The Epitome of Anima

[Muraiko]

**Storyline**   

   One cannot progress without making required sacrifices. This balance has been the key rule to all of humanity since the beginning of time. Special stones, called Epitomes, best portray this law. Though they can be used to lengthen an attribute, they will also lower another. Many use this to further fortify their strengths, and further weaken their weaknesses. But legend speaks of a mystical epitome, that breaks this rule of gain and loss. Called, The Epitome of Anima, it promises the power to conquer a country, to revolutionize a religion, and the supreme strength of a god. It was said to remove it’s bearer’s bodily limits, increasing all attributes over what is humanly possible, and all at no cost, no sacrifice. Though many sought after this powerful stone, no one has ever been able to attain it…

Hytain Lindenii Takes Throne!

   After many peaceful years, the past king, Azurius Lindenii, falls, due to illness. The throne, along with the superpower of the kingdom of Earthencraft, now falls to the hands of his only son, Hytain Lindenii. The new king wastes no time to increase Earthencraft borders, immediately waging war with Firenheart. At the same time, the newly discovered continent, Arifall, is trampled with Earthencraft soldiers, pushing all the natives, Arifans, to specialized reservations, to make room for the new colonists to settle down in this new land of dreams.
   Though, constantly, angered Arifans would leave their reservations at night, and attack Earthencraft colonies. Despite all the people’s cry for help, King Hytain ignores them, and continues further with the war on Firenheart. Angered by this neglect, the people of Arifall start to reject the new king, and word of mutiny spreads across the land. An even bigger conflict, with such an intensity that surpasses war, is about to take place.

The Hero Emerges…

   Manako leaves his hut to a calm day, like any other. Just an average Arifan boy, living on a reservation like all other Arifans. Disturbed by dreams of his own death, he seeks advice from his friend, Chakira.
   When Manako returns from the forest, he is surprised to see this entire tribe over run by Crusaders, a branch of Earthencraft soldiers. After they take hold of Manako, they drag Chakira out of the tribe, calling her “Kidnapped”, and “Prisoner”. After trying desperately to fight, Manako is too taken, out of his tribe for the first time in his life, being told by the Crusaders that he’s a “Colonist” and promise to return him to his “Real Parents”, just as they said to Chakira. Refusing to believe what anyone says to him, he embarks on a journey of self identity, friendship, and retaining what he has lost.


**Characters**
Here a list of all of the unforgetable heros of my game!


Name: Manako Fantayza
Race: Arifall?
Weapon: Bo Staff
Class: Shaman
Info:
Manako is the main protagonist of the game. He is cheerful, kind, and always has the right heart.
His special techniques are called Mantra, he can control elemental forces, casting spells like fire, and metal.


Name: Chakira Awrkid
Race: Arifall?
Weapon: Musket
Class: Hunter
Info:
Chakira is Manako's best friend, and always has his back. Though most of the time, she's shy, timid, and reccessive, she's still a loyal friend.
Her special Hunt skills can be used to deal critical damage to certain types of foes. It pays to know what kind of enemies you're fighting.


Name: Davin Rade
Race: Earthencraft
Weapon: Twin Foils
Class: Pirate
Info:
Davin is the local notorius pirate from Port Seara. He's really outgoing, and has a, somewhat, TOO friendly attitude towards girls.
Davin can steal items and money with his Filch technique. It can be done to enemies in battle, but also to normal townsfolk. Can help out great financially!


Name: Sophie Viracitee
Race: Earthencraft
Weapon: Tonfa Baton
Class: Bishop
Info:
Sophie is the High Bishop of Bale. She's friendly, outgoing, and her super happy-go-lucky attitude is loved by all the people of Bale.
Sophie can do a large amounts of prayers both in, and out of, battle. She can do anything from heal vitality, to doubling an ally's strength! The best supporting character!


Name: Rellius Hugobum
Race: Earthencraft
Weapon: Claymore
Class: Crusader
Info:
One of the big four captains of the Crusader League. May look like a person who you shouldn't mess with, but is actually kindhearted deep inside.
Rellius has a wide array of battle techniques that attack in different formations, and add different stats to his attack. He's basically the best physical character.


Name: Phaeth Aethereus
Race: Unknown
Weapon: Wakizashi
Class: Witch
Info:
A strange woman who lives in Forgust. Is givin the name, Phaeth Aethereus, by Manako when they first meet, because of her resemblance to the bird. She's really still a mystery...
Phaeth has many different supportive techniques that can are meant to be for the field, and battle. Anything from magically creating food, to blazing all foes with an explosion.



**Features**
I've been working alot on scripting the past two years since my interenet was down, so I'm just going to say all I can say. Here we go:

*ABS*
First of all, It's like to say that my game has an Action Battle System! You'll be able to run around and fight in battle! But, here's what it's like in more detail.
When you are on the field (Not in battle) your movement speed is Half Normal. But once you touch an enemy on the field map, you'll be teleported to an enclosed battlefield. Your movement speed will increase to Normal, and your battle techniques will now be able to be used. You just have to equip a technqiue by going into the main menu, click on "Technqiues" and simply pick whichever one. To use the equiped technqiue, just press * on the numpad, (My game really uses the numpad alot, so make sure you have num lock on.) Even after you cast it, it'll still be equiped, so you can cast it again. If you want to switch your technqiues, then simply press 9 first, then you can go back into the menu, and pick a different one (I know it's retarted this way, I'm actually trying to figure out a way where you can just select another technque, and all other technqiues already equpped will turn off, but I haven't found it... yet.) Anyway, you can press the shift key to make your character attack with their weapon, and other systems can still be used in battles too, like character switching, and jumping. I even made an accurate-to- the-tenth vitality and anima bar on the bottom left hand side of the screen, by your charater's face picture. The only time I know when the bars mess up, is the Anima bar when you have little, or no anima left. It tends to "disapear" alot, either that, or you take another teammember's bar when you switch. I'm trying to find out how to fix this still, but it's really not a big deal.

*Heatbar*
A new bar I made just below your anima bar, is your heat bar! If you've ever played dynasty warriors, or samurai warriors, then you should know about button mashing (winning fight by pressing the attack button until all enemies are dead) Well, I made the heat bar to prevent this. Whenever you attack, use an item, use a technqiue, or even jump, you will get +1 added to your heat bar. If your heat bar goes all the way to the max, then you'll lose 10% of your vitality. But don't worry, your heat will go back down with time. All you got to do is simply wait, or keeping moving away from the foes. Once your heat is zero, feel free to continue bashing the enemeis to death! Don't worry though, once you do over heat (Term I give for when the heat bar reaches the max, and you lose vitality) a sound will play, warning you to watch out for your heat.

**Regeneration**
I added this alot with the Heat bar to really make you think when fighting. Whenever your heat is at zero, then an invisible timer will start. Onces that timer is up, and you still didn't get any heat, you'll RECOVER 10% of your vitality, and anima. Because of this, it really makes use tactics and strategies that are about heat conservation.

**Teamswitching**
Where ever you are, in battle or on field, you can switch the charcter you're playing as! If you have more than one person on your team, then you can switch with the -,+, and / keys on the numpad.
-: Switches to assigned party leader
+: Switches to assigned second member
/: switches to assigned third member
You sign who's who when you step on a pentigram circle. Chooose "Party Formation" and start selecting your team from scratch! The max number of characters you can have in a team is three. Team switching is importing, because if you are low on vitality during a fight, you can switch someone else in to finish the fight, or use their technqiues to aid you. Also, another cool thing about this, is if you get a disease, then that disease will only take effect to that member if he's the current chacracter. So, if I had team of Manako, Sophie, and Davin, and the foe inflicts Toxin (basically poison) on Davin, then that means that Davin will get damage for every step he takes. After the battle, if I don't have an Antiseptic on hand to cure him, then it'll be a long walk to town to use the church to heal him, and he'll probably die along the way. So, I can have him be "carried" by the other team members. I can switch to Manako, or Sophie, and walk back to town. Davin won't be taking the steps, so he won't get damage, and Manako and Sophie are already healthy.

**Custom Xp**
When making a team, you always have the option of having less than three in your team. The reason for this, so the Experience that enemies give you when you beat them. After you finish off a foe, their total experience is divided by how many members are in your team, and is given equally to all of them. So, if you beat a foe, and have three members in your team, then the experience will be divided by three, giving all members an equal amount. But, if you only have one character fighting, then that means the total experience doesn't get divided at all, and it all goes directly to you, making you level up faster.

**Average Levels**
Speaking of levels, my game has an "auto level up" system. Now, as you have already noticed, there are SIX characters, and you can only have a team of THREE. So, you might wonder what's the point to train all of them? Why not just pick three, and make them the best. Well, you could, but there will be event battles that FORCES what kind of team you have for that fight. But, to make things easier, I made up this system. It calculates the total level of all of your characters combined, and then divides it by six. All characters who's level is below this amount, will serectly level up to the number. So now you don't have to burden yourself trainging everyone. Just your favorites!

**Jumping**
An nifty new feature I have is "Jumping". To do it, all you got to do is press . on the numpad. It'll make your character jump two spaces foward, landing on the second space. So you basically just jumped over one square. This is handy when in a fight, so you can get out if all the foes end up surrounding you, or you can jump behind some shelter while you wait for your heat bar to cool off. On the field, you may notice it's faster than walking, so you can get to places faster. Also, in some dungeons, I made "platforms" and you won't be able to walk across. So you can just have to simply "Jump" from platform to platform. Just remember that jumping anywhere will add to your heat, in battle or out, so always be watchfull.

**Horseback**
Talking about travel, in the story, once you obtain a horse, you're able to ride him! He's more than just a skiff vehicle that goes on land, when you ride him, it actually SHOWS your character riding him! It's so fun! Oh, and also, the more important fact of this is that riding a horse is faster than walking.

**Needs**
I dont' know if you guys can remember me asking this two years ago... but I ask about your thoughts on a system that makes you have to eat, drink, and sleep. You guys told me that it wouldn't be a good idea but... I did it anyway for fun! In my game, you have to eat food, drink drinks, and sleep! If you don't you die! (I'm thinking about changing it to a less severe punishment...) You got to eat by either going to a local resturant, cooking raw meat you got from hunting, or plain grocery shopping. To eat, you just have to go into your main menu, click on inventory, and select what item you want to eat. Your character will automatically eat it, filling up your hunger need. You can buy drinks, and so the same, or you can go to a well, and drink for free. And almost all towns have a well. As for Energy, you have to sleep at an Inn, Use a sleeping bag, or drink some tea (The caffine is enough to make you stay awake). With so many items that you can use on the go, you have to make sure that you buy all you need before you venture into caves and dungeons. If you're in the middle of a cave, and realize you're hungry, simply eat some food that you have packed in your inventory. If you didn't pack anything at all, then you got to go back to town. Anyway, let me tell you, MY NEEDS DO NOT GO DOWN THAT FAST! If you think about it, in an average day in my game, you lose about two percent of all needs. That's every four minutes. And take that times fifty, that's 200 minutes. So, you'll have to ignore your needs for three hours and twenty minutes to die of hunger. In fact the only way you could die is if you were actually trying to. I think it's too slow, but I can always change it later. The least I've ever seen my hunger go was to 70%.

**Banking**
A new thing that JP, the local merchant can do for you, is banking! You can only hold a maximum of 1000 kranas (money) on hand, but if you go over that amount that it will be sent directly to your bank. If you talk to JP, you can do bank operations, like depositing, or withdrawing money. Feel free to make up your own financial savings plan. What I do, is that every time, after I sell the furs I got from monsters, I deposit half to my bank, and I keep the other half for spendable money. Because I used a variable for money, instead of just making you hold it all, you can hold one diget more of kranas.

**Epitomes**
I renamed the "shield" slot of equipment, to "Epitome". As was said in the intro, Epitomes are stones that increase you, yet limit you. You can equip them in the Epitome slot. Another thing about Epitomes is that they can level up. Whenever you defeat a foe, you get 1 Xp for the Epitome that you have equiped. After attaining a certain amount of Xp, you may notice a message come up, saying "Scribe Epitome Level 1 has increased to Scribe Epitome Level 2" or whatever Epitome you have equiped. After an Epitome levels up, it'll increase your stats even higher, and at the same time, lower stats lower. (Except for the Hero Epitome, which increases all stats by a little bit.) After an Epitome is leveled to the max, Level 10, then you can sell it for lots of money, or hold on to it, to continue using it's power in battles.

**Blinking**
This really isn't a big deal... I don't even know if it's worthy of being mentioned, but... your character blinks while you stand around, and while you're moving on the field. I guess it makes them look more realistic a bit. (NPCs don't blink though...)

**Time**
Time goes on in my, having virtual hours and days. There are four phases of days, and five days in a week. The four phases are: Morning, day, afternoon, and night. The five days are: Flaremoon, Steelmoon, Treemoon, Rockmoon, and Wavemoon. Each phace takes about one real world minute to pass, so it's a total of four real minutes for a day to pass. Different services and stores will open and close at different times of day, except for some, like the Inn, which are open 24-7. On days like Flaremoon, everyone closes up their shop for the day, and they all go to church. It's like, their tradition. It can get kinda annoying at times, if you're in dire need of a merchant or something, but it makes think twice about time management.


**Demo Link**
Finally, without further ado, here's the link to download my game:
http://rapidshare.com/files/198852423/Arcane_Odyssey.rar.html

[Muraiko]

Alright! Screen shots time! Yay! I've been waiting for this!
(Yes, I know that my graphics are lame, but I can always do something about this later...)



Here is the basic battle screen. You can see that Manako is casting a fire spell!


Contracting the Grit disease is not a good thing. The whole screen will turn black, except for one small circle in the middle. Be away of what's around you!


Here's Phaeth using her powerful Napalm technique, it damages all foes on the battle field!


Davin is attempting to pick pocket a innocent bystandard. It's low, but it does help out finacially. (If you get caught, then everyone in your party loses one level, due to manual labor at the prison!)


Sophie checking out the party's bank account. (I cheated to get that much money. I made the money scale of kranas small, so you'd deal with more small numbers, unlike games like Final Fantasy, where you get 100 gil, but can't buy anything with it.)


Manako checking out the party's current needs.


Using a Gondola is a great way to get from continent to continent!


Sophie is healing vitality on the field. I forgot to mention before, that instead of making the continent of Arifall one huge overworld map, I made it be lots of small maps. What you see now, is one of the "less decorated" maps, but I can change that later. Anyway, with my wolrd like this, it makes Arifall seem alot more "vast" and "huge", and I'll have plenty of room anywhere to put secrets in.


Rellius unleashing one of his powerful battle skills!


Feel free to make a team of three from any of the characters. (Manako doesn't even HAVE to be in the team.)


Once you obtain a horse, he will be willing to travel the ends of the world for you!

[Moosetroop11]

Everything looks really cool.

I think the hunger thing is timed about right... Unless you're gonna have places to sleep in the dungeons.

[Fisherson]

Whoa looks cool,so when you gona make a demo?

[Muraiko]

People like it? Yay! The past two years of nonstop work did pay off!


Moosetroop11: Most of the dungeons don't have sleeping places, but that's okay, because you can buy sleeping bags, and tea on the go. If you're in the middle of a dungeon, and notice that you're getting sleepy, just simply go to a clear map with no enemies, and use it to restore your energy. (I also made it impossible to use sleeping bags in battle. I don't know why anyone would, but I blocked it off none the less.) So, basically, before you go out adventuring, you have to be smart, always restock on supplies. Simply forgetting could cost you dearly.

Fisherson: I have more than enough to make the first demo, but... this is my first time doing this stuff, so I'm gonna need help. So I gotta make a copy of my folder, compress it with winzip, right? How do I do that? Then I'm supplosed upload it to some site? Also, I have another question. Does that mean I need to delete everything past the demo on my game, or can I just block it off or something.

[Xecoa]

Dude! Major props to you! Great job, keep up the good work, I will deff be looking forward to a demo!

[RockJohnAxe]

Ya Looks pretty bomb. Im definately intrigued.

[Muraiko]

Thanks for all of the compliments guys!

I think I just found out how to put it up in a demo for you people to download, so I'm doing it right now! Please don't mind me about what I said before about needing help how to do it from my last post.

(I forgot to mention two other features on my game, Blinking and Time. I just wrote them down up in the intro now.)

[Muraiko]

Alright. I think I got it now. Here's the link to download my game:

**Sorry! I just removed the link, because I remembered a whole bunch of stuff that I need to get done on the demo first! I'll do that soon, and post the link back up as soon as possible!**

[Felix-0]

pretty cool
thnx for reviewing my game

[Uberpwn_w00t]

Whoa man. That looks pretty cool. Only thing bringing it down (by a tiny bit) is the graphics. I´m sure all the kick *** features make up for it though! (CBS, CMS, gondola, horse) xD

Definitely going to watch this one as it develops.

[Felix-0]

I need a link
your scrips would help add to my knowlege
( I feel like a blue mage!!)

[Muraiko]

Alright! Finally! I got it for real now! Sorry though, I had to take the link down before because I realized that I didn't finish the new "Combo" system that I started. So I thought that it would have been better to take it down now, and put it back up when it's updated, than to have people re-download it again. The whole "Combo" thing really isn't that big a deal though. I just made two different attack animations for each character, and you'll alternate between the two all the time during fights. I guess I just made it so you wouldn't get bored doing the same attack over and over again...

I know already that graphics arn't the best... but that's really no big deal, because graphics is something that can be changed later, so I'll just put it off for another day... again...

I don't mind, Felix, if you and other people review my scrips, to get ideas, and take notes. Just make sure you guys don't go around copying my scripts all together, and pasting it in your own games. (I know that you guys wouldn't do that... but you'll never know who's lurking around teh corners...) It wouldn't work anyway. I made all of my scripts from scratch myself, so I customized them all to fit my game, and prevent glitches from it interfereing with my other scrips. All of my features are related, and they all interact with each other in one way or another. Trying to pick off one feature by itself is really gonna make your brain hurt... and copying all of my featers isn't going to work either, because almost all of them are designed ONLY for MY characters, items, animations, switches, variables, and graphics. I didn't mean to point any fingers, I just thought it would be fair if I told to truth to discourage any would-be theives.


Anyways, that's enough of me talking! Here's the link to my game:

http://rapidshare.com/files/198852423/Arcane_Odyssey.rar.html


It's a really long demo that goes all the way from the Monu Tribe, where you start, and ends after you reach the town of Emoh. You'll also get a full team of three members before then. Personally, I think the begining is kinda boring, but later on, after you leave the tribe, and experience the freedom first hand, it'll get alot more interesting! Another thing about this demo, is that instead of abruptly ending it'll still continue on, allowing you to have fun training, doing sidequests, and plain looking for secrets. Also, as an extra, I made a secret building in Arifall somewhere where you can enter after you finish the demo. Going inside will automatically unlock ALL characters, and much more. Once you leave the building, you'll still have all characters in your party, so have fun playing around with them. Oh, and also help yourself to fighting the super hard, optional, almost impossible to win, boss fight with a character named Addaroth in the extra building. You might get something if you win...

Also, I'd really like it if you guys can tell me if the game runs smoothly on your computers. It goes as fast as can be on my laptop, but not really on this computer. If it is slow on yours too, please tell me, then I'll try to combine the common events or something, to make it go faster. I'd also like to know what you guys think of it! If ya liked it, or if you thought it was boring, and things I need to improve on (Like my maps of course...) I just gotta know!

[Fisherson]

I like the graphics myself i mean your face sets ain't so good but i love
the chara sets keep up the good work.

[blaman]

Seems pretty interesting. I'll have to keep my eyes on this. I can't play the demo right away, but I'll have to try it out first chance I get. Keep up the great work.