Ember Sky: Demo Release

[Phayre]

The demo has been released. A note:
In the credits, the midi "The Godless Evangel" is listed as unknown. It's actually by drenrin, and this will be fixed when next I upload an update. Which will be soon, given that credit is important. Also, the many "unknown" chipsets, which I got in a massive replacement RTP pack, are by First Seed Materials.

Characters:
Christophe DiSayre
Age 25
Weapon: Handgun
Special Skill: Treatment (a treatment used on bullets to invoke status and elemental damage)
Christophe is a down-on-his-luck ex-scientist whose primary hobbies include drinking, cursing, and micromanaging. As a result of a traumatic incident involving his best friend/colleague, Grey, and a test experiment, Christophe is incredibly wary of all things supernatural. Unfortunately, his knowledge of this experiment ties him into a conflict greater than he could have possibly realized.

Caolan Ravendi
Age 17
Weapon: Mage's Gloves
Special Skill: Magecraft
In contrast to Christophe's cynical nature, Caolan presents a front of carefree innocence. He's not as naive as he would have everyone believe, however--- his magic seems to be more of a burden than most mages deal with. On occasion, Caolan is very cryptic, to the point where Christophe never knows how much of Caolan's words to trust. As the story progresses, Caolan finds that even he does not know himself as well as he had thought.

Lyra Elseth
Age 24
Weapon: Sword
Special Skill: TBA
A former general of the royal army, Lyra defects for reasons she has yet to reveal to Christophe. Her brother, Athair, remains one of the army's deadliest generals. Christophe meets Lyra in the city of Huinn, where she warns him to leave town before her brother arrives. Little does Christophe know that Lyra's reasons for warning him have little to do with his own safety.

Athair "Flameheart" Elseth
Age 30
Special Skill: Flameheart (powerful fire-type moveset, better than Caolan's magic)
Weapon: Big red-bladed sword
Athair is considered one of the best younger generals available to the kingdom of Marionna. Despite his strength and reputation, Athair is cheerful and easy-going. Since becoming involved with his new superior, Athair has cut off ties to Lyra and grown intensely close with Arin, who accompanies him on almost every mission. He becomes good friends with Christophe.

Arin "Shadowblade"
Age 22
Special Skill: Shadowblade (dark-elemental sword attacks and magic)
Weapon: Rapier
Arin is well known not only for his status as the youngest of the elite officers, but also for his mysterious origins. All anyone seems to know about his background is that he was found by Athair two years before the events of ES. When angered, he often overreacts, especially when someone he feels responsible for is hurt. During the course of the story, Arin eventually decides to protect Caolan.

Grey Antharos
Age 34 at death
Grey was a scientist working on a project involving the Domierni, a race of people charged with maintaining balance between chaos and reason. A calm, reserved man, he was Christophe's idol until his death. Grey's project will slowly resurface and once more become the focus of Christophe's life.

The story follows these characters, as well as some others that aren't fully developed. I'm having a lot of trouble summing up without major spoilers, so just.... uh.... hold off on that. I will tell you that the theme is the balance between control of one's own life and letting life sweep you along, or something like that.

The link:
http://www.savefile.com/files/888754

Some warnings: The shops in Huinn don't work. And there are some typos. But it's all good, I thinks. Yay.

[Phayre]

Ahhhh.... hooray for warm receptions. *grin*
Nah, in case anybody cares, here are some updated "features" that are in. I'm not sure whether I want to go into detail about the characters outside the demo, but I will if you want. ^^

Amazing "Features" That Aren't Actually Amazing But Make Me Feel Happy Inside:
1. All custom sprites for all playable characters and important NPCs. I was using CharasEx, and then I discovered all the lovely spriting tutorials and decided to make something cooler.
2. All kinda-custom facesets (all right, I use Facemaker, so actually they're not custom...... but whatever), with emotions
3. In my opinion, a pretty awesome storyline...... but that's for you to decide when I post the demo and a little more synopsis..... ^^
4. Possible use of ammo for Christophe's gun
5. Possible use of "desperation moves" (general term for all Limit Break type dealies)
6. Custom party change system involving HQ, etc.

Please note that I know all of these have been done before, but I hope that what I come up with is okay for a noob game.

[Ben]

Keep at 'er. Screenshots would be swell

[Vidian]

I want screens

I like Christophe.

[Bluhman]

We'd like a bit more detail on the basic story of this game, rather than a short list of features and some character profiles. That'd give us a much better idea of what the game is about.

And yes, I strongly advise you to post screens. As of now, I don't know what to be expecting from this game.

[A Forgotten Legend]

I want screenshots!
You want screenshots!
We all want screenshots!

[Phayre]

Awesome. What programs can I use for screenshots, and how much of the story should I post? Spoilers? Yes, no?
And I'm glad you like Christophe. It makes me happy that he's a geek.

[Bluhman]

Use Printscreen key on your keyboard. Right above insert.

[Phayre]

Ahhhh..... okie dokies. Screens soon, probably before Monday, since I redid the faces and the sprites and a couple other things and haven't quite fixed all that. It shall be done.

[Moosetroop11]

It's hilarious that anyone over the age of 20 is always an ex- something.

Keep it up! It looks pretty good so far, and the characters seem pretty different and well thought out.

[Phayre]

Actually, Christophe was sort of intern at a lab, so that makes sense. He's too lazy to get a real job, and his first "quest" is actually to cover his debts at the local bar. As for Lyra..... ummmmm...... out of logic, sorry. ^^

[Phayre]

Ha.....
About those screens..... my jump drive is MIA, and the online compie here doesn't like CDs, so it ain't happenin' for now. Intensely sorry. However, I am prepared to give a more well defined pitch:


Two years before the events of Ember Sky.....
Christophe is employed as an intern at a research lab, working under his friend and idol, Dr. Grey Antharos. Grey is conducting experiments on (not mad scientist style, silly, get your mind out of the FFVII gutter) a member of the Domierni race, a small pocket of humanity that branched out eons ago. Christophe is troubled by the experiments, not understanding the point, but all that becomes irrelevant when the subject bursts into the room and obliterates Grey with her kickass magic. Claiming that Christophe is innocent, she leaves him there, terrified and determined to end the project forever.

Two years later........
Christophe has found a reasonably isolated home in the mountain village of Talreye Springs. He leads a fairly comfortable life of drinking, cursing, and avoiding decent employment at all costs. His tranquil existence is shattered forever when the unthinkable occurs......
......the bartender refuses to serve him anything but water until he pays his tab of 500 Argenti.
Dismayed and disheartened, Christophe completes a dangerous quest to retrieve Final Fantasy VII: the Novel from the hands of a nefarious book thief. His efforts prove useless, however, and he must return to the bar empty-handed.
He returns to the bar to find a young man performig tricks with black magic in order to get free food. Before Christophe can confront the offender, the boy suddenly freezes and speaks of things he couldn't possibly know, shreds of Christophe's well-hidden past. When he finishes, his powers suddenly explode, injuring the people he had been performing for. Christophe grabs him and runs from the angry crowd. Inroducing himself as Caolan Ravendi, the boy joins Christophe and will lead him on a dark and scary RPG type journey.......

Well. There's the long melodramatic summary. The demo included more than this, and will be out...... I dunno when. I do need, if you are intrigued and would like to help, some custom sprites (cuz I can't do wings), theme music for the game and the characters, and most of  all, a title and game over screen. Hope you're interested in ES, screens coming when I find my jump drive and am done graduating and crap.  

[Phayre]

Given that the screens that were here were all of stuff that's been changed, here are some from new maps.


Christophe standing near the Talreye tavern, his favorite spot in the town he's lived in since the incident


Christophe in a bar in Huinn, where the drinking game takes place


Caolan enjoys setting bosses on fire!


Arin displaying his creepier side in Marionna's castle.

[game_maniac]

^Very good actually. Yes, those chipsets are overused, but you seem to handle them well. Overall, the graphics are looking good, even though they're not the most important in a rpgmaker game.

As for the story... Well, I'll admit I'm lazy and haven't read it all yet, but after I do I'll give more input.

[A Forgotten Legend]

Originally posted by Phayre

With the faces... Try this:
Before Resizing, change the background color of the faces to the backround of your messages (from the system image) which i think is black (might be another shade of it for all I know).  That way, it gets rid of the other color surrounding the faces.