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Disclaimer
- Mature themes.
- Pixel nudity.
- Pixel blood & violence.
- Use of drugs & alcohol.
- Some content may be disturbing to some audiences.

Note - the game does not make use of shock value as a primary arch. The mature theme and content are aligned with the dark world the game takes place in. At times it can be disturbing or triggering, other times will be light and playful.

Story
You find yourself in an Exile locally referred to as Deadbeat. Exiles are dangerous, bastardy places.

Regions
There are three major game regions; city, wastelands and outskirts. You begin in the city region which has the most condensed exploration, story and missions. These primarily revolve around factions. As you move out from the city you'll explore the wide-open wastelands. Here the environments can be as dangerous as the enemies, though you'll also encounter less civilized peoples. Factions still play a large role in this part of the game. Finally, you'll reach the outskirts. These are the edge regions of the world and each is strange and unique. Factions play no part in this "second stage" of the game. The style of game can change in these areas, such as becoming a horror game at times.

Districts
Each region contains several distinct districts with unique geography, culture and dangers. There are 8 city districts, 6 wasteland districts, and 10 outskirt districts of open-world exploration. The largest regions use 500x500 maps while the smallest use about 100x100.

Features
- complex custom menu system
- Attire includes armors, outfits, and masks which can be worn with other attire. Each outfit has custom character walking graphics and full menu image.
- Weapons categories include piercing, bashing, slashing and projectiles. There are dozens of interesting weapons to collect which have a full menu image.
- Unique drug & alcohol system is used for combat & exploration. Mix and match drugs but watch out for the negative effects and overdoses.
- Complete missions for your faction (main story), contracts (side-quests), and fulfill bounties. Bounties will not be simple go here and kill this guy quests. You may need to utilize deductive reasoning, interrogation, stealth, persuasion an more to complete bounties, like you would normal contracts and missions.
- The game does not hold the players hand. Think Fallout meets Elden Ring.
- Experience gain is hidden but almost every action the player takes will earn experience. Leveling is not a key component of advancement and strategically it might make sense not to level too soon.
- Dozens of stats are tracked - from how much alcohol you've drank to your current kill streak. These stats are used to earn merit.
- Merit is an advancement currency which can be used to purchase or learn special skills and abilities using the Merit Matrix. For example, your proficiency with piercing weapons can improve or bank investing can become more profitable. Unlocking merits is a key component of game play.
- Like any other action in the game, mini-games can earn merits as well. You can look forward to the Rat Races, Hallucinations, a unique spin on Russian Roulette, as well as classics like drinking games, fishing and more.
- Lock-picking is old news and hacking mini-games often get repetitive. To keep things a little more interesting there are 3 types of hacking in the game; voice recognition, retinal and biometric. These require player skill and have limited chances for success.
- Most of the enemies you'll encounter in the game will be humans, either from factions or simply roaming the world. When you defeat humans in combat you get three options; Mug, Murder or Spare. Variations exist for certain other enemy types.
- There are rewards and consequences to player choices, including how to finish a fight.
- Seven categories of non-human enemies exist; creatures, synths, abominations, risen, spirits, demons and magicals.
- Lore can be found all over the world.
- The player is rewarded in many ways. In addition to currency, items, lore and merits, there are collectibles and trophies which can be displayed around your faction base, as well as Banner Upgrades which let you customize the look of your base.
- NPC's are not one-line dialogs. Any NPC you can have a conversation with will allow for somewhat complex discussion.
- You do not get a party. You are a lone-wolf working with a faction. The only time you have backup is when you raid, in which case your faction participates. Raids will be an add-on after the initial game release.

Currency
The main financial currency is ammo (spent ammunition), similar to Fallout's use of bottle caps. Another major currency is Respect. Respect is what makes it possible for your faction to grow and take on new factions. You can earn it completing missions, defeating enemies, through crimes and more. Some actions can lose respect. There are various other currencies which play specific roles.

Skills
Most of the battle skills will be a direct result of the equipment the player chooses to use. Instead of spells there are effects caused by items such as projectiles. An example is the smoke grenade, which will lower the enemies accuracy and affect every enemy on the field.

Conditions
This is an unfriendly world. BI's & VI's (Bacterial & Viral Infections) will be commonplace for you. You can be poisoned, burned and frozen of course. You can also be cursed, addicted, aroused and butthurt. Among other things.

Crimes
Certain actions are considered crimes even in factions. You can commit Theft, Vandalism, Indecency, Hacks, Murder, Mugging and Assassinations. In a city full of criminals, you want to commit crimes and are rewarded handsomely for doing so.

Finances
You can own property, invest in vendors, invest in stocks or make bank investments. You can also gamble away your wealth and try to get it back playing scratch tickets.

Progress is slow and difficult to measure. The game should still be considered in early development.

* If you are a pixel artist interested in helping with the project, let me know and tell me what you specialize in. *

Latest Blog

Big Progress, Much Good

Music

This one has been a pain for me. My original vision for the game was to have different audio experiences. Specifically, ambient would be sounds to match the environment. Such as wind and blowing sand in the desert, perhaps with the odd eagle caw and whatnot. Atmospheric was going to be music which seemed to fit the area, and Controlled was going to allow the player to change music as they like regardless of the area.

I ran into one major problem: the damn size of each area. Ambient would be downright repetitious in a map you might spend 15 or 20 straight minutes in. The same problem arose for atmospheric - how many songs would each area need to not be repetitious?

As well, finding sufficient, matching music and ambience for each map was proving not only super time consuming, but painful and unsatisfactory. There was also the challenge of adding all this in to the game in a meaningful way to players.

Finally I settled on a more simple approach. Here's what I did:

- 5 playlists available from the start of the game
- 3 of the playlists, despite different tastes of music, have somewhat similar sounds, making the game feel more cohesive.
- 2 of the playlists are a bit more out there. One being a bit more sporadic for the ADHD players out there, and another being a homage to 8-bit music.
- 17 songs per playlist
- songs are generally arranged to build up energy, then calm down a bit in rotation so the player experiences a range of emotions.

At any point, other than during battles, the player can press a key to go to the next song in the playlist (the list will loop if they do it on the last song.) They can also press a different button to go to the next playlist. If nothing is done by the player, the current playlist will just loop over and over.

For battles, I'll have a total of 5 battle songs, and the option to turn off battle music. If it's off, the playlists will continue playing through a battle. If battle music is on, it will always play the selected battle song. This allows players to choose if they want their music interrupted for an exciting battle scene, or if they want to maintain the musical immersion.

I also added the option to change music volume: OFF, 20%, 50% 80%, 100%.

With the full implementation of playlists and volume control, the options menu screen is now 100% complete. Nothing will need to be added for the battle music (it's already menu'd in, just gotta build it into battles.)

THIS IS MAJOR PROGRESS BECAUSE ALL THE MUSIC IN THE GAME IS NOW IN! As well, adding additional songs or playlists in the future would be a snap. As well, for those who want a thinner download file in the final versions, a slim version could easily be done where 1 or more playlists are removed, or the lists are shortened.


Character Graphics
Menu armor was supposed to be fully implemented BUUUUT I really hated the Makeshift Armor, or whatever the hell I called it. Seemed way too forced and my pixel art skills weren't done any justice by that one. I decided to replace it with an armor I unintentionally overlooked initially which I much wanted to have - a Samurai option! I've got the upper body and helmet done on this one so far and just need to make the lower body portion. This one will also be easier to make a walking sprite for than the other armor, which I hadn't done yet anyway.

This does create a lot of work because these graphics take a while, but additionally I'll need to edit the armors stats and associated graphics, because those were already implemented for the other armor and it really doesn't make sense that Samurai armor would do something like protect against radiation. At least not the version I've made.

I'm refraining from adding a whole other concept in that I would LOVE to have. That being different skins of the same armor - so like the Samurai could have a different mask, helm, or color scheme. Programming wise this is easy to implement, and they would make great additional finds from raids, but this would be graphics heavy and is definitely not a priority given how much more there is to do for the base of the game. So, this one is going in my back pocket for DISTANT future expansion plans... like... after raids are implemented.

Environment Graphics
Using the improved pixel artistry of my Wastescape (swamp) designs, I've redone some of my Wonderland (snow) map environment graphics and find they look way better. I then did this with the barely edged-out Godforsaken region and love the results. This style is going to be incorporated throughout the game. Another graphical setback, however it will get the game to a state where it's all custom graphics instead of a mix of mine and others, and different styles of my own that don't jive.

Overall it's a bit more cartoon. Initially the game was supposed to be quite dark but over time I've come to transition it to more hopeful and less depression-inducing graphics. Though the theme will remain dark, it will contrast against a somewhat lighter environment. This alone will be a bit unsettling - like Fallout, I suppose. Anyway, in addition to some revamps I also got further in the Godforsaken overall mapping, including concluding a portal design that was leaving me a bit confuzzled as to how to accomplish it, but for which I was determined to include in the game. I consider this another big win as it draws the overall vision a littler closer to life.


Also Done
- Dictionary of terms expanded (planning excel only)
- Item descriptions written for weapons & attire (planning excel only)
- Tutorials added to Options page (huge, time consuming, finished)
- Bugs worked out of music and options menu

There was more from the last time I got active on the game, but all of this is from this last 1-2 weeks progress.

Posts

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Wanna get an idea of the scale of this game? This over world map is accurate.



The pink box can fit the entire Hero's Realm world map. This isn't a map you fly over with locations you can visit. This represents the area that can be explored by foot.

To get this image, first the in game walk-able area was mapped out. Then, at zoom x8, the entire map was screen shot one screen at a time. Then, all those screens were added together to provide a full picture of each area. These pictures are too large to show here. Then, the areas were placed together as they are connected in game. After which I filled in the colors to be solid and different to represent each region.

I had to fit the map on a screen, so it was zoomed out... a lot. Probably more than 1500x.

So you're probably wondering, just how much of this map is actually complete? I wouldn't say any map is 100% finished. There are some areas which area already mapped with quite a lot of detail, such as all the brown maps, the green one, and the white one. There are some which are only outlined, such as the dark blue map, and there are others in between, such as the bottom grey area.

There is an underground map that's 1/4 the size of the grey map and it's complete.
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