Crystal Empires is currently in an early Beta stage. I will be updating the release with tonnes of new content every month, for the convenience of myself and others, since file sizes can be an issue and my Internet speeds are not that great. However, without being too pessimistic, let's get into the game and what it is all about.
Please note that there are references to politics and some minor sexual references and innuendo.
Story
Spoiler
Ever since the Maron got invaded by the greedy and relentless humans of planet Earth, the Maron have developed a deep hatred for them. But they will not give up their home city, Taldin, that easily. With spies exerting their full power to reach the Ice Temples once again to retrieve the remaining shards of the Master Crystal, Glacion, their ambassador re-awoken from the depths of an ice capsule buried and hidden in the very depths of Taldin Temple itself. Ambassador Glacion, now living and breathing once more, tread his foot into the city of Taldin, and gave peace to both the invading humans and the Maron people. However, some Maron are unhappy with these results, and set their path and route toward creating their own magical powers - Cultism. Unaware of the Magical Divination known as Chaos, the cultists of the Maron people silently continued their path toward righteousness to destroy the now 3 million populous of the human civilisation on their planet, Olath.
Varkarian, who founded the Divination, set out toward the fiery depths of Rethlor to cast his powers into the flames and call forth banished elementals from the Underplanes. In another 30 year war, the Maron and the humans attempted to destroy the Cultists. During their final hour, Varkarian was murdered by Tiffany Usaph, who would give birth later to a person known as Sophie Usaph. When Sophie was born, Tiffany swore on an oath to protect Sophie with all her life, and so Glacion emblazoned the remaining powers of the Master Crystal into the soul of Sophie, giving her the power of almost immortality.
At the age of 12, Sophie asked her mother that she wanted to learn the ways of Arcane magic at the Schools of Magic. Along the way, Sophie befriended a person named Zolok, whose father happened to be Varkarian himself. However, with Varkarian banished, Zolok grew up with his mother for twelve years and recently transferred from Zephile Fortress to Taldin City to be taught the arts of Cultism. Due to being forced by his mother upon his father's oath, Zolok remained in separate school rooms and thus their friendship became difficult. At the age of 17, both Zolok and Sophie practised duels together and became very close friends. At the age of 19, Zolok was asked back to his mother at the Fortress to undergo a transformation of Undeath. Sophie relentlessly convinced Zolok away, despite harsh opposition from both the Undead forces of Zephile and Taldin City. After Zolok's murder at the age of 20, he was brought back to life by his father Varkarian in the hope Zolok would do his evil bidding - to murder Sophie and the rest of humanity.
Zolok went onto a murdering rampage at a local village, murdering defenceless children and women. When Sophie along with Ambassador Glacion reached the village, the entire village had been left in ruins and Ambassador Glacion sworn to Sophie to kill him there and then. She refused and instead wanted a Best of Three duel, in the Nakaldin Arena. When Sophie won after an extremely close fight between them, Sophie was given even more power by Glacion - apparently she was not strong enough. Unfortunately, this led to her long-term memory loss and will suffer amnesia every time she envisions past events. Her foresight is very powerful, possibly too much for her to handle. On the other hand, Zolok fled to Volcano Rethlor in the hope of seeking out his father.
Now it is your turn. Will you lead Sophie and her eventual allies to defeat Zolok and Varkarian once and for all, or will you attempt to seek peace with all things?
Varkarian, who founded the Divination, set out toward the fiery depths of Rethlor to cast his powers into the flames and call forth banished elementals from the Underplanes. In another 30 year war, the Maron and the humans attempted to destroy the Cultists. During their final hour, Varkarian was murdered by Tiffany Usaph, who would give birth later to a person known as Sophie Usaph. When Sophie was born, Tiffany swore on an oath to protect Sophie with all her life, and so Glacion emblazoned the remaining powers of the Master Crystal into the soul of Sophie, giving her the power of almost immortality.
At the age of 12, Sophie asked her mother that she wanted to learn the ways of Arcane magic at the Schools of Magic. Along the way, Sophie befriended a person named Zolok, whose father happened to be Varkarian himself. However, with Varkarian banished, Zolok grew up with his mother for twelve years and recently transferred from Zephile Fortress to Taldin City to be taught the arts of Cultism. Due to being forced by his mother upon his father's oath, Zolok remained in separate school rooms and thus their friendship became difficult. At the age of 17, both Zolok and Sophie practised duels together and became very close friends. At the age of 19, Zolok was asked back to his mother at the Fortress to undergo a transformation of Undeath. Sophie relentlessly convinced Zolok away, despite harsh opposition from both the Undead forces of Zephile and Taldin City. After Zolok's murder at the age of 20, he was brought back to life by his father Varkarian in the hope Zolok would do his evil bidding - to murder Sophie and the rest of humanity.
Zolok went onto a murdering rampage at a local village, murdering defenceless children and women. When Sophie along with Ambassador Glacion reached the village, the entire village had been left in ruins and Ambassador Glacion sworn to Sophie to kill him there and then. She refused and instead wanted a Best of Three duel, in the Nakaldin Arena. When Sophie won after an extremely close fight between them, Sophie was given even more power by Glacion - apparently she was not strong enough. Unfortunately, this led to her long-term memory loss and will suffer amnesia every time she envisions past events. Her foresight is very powerful, possibly too much for her to handle. On the other hand, Zolok fled to Volcano Rethlor in the hope of seeking out his father.
Now it is your turn. Will you lead Sophie and her eventual allies to defeat Zolok and Varkarian once and for all, or will you attempt to seek peace with all things?
- The ability to earn reputation with factions as you aid people within them by following their discussions and making the right decisions.
- Unlock spells by acquiring items and handing them in to the respective character. Once they gain enough intelligence, they will reward you with a spell book which you can give to any actor.
- Dungeons that can be reset and allow the player to obtain larger amounts of experience than normal, as well as hidden treasures and rare potions essential for defeating secret bosses.
- Obtain and purchase high level items from factions (at a given reputable level) to claim and defeat secret bosses around the world.
- Each Secret World Boss will drop a powerful weapon for each class, specific to that class in aiding to defeat the final boss on many difficulties (Easy (40+), Moderate (50+), Challenging (60+) and Almost Impossible (75+)).
Credits
Music:
Barzoom - Force Your Way - FF8 Remix (Boss Battle)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/566470
phadaphunk - Forest Adventure (World Explorer)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/576182
btriangle - Pete_town Song (Within the Town)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/526703
Ayrayen - Boss Battle Theme - Evil (Final Confrontation)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/579212
SuperShadowIV - Circles (Zolok's Funeral)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/561737
camman007 - Forest Temple (Temples of Maron)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/209673
NemesisTheory - Rose at Midnight (Into Battle)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/148404
Buoy - Sunken City (Ice Temples)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/392670
Buoy - Time Lapse of Clouds (Into the Mountains)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/434387
EliteFerrex - Stronger (Secret Boss)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/535831
Buoy - Glass Tree in the Sky (The Island that Floats)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/275243
RunningShadows - a ZZ (City of Taldin)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/499263
RunningShadows - Transcendence (Through the Desert Town)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/501151
EliteFerrex - Never Stop Fighting (Rushing to our Doom)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/468732
Rhoder - Child's Play (A Wintery Town)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/528830
Rhoder - Piece by Piece (Within Marlbor City)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/520865
Calamaistr - Here we burned cold (Darkness of the Temples)
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/567961
Graphics:
Nanokan (for world tiles)
http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/26562-rpg-maker-vxace-world-tiles/
Thalzon (for monsters)
http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/49-thalzons-battlers-and-faces/
Jared (for monsters and sprite sheets)
http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/3257-jareds-bag-of-goodies-tigerzord-megadragonzord-added-26062014/
Captain Proton (for faces)
http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/25518-captain-protons-graphics/
Ying (for icons)
http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/17984-yings-icons-random-weapon-v2/
Please note that not all of these assets will appear in the game as of yet, but will appear at later stages during development. Sorry for any confusion this may cause. If I missed out someone, please let me know so I can update... I may forget people as a consequence of using so many resources! :)
Screenshots
If you wish to try out the game in its current form, you can download from Github. Simply download the ZIP and launch the exe file found in the root folder. You may also access the data within and play around with it if you want, but you may not contribute changes.
The game uses RTP resources. If you do not have RTP resources downloaded, you can download them here. Scroll down and ensure "RPG Maker VX Ace" is selected.
Thank you for your time! :) Let me know of any bugs and/or glitches with the game so that I can update it for the next patch.