Hello, and welcome to Oathguard's first official RMN blog post. A big Thank You to everyone who has subscribed or left feedback on the page so far. My thanks also go to WIP and maintainers of RMN, for obvious reasons. Please enjoy reading some background info on the project below, or skip it and scroll down to the bottom of the page to see a video of the first 10 minutes of the game.

A Personal Introduction
I first started this project in earnest just as I was about to enter college. The plot and setting were castaways from a novel I'd attempted to write in high school, shipwrecked on my shore of terrible storytelling. Though I couldn't write anything decent with them to same my life, neither could I get them out of my head. Ragequitting from novel-writing, in order to convert my wild imaginations into some kind of creative product I decided to turn back to an old, filthy habit I'd picked up surfing the internet when I was 10. As bad as it sounds, I resumed...using RPG Makers.

I told myself back then that my game would be the magnum opus of adolescence, my last youthful endeavor before I stepped out into the real world; something that I would have to abandon when the time came to make the inevitable transition from being a 10.0 Steam Rating kid with big RPG dreams to an actual adult with better things to do. (No offense to the professionals of RMN who work hard for the money / so hard for the money, of course; this was simply my way of thinking at the time.) In other words, I wanted to be finished with my game before I graduated from college, to have it done and for the most part put behind me like so much collegiate alcoholism.

But for better or worse, "Project Oathguard" has had a mind of its own. Over last three years Oathguard has seen at least four reboots, three game engines, several project folders full of documents, reams of sketches, semesters of in-class scribbles in the narrow margins of notebooks, and thousands upon thousands of words written by me about it over the years--most of which will never see the light of day. I planned and planned but I was never satisfied. Yet each new iteration improved upon the last, and I found myself visualizing more and more clearly what I wanted to do. Storylines, coding, spriting, and all the other elements were suddenly coming together.

Now, on the cusp of graduation, I finally seem to have settled on a unified vision, and have the project and my goals properly organized and prioritized. I see the finish line, and it is near as well as far. Victory looms like a wary dolphin on the horizon.

Though some days I look upon it with pride, my game has also been a source of frustration and disappointment for me. You guys know the drill: I did not forsee how much time and effort making my game would truly entail. Nor did I foresee how poorly I would go about planning its development. But at the same time, it's been a major source of entertainment and joy. Still, I honestly don't know why I have kept on keeping on with this project. Maybe because I really thought I could make a cool game. Or maybe I just wanted to finish something I started for once in my life.

In any case, my work continues, and I can only hope that one day it is all finished, or inspires someone else to follow their big ar pee gee dreams.

On Inspirations and Vision
Like most game designers, whether I like it or not my favorite games heavily influence my own project. (Insert discourse about homages vs blantant ripoffs in RM games here.) Without incriminating myself too much or getting into even more uneccessary detail, I will say that the influence of the setting, gameplay, and narratives of Vagrant Story and Shadow Hearts had the most influence on Oathguard. The cinematics of former also left an impression on me that I hope positively affects the presentation of the narrative in my game.

I should also mention that of course parallel to those "REAL GAEM" influences are the many RM projects that have had an impact on me over the years. They gave me a lot of the "Hey, I can really make a game if I try" encouragement I needed during those dark "How many hours of my life have I wasted on this crap" times, just by existing. Lastly, the better part of the RMN community inspired me, as it represented the opportunity to share my creation with a remarkably wide and attentive audience of connoisseurs and critics.

There was a lot of stuff from my "novel" that I wasn't able to incorporate into my game; ethnic features unique to certain regions, main characters that I couldn't think up party roles for (you can only have so many paladins), and a lot of flowery bluish-purple prose. But my vision of Oathguard as an almost melancholy world filled with unattractively flawed characters, moral ambiguity, and a rather predominately brown color pallet has not changed. As an "RM game," I wanted it to be all this in addition to being a reasonably unique and fun gameplay experience, with a few custom systems here and some attention to detail there. It is my hope that it will be a game to be remembered.

A First Look
With all that out of the way, please take a look at the first 10 minutes of Oathguard's gameplay and tell me what you think.



Sorry about the lag, it does take out what little cinematic coolness the intro had. I welcome recording program suggestions :V

Some notes off the top of my head:

- KNOWN ISSUES. Besides the lag of the video... The maps are riddled with some glaring cosmetic errors (awkward spaces, tiles, terrible battle animations, only small plants waving in the wind, etc). The rain animation/sound effect is not consistenly implemented. There is some mismatching of sound effects with the custom systems. And there are just a lot of things that are provisionary or just missing. They will all be fixed/added for the playable demo.
- HELP NEEDED. As the pain in your eyes probably tells you, I could not make my mind up about the "shadowing" of the maps. I am a terrible artist so I was like "durr i wonder which direction the sun is casting a shadow" and did not settle on one answer. :| If anyone has any suggestions I would really appreciate them. (Bonus points if you don't mention overlays. :P)
- BATTLE. I will add in-game explanations of enemy weaknesses, etc later. But for now, here is a quick primer:
- WP = Willpower; use of Heraldry causes it to decrease.
- "Weapon" command consists of skills that are attached to certain types equipment. They are like the standard "Attack" in that they cost nothing to execute. In the demo there are Edged weapons (not accurate, high damage), Piecing (opposite), and Projectile (can equip Rounds). I have not consistenly implemented enemy weaknesses to these, so you may see some inconsistencies.
- "Focus" command restores WP; disappears once WP<30%.
- "Release" skill expends WP to quickly approch demon state.
- "Transform" appears when WP<30% (use instead of Release to immediately transform into demon state).
- DEMON STATE (pending name):
- Lvl always same as hero; stronger stats
- Stronger stats, different Heraldry set, Physical attack (a 2-hit, mildly inaccurate slash)
- TP=time points, number of turns until reverts back to human form.
- Sorry about Revert command, I couldn't think of another way to do it at the time. Oh, DBS.
- POST-DEMON STATE (not really explored in demo):
- After reversion, Heraldry is unusable for 3 turns.
- Heraldry Crest types (skill attributes):
Noctis > Stella
Terra > Luna
Stella > Terra
Luna > Noctis
- ENCOUNTER SYSTEM:
- Based on Crimson Gem Saga. Enemies can see something like 5 tiles in front, have 2-tile peripheral vision, and of course their back is a blind spot and tagging their butt gets you a preemptive strike. But you can get back-attacked, too. ;P
- ATTRIBUTE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM. No, you will not really gain 20+ levels and 99 distributable points per battle; that was just for demo purposes. :P Well, this system is pretty self-explanatory. Different characters will have different costs; you can customize them within certain bounds.
- MUSIC. How well do you think the tracks from various sources come together?

That's all I can think of. Let me know if you have questions.

After gathering any feedback from this post, I will incorporate as much as I can into a public beta that I will subsequently release. Therefore I greatly appreciate your help in making Oathguard a better game.

Thank you for reading.