Ill-Fated [Post Apocalyptic - Survival - RPG]

[damion]

Hello one and all,

This is an idea that has been kicked around in my head since I started planning to develop and publish games a few years back. This is the second game that I am working on, my first is a puzzle game that is in testing and refining before being released later this year.

The story revolves around the player character surviving in a post apocalyptic world. The locations are going to be generic so that despite using real locations for the creation of the game area, each player will be able to relate to the locations as somewhere they may know or know of. Whilst the game is very much in the vein of a visual novel, the graphic content is less akin to the manga-esque style that is clearly popular in this game genre, and more akin to a real-world experience.

The game is being developed on the Ren'Py engine (for which I am very grateful). There will be a wide range of components, such a location specific items, a world wide 'finite' inventory, character inventory, character statistic which will be extendible through training and research, combat, character interactions, and NPCs who retain an impression of you and a memory of their encounters.

When the game is released, it will be open sourced, and all of the code objects will be made easily available with documentation.

Whilst the general aspect of the story is completed, there are a number of finer points which are still to be committed to screen. So this is very much at the stage of leaving being idea and officially being in progress. I welcome people's comments and critique as the game development progresses. I am also always on the look out for artists, sound people and coders. I am certainly expecting to contract out some of the work on this project, and will be contracting out more work on my future projects (Primarily, releases will be targeted at Android, though I would like to distribute many, if not all of my publications on the GNU/Linux platform. I am considering releases for Windows.)

For now, I thought I'd show you an early trailer for the game - this is the introduction sequence, complete with the in-game music. (But there are no prizes for spotting the spelling error and the grammar error in the text... This has already been corrected ) The file is hosted on my MEGA.co.nz account because of its size - I didn't think admin would appreciate an 18mb upload, and I don't have time tonight to put it on YouTube.

https://mega.co.nz/#!0N9W1K7J!6Ko0q2ZCP ... OmgYzo2Yp0

[Hazel-Bun]

I watched the little promo video and thought it was very interesting ^^ The only critique I could offer this early on in the stage, is that the intro (if this is the intro you'll see in game) is a little to heavy-handed in delivery. All the information you're given feels overwhelming in regards to survival. Maybe integrating the history as a flashback or and, connect it some how to a thrilling aspect of survival in the word (say you recover an actual, bound book, with notes from the author about it), would make it more impacting? Otherwise, I look forward to updates!

[Banavolf]

I'm looking forward to seeing your progress on this, it's something I'd like to play. I have to disagree with Hazel-Bun about the intro having too much information. However, I do agree that the delivery could be better in a different way, having an intro of paragraphs of text is better suited to a novel than a game.

Maybe start the game off with an NPC telling the player, or the other way around, depending on the age of the player, about the history of the apocalypse. Having it flow as a conversation could make it seem less heavy (and it'd also fit the setting, with society collapsing oral history would make a comeback). You could allow for the player to choose what questions to ask - which would let a player get extra information that would seem boring to others, or allow someone who's on a second playthrough to skip through it. It's something you see a lot in various games, where you get the "What's going on?" "I already know." type dialogue choices at the beginning.

That aside, I could potentially be of service on the art side of things. If you're still looking for artists, send me a PM with a few things I can draw (I don't have a portfolio with regards to realism, as most of my work is in manga styles, but it's something I can do regardless), and maybe some examples of what kind of style you're going for, or some art from the game itself.