrolling down until I'm at the end.
October 16th: I made some recolours for this game as I couldn't find any good vampire sprites. Also made some faces to go with them. Altered the main map a bit and added in a new enemy to encounter. Also added the quests starting points, but I still have to finish them off.
October 15th: Finally, my compilation of lots and lots of tilesets is ready!! Now to implement and use it! Also, I'm currently uploading a FIRST DEMO!!!! *cheering crowd* But for now, it will only reveal the first quest. You might just be able to get a scent of the feeling I tried to create... Now tell me what I can and must improve, what bugs you find and whatever typo's, graphical errors and whatever-more you can find.
October 14th: No time!! Election day for my hometown and province!!
October 13th: Been roaming around for rescourses...
October 12th: Yaay, first day to a new school! To bad I haven't had any time to work on my project. This weekend will be another weekend of not being able to do a lot about this project... Too bad! Though, I found someone to test my game out at school!! Hope she likes what I've done so far *crossed fingers* and that she can give me some new quest ideas!
October 11th: I've added the history and some characters to the description. Don't read them if you are planning on playing the game, it WILL destroy the game experience. Now adding in quests and more storyline.
October 10th: I finaly created a part of the worlds history and I know who the unknown girl is. Haven't been on my computer a lot...
October 9th: Again a useless day. I have changed the prison a bit but not much else. Next up, I'll be doing a hell of a lot tomorrow, if I get the chance.
October 8th: I've been updating the main city by adding some houses. I need other tiles to add to the standard RTP... I need the "happy" tiles changed into horror ones!!
Oh, well. I'll be printing script codes so that I have a paper manual to look into for making quests and things like that.
October 7th: I wasn't able to go onto my computer for today, so no progress except for one quest idea. I'm a little stuck, please help me!!
October 6th: Started on the second map(city). Also implemented another script, which is Sky's Quest System by Sky00Valentine and I immediately made some Main quests and Side quests. That script goes along with his Sky's Scene Menu Edit. You can finish the first quest completely, already!!
Since I know where to go and what to expect, this game takes me up to about 4 minutes, though I know where to look and go. I added some snippets by D&P3 as well, which now gives you Orbs of Light, they help you escape in battle. Added lots of new, but important, scripts by Modern Algebra.
October 5th: Map 1 finished!!! *YAAY* Gathered some more ingredients for this lovely game and came across a site with loads of battlers by Closet! All enemies named, need to finish of some database work though. First quest: getting out is real! Asking for feedback on the prison part and story, afterwards, continuing with the city map making. I also implemented this great Marc Dynamic Lighting System Script made by Marc of Fall From Eden and I got it to work. Making this first part even creepier. For the gameplay to become a little more creepy, I also implemented Battle Backgrounds by Synthesize. Added some songs by Aaron Krogh.
October 4th: Project started! First idea came to mind and I asked D&P3 for his thought about my idea. Made a nice Title screen and added Dead Moon Rising by Sentenced for the title. I immediately started creating the first part. The prison! The map was easily made, but it needed some adjustments. Also made the main character, edited the main RTP to Ghosties and have been searching around for resources. Found some made by Mr. Grim and other people.

What am I getting credit for? I haven't done anything as far as I can tell...
Been awhile since I played a game with a female protagonist 0-o

What am I getting credit for? I haven't done anything as far as I can tell...
Been awhile since I played a game with a female protagonist 0-o

Well, yeah!! You'll be a little scared girl in this game
And the credit is for the support and the help you'll be in the future!!

This project looks promising. Good luck Amycha19!

This project looks promising. Good luck Amycha19!

Well, thank you Modern... I love to hear such a thing coming from someone I look up too!

--------------------

I was just wondering, and I hope some of you could give me their opinions about these questions:

• Should I add in difficulties?
  Difficulties wouldn't have anything to do with more enemies or stronger enemies, but solely with the time given to complete the game.
  So, for example: beginner could be 7 hours, easy 5, normal 3, hard 2 and extreme only 1.
• Should I show the time?
  Showing the time means you know how much time you have left. I think, and this is my opinion, it would be scarier to keep the time hidden and just give some clues throughout the game. Or perhaps add an option within difficulties (Easy = shown & Hard = hidden).
  
• Should I add some more screenshots?
  Though I know this may spoil the entire game. I'm still questioning if I should do this or not.
• Should I add characters that you can add to your party or not?
  Adding party characters is something other people always do, I prefer not to. But I can give people the option to do this.
• Should I make an option to play with infinite time?
  As the question says. Perhaps if you've finished the game (with a difficulty) you can get to choose to start over with infinite time?

I may have more questions, but these are all for now!!

Well, I don't really know much about improving gameplay mechanics, but my opinion would be:

1. The only purpose for difficulty levels is, in my opinion, to give the player a sense of achievement for having completed the game at that level. Where the only difference is the time limit, then I think it would be better just to make it an achievement to finish the game within those time limits, as it is too heavy a penalty to make the player restart the game if he or she doesn't finish within time. (And when I say make it an achievement, I don't necessarily mean use an in-game Achievements system; it can be something as simple as listing the times in the project thread.)

2. I think there should be a way for the player to check the time remaining. It doesn't have to be on the screen at all time, but maybe at particular waypoints or if the player has an item they can play.

3. Maybe one or two more screenshots.

4. Without knowing the gameplay mechanics or more details on the story, I don't think I can give a useful opinion on this.

5. I don't think infinite time is useful, but perhaps you could make it so that if the player exceeds the time limit, you can show a screen telling them that they lost, but give them an option to play the rest of the game through anyway.

Well, I don't really know much about improving gameplay mechanics, but my opinion would be:

1. The only purpose for difficulty levels is, in my opinion, to give the player a sense of achievement for having completed the game at that level. Where the only difference is the time limit, then I think it would be better just to make it an achievement to finish the game within those time limits, as it is too heavy a penalty to make the player restart the game if he or she doesn't finish within time. (And when I say make it an achievement, I don't necessarily mean use an in-game Achievements system; it can be something as simple as listing the times in the project thread.)

2. I think there should be a way for the player to check the time remaining. It doesn't have to be on the screen at all time, but maybe at particular waypoints or if the player has an item they can play.

3. Maybe one or two more screenshots.

4. Without knowing the gameplay mechanics or more details on the story, I don't think I can give a useful opinion on this.

5. I don't think infinite time is useful, but perhaps you could make it so that if the player exceeds the time limit, you can show a screen telling them that they lost, but give them an option to play the rest of the game through anyway.

Thanks for this useful comment, now I'll just wait for others to tell me theirs too.
Screenshots, I can do!

Lookin good

1. Not really, there are achievement systems for that. Difficulty shouldn't boil down to time; the only games I'm ok with doing that are RTS games.
2. Don't just show it, I would do a 24 (series) style way of showing remaining time. When exiting/entering a main map, I would use the transfer fadeout to reveal a timer for that brief moment.
3. Yes
4. Unless you're referring to Ib, I'm not aware of many thriller games that add party members... Unless you really want character development, don't do it.
5. What Modern said.

This isn't a good forum for mobile use, but since I have no other option for today, it'll have to do.

Thanks for the advice D&P3, really useful

No updates for today...

I'm liking the logbook, it looks so colourful

I'm liking the logbook, it looks so colourful

Here's the thing:
Red = script, song, ...
Orange = Scripter, Author, ...

Makes it easy for me to keep track of the people I surely need to credit...

UPDATE:

Some new screenshots:

Spoiler for:

Questline contains over 5 quests at this moment, more to come for today.
They yet need to be put inside the game but this will work out fine!
History and legend made!

Them Pixies look more pretty than scary to me :/

Them Pixies look more pretty than scary to me :/

They are pretty much the easiest ones you can encounter...
There are others that don't look that scary, but oh well, I still need someone who can make my DB clean :p

First demo released, right here:

Dead Moon Rising 1.0 + RTP (72.72 MB)
Dead Moon Rising 1.0 (39. MB)

It contains all battlers, scripts and pretty much everything I need at this stage. All I need to do is create the events and maps to carry on with the story!

Spoiler for Quest 1:

Quest 1: Get out!
Get key
Open door
Return key to warden
Walk out of prison

Though, later quests will reveal more of the story, I didn't want to spoil to much information on the other, unfinished, quests. Some might be guessable, though.

As for the items:
Orb of light immediately escapes you from battle.
Wedding ring is a quest-starting item, but the quest is not yet available in the demo.

Anyway, if you were to download and play, give me all you have about this thing...
Things as bugs, graphical or grammatical errors, event problems and whatever more you might find!

Gah, I dislike horror/thriller games; I dun wanna play ;_;
Curious about the wedding ring though

One more day and it should be finished!!!!

Yaay

For those who want to play...
May still be laggy and buggy, but if you find any: REPORT THEM to moi!!

CLICKY HERE

Oh wow, I really enjoyed this.
I'm unfortunately stuck in a mine with enemies dealing a crapload of damage :/

Right, so when I started I chose to keep myself locked up and yet the door opened anyway...
Text seems to scroll rather quickly as well, couldn't really keep up with the warden when he was talking.
As soon as I left the prison, I talked to the guard at the bottom of the map, and ended up facing left (and he to the right right) when I was standing right in front of him; man needs to check his priorities I say.
Now I'm inside what looks like a mine with enemies giving me over 150 dmg and can't exit the map the same way I came, therefore I conclude that I am royally FUCKED!

I'm probably missing a whole lot, but I'll come back to it later.


Also, I don't like the automatic fullscreen happening when I open the game; that takes a lot of time and is kinda annoying to be honest.

Oh, wow!!

Didn't know there were so many bugs left!! Last time I looked, it all should have worked fine, but then again, I made it so I overlook my own mistakes...