[VX] Undying Eternal (Demo 1 released!)

Introduction

Undying Eternal is a gothic horror themed role playing game made in RPG Maker VX set in an atmospheric world that draws heavily from writings by H.P Lovecraft, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley. In Undying Eternal, you take control of a famed demon hunter called to rid the isolated village of Aventhorn of a demonic presence. This is only the beginning of a much more sinister crisis, and as you role play your character in Undying Eternal, you'll be able to influence the plotline and your own reputation through actions, dialogue options and more.

Story

You are a demon hunter. For years, you've spent your life travelling to the darkest corners of the realm and vanquishing horrific, eldritch creatures for gold, glory and fame. Your adventures have become urban legend and your name is whispered in awed conversation in taverns all over the land.
On one stormy, fateful night, you recieve a hastily written letter, informing you of a crisis in the isolated mining village of Aventhorn. Lord Aventhorn has sealed himself within Nightshade Estate and the town is under siege by an army of nightmarish demons. The town seems doomed to fate, unless someone intervenes.
Knowing only that a challenging adveture and malevolent opposition awaits you, you once again sheath your weapon within your trenchcoat, slip your fedora upon your head and set off into the night, to the small trading post in the mountains where you are to meet your contact.

You are the Demon Hunter!

Undying Eternal is designed to flow like an old style pen and paper RPG, rather than a typical Final Fantasy style game. In Undying Eternal you can actually role play your character! As the Demon Hunter, you'll have plenty of opportunities to be altruistic, greedy, scheming and just plain evil. You'll have the chance to influence people, make friends and enemies and even woo a love interest. What kind of Demon Hunter are you? Play how you want to and watch how the story begins to change and NPC reactions reflect your playing style.

The World of Undying Eternal

Spoiler for Lots of flavour text:

Grimlore and Duskmoon

Undying Eternal is set in the dark fantasy world of Grimlore. More specifically, it is set in the kingdom of Duskmoon, a small, temperate mountainous region in the north.

Duskmoon initially resembles a typical fantasy setting; it is home to cosy, isolated hamlets ruled by lords, sprawling trade and port cities, castles, ruins and fortresses. It is a kingdom ruled by a peaceful monarchy, based in the capital of Dawnhold in the east, and its medieval society lives in relative peace.
However, Duskmoon is not what it seems to be on the surface. Ruins of an ancient, unknown civilisation dot the landscape, including the mysterious Demonic Gates that allow demons access from the underworld and an oppressive, inexplicable feeling of dread hangs in there air wherever one goes, and one constantly feels as if they are watched by some eldritch, undying evil.
The people of Duskmoonare occasionally terrorised the demonic visitors who emerge from the bizarre gateways, and people like the Demon Hunter, people both brave and stupid, eke out a living and sometimes a reputation combating these evil foes who have plagued the kingdom since time immemorial.

Once one has spent enough time within its borders, it should become startingly apparent soon enough that Duskmoon is a place under siege by lurking evil and beset by nervous hysteria.
Despite this, it is a beautiful land with breathtaking sights to behold and diverse climates to enjoy. It is a land worth fighting for. As a Demon Hunter, its ultimate fate could very well be in your hands.

The Demonic Gates

The malevolent demons enter Duskmoon through the Demonic Gates, mysterious relics left behind by a lost, nameless civilisation that are scattered throughout the land. The gates form entrances to the underworld, a terrifying hive of evil below the planet's surface where devils and monsters perpetually plot maccabre plans to wrench upon the human population above.

The original purpose of the Demonic Gates is unknown. Why would anyone build doorways that lead to a world of nightmares? There are many theories relating to this topic; some claim that the gateways were used by ancient cultures to siphon dark energy away from the underworld to power their technology. Others suggest that the civilisation that built the gates was demonic itself, and the gateways serve as a means for them to return to the lands they once held. Either way, no matter their purpose, the Demonic Gates are regarded with fear and are typically avoided, as only Demon Hunters and elite clergymen have the ability to seal them and bar the demons access, albeit only temporarily.

Features

- A mysterious, non linear story reminiscent of Lovecraft and Stoker split into four chapters, each with its own major demon to hunt.
- Deep, expressive characters, whose disposition towards you changes depending on your actions towards them.
- Multitudes of dialogue options, allowing you to role play the Demon Hunter as a paragon, a bastard, a mercenary and more.
- Challenging turn based combat against demonic foes with an emphasis on tactics and strategy.
- A unique combat system without elements that allows you to realistically determine what attacks will work against certain enemies; can you blind something with no eyes?

Screenshots












Download

You can download Demo 1 of Undying Eternal here:
http://rpgmaker.net/games/2750/

This demo covers the first 1-2 hours of gameplay. Keep in mind that it is intended mainly to gather feedback about the game, and is very rough and unpolished and may be unbalanced. Ugly graphics may still be used as placeholders.

Credits
- Woratana, Yanfly, epic gee, Shanghai and TDS for scripts.
- Mack and FSM for graphics.
- Koori-kun for music.
- Craze and Karsuman for inspiration.

Interesting concept, though might I suggest making the Demon Hunter look less like Tuxedo Mask.

Not many people can say they have completed 1 game, yet you have done 4 and are still going. I applaud you. This game looks interesting, I'll be keeping my eye on it. And as NAM said, Demon Hunter looks like Tuxedo Mask

Hi everyone! Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad to hear your psyched for the game. This is my most ambitious project so far - kind of like a cross between Legionwood and One Night.

I'm well aware of the Demon Hunter looking like Tuxedo Mask though. I've intentionally made him look like that, because it's a typical looking Zorro/Van Helsing/duelist character.

It's the mask.

I have to agree with Nam here. I personally didn't think of ANY of those other characters you mentioned other than Tuxedo Mask. I don't even like the shit he's in and know next to nothing about him. Hell, I didn't even know his name until Nam mentioned it in his first post. I've seen him a few times in the past and he's all I thought about while looking at your game.

Well, I'll have to change the look of the Demon Hunter after all, then. But there don't seem to be any other FSM sprites that look mysterious enough. I will change him eventually though. To be honest, I didn't even know who Tuxedo Mask was (I've never seen him before) until you guys pointed it out, so I didn't think of that when choosing the sprite.

Plus, progress update!

Monday, December 27th, 2010

Hi everyone! So, with the festive season and of course New Year's celebrations coming soon, I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to work on Undying Eternal.
However, I have made some progress on the game, and the first playable version (still due to be released on January 15th) is coming along nicely. I've been spending a lot of time balancing the opening of the game, as the first hour of the game will play quite differently, in terms of battles, depending on which of the two classes (Sanctifier or Magus) you pick for the Demon Hunter. I've had to spend a lot of time making sure that the monsters can be defeated by both classes, while still proving a challenge, and that both classes are able to hold their own in combat. I only needed to do this for the earlier areas of the game, as the class you did not pick is simply assigned to Auria, who joins your party relatively early (albeit she is at a lower level so is not as skilled in the class as you would be at that point). Later, the party is rounded off with a Fighter, so you should be able to experience a well rounded party with a "tank", a healer and a caster in the final area of the demo.
Aside from that, I've spent time planning out and programming the conversations. These, of course, change slightly depending on what responses you choose and also a variable that tracks your general "niceness" so they are annoying to work on. Although the exploration and gameplay of the game is quite linear, I've started implementing story events that will change a bit depending on the conversations, things such as being offered power by a demon instead of being taunted for more "evil" players, and also how your party members will react to your actions in certain events.
I've also tinkered with the scripts a bit - you will notice that I changed the menu to a cleaner, less awkward looking model. I'm committed to making Undying Eternal my very best project yet, so I very much hope you are able to enjoy the effort I've made - I guess we'll get to see whether it pays off or not when the first demo comes out on January 15h.

Thanks for your intial interest/comments on the game! I hope I can rely on even more informative feedback once a playable version is out to showcase what the game offers.

Hi everyone! Stupidly, I had the release date set as "January 15th, 2010."

I've fixed it now. Sorry if anyone got confused.

Sunday, October 16th 2011

As I write this, the first ever public release of Undying Eternal has been uploaded and is ready to download at RMN.

Covering the first hour and a half to two hours of gameplay, Demo 1 is intended to provide a basic look at the mechanics and "feel" of the game. As this is the first public release and prior to this point the game has only been tested by myself, this demo may not best represent the difficulty that I am aiming for in the game. The point of this demo is to have people play the game, to aid me in balancing it and to gain an insight as to whether the concepts in the game are "working".

So if you've been hanging out to see Undying Eternal for yourself, this is your chance. Give it a go. You may be pleasantly surprised, but if not, be sure to leave your feedback so that the game can get better in future releases!

Took ya' long enough! (jk) But I'll be sure to try out the demo this morning, looking good.

EDIT:

The game is pretty fun, I like how you explained the mechanics of the game through those adventurers. The game is fairly difficult which isn't a bad thing, but the opening doesn't seem like the type of monsters you'd fight to get used to the combat. The tone and mapping is really good, so it's quite immersive and I like that. So far the only problem I came about was that I wasn't able to equip that Amulet that the shop keeper gave me, are Sanctifiers unable to equip it?

I'm probably going to start another run already, (i haven't beaten the first yet) I want to try playing a Spearman guy. Which is another thing that's really cool about your game, I like how you get to edit your class at the beginning of the game without going into a "What Class Are You?" type of approach. I'm having a ton of fun in the game, so keep it up with this one!

I dunno about this one. It might just be me but I ragequitted after I missed four times in a row, which in turn wasted my attack boost. Aesthetically and storywise it seems intriguing, but you might want to fix up the gameplay.

I'd have to second that missing attacks things. Which is what I faced in my Spearman playtime... You miss a lot and a lot of the time you are overwhelmed by the enemies, meaning they're pretty tough and cause you to waste your small quantity of potions, only if you've decided to use White Magic. So, there's a sort of disadvantage to people that do not decide to get their Sanctifier on.

Hi guys, thanks for the comments. I was personally unsure about the hit rate of the weapons and attacks. I was undecided whether they were fine as they are, or too low. For the next release, which should be available soon, I will increase hit rates across the board.

Hey, this looks great so far. Good job.

BTW, which battle script did you use?