This is a game I've been working on for quite a while (almost a year). I'm hoping to have a preview build up and running in about a week. (To people from the pav: this is nothing new. You probably have seen this already).

Title: The God Gene, or "Genetically Engineered Super-humans and You: You May Already Be Obsolete"
Platform: RPG Maker 3
Genre: Sci-Fi/Supernatural/Dark Comedy
Suitable For: ages 17+
Release Date: Winter 2007/2008

Story: A somewhat inconsequential sort of tale,
told from the mind of a 25th century asylum resident
(who would like you to know that he isn't crazy, but soon will be),
about how he saw spirits, battled government conspiracies, and might have accidentally killed God.

"There ain't no shortage of fecal matter or rotating blades in this world."

Gameplay: The God Gene features a groundbreaking new dynamic battle system that ensures players never grow bored of enemy encounters. Enemies will constantly change their tactics, forcing players to do the same. Players and enemies will swap blows, both building momentum to the battle and increasing their MP stores to unleash powerful special attacks! Will you unleash stored energy now to power your attack? Or will you risk further harm to build energy for that massive finishing blow?

Battles that are actually fast and fluid. Yes, it is possible to do on RPGM3. I will prove it.

Think you've won? Think again! Boss encounters often find a second or even a third wind, dramatically altering the conditions of the fight as the do so!

The God Gene features NO RANDOM BATTLES! And on top of that, relatively fewer battles. Lead man Ivan isn't concerned with random minions throwing themselves at him to get cut down--almost every fight is a boss fight.

Trigger Commands! Enemies can turn the tables on you in the blink of an eye--fortunately so can you. In certain battles, you can use trigger commands to turn the tide! [Edit:] Often times, Trigger Commands will take the form of a fourth party member on your side of the battlefield. He'll generally have 0 attack power and only 1 Magic Skill. That one skill will be a specially designed ability usable only in that situation. Say a boss has such a high Defense Power that you can't touch him. Using the Trigger Charge skill on that character's turn, you will charge his MP gauge by 1 point every turn (Trigger Commands generally only cost about 5 points) and then unleash an attack that blasts the foe's Def down to 0, opening him up for the hurt. There are more applications for this feature, but I want the players to discover those.

Original Elemental System. Yes, Fire attacks are strong against Water foes, Water attacks are strong VS Fire enemies--nothing new here. Until of course you take into account enviromental effects on players. An earth-type character does well in a dark, rocky cave; but send him to the airy high-top of a large tower and he may not fight as well as he normally would.

In addition, characters' elemental alignments also effect each other as well. Having an earth and wind character in the party means stat reductions for both of them, but having an earth and fire character in the same party will augment each other's stats.

Unique, fully customizable characters! You control their development. After battle, spend your hard-earned skill points to upgrade your characters. The characters' skill sets even change to reflect their stats (i.e.: a character who has more S.P. put into their Physical Attack will learn more melee-type moves).

Summoned Creatures! Summon one of six available summoned creatures to aid in combat. These creatures, though slow, are powerful and they're magics cost no MP. They also come with a "Spirit Power" technique which is akin to FFX's Aeon overdrives. You can obtain Spirit energy (their MP gauge) by attacking physically, gaining it every few turns automatically, or by using the "Spirit Charge" ability which fills it by 10% at the cost of HP. (Please note that summoned characters will be disabled in fights that involve trigger commands).

UnrealQuest! A unique sidequest that simulates an MMORPG


Steel yourself for a most interesting adventure through reality and beyond. But be warned: If you fail in your quest...nobody will give a damn anyway.[/i]

I'm still really looking forward to this. Please get the preview out ASAP!

How long will the preview be (time wise) and what percentage of the game will it cover?

I've heard of this on the Pav, and am curious to see how it works. Is there a demo out? Is it coming this winter or next winter?

The preview will be about an hour to an hour and a half. I cannot say the exact percentage, but it covers the entirety (more or less) of the game's second scenario--the game is split up in scenarios, btw. Overall, the full game will be fairly short. I've remedied this by including some optional dungeons in the form of Unreal Quest.

I do, however, regret to inform that, due to certain issues I won't bore you with, Summoned Creatures won't be sampled in the demo/preview build. It just seems like too much of a hassle to include something that won't be available at that point in the full game, and it will mess up the coding I did for summoning them in the actual stages they are available.



This winter to be sure. Sometime in the next week there will be a preview build submitted to the Mag. Then, I'll do a bit of tweaking (possibly adding Summoned Creatures in if I can get the aformentioned issues straightened out) and then I'll release a demo.

Sigh...

As per usual with me (my life is hell) I will have to change that "this week" preview build completion date to "eventually". I still want to make that winter release date for the full game though.

That's all right. Take your time and make it right.

So, in this thread you talked a lot about the battles.

Tell me more about the sci-fi atmosphere and the dark humor. That's what I'm most interested in (especially with the rpgm3 engine)!

Well, I used quite a bit of objects to create my sci-fi world. Cramming a number of object together (this took a lot of time and trial-and-error) to make things such as: Computers, Spacecraft, Futuristic buildings, and cool glowy thingies wherever appropriate (and some places where they're not).

Proper ambience and weather/sky effects are equally important. Aurora+Nighttime makes a good "outer-space" look. I used more ambient sounds than actual music in my game. The music only appears in specific moments/battles where it is appropriate to have the appropriate piece.

For instance: The battle scene at the beginning of the game (this is the part that the demo covers) I used the Nighttime effect, plus Dense fog to create a war zone (plus, Its in a field, so I was able to make the ground look all bombed-out). The searchlights of enemy warcraft shine down from above. Getting to close to these alerts soldiers to your presence, in which case, you will have to fight.

During this scenario, the "thunder" effect is heard, but without the accompanying thunderstorm weather effect. This creates a rather convincing sound of bombs, explosions, and overall chaos.

The overall experience results in, in the words of my bro: "Some Silent Hill ****". Thanks bro, I'll take it...I think.

Think of the game being a cross between Xenogears, Apocalypse Now, Silent Hill, and Dr. Strangelove.

The weird, overly convoluted design of the game's tech (something inspired by the movie "Brazil", another future dark comedy) is meant to mean something which I'm sure won't be too hard to figure out.

The game's dark humor came, initially, by accident. I wonder if Kurt Vonnegut ever just intended to make a serious novel about the world and its cruel stipulations, only to realize that, in a sick way, it was all rather funny. That's how this game came to be a dark comedy.

Most of the games humor comes from the absolutely "Marie-Antoinette-esque" cluelessness about the world for the common man that the "higher-ups" in this world exemplify. Just about every event and situation in The God Gene has a real life parallel. It is, after all, mainly a critique on our post-modernist culture.

You will laugh (mostly out of self-defense) because if you don't, you'll cry. You will cry, because if you don't, you'll laugh.