posted 30 June 2009 02:44 PM EDT (US)
But this events were unknown to Vale, who peacefuly lived in the tranquil village of Vault. he just reached the swordsman age, 18 years, a day he always waited for. He now must follow the warrior way, find his place in the world, and face many dangers. Still, he was ignorant of what his destiny was about to become. He appeared in an apocalyptic profecy, showing a mysterious connection to an evil nobody knew about, but that is now about to take over, and destroy, everything he knew, and anything else...
This is a big scale single player scenario, that has been on the works for quite some time now. The concept of this game, as it could be seen as a game in itself because it strays far from the concept of game that AoM is, is a game that is simple to play, yet profound, easy to understand instructions, yet extensive (becuase there is a lot of material), fast paced yet balanced fights, with a balanced leveling up system, and an interesting storyline, just too keep the hook of the adventure.
The main goal of this scenario is to have a fun and hooking gameplay, so the eyecandy will be toned down to prevent massive lags, but still giving the feeling of being into the landscape, as that's the second goal of the game, make an experience.
Moving through this scenario is not tedious, because you don't have to worry on moving the camera, as it follows you, you just have to keep clicking and you'll continue going in that directon.
All the actions will be done with hotkeys, and clicking on things. The interface will be easy to understand, with chats telling you what's going on all the time, and guides (shown as "GUIDE") inserted between the objectives (shown as "QUESTS") explaining all sorts of features and things you can do to help your quest.
Moving through the place and finding things to do is easy, because they are all clearly marked with visual effects: Chores, quest important points, business of any sorts, boss weak points, mechanisms in the dungeons, etc.
You can use all sorts of weapons, changing between them with the use of hotkeys. The weapons range from the normal sword (which can be upgraded), bombs, bows, magic, and more.
As for the transportation matter, you can walk from one point to another, or get into a horse, which is activated with hotkeys, and uses a system for dashing. There will also be some races in the game. Yhere will be a ship as well, and something else...
It will feature a complex day/dusk/night/dawn progression, all with sounds and effects. There's also a journal, telling you how many days have passed since you started your journey.
This system also have gameplay implications, as some places open or close at night, you can't enter some town at night, etc.
There will be lots of enemies in the game, each with its customized characteristics, making every type of enemy unique. As you progress in the game, monsters will become stronger, but you can upgrade to be on par with them. There's also an arena.
The upgrading system has many branches: By killing monsters you gain Exp points, which are represented by wood. When your wood reaches 0, you gain one level, and raise your HP. To upgrade your weaponry, you must deal with the blacksmiths, scattered in all the towns and cities, each offering a weapon for your sword mastery level.
There is also a spiritual leveling system, and what I mean by this is that you can raise your spirit by helping people, and there will be lots of people to be helped. You must trade your good will points at Temples to raise your spiritual level, and be able to deal with traders...
There are business all over the place, merchants who offer you from food to bombs, ship passages, inn keepers that offer you a stay to rest and heal yourself, blacksmiths, races to win money and other things, etc.
There will be trade centers, where you can trade relics, which are scattered all over the land, for life extensions and foodbag expansions. What are the food, you ask? it is used when you are damaged, with the use of a hotkey, you convert food to HP, and you can carry ceratin amounts of food depending on the size of your foodbag.
What I mean is that everything, from the conversations, the fights, the business making, to the cinematic and boss fights, there is a good attention to detail, which is made in the form of triggers.
For example, there is a trigger called "On cinematic" which changes the QV to stop the camera following you, fade the screen in and out and enters cinematic mode, and at the end of the cinematic "Off cinematic" fires, making the camera follow you again, makes the camera cut for gameplay, fades out the screen in and out, and fires "Music" wich starts music if day ir dawn are present, because music on night or dusk doesn't fit.
So to start and and a cinemtaic with all the effects, I just need to fire "on cinematic" and "off cinematic" at the end. The point is, the triggers are very detailed, meaning lots of triggers make up for one complex event. I just mention this feature becuase it is something that stands out in the game.
This will make up for a big part of the game. There is three dungeons in all, each with it's unique art and puzzle style. You will be finding diferent weapons with different uses throughout your quest, and each dungeon has puzzles intended to be solved with each of the weapons, in creative and intricate ways. The trigger work here is quite interesting. I'm not giving examples now, so you figure it out yourself once you're there!
And for the bosses, the concept of each one goes with the theme and gameplay style of each dungeon. You'll need your new weapon to fight it, also in very creative ways. I'll give an example of this: To kill the first boss you'll need dungeon weapon, the bombs. Sooner or later you'll figure out that there are huge boulders around the arena, and that when the giant boss passes below one, you have to blow it and watch it crush your enemy.
That is just an example, believe me, the boss fights are intense. Here is a screenie of a little section of the second dungeon, I'm not going to reveal the bosses!
Version 1.2 has been released. It fixes many of the known bugs, and adds two new features to the experience:
1) Two difficulty modes: Some people said the originla version was too easy, so I decided to include a harder version of the scenario. It is a separate file that comes with the download. Here are some differences in the hard mode:
- It is more difficult to level up.
- You are less powerfull.
- You'll gain less life when leveling up.
- The fire and the bombs deal less damage to monsters.
- Food and bomb expansions are now smaller, they grant you less space.
- Bonus: Some known bugs in the normal version have been fixed in this version,
so that will be a plus when trying the hard version.
2) Version 1.2 includes a cheat feature. In fact, even the first version had these cheats, as I used them to playtest, but I've decided to include this as a feature.
You won't be able to access the cheat list until you finish the game in any difficulty. The final dialogue will reveal the password to enter the cheat list. If you like this feature you can get it by downloading the 1.2 version.
There are lots of other features, which I'm not going to mention now, I think I've posted enough features... I don't want to spoil anything else.
You can play the demo version if you want, although it would be obviously better to download the full game. Here is the link for the demo:
And for the full version:
the screenies are some in-game, others are taken from the editor. Note that they don't reflect how the gameplay is, just eyecandy.
More screens will continue to be posted until the game is released in 19/7/09.
If you playtest, you will be
I need lots of feedback to be able to fix bugs and improve everything that can be improved before the Release. Key:
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100%
100%
100%
750 Kb
Around 4 hours
550
Date it was released:
(Check features section for version 1.2 details)
I am sure you will have fun with this scenario. Hope you like the concept of it!
~ Best RPG of the year 2010... ~
~- Brave Sword - Improved Version -~
My first project:
Advanced Rain Guide
-Member of Paradox Desing Studios-
[This message has been edited by Jondoom (edited 07-24-2009 @ 01:24 PM).]
