A HAND FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

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A Hand From Beyond the Grave. Despite the long title, it is a story that I hope most will be interested in. In a world where the dead rise from the recently deceased, we come to learn of an art that has long been acknowledged yet never really delved in in terms of understanding; necromancy. Of course, all in its "sacred book" type of archetechture, it is called by another foreign name, with several terms coinsiding with that topic.

As a recently born undead, you come to practice this vile, mysterious art. And soon you will learn how you died and why. But in the end will you truly know what happened? Only one way to find out.

FEATURES:

-Create your own summon monsters and teach them skills
-Stealthily apprehend bodies from villages for use in making monsters
-Lure children with candy, create a carnival of death, or go on a killing spree to gather corpses
-Immense dungeon roaming with random treasures and items
-Several arts of necromancy to specialize in
-Many items to collect

The following is just a portion of what I have written on my game's page. Things said in my thread here are possibly subject to change.

Overview

In the common medieval world, the people of Nagalia live a life of strife, brought about with wars of differing sects and groups. (trust me the game focuses practically nothing on the silly war stuff; its mostly about the necromancers) Struggles with power and understanding truth of existence plagues the minds of man. But deep in the shadows, beyond which cannot be seen, lie the undead hearts of the necromancers; known in their tongue, as Daenai Lamori, (dye an eye lem more ee) or the lamor'dae for short. The lamor'dae creep behind the scenes of man, never too far behind his blind spot, to impale his body and reap the juicy rewards left in his rotting corpse. These undead beings strive to apprehend human bodies for their dark, horrid studies. Whether it is by offering candy to children, to setting up carnivals of hellish death to cultivate bodies of the harvest. (which you can do; you have to purchase death equipment and attractions for people to come view, and there are increased chances of acquiring bodies. But the more bodies you acquire in one visit, people will not appear there for some time. But anyway) They even acquire the corpses of animals, as well as monsters to create their own hellish creations. Stealthfully, the lamor'dae creep around towns, seeking possible bodies for their growing legions of the dead...

There have been some supposed "wars" with the humans by the undead, but the humans, ignorant as they are, saw it nothing more than a simple monster invasion. As humans venture the woods, they see random zombies and skeletons anywhere, and assume they are natural wildlife as one would percieve of a field mouse or roaming boar. In truth, the humans know hardly anything of the lamor'dae...

Why do the lamor'dae do this? Well this answer is not known. Eventually the lamor'dae came to exist through the natural death of man kind; and with their birth, the unbirth of the rest of man is lusted after by these grey beings. The ultimate goal of the lamor'dae is to seek out the meaning of their existence; why they kill man and use their corpses for sustenance, (they use the corpses's organs for their own bodily use, as well as eating them with unending appetite) why they came into being, and what they're goals in existence of undeath is. Eventually this goal swayed, with some necromancers lusting with the joy that death brings to them, wanting to kill humans for pleasure and seeing what they can use their mutilated corpses for. Some necromancers seek world domination, whatever the reason; there are still sects of biased undead perceptions.

Story

So, after all this reading, what is the actual story about? Well what i can say is rather minimal, but it may be tantalizing none the less. You play the role of Malaeus, (Ma lay us) a freshly born corpse for the ever growing army of the undead. He is found in his grave as some undead are robbing a graveyard near a human town, and he is let out and basically instructed of their heritage. He is told to follow them back to the undead metropolis, (Vlan'teilies, its basically the huge city of the undead where they all gather and interact.) where you'll fight some basic battles. Malaeus is led to the metropolis, and he gets his license and registration and the works, and starts to practice the art of necromancy. As time passes on he starts to realize the coldness of unlife, how sorrow seems to creep over you, aching everytime you breathe...

Basically after that you'll start to go on a mission for the government (as many other necromancers are commanded of) which will lead to Malaeus's thoughts of his past life. He cant seem to remember much of it, (which isnt uncommon with most undead) but some events will start to happen with the reapers and nether demons and the government; truths leaked, secrets told, incentives sought and much chaos to unfold! Blasphemy and havoc ensue, and in the end, will all of their actions really be justified?

Gameplay

-BASIC

The battles in my game use the DBS, albeit I try to make it look a little nice; nothing very custom, but I try. Seeing as the game focuses around necromancy, your characters are mostly intelligence mage types who excel with spells but lack in physical attack power. Malaeus is your main necromancer, whom you will teach new spells and skills to. There are a few other necromancers that you can hire as mercenaries, although you can only hire 1 mercenary at a time. Your main emphasis of physical attack power and variety comes from the necromancer's most noted ability: summoning.

-Summoning

Summoning is your bread and butter skill, albeit lacking in flair. There are numerous amounts of monsters that you can create, and through their creation you can create a scroll or an orb for that respective monster. Scrolls lets you summon that monster in as many battles as you want, but cost a lot to make, and you can only carry 5 summoning scrolls with you at once. Orbs let you summon that monster only once, though it costs less to make orbs. Summoned monsters can also be dismissed with their scroll.

Monsters level up normally, and get stronger through them. You can give a monster a rare item called a life essence, which can be used to buy them a skill along their skill tree. You can buy more skills for a monster or upgrade old skills by giving more life essences, but it requires that monster have been given a certain amount of blood first.

Blood is a constant necessity resource. (It is a variable. Can carry 999 blood max) You use it to create summons, as well as use it to create Blood Gems which can hold a spell. (Scroll) Blood can also be used to feed to your summons to increase their experience. Mercenaries can be taken with you on journeys who are necromancers of varying unchangeable schools. They level up regularly, and receive skills as they level. Giving them 50 blood allows them to increase a stat of choice by 1. Blood can be gotten from killing monsters, in chests, as quest rewards etc.

Some skills also require the monster be a higher rank, which is like making another summon creature, but only of a higher level and same type. When a summoned monster is of a higher rank, his level drops to one, but his stats are the same as his level 99 stats of his previous rank. All monsters have 4 ranks. There are also monster trainers around the world who sell skills in exchange for Dread. (Dread is obtained by screwing with the humans mind or screwing with the Nether Demons)

-Ingredients

There are several items used in creating necromantic items and summonses. The most common resource is the corpse. Dog corpses and animal corpses are used, but human corpses are the most sought after, as well as rarest type of corpse. Human bodies are used for the best summons, and can also be used to find healing items. You have a chance to rend a human body at the tear-o-matic in the Metropolis to receive 1 organ, 1 bone, skin, blood, a chance for a soul, a chance for a life essence and a chance for a spirit. Humans can also be preserved, to increase their ability as a whole. There are 3 ranks of corpses:

Corpse
Preserved Corpse (P)
Perfectly Preserved Corpse (PP)

The better the corpse is ranked, the more items you can get for it at the tear-o-matic; also some summonses require preserved corpses.

-Healing

In terms of items for healing, medicine is the most common form; it's cheap but it's not very effective. Potions are better, although a little expensive. Human organs and parts are considered the best recovery items. Though, they are rare to find, they are definitely worth looking for.

-Souls

Souls are equippable items of immense power. Sometimes you will receive non specific souls such as: common soul, less common soul, ordinary soul, rare soul, artifact soul, legendary soul. These can be in turned in to a nethermancer to be converted into an actual soul (which can be equipped) of a value equal to its name. These souls are also needed to be given to nether demon summons for them to fight for you. Souls are a sort of typical “dungeon treasure” item that is a nice find though not so common.

-Honor

By communicating with secret, incognito humans who know of necromancers, you can spend Honor on weapons, armor, ingredients, among other things. You earn honor by helping humans and the like, but having high honor can be dangerous and can cause necromancers to attack you and the like. If you think your honor is too high, you can present yourself to the high lord in the metropolis (yet to be named remember?) and have him strip you of all your honor for a modest fee. The incognito humans vow not to speak of the necromancers to the other humans because they believe they understand their plight. Still they cannot be trusted.

-Main Character

Your main character can learn skills by purchasing them with dread. (And sometimes require a few ingredients) Skills require that you have a high enough skill level in that class, (skill level max is 25) which can be leveled by using life essence and a spirit. (A spirit can be generated by putting 100 corpses through the Soul Trap at the Metropolis. Spirits can also be found through quests and finding rare monsters. Spirits are also instant use items that permanently increase stats) You can also use spirits to create necromantic artifacts and aids (charms) that you can equip to give you good increases to your attributes.

You can also increase your characters stats by creating blood gems and enchanting them with non specific souls. These hearth blood gems can then increase a stat of your choosing by spending dread.

Necromancer's skills are broken down into classes:

-Assassination (Mostly physical attacks)
-Summoning/Affliction (Summoning and status effects mostly)
-Curses (mostly status effects and damage spells… yeah I haven't really planned these out yet)
-Insectism (concerns insects; you know with rotting corpses and stuff)
-Corpse Art (has to do with corpses)
-Seals (supportive spells and healing)
-Sorcery (warlock arts of elemental spell casting)
-Nether (Nether spells….)
-Imitation (the abilities of man as well as physical attacks etc)


Screenshots:


Some graves.



Rolling Grasses.



Undead Lands.

Link to download section of my rpgamker.net page:
http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/340/downloads/

Link to the RTP in case you don't have it:
http://rapidshare.com/files/119892593/rtp.rar.html

I hope you guys try out my game and give me your opinions and criticism.
You have something that can be quite good here. From reading it, I can tell that you're in the makings of what can be a great game, but not everything is quite planned out yet. From the sounds of it, you have a good base, you just need to build on it and refine it a little. I'm going to DL this right now and tell you what I think upon playing it.
Thanks alot. Yeah my story and whatnot is actually kind of "cramped" so to speak, and what I have written is even more confusing and what not. I'm currently in the "flow" of rewriting the story and concepts and reorganizing and stuff so its logical and concise. But yeah one download woo. :D

EDIT: Btw, just in case the need arises and some fool doesnt possess my RTP, I will provide a dload link in the first post.
Oooooooh, Ingredient system. I like the sounds of this, and while I would download it, I just don't have the time to finish a game right now.

Also, the main character is quite the creeper.

EDIT: Ah, it's not a full game yet anyways. Perhaps I will download the demo a little later.
This sounds quite alright from what i've read and your gameplay features look to have been thought out well. I look forward to trying out the summoning in battles. I will download this now and tell you what i think of it.
Its relatively short and doesnt hit really on any of the key features yet though saddly.
Ok, I'm playing it and here's what I noticed so far.


-When I try to DL, it tells me the file fsf2sys2 or something is missing. That means that you forgot to assign your system set to your game. I had to open up the program to do so.

-You have some good writing, the dialogue is swift and to the point, not too long nor too short. You have some minor grammar corrections to make, though.

-On the other hand, though, the text is TOO SLOW. I don't mind the pauses, but make it move at its normal pace.

-Found a bug, once I try to go into the special menu (the monster skills and the other one) I can't go back out of the menu or well, do anything else.

-The maps aren't bad, you'll get better as you go. It seems like the first screen (the graveyard inside) doesn't have any walls or something, though.

-The walking speed is slow. Make it so I can run or something.


I have yet to finish it, so once I do I'll finish my analysis.
Yay feedback. :D Yeah I didn't include my RTP with the dload because I thought everyone would have it. :\ Well its been a long time since ive uploaded rpgmaker games so I was kinda uncertain. In the future I'll be sure to include my RTP.

Could you point out the grammar mistakes so I can fix them?

About the text speed; yeah I noticed. I've done it for a long time throughout the demo, until later I just dropped the text speed altogether. I never really noticed how agonizingly slow it is lol, so I'll get to fixing all the messages.

The bug you mentioned, funny that, since I found it just as I uploaded the demo. :( I'm going to actually implement it later though so it will get fixed.

About the map, em, I thought those were walls? lol i dont know. How about the other maps? Do they look decent? And personally I thought the run speed was good the way it was, seeing as most the maps will be generally small, to make up large portions of area. I also believe it fits with the nature and atmosphere I'm trying to convey.

But hey thanks a ton for the help. You rox. ;D
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