A Journey Too Kind is 2D game made with RPG Maker VX Ace. It is inspired by Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and tries to capture the same level of excitement when exploring the underground world.
Story
The game tells the story of a young man who wanders through the wasteland and one day enters a cave that leads the way to all sorts of wonders. ...and that's the story in a nutshell. The game is very gameplay-centric and the little story that goes on here would spoil the fun. I can't talk about any locations either (at least at this point) because that would take away the surrpise as well.
So let's get straight to the gameplay!
Gameplay
The game consists of two parts: a dungeon crawler part, and a citybuilding part.
The dungeon crawler part has a rather simple routine: You enter a cave, you fight monsters, you find treasure and go back to the surface. Of course there's more to this than that. For starters, you can't train your character in this game, there are no experience points or items to gain from defeating enemies. The only way to gain a level is to defeat a strong opponent, finish a sidequest or reach the next chapter in the story. This makes each encounter not a level grind, but a fight for survival.
The real reward comes from the treasures you can find in a cave. These treasures are random, at times you find a good one, at times you find nothing. But if you find something, you can sell it and buy other stuff from the money.
As you venture deeper underground and discover new areas, the enemies become stronger as well. New skills and spells can be learned as well, keeping the fights varied and interesting.
Two special features for the combat are the runes and the Multi-Turn System (aka "Yanfly's Free Turn Battle but with a different name"). There are several runes in the game that give the player a permanent bonus in combat. Only one rune can be active at one time. Runes can be changed at any time outside of combat to be better prepared for a particular fight. The Multi-Turn System allows the player to do more actions per turn. At the beginning of the game you only have one action available, but over the course of the game you can gain up to 4 additional actions per turn. Since the game doesn't have Mana, Tech Poinbts or any other type of power source for the special attacks and magic spells, they require action points instead. A normal attack costs 1 point, a weak spell costs 2 points, a strong spell costs 3 points, and so on. This allows for a number of different strategies, for instance you can attack an enemy but guard with your last action point, at the cost of not being able to use a stronger attack during your turn.
Whereas the fighting and treasure hunting happens underground, the second part of the game happens on the surface. The player finds so many treasures that word will spread about this soon and more merchants will come to the cave entrance to trade the valuable stuff with their wares. Before you know it, more and more people go to the cave and settle down around it, until a real settlement is finally established. This settlement can be developed further into a small village with the help of the player. For instance, one sidequests consists of the player finding an underground water deposit which can be used for the village's well.
Simple Anti Lag (http://www.atelier-rgss.com/RGSS/System/ACE_SYS09.html)
Anti Animation Lag (http://www.atelier-rgss.com/RGSS/System/ACE_SYS13.html)
Music and Sound Effects
Spoilerfor:
Level Select Theme (http://opengameart.org/content/loading-screen-loop) and Cave Theme (http://opengameart.org/content/cave-theme) by Brandon Morris
Last Life (Boss Fight Theme) (http://opengameart.org/content/4-assorted-short-songs) by Daniel Stephens
Level Up Sound (http://opengameart.org/content/spell-sounds) (based of the healing track) by Brandon Morris
Wolf Growling (http://opengameart.org/content/dog-grunt) and Campfire Ignition Sound (http://opengameart.org/content/flare-ignition) by Iwan Gabovitch
Graphics
Spoilerfor:
Facesets (http://opengameart.org/users/charlesgabriel) by Charles Gabriel
Field character sprites are from RPG Maker XP RTP
Combat character sprites are from Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3
Everything else is from RPG Maker VX Ace RTP
Title: Re: [VXA] A Journey Too Kind
Post by: Mishka on August 05, 2013, 12:22:01 AM
That parallax-mapped cave in the top screenshot looks so cool, it kind of removes the edge from the rest ;~;
The idea that a settlement pops up at the mouth of the cave to trade and get in on valuables is pretty interesting as well, it reminds me of Breath of Fire II's Township.