Kyrodian Legends

[Kelvin]

TITLE: Kyrodian Legends.

GENRE: Science fiction.

PLAYTYPE: Action, adventure, RPG, platformer.

DEVKIT: XYG Studio.

RATING Teen for fantasy violence and mild language.

PLATFORMS: Windows, Mac, Linux, Pandora, Dingoo.

STORY:
Kyrodian Legends is a game series that tells of the edventures of a group of very different people. The first installment focuses on Midi Waffle, a squirrel with an uncanny talent for destructive magic, who joins the Cloud Chasers mercenary faction as a means to get by and search for clues to the whereabouts of his missing parents.

During his adventure, he fights the Colt Front, a faction composed entirely of penguins, and races to keep them from unearthing a weapon that would give them absolute power.

GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay revives the style of Zelda 2 and Gargoyles Quest in that the perspective switches from overhead to side-scrolling during combat. Rather than grinding for experience, however, players are rewarded for exploration, like in Metroid, and some areas are entirely platform-based.

Random encounters will serve as a means to gather funds and populate non-peaceful regions with monsters. Some small caves and dungeons will exist where these occur, as well as for combat-related quests to take place. If a puzzle having to do with the overhead view is active, random encounters will be disabled.

Side quests exist as contracts that can be taken from the Cloud Chasers HQ, and reward the player with money, items and lore. Some quests will only be unlocked when certain conditions are met, like a new area being found, or having completed a prerequisite contract. The main questine will not require these to be completed to move forward, and upon the game's completion, the player can continue to explore and play these quests.

Travelling is done via airship, and new destinations are unlocked per the story's requirement. Some areas offer local transport to places where an airship cannot land.

Stats are enhanced by equipping runestones. Aside from boosting stats, some may have other effects, such as night vision, faster movement speed, or lowering the chance of a random encounter. These tradeoffs encourage players to manage their resources. Runestones can only be equipped/unequipped in the overhead view, or in a "safe" area, not in combat.

New abilities are learned from enemies that use them or similar moves. For instance, defeating a penguin ninja, who uses a sliding attack, will teach Midi how to slide.

DEVELOPMENT:
So far, I only have graphics and story work done. I won't be able to program the game until I have XYG's runtime working enough to start testing, which shouldn't be too long; I just have to finish a few classes and then tie some functions to the Squirrel VM. Once that's done, I can begin coding.

If anyone wants to help, I'm looking for monster, vehicle and structure designers who are willing to work by commission. I'll handle spriting the assets myself; I'm just looking to buy some concepts.

[Kelvin]

OK, so I've decided I will have an experience mechanic, but instead of grinding for stats, experience is earned to increase one's rank and allow them to take on harder quests. Some quests will still require certain abilities, and will remain locked nonetheless, but having a rank gives the player a sense of accomplishment. Experience is earned by completing tasks for others, either in contracts, off-hand requests found by exploring, and progressing in the main storyline.

Also, a database is being written which can be unlocked by collecting information in the game. For instance, the system records info on enemies encountered, and discussing certain things or reading information will also record it to the database. This lets players learn about the world by collecting lore, much like in Metroid Prime and Rockman & Forte.

A reminder: I'm still looking for monster dsigns, and I'm willing to pay for each. Robot designs are also welcome.

[Kelvin]

Here's some sketches of my characters by Foxboy83.

Midi Waffle, the protagonist of the first game. Has basic martial arts skills and can conjure explosive acorns that can explode in fire, ice, and lightning. His bombs can be deployed three ways: throwing like a grenade, planted like a landmine, and spun across the ground like a top. The top bombs will ricochet off walls and explode on a timer, like the grenades, but do not bounce on the ground. Landmines can be jumped on to be blasted to greater heights without taking damage, but only one can be planted at a time.


Trey Cartier, Midi's mentor and commander of Cloud Chasers Lance Delta. He trains Midi in combat and investigates the Cold Front behind the scenes, giving Midi leads to places where his firepower is needed. He is a shadow bender, allowing him to conjure weapons and projectiles out of dark matter, and even turn himself into a shadow.


Sophie Cartier, Lance Delta's pilot. Sophie takes care of and transports Midi through his quest, and can be asked for advice when the player is lost.

[Kelvin]

It's things like this that are (part of) the reason I stopped using Game Maker and started making my own devkit. I was messing around with some of the grabbable blocks and found out you could build a bridge with them, even the ball.

[DragonDePlatino]

Wow, dude...I'm going to have to say. I'm really surprised at how great of a traditional artist you are! Miles better than me. It'll only be time before your pixel art catches up to your pencil stuff! Hee hee.

Everyone has a really definable personality through their posing and facial expressions. And your line art makes your little details really pop! Really, no complaints here...except Trey's left hand. Where is that thing? Read, Platino, read! Daaaaahhhh...

As for that weird Game Maker bridge...ah...is there any way you can specify how blocks calculate their collisions? My assumption here is that when you drop an object in your engine, it goes straight down without any x-velocity. So when an object has no x-velocity, you should probably only do collision checks on the bottom sides of them. That is, if Game Maker will even let you do that...

[Kelvin]

Heheh, I didn't draw those. Above the sketches is a link to the artist. I posted one of my own sketches in the creativity board, which I think is actually worse than my pixel art.

As for the blocks, Game Maker has an 'escape solid' function, but it doesn't work if the object calling it is solid as well. So I have to make up a new workaround for that, but that brings up a bunch of new problems that I'd have to make an animation to explain. >_< Again, that's why I'm just making my own with SDL.