[DEMO] "Origin" RM2k3 Futurized RPG

[krin]

ORIGIN DEMO DOWNLOAD

Hello

I've had this game sitting on my computer for some time, recently found it and decided to fix it up for demo purposes in the hopes that I'd get some feedback and even possibly someone might want to help me out a bit developing the story/characters and giving advice or whatever they have to offer.

STORY: (Theoretically)

Beyond human knowledge there are endless planes of existence, some housing malicious spirits/entities which through manipulative and unknown methods alter the very nature of existence itself, including our world.
It is from these spirits (called Xodians) that the impregnation of humankind with technologies which only served to eventually decimate planet Earth spawned.
And now the Xodians have came into possession a highly delicate dimensional "tool" only called "The Abstraction" which could be used to transform any paradigm of existence at the users will, if they could control it, of course.
Fortunately there are counter spirits (called Pholians) who serve to balance the fluctuations of evil power.
These ethereal ongoings are timeless and space less, it is a plane which exists only as property and not quantity.

In the physical world, we are in the year 2193 C.E., humankind has launched a last ditch colonization space vessel (called Caravel) in an attempt to propagate the race a little bit longer by colonizing a distant planetary system...supposedly,surely enough there are to be Xodian influences behind these actions...
The player is a pilot of a research vessel inside the Caravel, his general duties are to navigate a small craft to and from passing planets and ferry researches for biological and atmospheric study, he also happens to experience disturbing and vivid dreams in which he feels a pull from "other worlds", he will later discover he has a pivotal role in bridging physical and ethereal worlds and saving existence from sure destruction!
The Caravel will end up encountering a new-world phenomena incited by the meddling of the Abstraction which will split the Caravel into 3 different time frames (beyond anyones knowing) causing one Caravel to crash land on a neighboring moon instead of its destination planet, undergoing civilian revolt and war and discovering magical properties of the moon (the true reason of that systems selection by corupted human officials)
Another Caravel will discover the result of these events nearly 2200 years after the crash...
The last Caravel suffers an unknown fate to be later discovered...

The demo involves one mini-introductory-adventure through an alien planetary assignment gone a bit awry.
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The characters are really not developed at all, a few ideas here and there but nothing solid.
The dialog is terrible, I think, I really need help in that department, I'm a map making man by nature, this project really began as me simply experimenting with custom chip sets and spacecraft graphics.A story formed to hold it together.

FEATURES:

Mineral Scanning : The player can implement a scanning field which indicates minerals in the environment that he could recover and use later on to create items and infuse for attributes, although that end of the system isn't implemented yet.

Explosives : Player can lay explosives to investigate cracked/unstable areas for exploration

Flashlight : speaks for itself.

22 minutes of demoplay

A nifty little feedback effect for the hero's sprite, which isnt implemented as a system yet but serves as a pretty little effect.

I intend to implement monster trapping, so the player can capture monsters in battle and take them back to the ship to be mutated then fought in illegal onboard arenas, or they could be dissected to reveal useful items/properties for infusion.

Alot of "custom" graphics, meaning alot of it technically is stolen from commerical games/other sources, but I'm pretty keen on altering them quite a bit.

The Caravel will be a massive "mobile" city, as it is now it has a tonne of maps with interesting little gadgets but nothing is complete, and its not bustling with the human scientific/engineering energy that I envision. That is to come.

Theres a few little weird sidegames at the end of the demo too.

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SCREENS

In a Xodian temple beyond time/space



In the heavy machinery dock on the Caravel, there you are, up on the catwalk! Little bit of the feedback effect going on.

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Now we're in the Botany department, you'll be able to grow your own vegetation, maybe make some freaky mutants/items.



In an alien cave.



On the surface of an alien planet, theres your explosive nearly detonating.



Flashlight



Yay! Cavey



Here we have the mineral scanner activated, he wont find any minerals on that plateau though.




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I'd love someone to help me out on this game, I kind of like it
even if they're just playing it and giving feedback.

ORIGIN DEMO DOWNLOAD

[DragonBlaze]

I really like the story, it sounds very interesting. I'll download and play through this tomarrow when I go to school because I dont like downloading anything at home on my dial up connection. I'll leave more feedback when I actually play it.

But yeah, looks pretty cool.

[Yhtomitsu]

I just played through a bit of the demo its really good i like it, keep up te good work

[Moosetroop11]

Originally posted by krin
The characters are really not developed at all, a few ideas here and there but nothing solid.
The dialog is terrible, I think, I really need help in that department

It might be a good idea to work on the characters as soon as possible. rpgs revolve around the characters and their personalities can influence the storyline, so adding them in later on in production can make them seem out of place or force you to contort their personalities in order to fit with what's already there.

Other than that, I haven't dowloaded this yet but it looks good. Keep it up.

[krin]

thanks for playing!

any suggestions would be appreciated, then worshipped.

As for news, im partly done implementing a POOL TABLE system into the game, which is found in the entertainment sector on the ship.
Its pixel based and pretty neat, I'm working out the vectors and angles right now, i have basic detection so that should be a nice little feature. And I assure more interesting systems riddled throughout the game.
Rm2k3 is more powerful than you think,u can do alot with variables my friends.



On character developement, I would never stuff a character into a premise, if I concocted something new about a characters life or personality I would actually go about dematerializing and reconstructing the game around that, I'm halfway to looneyville, yes I am.

I just wish someone with a liking for character development would co-create this beast with me.

[Yhtomitsu]

i also love all the extra features you added i forgot to say that like the flash light bombs, and the scanner its rally good.

[aboutasoandthis]

I'll play this when I have the time. I love the story concept, and you've got some very pretty and consistent screenshots.

[krin]

I'd like to know which areas of the demo made you intensely bored, if anything really irritated you.
If you thought the intro was useless, too confusing, anything.

I want really criticizing feedback.


hehe Im now implementing a POOL TABLE side-game type deal into the ship entertainment sector, Ive never seen a pool simulation in rm2k3 so i think thats interesting.

[krin]

On a completely unrelated area, here's a complete "comedy"-game I decided to throw out into the internetted community.

It's designed for headcases, and possible psychiatric escapees.

It's called Swirly Goose
It's short and a great adventure

Its obviously nowhere near the caliber of my other games, its just a joke (however the game does contain some very deep and disturbing undertones)

DL:
http://www.savefile.com/files/1243359

[zuhane1]

Right, I've just played it and I'll be totally honest.

The map exploring is pure genius, I'd give it 10/10. It's really fun and innovative to explore all sorts of areas and be able to use all of the gadgets at hand. It is really, really fun. I love the story, professional but sharp and straight to the action, no boring chores to accomplish. Keep up the good work, it almost makes me want to stop making rm2k3 games since my current one can't really compete.

On the other hand, the battles don't have much "Ooooh! I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end!" When you hit enemies, a giant punch symbol appears on them, which looks a bit cheap. If the battles had your characters maybe charging at the enemy, then knocking them and using a gritty, painful sounding sound effect, they would be better. It almost looks like you are flicking them with certain attacks. The enemy's attacks also don't seem very vicious. You expect some big monster to unleash a horrible barrage of attacks, then they fire some weird badly put together animation at you. If you work on the battle animations a little bit, this will be a truly great game like Dragonheart or Romancing Walker.

Anyway, keep it up!

[krin]

I appreciate your comments.

I agree, the battles are the weakpoint of the game.
I might design a CBS, its in the process, but not sure if I even want battles to be involved in the game.

There might be someone interested in creating some animations for the game

[Nandez]

I'll give it a try.

[zuhane1]

Originally posted by krin
I appreciate your comments.

I agree, the battles are the weakpoint of the game.
I might design a CBS, its in the process, but not sure if I even want battles to be involved in the game.

There might be someone interested in creating some animations for the game

I've made full-fledged rm2k/3 games with no battles and they've turned out really fun. So it's up to you I guess! You could maybe make it an ABS, use the bombs to kill enemies? It really does astonish me how you made the scissor-beam-attack-thing and the bomb actually hit enemies in th radius perfectly, when I attempt a CBS it goes ugly and wrong.