Please note this post will be updated with all major changes in the game and will be noted in the last post at the time of update.


Title: Blue Sphere (very much a temp. name)

System: RM1

Features: Multiple difficulty settings, Unique leveling system, No random battles, Random dungeon layouts, Set number of Lives, Branching story

Story: (in the works)

Characters: An as of yet unnamed hero (you) and off and on help. Whether any party members become permanent is up to how you interact with them. They can leave at any point in the story if you rub them the wrong way, or you die. Some will rejoin. Others won't.

World: (incomplete)

Gameplay: Dungeon crawler with floors chosen at 'random'. No random battles, most battles are optional.
-note- The dungeons are all actually all the same dungeon. The only thing that changes is your 'start point' and end cap in the dungeon. As the dungeon floors and even the rooms change every time you reenter, the player will not even notice. The only dungeons that are truly different are the themed dungeons and optional dungeons for obvious reasons.

Difficulty: Three settings available. Main changes include the number of starting bodies available, max floor caps, max character stats cap, available party members, and number of available classes.

Advancing the story: One obvious method would be to follow the linear path through the dungeons, but that will only get you so far. There will be times where you can no longer advance the story by yourself. You will need to enlist the help of the towns folk. You must converse with the locals and win their favor (or not) in order to gain access to different locations, items, classes, and a few bonus things you must find yourself. But whose help you get and the kind of help you receive will be up to you and your interactions with the inhabitants of the world. You can choose to an extent which quest to embark on. Though by accepting a quest (many times unwittingly) you may not be able to go back and take on another. There will be multiple paths that intertwine thoughout.

Building characters: There are no traditional levels. Instead you must go through the dungeons as far as you can, accumulating an experience currency. When you you die (and you will) you go to the afterlife where you choose a new body, with a new class, and spend your exp on that new body before reaquainting yourself with the living. But be cautious in your travels, you only have a set amount of bodies.

Sidequests: A ranking system based on the number of enemies defeated that will grant access to new content. Build your own town much like DW7. Optional party members. Item creation at some smith shops. Body harvesting, you game over when you run out!

Development team: in5ult080t, dyne

Progress: Slow. Many of the concepts have been fleshed out and tested. But everything is still being stitched together.

Some interesting ideas here.

Randomly chosen dungeon floors sounds kind of cool. You'll never know what to expect.

The choose a new body idea seems kind of strange because you'll never really build up one person. You'll have to keep rebuilding new people's exp. Am I understanding that right?

Almost. What happens is you just choose the graphic and then that event is turned off. Then, depending on the graphic you choose, your class changes along with your SAtk's. But the whole point is to be different and only allow character building in intervals. You really have to stratagize what class to choose next because your SAtk's increase as you go through the game. You may get to the end and find you are all out of Mages and a boss can only be defeated with magic. But there are ways to 'enlist' new bodies.
It just adds a new dimension to what I hope will be a fun gaming experience.

Just got about 60 items made. Mostly for differing degrees of healing and character growth. Also weapons to accomidate the element system. Started on a few of the optional party members but they need more refinement in order to stand out on their own. Finished three floors each of which consists of rooms that are chosen based on probability. The room choices do stay intact so if you walk back into a room you just came out of you may return to it. Getting that to work took a bit of time. Then when you find the stairs the process starts over.
Hoping to get the characters stats done tomarrow morning and maybe test the battles on the floors I have finished.
I only have about fifteen enemies but all stats are needing retooled at the end. I just need to make sure the events are set up correctly.

I just thought of something.
If I use switches as though they each represented a unique value, then by using set combinations of three at a time, I can have 1000 conditions taking up only 27 switches.
ALL OFF = 0
1=1, 2=2, 3=3, ..., 9=9
10=10, 11=20, 12=30, ..., 18=90
19=100, 20=200, 21=300, ..., 27=900

OR

I could use binary and have only five variables giving 32 possible combinations and just change the set of switches to every time I need another 32.

Of course both of these methods only allow for counting which is fine for linear paths, freeing up more event specific switches for reoccuring events or non-linear paths.
Perfect record keeping is an absolute must.



//////// also- Is it ok to double post in my dev thread?

Having lots of items is always fun. 60 so far. Nice.
I love that in RPG Maker 1 you can have countless items in your inventory.

Yeah, careful record-keeping is a definite must. Having a notebook for your switches can be really helpful.

How involved is Dyne is the project?

(about double-posting- most people prefer when people edit their posts, especially when the posts are on the same day.)

I have done all the actual work so far. Dyne is a semi recent addition to the project. He does what he can but has limited RM knowledge as he only recently acquired RM1 (which was my second copy til now). Its kinda like he is in training.

Dyne also wants to switch gears and do a more traditional game. But I am holding firm on the dungeon crawler and the traditional game is like a side project that is only in the initial stages of developement. It has some world history and records of wars of the past be it godly or earthly and even the prologue. Granted every thing is still in the air on the traditional game but it pales in my eyes next to the on topic game.

::edit::

Different difficulties added to first post
Named game; cleared up a few things through out

::edit:: 4-11-07
Yesterday, I started to map out in my notes the floor layout possiblities I have made up to this point as far as which room can lead to which other room. I found that a few of the results would not make sense in the way that if you travel certain paths, you end up essentually standing in the same spot but in different rooms. So I will work on making the layouts more realistic over the next few days and test them out on the weekend.
Also working on making the intro/tutorial, the motivation of the main character and trying to come up with a way to convey a character who is periodically reserected as a new person while still having the same personality. So far I have some of the backstory for the main character but it will be revealed to the player through a series of flashbacks throughout the first quarter of the game. The only problem is the backstory is close to forcing revenge as the motivation and I want there to be more than that.
I put creating the other party members on hold until I find where I want them to be in the story and I will set their attributes accordingly. And then there's the whole conflicting logic that the party members can die in battle and thats fine, but if the party is eliminated then the main character dies. Well, I guess it could be justified that the individual party member was defeated but not killed and the other members can take care of the injured.... Yeah lets go with that.
I also need to decide if I really need the elemental system and if so what to name them. This isn't necissary but it may help the overall feel of the game. Then again it might not. I just need to get a little farther with the game before I can decide.