Smith-Lords of the Grey Mountain (VN/Sandbox RPG experiment)

[Argeus_the_Paladin]

Magical Girl: Smith-Lords of the Grey Mountain

Ver. 0.01a Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?vsej7j1zetzc1xw

I/ What is SLotGM?

Magical Girl: Smith-Lords of the Grey Mountain is an experimental RPG idea I have been entertaining and working on over the past month. The goal of this project is multiple: To acquaint myself more with the engine, to learn more about advanced functions and definitions, to create a character-based visual novel where you can quite literally design your main character's personality, to fulfill my childhood dream of creating a complex item crafting and trading system and, last but not least, to cram as many shout-outs as I humanly can into a visual novel script.

II/ Current features:

Since I am no artist and probably am not going to find any for a long, long time, my work is currently devoid of all art and music (or romance, for that matter, but that is neither here nor there). I make up for that by a number of features:

- A detailed, complex crafting system inspired heavily by Wurm Online, Rune Factory and TES V:Skyrim.
- Over 100 items (at the moment)
- Over 200 recipes (also at the moment)
- A functional inventory and trading system.
- A basic turn-based combat system. Alas, without any animation.
- A character creation system fully integrated into the narrative.
- A system of traits and perks gained from gameplay and impact on the player character in significant manners.
- A macro "dungeon crawl" system where loot, enemy encountered and ores mined are calculated randomly based on character level and dungeon type.
- Tons and tons of shout-outs and references, including but not limited to: The Elder Scrolls, Mount and Blade, Dungeons of Dredmor, Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, Dungeons and Dragon, Warhammer, Penny Arcade, Recettear, Clannad, Kanon, K-On, Lucky Star, Hidamari Sketch, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and actual research on the history of metallurgy and Anglo-Saxon culture and language. Can you find them all?

The demo version, unfortunately, can't showcase all of these features owing to narrative reasons. Furthermore, a number of these features are still under heavy playtesting and cannot be included just yet.

III/ Story:

You are Natsuki (First name changeable) Tsurumiya, a 17-year-old girl who had had a most interesting life. When you were 16, you achieved what many other girls consider a dream - to become a magical girl and defend the world against an encroaching shadow from beyond.

Unfortunately, you failed.

You were sent into a time-space rift, destined to float around in the darkness for all eternity. Fortunately, you ran across a mysterious 'Scryer', who convinced you that all is not lost, that your talent can be of use elsewhere. She opened a portal for you, leading into an alternative dimension and told you to make your fortune there in order to alter your fate.

This world is currently being torn apart in a bitter war between two ex-allies, the Kingdom of Gunther and the Kingdom of Aorl. Traveling and business is dangerous for those unaligned with either faction. You land on top of the Grey Ridge, a massive mountain spire littered with ore and game of both docile and dangerous variant. The only other contact you have is an arrogant dwarf, Buji Shale-Sleight, a so-called Smith-Lord of the North. The dwarf agrees to let you stay in his establishment - a rather well-fortified metal shop, on one condition: You work for him as an assistant hammer/mining hand.

From this humble beginning, you are to impress either the Elder Council and knighthood orders of Gunther or the Brytenwalda of Aorl, forge a name for yourself, discover the secrets of the Smith-Lords of the North, and return to Earth to vanquish the evil you have failed to before, armed with dwarven fire and sword.

IV/ Notes:

- For version 0.01, do not pick any forging option other than "Copper". This is because all other materials lead to empty labels. Until the item system is stable, I will concentrate solely on copper items.
- This demo version is not (yet) meant to be a showcase of all available features.
- Depending on your character creation choice, dialogue will be slightly different. Can you spot all the differences?

V/ "I want to help!"

I always need more artists, both for background, sprites and GUI. If you like the premise, like the gameplay, like the direction I want this project to head to and wish to volunteer, I'd gladly welcome you aboard.

[ThisIsNoName]

Well, I just went through the demo (I think... more on that later), and honestly, I skipped through about half of the story, since I was more interested in gameplay, so that's what I'll focus on.

Positives:
- I like how the player can define the character's past. It reminds me of the opening sequences of Oblivion and Fallout.
- I think I like how the item crafting is structured.

Negatives:
This is the hard part, since I don't know what's finished and what's not. I honestly wasn't sure what to do past making the copper knife. It's also a bit hard to get a good idea of the feeling of the game without any art or visuals. Could you maybe make a sort of "walkthrough" to give us an idea of which parts of the game you want us to focus on?

One thing I can say is that it feels like the main character and story clash with the setting and game mechanics. This is probably because I glossed over the story, but it feels awkward to have such an Eastern character type in such a Western setting.

Overall, I'm very excited for this game. Item crafting is one of my favorite RPG elements, and one that is all too often ignored.

[lemuel]

There is nothing wrong with an Eastern character in a western setting. After all, both "eastern region" and "western region" are artificial concepts

[Argeus_the_Paladin]

Well, I just went through the demo (I think... more on that later), and honestly, I skipped through about half of the story, since I was more interested in gameplay, so that's what I'll focus on.

Positives:
- I like how the player can define the character's past. It reminds me of the opening sequences of Oblivion and Fallout.

That whole system was actually taken from Mount and Blade, but I see what you mean.

I honestly wasn't sure what to do past making the copper knife. It's also a bit hard to get a good idea of the feeling of the game without any art or visuals. Could you maybe make a sort of "walkthrough" to give us an idea of which parts of the game you want us to focus on?

That is a very unfortunate side effect of having no artist, be it for UI, backgrounds or items.

A very basic walkthrough is that Buji will have you make three items. First a copper *small blade* (You'll need some wooden handles or shafts before you can turn those into daggers/spears), then a set of *copper chains*, both from one ingot each. And finally he'll have you smelt an ingot from a bit of *copper ore*. I have to admit that I rushed that part owing to loss of patience at that point (Imagine 6000 lines of code, mostly all of which used to declare item variables, set up formulae and the likes... Yeah.) so it did not make the most sense.

Here's hoping that in the next release, when I have nailed down the combat system and a dungeon delving system, there will be more content to fiddle with

One thing I can say is that it feels like the main character and story clash with the setting and game mechanics. This is probably because I glossed over the story, but it feels awkward to have such an Eastern character type in such a Western setting.

That's my greatest idiosyncrasy as a writer. I like to put together characters and settings that, at first sight, seemed to clash horribly and see what happens. Among my portfolio of fanfiction back when I still was into it, there was one crossover between Vocaloid and Rome Total War, one between School Days and The Elder Scrolls, and one between... *deep breath* Code Geass and Twilight. Another internet RP I (tried to) host saw the literal Roman legions invading an idyllic snow-and-high-school typical Key Visual setting. And let's not talk about my serious novel project (*cough*Byzantine vampires*cough*Nasuverse-esque setting*cough*). At the very least, I daresay I have a lot of experience in dealing with that, for better or worse.

Compared to any of that, I daresay this one is pretty tame

Overall, I'm very excited for this game. Item crafting is one of my favorite RPG elements, and one that is all too often ignored.

Thanks!

EDIT: At the moment, I'm producing my own artworks for this game.

Title screen draft:



Since I'm a writer by trade, not an artist, progress is incredibly slow and the quality is definitely at the lower end. But as placeholders I hope they will work.

[briannavon]

Will there be romance in this game? It does not really matter because it seems like a great game with or without romance.

[Argeus_the_Paladin]

My writing philosophy is to never, ever include anything remotely romantic into any work I do. This one is no exception, I'm afraid.

[Argeus_the_Paladin]

Progress update:

- Inventory and equipment system is currently working like a charm. Everything is text-based, yes, but for the inventory screen that generates a kind of early Final Fantasy feel, if I have to say so myself.
- Preliminary tests on the combat system are positive. Once I come up with a general framework to conduct random battles, that system is going to stay in place until I have some artists, in which case the whole thing might need to be rewritten to make way for GUI.
- Now the ore gathering system is the one I'm having some problems with.

Ideally, the framework is as such: A mine floor has a few vital statistics, the three most important being Wealth - how much ore it has, Danger - how likely it is for the player to be involved in accidents of varying severity, and Infestation - how many and how strong monsters in the level are. The player, upon entering a mine, can take a few actions:

[*] Mining, good old default digging metal from the earth.
[*] Prospecting, which increases Wealth up to a certain ceiling.
[*] Reinforcing, which reduces Danger down to a certain floor.
[*] Exterminate, which triggers a random battle. If won, Danger will be reduced down to a certain floor.
[*] Tunneling, which attempts to dig down to a lower level. While this is being done, chance of encountering an accident is drastically increased.
[*] Adventuring, which attempts to seek an existing exit to a lower level. While this is being done, chance of encountering hostiles is drastically increased.

I also intend to make mining accidents kind of a big deal, so things like instant-game-over cave-ins are in my consideration. Have I mentioned that I want this to feel as rogue-like as humanly possible with the engine?

Not all of these features will - or can - be implemented in the next build. I do hope to at least get Mining, Prospecting and Reinforcing done.

Ideas, suggestions and opinions are, as always, very, very welcome.