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Too Young To Die

  • Dyhalto
  • 07/14/2014 07:41 AM
  • 2306 views
This game was a masterpiece in the making. It's visually engrossing, rich in content, and even serves as a technical benchmark in the history of RM2k3 game making. It had everything going for it.
But it was canceled.
In the aftermath of a great project's demise, I'm inclined to share my thoughts about it. I feel like this is the RM Korgoth of Barbaria. A great work of art tragically unrealized.
To summarize...

Masterful Ambience - The first thing anybody will notice is how entrancing this game is. It doesn't dazzle the player with superficially bright colors and vivid set pieces, but instead ushers in the brooding atmosphere of a world pitched into darkness by a political crisis whose good vs evil battle lines are greyed out. This wasn't a project meant to merely entertain you, but to enrapture you like the best of books.

Extensive Mythos - Typical fantasy game conventions are nowhere to be seen. This world is full of it's own original history and mythology. The lore is ever-present in the enemies you face, the organization you belong to, the spells you "cast", the items in your inventory, and the lands sadly untraveled. Whether it was an individual's battle with literal personal demons, or a clash between opposing factions amid the grand scheme of things, there's an abundance of background underlying every conflict that needed to be played out. Egads, there was so much to experience.....

Custom Feature Abundance - At one point I tried to run past a soldier, but he saw me and we fought it out. After I reloaded (I lost the boss fight), the same soldier was standing on the same tile, but this time facing the other way. I slipped by unnoticed. Small elements like this added to a basic touch encounter system bring so much more tactfulness to the player's experience.
I could also mention the custom menu system, stat distribution, and crazy modding of the DBS, but words come up short in describing these technical achievements. Still-aspiring RM2k3er's out there, take heed of this project.

Intricate Storyline - Oathguard knows how to engage a player right off the bat. At the outset, some limited exposition is delivered via the heroine's thoughts. Then the game begins not with fighting slimes and goblins, but with a head-on collision against the elite soldiers of a foreign army, the general who leads them, some ominously evil cult dudes, and I'll say no more lest I spoil.
The plot is further revealed by an interesting fellow who elaborates on exactly what we're missing out. A political landscape full of ambition, rivalry, sedition, independence, hedonism, and very little in the way of promise. This is the stuff I live for.
He then went on to die in a nondescript field; the game parodying it's own fate.

As far as my disappointment in seeing Oathguard canned goes, I don't think more need be said. Even if it took 10 or 20 years to come to fruition, I would have doggedly followed development every step of the way.
Alas, poor Gela, I knew her well.


The Oathguard won this battle, but lost the war.

Posts

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i love you man


but god damn it stop making me want to make games again

if it makes you feel any better, I'm still actively working on oathguard...right now the outline of the entire story is almost finished, but I have no idea what I'll do with it. Novel? comic? A..game?

im definitely done with making a game on my own, but anything else is not out of the realm of possibility. Maybe I'll even try to con people out of money on kickstarter someday. Anyway I'll try to make a post sometime about what I've been doing lately. I know I say that a lot but for realz this time since I'm almost done with the outline.

Thanks again man, honestly I don't mind that og was never widely popular, I will always be happy even if just a few people like you really liked it with their whole heart. That's what makes all those thousands of hours of work worth it (besides the whole realization of something that's been in my mind, that's p cool to look back on, too)
The only reason Oathguard isn't "widely popular" is because there's so little to appreciate :P Besides, you have 113 subscribers which is pretty good by this site's standards. Not bad for little more than a demo.

Anyway, whether you decide to go video game, novel, or stage musical, I'll be one of the first to appreciate.
Tau
RMN sex symbol
3293
Flamboyant musical please!

Fucking awesome review Dyhalto, kudos. First it was Oathguard, then Nightfall, are their no more great Rm2k3 games to come!

Well aside from Beloved Rapture & Raciela I can't think of any others out their.
author=Tau
Fucking awesome review Dyhalto, kudos. First it was Oathguard, then Nightfall, are their no more great Rm2k3 games to come!

And Among Thieves >:( Can't forget that one. It'll be completed one day or else.
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