• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS
A world destroyed by nuclear war...
A conspiracy to free mankind by all means necessary...
A young farmboy trying to avenge his father's death...
A mysterious amulet that may be the key to many secrets...
A guitarist in search of the greatest song in the world...

Welcome to the world of Götterdämmerung!

In the year 2012, a series of unexplained terrorist attacks pushes the world into nuclear war; civilization as we know it is completely destroyed. The war's few survivors gather in small villages and struggle against famine and disease. In the following decades, six charismatic leaders appear in various parts of the globe and begin shaping new civilizations from the ruins. It does not take long before these new empires start to fight among each other, and new wars break out.
Slowly, gradually, the new empires learn to live with each other; today, one hundred years after the nuclear war, the world lives in a fragile peace.
In the trading post of Dikea, on the southern border of the Saharan desert, a young boy grows up in a peaceful culture of farmers who shun any technology that is not absolutely necessary for growing crops. When a mysterious flying object falls into his father's cabbage patch, his life is suddenly about to become a lot more interesting...

Features:
* Drive cars and tanks, fly fighter planes and airships
* Discover various minigames hidden throughout the game world
* Travel around the world through seven distinct areas
* More than 30 hours playtime
* Soundtrack by Moreno, Fastmono and Portinari.
* Engine: RPGMaker XP

Characters
You are Marduk, a 16-year-old farmboy who is bored with life in his village and dreams of growing up to become a rock star, or at least a smuggler like his best friend Sheena.

Sheena has grown up in the neighbouring village; she is two years older than Marduk and constantly taunts him for being a stupid, useless farmboy who doesn't know anything about the world. Despite this, the two are the best friends you could imagine.

Marduk's father does not like Sheena; he doesn't like that she's a smuggler, he doesn't like her monstrous car, he doesn't like that Marduk spends time with her instead of learning how to become a farmer, and most of all he doesn't like that she's fond of using all sorts of technology - because the way of the farmer is one of being in tune with nature, not of fiddling around with machinery.

Project website: http://defaultgames.de

Latest Blog

How to unlock the Arcade from the main menu

Okay, purely hypothetical situation: suppose there was this game whose creator went a bit overboard with creating crazy minigames and stuff. And let's further suppose purely hypothetically that some of you might consider nominating said game for the "technical prowess" Misaos award because of the text adventure and jeep chase and stuff, but didn't because the game is hypothetically speaking also very long and some of you didn't make it far enough into the game to discover all the weird little minigames. And let's further suppose that this game had an Arcade map that allowed easy and direct access to all the various minigames, but that map would be unlocked only after completion of the entire game.

In this entirely hypothetical and fictional situation of someone maybe wanting to check out the minigames without having to invest 30 hours or more for finishing the entire game, there might be an easy solution: the game checks for the presence of a file called "gd_rpg.fin" in the game directory (%APPDATA%\GD_RPG) - to unlock the bonus features from the main menu - just create an empty text file in that folder and rename it to gd_rpg.fin.
  • Completed
  • sven
  • RPG Maker XP
  • RPG
  • 09/03/2009 09:47 AM
  • 03/16/2024 01:51 PM
  • 02/16/2014
  • 248274
  • 51
  • 1502

Posts

Pages: first 123 next last
uh. what the hell? This has got to be one of the wierdest games I've encountered as of yet. If you get the download available approved, I might even try it out, for the sake of cultural references (even though I thoroughly detest rmxp rtp-graphics.

also, I'm kind of wondering why you would name a character Marduk? And how does death metal really affect my enemies?
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...
Looks cool, I'll try it out. I'm just wondering why there's so much grass and flourishing plants when the world is supposed to be destroyed by nuclear war.
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.
@ Mr.Nemo

You haven't played the mirror lied
@ Mr.Nemo

You haven't played the mirror lied
Ok I have completed game. Funny thing I completed it the cave and then found gun hahaha. And so the game prolonged for me going to shop for beer. It kinda striked me why village that has bandits outside gate has no weapons/armors/guards to speak of. Heck the only mercenary is in another town. It sure is some pointless walking when I was for example searching the house and cliffs for key before I thought to check local villain. Then I found dieing few times with just 10 hp. If you were unlucky You could have died without even drinking a potion.3+3+4 and you are dead. Then I found awesome auto save cong. Besides that I enjoyed your game and I will wait for update. Though when I saw enjoy full version January.2010 I shouted WTF!! . And with that I end my writings.
Ps: you could say where is cave with bats
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.
This looks interesting. I was thinking of a similar concept myself (but dont worry it would turn out quite different than this). I'll give this a shot when I get a chance. And regarding Marduk, I assume he's named after the band? (Am I the ONLY one who got that reference???)
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.
I played some of the demo found here but I didn't get very far because apparently I needed a key AND THERE WAS NO HINT WHATSOEVER WHERE THE KEY WOULD BE so I wandered around randomly around town for a while not getting a single hint from anyone and quit.

I hope you've improved the beginning since then because that was some horrible game design right there. In the beginning I don't care about anyone in this game. Random townsperson might spew out exposition in massive amounts (like the professor person or the car repairman) and I won't listen for a second. All I'll be interested in is finding a goddamn key so I can start playing.

Whew. Got that off my chest. This game looked cool. But... I didn't get that far I guess.
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).
Actually the second guy I talked to was talking to the dad (? I can't even remember if it was a dad) again. Because I went straight to cabbage patch (of course I walked around trying to find the cabbage patch). I didn't actually talk to anyone on my way to that place because I had no interest whatsoever in talking to these guys. (yet. The thing is that in the beginning of the game I'm just not yet motivated to talk to everyone I see. And if some random person tells me to find a key the first thing I think is not "I should talk to everyone" the first thing I thought was actually "oh it's probably inside the house somewhere, I'll just use action against any place that seems key-obvious")

Basically I just think that you should introduce talking to people in some way that feels more natural. I might be an antisocial bastards but when I can't find my keys my first thought is not "I should go out to town and ask people if they've seen my key" instead I'll most likely search through my entire house thinking "where the fuck did I leave that key?"

So... where is the key btw? Perhaps it's only a minor glitch and the game seemed interesting enough that I might continue.
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).
I finished the demo.

You were going for a more adventure-like gameplay, but it felt more like a series of road-block quests. This may very well improve though if the game after a while opens up more and there's more going on simultaneously. I know I would feel more motivated to backtrack to a previous town if there was multiple things I have to do there instead of just one. However, currently there isn't much of an adventure feel in this game.

Battles have the same problem as most other RPG maker games (and many commercial as well), hit attack over and over. Sometimes bother to use Rain Maker. It's not any worse than usual though.

The story looks like it could get really interesting. It's hard to tell at this point, but I certainly see a lot of potential.
Ah HA! I did get the Marduk myth hehe. Admittedly I'm guessing I'm the only one here who was engaged to then later dumped by an archaeologist. I haven't gotten to try it yet but the posts almost make it sound like the anime B@st@rd (not even sure if that will be able to post.) Okay city of Metallicana...special attack Guns and Roe! :)
Yes Yes it is so cool to play this demo but come on tell us about progress.
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 :)
I would love to play the demo but it's a .download file :(
Pages: first 123 next last