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Space Age

iblamevictoria

Towns Guard
Oh hey.

I'm making a game called Space Age. It's a game that I've been working a lot on, and though I have a long way to go until it's at a quality I would be happy with I'm still chugging along. Think of this as a prototype! I hope you like what I have to show.








Space Age puts you in control of a little boy named Coda. He's a nice enough kid, but certain circumstances put him in a rough situation. The world is ending. Or people think it is. Strange grey creatures have been popping up around the place, all different shapes and sizes. They seem peaceful enough, but the adults have reason to believe that they won't stay that way. Along with the grey things, something seems off with people in general. Some people don't seem like they really belong. And to make things a little bit worse; one day his father up and leaves him without a word of warning. The only thing his father leaves behind is a bus ticket and a note telling him to hitch a ride to Coda's Aunt's house, who he's never met. Coda isn't very happy with THAT solution, and runs away to find his father instead.

That's where our story begins.

The world is ending, and all Coda cares about is finding his dad.

Coda:

Coda is the main character of the game. He's well-meaning and independent, but is a child and is inexperienced. The world of Space Age is just as unfamiliar to him as it is to the player. As the player you will travel the land as him, learning new fighting styles and searching for his father, Geoffrey, who abandoned him not too long ago for a reason that he would not say.


Lil:

Lil is the little sister to El Pollo, the notorious gangster. She's equipped with a bb gun and an itchy trigger finger. She's one of the first party members that Coda is able to pick up, and has a "quest" that lasts for a large part of the game.


Geoffrey:

Geoffrey is Coda's father. He abandoned Coda without saying a word one night, leaving only a note and a bus ticket. His motivations are mysterious and his timing is horrendous. For a little while the end of the world has been inevitable and it seems like it's all coming to fruition now.

Space Age will be originally scored by ME. Would you have guessed it? I've been making music casually for a year or two, and finally think it's of the quality that I want for the game.






I hope you like what you hear.

-No more grinding off of random encounters. Seriously. It's something that bogs down tons of games. Every encounter is unique. You'll never encounter the same fight twice and every fight will mark progress within narrative and/or objectives, not just through EXP progress. This is a high priority within the project.

-Lots of party members to make friends with! (Around 20 have been planned out and about 10 have been balenced properly.)

-A battle system that DOESN'T rely on hair-pulling RNG!

-A man named "Bad Eric"! (Spooky!)

-A nice blend of comedy, thrills, and some horror-themes!

-Original venues all across a modern fantasy world:
The Forest: Wow I hate when forests are the first levels of games. So I also did this. THIS one is meant to be pretty original. Once this area was a vibrant downtown city, but now it's been reabsorbed by an unnatural force of nature. What a fun oxymoron!

The Town: The town is weird. Everyone smiles. Everyone pays attention to you. If you didn't know better then you'd probably say that there was something fishy going on. They did try to give you a house after all. For free. Upon entrance. A free house to a child who they don't know.

The Mansion: A mansion on a snow-capped hill with a single resident. Who is she? And what's going on with the noises in the attic? This area focuses on puzzles and exploration in an interesting setting.

The Port: A port city with an Asian flavor. Something's up with the local gang, and you intend to find out. You'll explore a beautiful city in an attempt to stop a bad thing from happening to all of the residents, one by one. This area takes time into effect, using sleep as a valuable resource, but also as a harsh penalty.

AND MANY MORE.

About three more actually.

-Lore that doesn't shove itself down your throat in 10 minute long intro cut scenes!

-A currency system that isn't cumbersome and inflated! Managing money is it's own challenge!

-Choices that have real consequences on how your character, or fellow party members, look and play!

-Lil personal quests for some party members!

-SPOOKY EMOTIONAL TRAUMA.

HERE'S A LINK TO THE DEMO: https://rpgmaker.net/games/9693/

Any feedback or further questions? I'd love to answer them! Just reply to this thread and I'll try to get to any that I receive.

Thanks for checking my game out.


[note: I know spritework is pretty messy. The character sprites are about the quality I want them at, but the environment is just prototype work. I'd still love feedback on my sprites.
 
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DolorIpsum

Villager
Xy$
0.00
Interesting project, kinda reminds me of Lisa. Was the Lisa series an inspiration for you at one point or another? I like the look of your simplistic graphics. Good luck with your project!
 

iblamevictoria

Towns Guard
Interesting project, kinda reminds me of Lisa. Was the Lisa series an inspiration for you at one point or another? I like the look of your simplistic graphics. Good luck with your project!
I played through all of the LISA games, and like them. The inspiration I took from it was mostly the potential it showed me that RPG Maker had. It's also an incredibly unique series of games with a ROCKIN soundtrack. The setting of both games is similarly dire I think, but I don't want to retread any ground that the LISA series has already covered. I wouldn't be happy with that. I want my game to be about exploring and growing up in a very unfamiliar world.

My biggest inspiration though, were the games I grew up playing. The Paper Mario games especially. But light-hearted RPG's in general. They don't really inform how the game is designed, but definitely do inspire the mood and how I go about writing for the game. I like games with a good blend of story and interesting game mechanics.
 
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Harmless

Towns Guard
Yo! This looks dope! The art style has mucho personality and it kinda feels like a less weird Earthbound. (Music is pretty good too.) When is the prototype planned for release?
 

iblamevictoria

Towns Guard
Yo! This looks dope! The art style has mucho personality and it kinda feels like a less weird Earthbound. (Music is pretty good too.) When is the prototype planned for release?
I would absolutely LOVE to release it by Christmas, but I'm currently moving homes, so that may be over optimistic. Look for it around early January!
 

Demonboy75

Towns Guard
This looks pretty cool. Your compositions remind me of LISA (as a commenter before me already stated), and this unique art style is simplistic yet charming. Keep up the good work; I hope to play this whenever it will be available.

Out of curiosity, are you planning to publish this game to Steam or some other such distributor so you can profit off of it, or will this be a freeware title?
 

iblamevictoria

Towns Guard
Out of curiosity, are you planning to publish this game to Steam or some other such distributor so you can profit off of it, or will this be a freeware title?
Well that's something I've been thinking a lot about, and would actually appreciate opinions on it. Publishing on Steam and charging something like 5-10 dollars sounds great considering the amount of work I will be putting into it (I'm doing the game all by myself, in free time), but I also understand that that could be bad for "getting it out there" considering this will be my first published work. I also see something like Kickstarter as a possible option at some point just to up production quality, get my game's name out there, and to insure I'm able to afford everything that comes with creating a game by myself. But I also see how people could be skeptical of it and how they could see it as a cash grab. I wouldn't wanna be known for that. So it's very complicated I think.

Anyways, I'd like to profit a small amount of money from the game, but I can see how that's not viable (even if I'd like to have a standard of quality equatible to commercial games no matter what.)

I'd like to know what other people think on the subject.

And thanks for the comparison to the Lisa soundtrack. It's one of my favorites out there.
 

Demonboy75

Towns Guard
Well that's something I've been thinking a lot about, and would actually appreciate opinions on it. Publishing on Steam and charging something like 5-10 dollars sounds great considering the amount of work I will be putting into it (I'm doing the game all by myself, in free time), but I also understand that that could be bad for "getting it out there" considering this will be my first published work. I also see something like Kickstarter as a possible option at some point just to up production quality, get my game's name out there, and to insure I'm able to afford everything that comes with creating a game by myself. But I also see how people could be skeptical of it and how they could see it as a cash grab. I wouldn't wanna be known for that. So it's very complicated I think.

Anyways, I'd like to profit a small amount of money from the game, but I can see how that's not viable (even if I'd like to have a standard of quality equatible to commercial games no matter what.)

I'd like to know what other people think on the subject.

And thanks for the comparison to the Lisa soundtrack. It's one of my favorites out there.
I would suggest doing a Kickstarter for it. I don't know too much about the process of releasing games--I have yet to complete a full game myself, but I'm working on it--but I think that if you put enough quality work out there people will want to pay you so you can do more of it. From what I have heard, Steam is hard to get onto, and especially so due to the flurry of RM games on the platform already that have good assets but suffer from horrible grammar errors and incredibly basic combat (Thank God for Yanfly, am I right?).
From what I am to understand, LISA actually was put on Steam after appraisal by fans, so at the very least you could start with Kickstarter and maybe port the game to Steam if (optimistically, when) it gets popular enough. Take my opinion with a grain of salt, though; as I stated before, I haven't released a game yet, so I'm no professional.

Once again, good luck. It inspires me to see other people in a somewhat similar situation to me, and I love chatting about game design--you have quite a bit more groundwork done than I do, though.

As a side note, LISA's soundtrack is great, but very specific to its own narrative in some cases, in my opinion. For example, a few of the tracks from the OST seem a little bit too hectic to be used in anything other than the zany game that is LISA, particularly the track during the fight with
the apparition of Sticky induced by a forced drug trip, courtesy of Bernard (Buzzo),
entitled "I Am Satan." You can find it under that name on YouTube if you need to listen to it again to understand what I'm talking about.
 

iblamevictoria

Towns Guard
Didn't even get to fight Satan on my first time around. Only found out about it months later when I was listening to the soundtrack and saw his theme, which is never heard in the game before.

I don't know how the creator of LISA made his music but I usually make mine at the same time as I make the game. It usually goes: design an area that's previously been planned out on paper (so all the puzzles and how it fits in to the world and pacing are all done beforehand), design any fights and give them placeholder music (so I can test the fight and make sure it's balanced before going to in depth with theme songs), and then create exclusive music for them soon after. I usually base music I make just on the vibe I get from the character I created for the player to fight. So some pretty crazy and fun tracks get made.
 

Cunechan

∠( ᐛ 」∠)_
There's someone named Kevin I need to play it *^* good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing it. I mean there's space in the title and there'll be spooky emotional drama (also respect for the graphics man).
 

iblamevictoria

Towns Guard
Good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing it. I mean there's space in the title and there'll be spooky emotional drama (also respect for the graphics man).
Hey thanks. I've been busy with moving houses and commitments to another SUPER SECRET project, but I've recently gotten back on track to working on the demo. It's pretty close to done so look out for it! Unfortunately Kevin is NO LONGER a party member in the demo. He's for a bit further into the game. But don't worry. He's still super rad, and his theme is doubly so.
[doublepost=1492396421,1490292776][/doublepost]WELL THE WAIT IS OVER. The demo for Space Age is done. Some bits are a little rough around the edges but it's done and I've been getting great feedback. Here's the synopsis and links (I'll be adding a separate thread for this as well):
=============================================================


Space Age
follows a little boy named Coda as he journey's across the world in search for his dad, who left him home alone a few days previous with no intention of coming back. His wonder will take him all over a withering world on the brink of apocalypse, fighting monsters and solving mysteries. Every discovery will help him grow up and mature to match the dangerous world around him.

The demo lets the player experience half of the first "world" of the game. It takes about an hour to complete, but has three paths through the game, each with their own story and bosses.

=============================================================

ITCH.IO LINK: https://iblamevictoria.itch.io/space-age

RPGMAKER.NET LINK: https://rpgmaker.net/games/9693/


=============================================================

FEATURES:

-No reused enemies. Every fight is a boss fight. You will always be able to infer story and character from every fight!

-NO GRINDING. Like I said. Every battle is scripted, and so annoying grinding is totally circumvented.

-Exploration all over the place! If you get stuck then just walk around and try to find new paths through the world.

===========================================
Inspired by games like Paper Mario: tTYD, LISA the Painful RPG, Mother 3, and the later Dragon Quest games, but with it's own definable unique style! Enjoy an original world to explore.
[doublepost=1493419124][/doublepost]If you're interested in my demo and enjoy it's original music then you can pick up the OST for free! Here's a link to the album:


It's not for free use (you can't use it in your game) but feel free to share it or whatever you'd like!
 
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