Running Blade [NaNoRenO 2016]

[Donmai]

What if you know you have dreams every night, but you can never remember what you dreamed of when you wake up? Would that make any difference to you? For Jay-Long, being unable to remember his dreams was his greatest torment.

After working for three years and four months (that means almost the entire life span of a normal android) on Mars, the android unit NeXT NGNAG17417 (also known as Jay-Long) returns to Earth in search of his maker, hoping she could put an end to his torment.

Only problem is that the presence of androids on Earth is against the law, which puts Jay-Long against the android hunters, a special police unit known as the Running Blades.

This is a fan game with a story set in the universe created by Philip K. Dick (in his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?") and revisited by Ridley Scott in his movie "Blade Runner".

Concept, story, graphics, scripting and music by Donmai
Additional music by Kevin MacLeod
English editing and proofreading by Renmiou
Beta testers: Alte, Renmiou and Uzumaki

I've failed to conclude this project in one month but, well... better late than never. It only took twice that time, wich isn't bad after all.

Download Running Blade for all desktop platforms:

Running_Blade-1.1-all.zip

(62.5 MiB) Downloaded 420 times

Android Version (Thanks to Godline):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... i.runningb

On line HTML5 Version (Thanks to DrSchizo):
http://sandbox-adventure.com/running-blade.html

[Renmiou]

I really loved this story, it retains all of the characteristics that make me wait for a new release from Donmai: it seems to me that the cast of characters he employs to act his stories are always different from what one usually gets to see in so many mainstream stories - particularly when it comes to age. Even when the characters are younger (like in Toire no Hanako), there's something of a particular kind of a timeless wisdom that transpires from their words that really appeals to me.

What I found particularly endearing in this story is how, once again, there's a love story that isn't just the popcorn-variety kind (though I have no problem with those, we all have our guilty pleasures!): I get the strong feeling that the two people love each other because they have a deeper connection based on a mutual understanding and acceptance of each other's flaws and will to help each other overcome problems that the other might find difficult. It's something that I can empathise with very strongly and does resemble "real" love so much more, in my opinion, than so many other stories that are ultimately mostly based on a physical attraction or just on the use of familiar character tropes. While, as I said, I don't have a problem with that, I still really appreciate being able to play something like this every now and then.

I was quite impressed to know that one person could produce the art, the music, the story and the programming: I even found myself dreaming with one of the tracks playing in my mind once! All of the tracks work really well with the atmosphere of the story, and the sound effects are placed very effectively and contribute to the atmosphere in a subtle way.

I actually also quite like the 3D art, even though I'm mainly into illustrations myself: all of the usual drawbacks of Daz/Poser art (bad shaders, black shadows, stiff poses, dead stares, etc.) are absent in this presentation. The illustrations have a distinct colour palette (a thing that is sometimes missing in 2D illustration art as well) with stark and cold blues and purples and only the occasional warmer colour, usually effectively used in those scenes where there's more of a familiar feeling.

I also thought I personally had the best possible route through the story completion: I ended up getting a bitter-sweet ending first (with a gorgeous illustration and direction!) and worked my way up to the best ending. It felt really rewarding and made me feel for the characters a lot.

I'm really glad I got to find about this one and now I'm waiting even more eagerly for Slumberland!

[Alte]

Whenever I hear fan game or fan fiction, I think of them as adaptation. That was a fun read regardless. Like the cinematic effects!

[Donmai]

Thanks for the comments (Renmiou almost made me blush).
Thanks to Godline and DrSchizo for the Android and HTML5 versions.
Thanks to the other 94 (so far) persons who silently downloaded my humble sci-fi adventure.

[DrSchizo]

You can now play online to Running Blade: http://sandbox-adventure.com/running-blade.html

The game is in full HTML5 so there is no need to download or install anything.
You have to register to save your game but not to play the game.

While in game, you can hit F1 to display a list of available shortcuts.

You can find more information about Sandbox Adventure Engine on this thread.

Enjoy this great game!