Sore Losers

[Sated]

SORE LOSERS

RMN "FEATURED GAME", MARCH 2010!
NOMINATED FOR RRR "FEATURED GAME", MAY 2009!
NOMINATED FOR "MOST PROMISING DEMO", 2008 MISAOS!

...::: What People Are Saying :::...

"It takes a twelve step program, hypnosis, a sex change, and the whole damn Star Wars series to break you away." - Tyrannos

"A solid romp through the desolate streets of a sci-fi dystopia." - Silviera

"Overall, a very solid cyberpunk game that makes excellent use of its setting and atmosphere." - Solitayre

...::: Storyline and Setting :::...

Ferusia, a totalitarian state led by a Government whose people are genuinely happy with their leaders. With a Government focused on promoting scientific research and the proliferation of human knowledge, whilst at the same time eradicating the distractions of religion and bureaucracy, Ferusia has become the most technologically advanced country in the world. It's also a country where crime is perpetually minuscule, partly due to the nation's powerful military-led police force and partly due to the populace being placated by exceptional technological, educational and entertainment advances.

However, despite the vast majority of people being happy with Ferusian life, and despite the power of the Ferusian military, there are still a minority who are unhappy with the current state of affairs. A group of terrorist rebels known as the Free Radicals vie for power in Ferusia. These rebels believe that a democratic state is the only way a country should be run; want more control over who leads the Government; want the Government to be more transparent regarding rumours of genetic experiments performed within the military; and want an end to "Central Ferusia", a high-security slum district where Ferusia's criminals are sent to fend for themselves, irrespective of the severity of their crime.

In the middle of it all are Markus and David, two criminals who have come to accept this punishment and made a living for themselves in "Central Ferusia" working for a mercenary leader named Jade. Under Jade's orders they carry out various jobs for those with the ability to pay and they're about to set out on their latest. One that will drag them into a rebel conflict they don't understand and don't care to be a part of...

...::: Gameplay, Features and Comments :::...

After five years of trying to finish projects using broadly similar concepts to this one, I've finally managed to finish one of them! I'm pretty amazed with myself because I didn't think this would ever happen, but I also know that my past errors largely centred around attempting to make my stories more "epic" than they needed to be, leading to me abandoning promising projects left, right and centre. Because of this, coming up with an "epic" central storyline is an element I tried to downplay in this project, although I'll admit that I'm still happy with how the storyline comes together given my limited writing talent!

What Sore Losers instead focuses on is providing challenging gameplay mechanics within a deeply immersive environment. The game includes formidable enemies that put item preservation at the top of your priority list; a multitude of different minigame sequences such as the widely lauded lockpicking system; a synthesis system that allows you to create and upgrade new weapons using objects found lying around the slums; dozens of optional missions that flesh out the slums you find yourself in; and a deeply immersive, dystopian setting featuring more quotable NPCs than you can shake a stick at!

...::: Reviews, Images and Downloads :::...

Read Reviews Here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/1210/reviews/
View The Image Gallery Here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/1210/images/
Download The Game Here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/1210/downloads/

[modern algebra]

I think it looks very good. The name is pretty bad I think. I think the setting of the story is very interesting and I am looking forward to seeing how the story will unfold. As for the systems, I think they are good. There isn't enough of a mod to the battle system to comment on so far. For the menu, I think that the Choice Box is awkward. It might be nicer just to use a picture event for that, rather than choices. It wouldn't take a lot more effort, and I think half of the window being empty kills the niceness of it. A centred picture event would make it look a lot nicer in my opinion. I really like the way that skills are learned though - very cool. The lockpicking system is also a good way to do it - a good way to introduce puzzles to the game that otherwise would be awkward to place in the game.

[Revo]

You do know you don't have to make a topic for every update, right? Just edit your first post with the update. >.>

[Sated]

I know, but since this was a rather large update I thought it deserved a new topic. If a moderator wants to delete the other topic, though, that would be nice.

[Nessiah]

well I tried looking for the old topic and I didn't see it, so yeah

[Sated]

It's in the "new games" section rather than this section.

[Revo]

I finally got to play it. Looking pretty good, man. I hope you can finish this.

[Sated]

I finally got to play it. Looking pretty good, man. I hope you can finish this.

Thanks. I've had a lot of decent feedback about the recent demo so I've mainly been fixing up the problems that have been flagged (like escaping from enemies being near impossible and the running minigame being too difficult), but I have started making progress with some new maps as well. I am aiming to get a new demo out on Valentine's Day, but if I work at it I should be able to get what I want ready for the new demo complete way before that.

Also, here is a slghtly update...

A CHALLENGER APPEARS!

Benji:



Age
Seventeen

Weapon of choice
Chained-Rifle

Other usable weapons
None

Biography:
Benji is a young, brash "junker" who has an obsession with infamy. He was placed in the slums at a young age for playing a prank on his school teachers. Although not a criminal offence in itself, this was a prank that left several injured and some needing psychiatric therapy. Unfortunately for some, although not for Benji himself, being in the slums has taken his already slightly strange sense of humour and twisted it into something a little darker, meaning that he spends a lot of his time commiting acts that leave those who hear about them scratching their heads. Needless to say, he hasn't achieved infamy yet.

Chris:



Age
Twenty One

Weapon of choice
Chained-Rifle

Other usable weapons
None

Biography:
Chris is also a "junker" and can usually be found tagging along with Benji. Despite this, Chris is hardly a prank-loving person and doesn't really care for infamy. Instead, he tags along with Benji because he knows it is easy to steer the pranks towards events that are going to hurt the government, a government he appears to resent. Chris is generally a reserved person and usually only speaks when it is something useful or inciteful, but he will speak in place of Benji when he feels his partner has stepped out of line. Because of his reserved nature, no one really knows why he is in the slums, and most people simply assume he is a second-generation slum dweller...

Also...

I've updated the original post to reflect the fact that this is no longer a game idea or a game in the early stages of development. The main systems in this game are pretty much complete and all that remains is for me to finish making maps, puzzles and cutscenes. Of course, there is still a lot of those to do so I'm by no means near to completion, I just thought changing the blarb up there would be a good idea.

[Sated]

Well, I think the Valentine's Day prediction for a Demo is looking kinda bleak right now, mainly because of work and other committments I have.

Also, I haven't felt very inspired to move forward with the game and I've instead been adding more side-quests and "unique" weapons (weapons linked to skills) to the game. I guess it's all stuff that I would've had to add before the demo could be released anyway, but it doesn't feel like progress when I still have the same number of maps I did when I started sticking them in.

Haha, I always misunderestimate my free time.

[Sated]

Valentine's Day. Download. Etc.

Probably...

[Sated]

Is that a new demo? I think it is.

[Sated]

So, that's the final area mapped out and (as far as I can tell) working like it should. Here is my checklist of things to do before I can release this as a full game.

• Add guards and enemies to the final area
• Create a game-ending-worthy final boss
• Tweak the enemies throughout the game
• Tweak some of the cutscenes towards the end of the game
• Find better monster graphics for ALL the monsters currently in the game
• Find some better battle background graphics whilst I am at it
• Test the game fully through (thrice)
• Get beta testing done for the game

Not looking so bad. I'd give it a month or so, though, because my interest wanes when it comes to doing cutscenes. Probably more knowing my luck/track record.

[Sated]

Thanks everyone, especially to anyone who helped throughout this.

So, after basically five years of restarting many different projects under the same sort of title, I've finally got one of them finished. I'm actually kind of amazed with myself because, to be honest, I didn't think this would ever happen; I have a massive tendency to get dragged down into remaking early sections of my games or trying to make their storylines more "epic" than they need to be and that usually puts me off track and leads to be abandonning what I have created.

Well, not this time!

This time I decided not to bother with making an "epic". I decided to put my perfectionism to one side and, instead of trying to recreate the overwhelming pretence that is most RM role-playing games, I decided to make a down-to-earth, fun-to-play game that isn't just a space-bashing romp through fantasy locales with bells attatched. And although I think the dystopian, cyberpunk setting I've created is a realistically gritty vision of life as a condemned criminal, and although I think the locales and non-playable characters are some of the best out there, and although I am quite proud of how the story comes together, none of these are what this game is about.

Instead, Sore Losers is only intended to be a fun to play game for the ten or so hours you'll be playing through it. I hope you'll all come out thinking that I've managed to achieve that. So... Please, please, please give me feedback if you do play this: I want to iron all the problems out if I can so feedback is damn crucial!

Features Include:

Over 10 hours of gameplay.
A broad synthesis system that allows you to create and upgrade unique weapons.
Dozens of optional quests to complete, all kept track of by a "To Do List" system.
An Active Encounter System (AES) that removes the need for random encounters.
Inventive Lockpicking and Computer Hacking minigames.
More quotable NPCs than you can shake a stick at.

Download:

Sore Losers V1.0: Click Here

[tSwitch]

this looks very good Griever, I'll try to find some time to at least play some of it.
I'll move this to Finished Projects if you'd like.

[Sated]

That would be nice, yes.

[tSwitch]

this is RM2k right?

[Sated]

Yeah, it is. Oldschool.

[Sated]

Version 1.1 Released...

Some people found a bug that was totally game-breaking so I just released this patch quickly to get that fixed. The two small fixes are:

• Fixed game-crashing explosion scene.
• Fixed Scan skill. No longer scans dead enemies.

[Sated]

Important: Version 1.2 is totally fucked up.

I didn't announce this here, so people here might not have downloaded it, but if you downloaded Version 1.2 of Sore Losers then the starting position is in the wrong place. This means that when you start the game you actually start ~6 hours into the storyline. Obviously, this means the balance is totally off and that the game doesn't make any sense.

For anyone whose time this wasted, I really do apologise.

I will be uploading a fixed version to RMN soon (Version 1.3). The gamepage dissapeared due to a freak bug over at RMN but I am working on it and the new page should be accepted soon. As soon as it is I will fix the links in the main post of this topic. Alternatively, if you have the know-how and you have RM2000 handy, you can fix this problem by moving the Hero Start Position to the map called Opening Sequence; the rest of the game is unaffected by this bug, it is just the starting position that is wrong (this also means that if you downloaded it and used a previous save-file then the bug doesn't affect you unless you are attempting to start a new game).

Again, I am really fucking sorry.

[Sated]

VERSION 1.3 - CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

[NPC]

broken link, you used a period instead of a colon in "http:"

[Lazer Ki]

broken link, you used a period instead of a colon in "http:"

No, he pasted a http address into http:// so it looks like this: http://http://rpgmaker.net and blah blah blah

[NPC]

Well, whatever it was he should change this: http://www."http.com//www.rpgmaker.net/games/1210/downloads/"
to this: http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/1210/downloads/

p.s. a mod can always delete this post when Griever edits there link and/or requests the deletion of this post. Since by then this post won't be necessary and/or wanted.

[Lazer Ki]

Ummm can't you delete the post yourself

[Sated]

Didn't realise that link was broken, but the link at the top of the topic was working just fine the whole time!

Fixed it anyway.

(I copied the post from RRR and RRR has a nasty habit of putting speech marks around URLs. This makes them screw up everywhere else. Forgot to take the speech marks out is all...)