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Introduction
Cyber Factor is a Rm2k3 game that I've been making off and on since 2003-2004. It started as a Rm2k project, then became a Rm2k3 project and then a RMXP project (which is mainly where most of last year's development went) and now has returned to Rm2k3. This demo contains 2-4 more hours (maybe more idk) of gameplay which covered the entire 1st area and its related story arc.

NOTE: If you still have your save from the previous demo DO NOT USE IT WITH THIS VERSION since I've redone the way you gain Tech Arts (You use to gain one of 3 Tech Arts when you reacted Rank (Lv.) 5 but now you gain them when your Body, Mind or Soul reach a certain levels meaning now you'll eventually have all 3 of them) and done alot of other changes that might break the game if you use the old save files. For the record in future demos you should be able to use Save files from this demo since I don't plan to make any more major changes.



What is Cyber Factor?
A semi-nonlinear RPG (think like Legend of Mana) based on a theory I had after stupidly watching the Matrix & Lawnmower Man on the same day (something I suggest you never do). I thought about how quickly AI has improved in videogames from when they were first created. Now imagine in say 100 years from now the AI in games will probably be so advanced that the game's characters will probably believe themselves to be alive & they will be after all when you think about it aren't we just an advanced code ourselves? Well what if this is all just a code written by beings more advanced than us? Many religions state that a god created everything well what if the method used by this god is the same method that we will use in 100 years to create a game world? Cyber Factor is a Rm2k3 RPG based around this theory.



So What's the Story?
This is sorta hard to explain in a game such as this but basically Cyber Factor happens in a world very much like our own only people are well aware of there datalogically coded make-up. The world itself has nearly been completely deleted by Viral creatures known as Geist. You play a guy named Heiro, created from Life Data that fell from the sky & it's your job to restore the world. There is no basic "this guy's evil go kick his ass plotline" to tell since through the course of the game many events happen each leading to a conclusion so I s'pose a summary of the story would go something like "You play Heiro & it is your job to restore the world while fighting against the Geist cause".



You Restore the World? How Exactly Do You Do That?
After completing events you gain what is called World Data & by using said data at restore points on the map you can restore anything from a single town, to a mountain range, to a continent. You then venture into these newly created areas completing new events & gaining more World Data. You can also change the areas themselves such as adding in a bridge or blocking off a lake to stop the water flow by finding & using Extra Data at reorganization points.



Game Features
-Restore the world using a system inspired by the Soul Blazer series & Legend of Mana.
-Enemies are see-able on the field & chase you similar to Grandia.
-Customized DBS with a heavier emphasis on the tactical use of arts.
-Combi system allows you to use powerful combinations of the arts you've obtained.
-Read various pages of books on shelves.
-Unique upgrading system allocate skill points into the catagories Body, Mind & Soul to upgrade your stats & learn new Arts as you level up.
-Battlechars with more than 3 frames per animation.
-Battle voices. (heyas & such)
-Various optional mini-games. (This will be the next thing I work on)
-Fight in an arena for money & items (Not in this demo, this is in area 2).
-Create and customize a robot mech in the in-game video game "Mobile Gear" and battle against the mechs of NPCs across the world. (One of the next things I'll work on, I consider it a mini-game, just a larger one)
-New Game +, play the game over with your ending stats & Arts as well as a few special items allowing you to discover new secrets within the game. (Obviously not in this demo or any demo following this one since it will only work when the game is finished)
-6 endings as well as 2 extra endings obtainable after New Game +. (Maybe I should remove these 2 from the features till the game is done?)
-Use alchemy to combine Extra Equipment to make new ones.
-Not really a feature but you can now see which Tech Arts Elemental Arts can make Combis with in the description of the Elemental Art's Exe Installer. Please keep in mind that some Elemental Arts also make new Combis with other Elemental Arts, theses aren't in the desrciptions.



Characters
Heiro
Age: Born when the game begins but his humanoid form appears as a 15 to 17 year old.
Weapon: Soliton (Sword)
Heiro was created from the Life Data that fell from the sky, has the ability to transfer and move the world's data at will. That's really all there is to know about him as you will decide his personality by how you play the game & what you say to other characters.

Zoei Fritzgard
Age: 18
Weapon: Z Armor (Martial Arts)
Zoei is the daughter of Cirel Fritzgard a famous Professor of Datology (the science of data & coding of it) & the creator of the Heaven's Edge Airship. After the fall of Helmsberg 12 years ago Zoei was taken in by Heaven's Edge & is now on her way to one day becoming an Einlanzer (Einlanzer: A military force based on Heaven's Edge who are trained to fight Geist).

Kayne Alexander
Age: 35
Weapon: Varii Gun (A gun that can shoot any know type of bullet)
Kayne is a monk of the Shrine of Onnu & son of the famous monk Azriel Alexander and Fheyana a mysterois woman found by his father near the Shrine of Onnu one day. It is said that he is the one who discovered the book which contains the Lux Legend but if this is true or not is unknown.

Serafin Alexander
Age: 42
Weapon: Gaian (Book)
Serafin is Kayne's older brother. He's gained fame as a warrior monk who travels the world destroying Geist with his followers. Some people look to him as the world's only hope.

Jack Banner
Age: 32
Weapon: Brawlingtons (Gauntlets)
An Einlanzer, Jack was a close friend of Cirel Fritzgard. During the fall of Helmsberg it was Jack who saved Zoei & brought her to Heaven's Edge.

Saceli Irving
Age: 36
Weapon: Excalia (Sword)
Saceli is a member of the Irving family of knights who have long served the Mano royal family. She was a childhood friend of Mari Fritzgard, Zoei's mother. After the Mano-Mona Kingdom's deletion Saceli joined Heaven's Edge mainly as a teacher but she also takes part in some missions.

Caprine Callenco
Age: 18
Weapon: Nothing (Attacks like your little sister)
Caprine is the daughter of the notorious mobster team of Sal Callenco & Rachelle Karris. Caprine joined the Junior Einlanzers around the same time as Zoei & they quickly became bestfriends & have even rented an apartment on the Eastside of Heaven's Edge together...well actually she pays like 95% of the rent but...well they live there together.

NOTE: There are some more characters who join you during certain events Legend of Mana style. The one you need to know from this demo is...

Wendolyn D'Marco (Wendy)
Age: 10
Weapon: Change Purse (Yeah really, an old lady's change purse)
A pirate captain from an unknown land. Claims to be from an orphanage somewhere but her true origins and how she became a captain over pirates at such a young age are a mystery.



Things You Need to Know Before Playing the Demo
Enemy Weaknesses: The icons beside the Geist name aren't there elemental properties it's there weaknesses. As will be explained later (you play Zoei during a class) unlike most RPGs enemies in Cyber Factor don't have certain elements but they are weak to certain types of attacks. For example a Ruby Dragon just because all its attacks are Fire based doesn't mean it's weak to Water. Its "fire pit" is inside its belly but the mighty horn on its head is a direct line to its nervous system, this means that it's actually weak to Lightning. So you see weaknesses aren't based on a "this counters this" system but on more realistic terms thus I'd be crazy if I expected you to just look at an enemy & figure out what it's weak to. Every enemy has atleast 1 Tech weakness & Elemental weakness & exploiting these weaknesses is key to battle superiority.

Combi Arts: As you perform Normal Attacks & Arts you'll notice that the Trianglar Meters next to the character's name will fill (they fill more when you use Arts). When atleast 1 of these meters is filled you can then perform a Combi Art. Combi Arts usually do not use Energy (MP).

Saving: You can save anywhere so don't go around looking for a save point cause there aren't any.

Latest Blog

Progress Report 4/2014

First off yep I'm still working on the game. It's nearing completion so there's no way I could even dream of quitting at this point.

So knowing that I'd imagine that your next question would be "Then what the crap is taking you so long?" and the answer to that would be that in reality I lack the time due to other projects and real world stuffs to give the game the proper attention it deserves.

But I will soldier on and I'll finish it one day... I just hope the PCs of that day can actually still run Rm2k3... (I'm joking it won't be THAT long).

Actually I'll probably have a butt ton of free time in May so I'm hoping to get a good deal of work done then (that is if I don't give in to the still in the plastic copy of Dark Souls 2 that's been staring me down for weeks now...)

Ok so now that the excuses are out of the way let's get down to business shall we, the actual update:

My most recent work was actually a pretty big step towards completion, I finally finished making the proper animations for every Tech, Elemental and Combi Art(Skill) in the game (Beforehand I had just been using "templates").

The game has ALOT of Arts especially when you consider Combis (Combination Arts).
In all there's...

30 Tech Arts spread amount your party members (10 per person)
+66 Tech + Tech or Elemental Combi Arts spread amoung them as well (22 per person)
+30 Shared Elemental Arts
+56 Shared Elemental + Elemental Combi Arts
Which means that in all you're looking at something like 182 unique Arts.

So you can probably see why I put off doing all their animations for so long. It was actually more fun than I expected though. Well except for the actual finding of the sprites and the editing, don't know why but I've always hated doing sprite work. I'm definitely gonna have to team up with an artist on my next game...


Piercing Edge + Light Sphere = Shining Edge

So what else have I done recently? Well I also performed a massive overhaul on the way the world map works. Originally the 3 main continents Everlon, Nevada and Mano-Mona (which the cape in the previous Demo was a part of) were 3 separate maps as this made it easier to handle all the events related to restoring different places and changing the map itself but this gave it a very "disconnected" feel having the screen go black as you traveled.

I also felt that that this downplayed both the overall theme of Restoration Vs. Destruction and the feeling of accomplishment I want players to feel after having brought the entire world back from what was just a tiny wuttle island in the beginning.

So now instead of being in separate sectors this is how the world will look once you've restored it all...
(Hidden because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who doesn't wanna see it till they play, not to mention it's kinda huge)

I've removed some of the events for spoiler reasons. I was gonna remove them all but... you know... that's alot of events lol. Also the big grey spot with all the events on it is a city but you can't see the buildings in this mode so sorry about that.


I also finished the engine for a submarine which can be used to explore certain deep sea areas of the game.

The sub using its laser drill to break through stone blocks.

The other blocks above fall when you break through lower ones so pay attention so that you're not stuck with only unbreakable grey blocks.

The sub also uses a "mock" 1st person battle system. The graphical elements of it aren't finished enough to show yet but the engine itself is done. How it works is your sub has 4 main parts in battle that make actions: the Conning Tower, Port (Left side), Starboard (Right side) and Engine...

-The Conning Tower can be used to give orders to redirect power to weapons or shields or repair damaged parts of the ship
-Port contains the Laser Drill and a paralyzing Shock Net
-Starboard has torpedoes which you can use to attack a single enemy or use a "salvo" to attack them all at once.
-And the engine is used to recharge the other parts of the sub (basically the "MP/EN" of the sub) and ram enemies.

If the Conning Tower is destroyed it means game over, if the Engine is destroyed you have no way of getting energy to the other parts of the sub and losing Port or Starboard greatly decreases your attack potential, I'm working on balancing this but that's the current plan anyway. Ultimately my hope is that the sub makes exploring the ocean a more worthwhile/fun experience.

Oh one more thing, I haven't finished it yet but I'm also working on another feature which I'm VERY proud of, a post-game 100 floor randomly generated dungeon called the "Chaotic Zone". After every 10 floors players will have to face a unique boss and it even has its own story focusing on the origin of a certain "special" Geist.

At the current balance the main game should end with you somewhere in the Rank(Lv.) 50+ range but the Chaotic Zone is being designed to take you all the way to Rank 100. It will also have some unique loot that will probably be way too powerful for the main game but should be fun to play around with in New Game+.

Well that's about it for my recent work on Cyber Factor. The only other thing I've done recently is boring balancing related things that you probably don't wanna hear about so I guess that's it.

I also just wanted to take this time to say thank you to anyone out there still waiting on this. Over the years as I've worked on this game I've gotten more love and encouragement from many people across many sites across the web than I could have ever asked for and even though I might be the blunt instrument that's hammering this game out without you my lazy butt probably would have quit long ago. My only hope at this point is that this project will ultimately become a game that lives up to your expectations and be one that I will proudly look back on forever. From the bottom of my heart thank you for keeping me motivated.
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  • Leric
  • RPG Tsukuru 2003
  • RPG
  • 04/18/2008 09:41 AM
  • 07/21/2022 12:21 AM
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WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11363
Giant description.

Also hey, this looks pretty cool. I'll try and check it out over the weekend.
Its acturally a pretty good game just that it developes to slow. i lost intrest, but it still really good.
The intro was somewhat boring, but afterwords it became awesome.
Yeah the intro was made a while ago when I was fairly new to RM.
It's always been in the back of my mind to make that part over since I've learned alot more about storytelling and invoking emotional responses from players since then.
I've started a blog for this game.
http://cyberfactor.blogspot.com/

Not much there yet but I plan to update it atleast once a week.
Are you still working on this? I always thought this was one of the more interesting, under appreciated games.
Yep I'm still working on it only (like always) progress is going slow.
See I have a very stupid routine that needs to be broken. Basically I have a habit of going off and working on a new idea in Multimedia Fusion 2 or working on my RMXP game and this usually takes up a couple months. At some point I always decide to come back to this game (because deep in my mind I still have the passion for it and what I want it to be) and then I work on it for a couple of month and then the routine repeats anew.

I thought my main problem was that right now I feel as though I have an unlimited amount of time to finish it (it barely ever gets mentioned so it's hard to feel as though anyone is anticipating it but me). I decided to create the blog to keep me on track since I'd have to update it with something new every week but so far that's not motivating me at all. How do you stay motivated Mr. Nightblade, creator of Demon Legacy? (1 of my most favorite Rm2k3 games btw)

Actually I think what I need to do is temporarily put off my RMXP game till I finish this since it's the glitter and glamour of RMXP that usually destracts me (I'm pretty good at Ruby scripting + my love for the gameplay aspects over the story aspects = months of script writing that take away time from Cyber Factor) and I definately want to finish this game.
I'm sure as hell anticipating it, I wrote a review for it haha.
Good news, I recently came upon some money and I'm going to use it to go back to college (I'm going to Fullsail for Game Design). How is this good news for you? Well I'll probably be starting in the spring so this leaves little time for me to finish any of my game projects since they're all relatively early off... except Cyber Factor. So because of this I've decided to drop all my other projects and work solely on Cyber Factor, the one game I might have time to finish. Although I think I'm going to drop the whole blog thing too since it seems pretty pointless IMO.
Finish this game please. It's too awesome to let die.
HELLO,,,IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE TO KILL THE SKELETON??
IT SEEMS TO ME THAT IT WILL never DIE,,,AND WHENEVER IT SHOOTS TWO MISSILES,,,I MUST DIE ~.~
ALSO,,,CAN MY MEMEBR UP LEVEEL?? AS I CANNOT SEE THE EXPERIENCE I GOT AFTER BATTLES ~.~
THX ~
sorry,,,
would anyone tell me how to allocate the points after i have levelled up,,?thx^^
So I take it this game will never be finished? :(
Yes it will be finished, infact I've done a HUGE amount of work on it but it's just taking longer than I expected.
But until it's finished don't expect a new demo or probably any info for that matter since I've chosen to dedicate my freetime solely to working on the game since no matter what kind of advertisement or hype I've tried in the past people seem to just skip over it so all that's just a waste of time anyway.
I'm not gonna set a release date or anything because really that's not how I work but yeah I'm working on it and it will be finished.
Glad you're not dead bro, I await the full game. :D
Can someone please reupload this? The link went down...
Yeah, SaveFile changed domains and didn't bother to preserve any previous uploads (bastards...)

So, here's a new link for Cyber Factor v3:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GFMPW035

Whoa... sorry about that folks I had no idea the download link was down (thanks for the new link SegNin, I'll make it the official link if you don't mine).

Anyway yeah just wanted to say that I'm still working on the game but it's going super super slow. I'm in school (it's Full Sail's Game Development program, yes it's as fast paced as you've heard) now so I have little time for anything outside of math and practicing coding and when I do get some free time I'm so damn fatigued it's hard to get my ass up and do something. I'm not gonna quit though, to be honest having to work on this game during my free time is great training for crunch time as I've been tired so long now I've transended and evolved past it (the fact that I've always been kinda an insomniac & have enough caffeine to turn an elephant into a cheetah in my body probably helps too).

Also off subject I just wanna say one thing about RPG Maker Vs. real game design and that is if you're thinking of getting into the real thing don't let anyone tell you that previous experience with RPG Maker won't help you, it will. Sure I'm learning to properly code and how the industry works but there are things on the design side (keeping ideas flowing properly, not dieing from the work load, cool ideas Vs. what actually works in the game Vs. what you actually have time to make and can make with what you're using) that you don't learn from school, you learn these from actually making games and RPG Maker seems to have given me a head start in these areaa (not to mention I made some games before Cyber Factor with other programs). I already know where my strengths and weaknesses (writing, actually it's just my English, all of you need to learn Portuguese so I can go back to making games in it!) as a designer lie, and I even know generally the types of games I would like to make in the future (story based action games). Alot of the people here at this school have no clue about these things and they'll probably have to learn them when they actually enter the industry or go independent (that's what I plan to do, I can't see myself doing the whole corporate thing yet so I'll probably just find a good artist willing to work with me and do that for awhile) or whatever and I'd imagine that's not a very friendly place to discover yourself in.

But yeah with that having been said officially I'm still working and I will finish this game one day (I just hope that Cyber Factor isn't considered the Duke Nukem Forever of Rm2k3 before it happens though...).


Don't worry I am pretty sure there are rm games with worse DNF syndromes.
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