Götterdämmerung RPG

Alright, I'm curious...what exactly is so weird about the game? Yes, it's not the standard fantasy and/or dark future setting, and I tried to do something a bit different from the rest with my characters' skills, but weird? You haven't seen me turn one of my weirder ideas into a game yet :)

And the name Marduk...of all the potential criticism I anticipated (and I am aware that my game is far from perfect), I didn't really expect anyone to have a problem with that name. Granted, it's not an everyday name like, I don't know, Link or Cloud Strife or Duke Nukem, but I didn't think it would strike anyone as completely out of the ordinary. The name actually makes sense in the context of the story, by the way...

That's...err...because nuclear fallout is actually a pretty good fertilizer. It has nothing at all to do with the RTP graphics.

But seriously, I was going for a more Nausicaa-like atmosphere, with nature having regained control of most of the planet and what remais of civilization restricted to a couple rather small cities. As the player progresses through the game and encounters different civilizations, the atmosphere will gradually change to a darker, more technology-heavy style. I am not quite decided yet on the time that has passed since the nuclear war...probably 100 years is too short for nature to regrow completely. I can change that to 300 or 500 years at any time.

I've been tweaking the difficulty in the beginning a bit, the first fights shoud be a bit easier now...plus, there are difficulty settings now, it should be much easier on "easy" :P I'm currently fiddling around with mouse support, I hope to have a new demo (with difficulty settings, mouse support and a host of other new features) soon.

About the "January 2010" thing...yeah, I initially anticipated to be finished by then. But things have taken much longer than planned...I hope to have the game finished by June or July.

Hehe...I'm beginning to think that I maybe should have chosen another name for the main character. You're the second person to make the band connection, but the character was originally named in reference to the Babylonian Marduk myth (to which there are a number of references and parallels in the game's story). When I initially chose the name for the lead character, I didn't even know the band...and Dave has a number of other skills besides Death Metal, that battle screenshot is just a coincidence (had I consciously named the lead character for a band/singer, I think Lemmy would have been more appropriate :P )

I'm currently ironing out the last few kinks in the mouse system, and I'm still waiting for a couple of faces for faceset 2...once I have all that, I'll upload an updated demo so you can actually see the shiny new GUI in action.

Hey, thanks for your comments. I wouldn't have expected the key to be that difficult to find...the guy who has it is probably the second person you talk to, and he's asking you if you're looking for something (of course you're not, in the very beginning, but now that you're looking for your key, maybe talk to him again :) ). I don't think I entirely agree with you that that is "bad game desing"...I'm going for a bit more adventure-like gameplay, you'll have to read carefully what people tell you when you talk to them, and quite often you'll have to talk to them for a second or third time after something happened in the game. I guess it comes down to different expectations of what an RPG is about - you say you're only interested in finding the key so you can start playing, I say you are already in the middle of playing because things like finding the key are an integral part of how the game works (don't worry, there will be enough (and hopefully interesting) battles and various minigames, but the adventure-like component is pretty central to my game).

Maybe sticking a warning label on the title screen that says "Not suited for antisocial bastards" would be a solution :P

There's a mysterious hooded guy standing in the lower-left corner, talk to him to find out how to get the key. The thing about introducing talking more naturally is an interesting point...all my betatesters so far were automatically instantly talking to evereyone and opening every chest, to the point where they forgot their main objective of getting to the cabbage patch (that was when I realized I needed a quests system). I have a hint system for the more complicated puzzles that tracks your unsuccessfull attempts at solving a riddle and starts giving out subtle hints after several attempts, I didn't think it would be necessary for the opening miniquests but I can add a hint or two to Marduk's house (something like Marduk saying "Maybe I should ask people in town if they've seen my key" after the player has searched through the house, or something).

Hey, glad you like the demo :) Alright, progress report:

*There are 8 distinct regions in the game world, each with its own look and feel and with its own story and quests that all tie in to the main story (the demo lets you play in the first region, Africa). I am currently working on region number 6, which will take a couple of weeks to finish. Region 8 will mainly consist of the final boss fight, but region 7 will be rather large and take some time to build. Last time I played through the whole game from start to finish (to region 6, that is), it took me about 14 hours (always knowing what to do and where to go and solving all quests straight away, realistic play time is probably closer to 18 hours).

*I've spent the last couple of weeks designing a number of minigames...all the classic RPG stuff like pushing crates to clear an exit/avoiding enemies on set move routes etc, but also a couple of things that I have never seen in an RPG Maker game. These are hidden throughout the game world, some have to be played to solve a quest, some are just there to have a bit of fun in between quests. There are also some new minigames in the area you can play in the demo. There will also be an unlockable arcade (after finishing the game, you'll unlock a main menu option from where you can access all the minigames)

*Everything is fully controllable by the mouse, the game can be played like a point-and-click adventure (including full mouse support for all menus, a quick access menu that scrolls down when you move the mouse pointer to the top of the screen, and the classic adventure-style "I can't go there"/"I can't reach it" messages when you click on something you can't reach.

*So far, there are about 70 minutes of music, all original, ranging from trance-y techno stuff for the worldmap and airship cruises to hard rock for the Marauders (the next culture you'll encounter after the demo) to appropriate Indian and Chinese music (but still with an edgy guitar feel, in accord with the general atmosphere of the game)

*Speaking of the airship, you can use that to move your car around the planet...you'll need the car later on to do a quest that involves insane stunt jumps. Later on in the game, there are various car models you can select from - so far, you can only transport Sheena's car and choose between that and a region-specific car with different stats and abilities.

*As you can see from the last batch of screenshots, the GUI and the facesets look much more professional and much less stock RPGmaker-y now. Problem with that is, one of my faceset artists is a lazy bastard and keeps me waiting for months for the next batch of faces - that's the sole reason there hasn't been a new demo in ages, I don't have the faces for Sheena yet and I don't want to release a demo without the faceset selector. I'll be very happy to finally have a demo with real faces - I hate Facemaker graphics, the new facesets both look much, much better than what's in the current demo.

So...progress. Yes, definitely. But I'm afraid to say it will be some months before the game is ready for release (in retrospect, I don't know what possessed me when I put that "Play the full game in January" message on the demo end screen :P )

Oh, by the way, I'm still looking for a couple of beta testers...if you're interested in playing through the whole game (incomplete and full of bugs and balancing issues as it still is) and are able to give constructive feedback, let me know :)