Greetings and Salutations

Hi guys! I'm Shade Aurion.

Writer by trade and veteran RPG fan.

I am something of a workaholic and was planning to make a manga series but have found a way to articulate it better. That being, turning it into a game which so far is going well. I aim for 120 hours of gameplay and i'm about 60 - 70% done.
Long time lurker, short time member. I'll drift around here for literally years haha

Oh, wow! That's a long game you're working through! Can't wait to hear more. 

Happy to see you've exited the wood work and joined us. Welcome!

Welcome to the group!

Wow! 120 hours is sure alot of time, could you give us more information?

Welcome aboard. :p

Looks huge trying to build a 2d skyrim? xD

Well i've been working on it for about a year. I'm a music and gaming journalist so i've had to do it in my spare time but i should have the right connections to get it greenlit, put on PSN and XBLA. A lot of what is in the game currently is place holder. Eventually i'll hire a pixel artist to do some custom work and have plenty of people keen to help with animating and music though I compose music myself so I doubt i'll have to tap on that.

Okay straight influences for my game would be: Lufia 2, Breath of Fire 2/3, Final Fantasy 6 and Wild Arms. I mean i've always been a huge fan of various types of RPGs but i'm just citing influence battle system and mapping wise. First world map is almost completely done. 330x330, 5 continents various other islands with accessibly all sorted.

Here it is 2 weeks ago.

Here is is now

Secondary world maps are mostlly done. (Fairy world, Sky world, Demon World, etc) As far as area's are concerned the first continent is completely done and i'm about 1/3 through the second. The only reason it slowed down is because I lost a very important book where I had everything mapped out on paper with timelines, story written etc and this is all basically from a manga series I was writing but translated into a game as it works better. (I found the book recently. I'd been using it as a mousepad. Yes.. i'm afraid i'm that stupid)

I've got Khas lighting effects going, mode7, encyclodea, battle symphony in the works and various other scripts with some of my own. I have a lot to add like mini games and what not. Possibly finding a way to merge khas lighting effects with an active day/night system if I can.

I had the game sorted to run with various classes that you level and then you unlock subclasses you can level to learn abilities, and then professions you could level also but I scrapped it all because I realized that it became too complicated. All the great RPGs were simple. Sure some had synthesizing (I will be adding this) and a few other things but they worked with the game fluidly. If I add every good element from every RPG in the hopes of having the best game ever it's just going to become 'too much' if you know what I mean so I decided rather then rocking various interchangeable classes, to just have one class per character and give the story a more front seat and work the game around it like I had planned to originally.

I try and look at things like Lufia which was a 60 - 80 hour RPG if you were all about completion (excepting the ancient cave) and looked at how the game was mapped, dungeons were laid out and how many there were. Then I looked at Breath of Fire 2 for how the story progressed and characters joined you. And the build up to the bosses because of the story. Then all the side quests of Final Fantasy 6 and all the great tweaks like the weapon you have being what you use in battle, character special moves and what not. Then I looked at Breath of Fire 3 for things like skills learned, polish, master abilities (i'd love to find a way to work the master system in) and a lot of the mapping. Wild Arms is good for looking at a fallen civilisation with a new one built on top looking at ancient technology.

Really I look back on all the games i've ever played but I have to exclude active based battle system games like Mana, Evermore, Soul Blazer series, Tales, Star Ocean unless looking at things used exclusively outside of battle.

I'd really like to try and merge Final Fantasy 6 and Breath of Fire 2's battle systems even if I have to cut the timer and make it purely turn based.

I dunno it's a pretty large project and by then end i'll honestly probably try and find a good coder to translate the whole thing into a different coding language so I can add achievements and trophies if I have to. Probably only sell it for $5 or so and credit any script used accordingly.

I try to look at things like story and gameplay first. These have always been the two most important features in a game to me.
Then nice mapping and play value. I don't want it to feel like a total grind but I don't want it to be easy mode and I don't want sub quests to just be fetch quests and kill X amount of <insert enemy here>. I want to aim for a long built up story with lots of twists where you just keep getting stronger and touch back on areas you'd forgotten about. I honestly have so much written already that i'm just translating into the form of a game that it's getting done pretty well. If I were to boast I feel like I could have it ready by next year. I have NG+ and things like that added to for decend replay value :3

Should I like, make a thread about it or what?

By the way, welcome. I think you should make a new thread for that so the discussion will be exclusive.