PROJECT: NEBELFALLENSECTION: [game info]WARNING: This game is an at least 25 hours gaming plan including original, detailed plot with adult approach - I am not making "a random not su random kid is the chosen one who saves the world-game" but rather a story of chain reactions in darker fantasy world as a result of personal deeds and political conflicts that deal with problem of moral relativity and several social and psychological issues through characters who mentally develop and alter as the story goes and THEREFORE I'm looking for a scripter and a spriter. You can check additional informating regarding recruitment here:
Nebelfallen Recruitment Page and the rest of this topic is dedicated to game information.
THE PLOTOk, I have a problem with writting you a plot. You see, if I start writting, I'll end up describing the complete story, which you're supposed to discover through play, in order for you to understand what is going on in the game and that means losing a lot of potential gamers so I tried giving you the basic concept of the situation in the game and the past events:
The universe as such formed as a limitless entity, whether everything that is a matter of thought or action exists. Nevertheless, through the process of evolution it was split into two separate spaces - The "Celestial" plane, or commonly "Outer Plane" and the "Material" plane, or commonly "Inner Plane". The researching studies concluded that it is a matter of evolution - the living beings exist unique of two parts - the spiritual and material, and the course of progress shaped the plane of spiritualism and theory, where you exist as an essence, and plane of mattery, where you exist as an object. Among the two, there is a connection. The livings of the spiritual plane can interact with the inner plane, and the livings of Inner Plane can interact with Celestial Plane by reaching the optimal nulstate of mind. However, there are certain points in the universe where the eminent energy in balance among the two planes is so tightly focused that it allows transfer from one to another by shifting the energy of an object - from one to other form. As the untouchable force of nature, these "gaps" twist the time and cannot be controlled, what resulted in inbetween tranfering of eseences and livings. Among many, there were those called "The Undeads" and "Demons", two of several races that spread chaos in Inner Plane, pushing their principes and methods against the living that did not match with common regularities in Material plane, finally becoming the synonims of disorder and death. Throughout history, the particulars from "Edenia", the most infested planet in Inner Plane, established a religious order based on belief into "Highfather", an omniscent "Creator" of all the existing, and its oposing force, "The Mephistopheles", "Diablo", and "Belial", a figment visualised incarnations representing all the wrong that may come to presence, apparantly living in the Celestial plane as the "Three Prime Evils" and affecting both planes to their own needs, what is a result of chaos in Material Plane. This order, called "The Defenders of Fate", grew into community of both essentials and livings, and finally found a way to seal off these specific points, attempting to prevent direct interaction between the two planes. The source of conflict, none the less, is pretty different from just this, to speak in honesty. Edenia was divided into several continets and many regions, out of which most powerful and known are Axoxo, Osterheinsbur, Bluemist, Alefroux, Saboth, Svalbard, Tarnia, Sedatre, Aura and Nebelfallen. Each region grew a political centre and guilds, cities and armies and each of them, once just one against one, some other time all against all between themselves, lead conquering wars. Sometimes from need, sometimes out of pure pleasure but, regardless of purpose, they are always led by greed. Knights of Svalbard (KOS), Glassfeather Battalion of Aura(GBA), Silverfeather of Bluemist (SFB), Guild of Assassins of Tarnia (GST) and mostly, Society of Axoxo (SoA), are the dominating forces, where the bottom one stands as the prime force, apart from the Defenders of Fate, who are spread through entire world. They dictate the majority of relations among the tribes and regions and are generally held responsible for each move anyone makes. But that's just a quick glance. Behind the constructive communities and wealthy forces always stands a minority of individuals. Saying that the world order and balance shifts depending on their ideas, needs and fads is not far from the truth which determines the possibility of free choice. From time to time, the ideas, or needs, born from the pool of freedom of a particular individual alter the process and vision of universe, to each his own. Forthcomingly, one of such ideas will pull a man into circle of truth and lies, hatred and sympathy, with or without his desires and no questions asked, confronting him with the unseen cruelty of reality. The course of taken actions and the desire to do as wished will motion unexpected events. With or without his desires, the man will learn the Truth which breaths around him, experiencing the morbidity which reality he is a part of.
It will be up to you, your own level of will, to discover the Truth. As much as you will seek for, that much will be given to you. For a price. That's all I'll say about the plot setup because everything else, more or less, requiers spoilers. This is spoilering as well.
THE CHARACTERSAlthough still in developement (The relation and function web are getting pretty thick so I'm still resolving issues to disclude any possible ilogical events), there will be at least 20 important characters, out of which 6 to 9 playable. There won't be a character without a purpose and they will not be divided by their nature (Meaning that there is no good or evil with exact roles as playable (Good/Tratior) or NPC (Badguys/Evil/Maniac)(like in majority of rpgs) characters and each is judged by third party). Therefore, the interaction will be developed as much as it could be, including possibilities of not having the same characters what will result in a different game scenario (I realised that's quite easy to deal with if you keep tracks), either in minor or major difference. The differences could be visible from variety of dialogues to different paths of gaming. Of course, that gives a specific replay value, under condition you actually enjoyed the game.
Characterisation of characters is presented through specified personality for each individual which is put under influence of events. Since the plot involves drastic events, dramatic scenes and moral dilemas, the behavior of each character as the reaction to a specific event differs and affects them. At the end, it could happen that a brave optimist could turn into a confused amateur questioning his methods, or a naive, clean-hearted goodie could end up dramatically dissapointed and sorrowed in life and existence. Since, unfortunately, there still is one ultimate plot, the specific result for a specific character could more or less be the same but still - it will be different, what may affect others and the player itself. Perhaps through a word or action. Apart from this, they will wear suitable clothes matching their personalities, will have different and unique talking personality, level of language knowledge, expressions, accents, and so on and will have an experience, background and past behind their back that player will be able to discover, depending on interest. This rarely happened in any game so far and that was something really frustrating for my taste, and since this definitely is not an easy thing to do, I found this as a hard, rewarding challenge which I'll try to finish as best as possible. The graphics representing them include battle and map sprites, image preview of their look and message icon with the most common expression of their face that should give you the clue about what kind of person the character is. The graphics will be either carefully chosen or drawn and the message icons had been carefully selected after days of searching and a bit of work.
The main character - the player - Attanan - is male. He's the 24 year old mercenary working in mercenary guild of SoA. Two days after completing one of his mission, he is visited by his superior who presents him a new mission and orders execution as soon as possible. Yet, the pretty much simple mission will pull Attanan into something much, much larger and, eventually, the course will twist the bounds of time and space. During the events, he will encounter persons of high and low profile, the wilderness warriors, cybernetic machines or powerful celestials of Outer Plane, each playing a role of its own, important for the Attanan's matters. What will exactly occur, what kind of past does Attanan have and what is behind his existence will be up to you to discover.
CHARACTER DEVELOPEMENTThat solely depends on the scripter. If willing, he may create a new level character developement we could create and I have in mind, but the issue stands as presented - on the RMXPPK character design, with standard level up, tech skill gainings through levelupping, resistances, skills, everything normal, with only a small difference in numbers - what was by default 569 is now, say, 40, and the maximum of each stat cannot surpass 100, where the 100 is uber-strong. Personally, I figured people can handle small numbers much, much better and easly percept the advantages and weaknesses of a particular item, player or opponent, where 30 to 40 is much more important than 569 to 743 and, personally, I love small numbers, hence the love for CC and DnD...Well, generally, this section is small because, either is yet to come so we don't know how it will work, or is already done and we know how it works.
THE EFX, SOUNDSCAPE, SOUNDTRACKThis is a special element of game that I am fully taking into my hands and it is promised - this game will have even better sound background and details than any rpg game. I am designing special effects myself, taking careful time to mix and record real environment sound and composing atmosphere which will all be in .wav, and I'm also taking care of the tracks made realsound (.mp3 or .wav) and no midi. This game will have ambiental and classical music, at least 15-20 different songs, and probably sound effect for each action and soundscape for each environment (Atmosphere of a bar, an inn, a forest or anything alike) and I will do my best to fit the music with the rest of the elements because I believe that a good music and sounds are half of atmosphere and enjoyment. This will definitely be the strongest point of game, apart from the plot, and I really, really hope people will enjoy the presented sound. At the end of the post you can download the copyrighted MAIN THEME and one random BATTLE THEME (clip). As for voice recording, that is currently out of option. Reason one is I cannot record it clean, reason two is I have no clue who might or may not act.
THE GAME STYLEOn a quick glance, because of some elements included, the game appears more of a western than eastern nature. But it isn't. The game is fully japanese-rpg style with just a lot of details more common for the western rpgs. One of the main ideas is to prevent the player from feeling forced. For example, in some commercial games when there is a question of what to do, whatever you choose (EG You want to go home and live peaceful life instead of fighting dragon god), the game will force you to do it anyway. Here, the game more or less does the same - but it puts you into position where you can't really avoid the event by logic and where you can choose the way of doing it. For example *SPOILER* at the very begining, you can go straight down to mission or you can try exploring the world a little bit. You may encounter a lot of things and play 10 hours before executing mission but wherever you go, somehow the course of actions will push you into that given mission. Keep in mind that I'm (or we) trying to present you a plot with at least good flow here while also trying to make you feel comfortable in gaming it. If I had a 20 million dollar worth equipment and 100 programmers, I'd do better.
Anyhow, regardless of the pretty japanese rpg's, this game has a less cheezy approach. As I realist, I cannot make a game with perfect people and enviroment. Through gaming, you will meet the worst of scum and the best of benevolent, all of characters have their good and bad sides, some of them have their filthy secrets. Foul language is not excluded, the moral dilemas are included as well, and you will recognize the animalistic nature and what the urge and desires does in one's mind. There will be moments in game where you'll probably question methods, the morality of this entire world or perhaps even yourself. No matter the fact this is a game and we made up all these people, the world and human mind is still a world and a human mind and that's how I'm trying to preview it, with no exceptions. To let people know this game should actually get an adult mark, the title background is as seen at the end of the post.
When we speak of the era this game is in, we can say it's close to a cliche. It's a fantasy world with it's own flow in an age without technology, cybernetics or gunnery. However, there is more to come as you play. The "monsters" you encounter are not made up creatures, all of them will be a fine replica of ancient creatures from legends, myths, stories or fairy tales, from the most common Goblins or Trolls to creatures common only for the west such as Nightmare or a Satyr. Alongside, through your travels you may encounter and interact with various people or events, from a lone travelers over a caravan that stopped there for the night to a murderer who tried to escape but was cought or even seen a murder in front of your eyes. The possibilites are random, and so is the item gain and chest search where I'm (we) trying to form a certain reply value. To put it in short, the idea is a combination of west and east with additional touch and that's why I'm looking for good scripter and spriter. The current level of scripts and sprites does not match with the rest of the elements. Happy tree look isn't very convincing in showing dark ages of humankind....
LAST WORDS
It may take more than a week before it's done. (Sarcasm here...)
SCREENSHOTS are attached.
TWO SONGS are attached. They include Nebelfallen main theme and random battle theme.
Discord
Light Style