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Foreword
A horror survival game set in Japan made with the RPG Maker VX. The Haunted World, inspired by the wonderful Corpse Party (and because of this, has many mature aspects), features different endings and will be released in chapters. The game features a more visual-novel like gameplay, but it is also filled with puzzles and minigames. However, the main aspect are the many choices you need to make throughout the game. One wrong move could be your last.


Features
* A visual-novel type of gameplay. Find items, solve puzzles and choose wisely! The next choice could be your last...
* Completely self-made tiles
* Maps done the parralaxing way
* Character portraits in cutscenes and character icons during gameplay
* Different character outfits
* Many chapters to unlock
* Many chapter endings - different wrong ends and one true end in every chapter
* A story that sucks you into the abyss of hell itself - don't believe what you are told, nobody said ghosts tell the truth...
* A bunch of minigames


Story
It's not easy living a normal life - at least, not for Hisao. He's sick to the very core. Cancer isn't a regular problem you have to face. But for Hisao, it's the norm. It isn't fair that he has to suffer while his best friend Priam get's everything he wants. Good looks, all the girls and a healthy, normal life. Everyone of his friends has a normal life. Except him, of course. And it's only getting worse. Wearing a wig? No problem! Knowing you will die in less than six months? That's another matter.

It's almost as if Hisao feels ghostly already, but he doesn't want to vanish so soon. He still has a lot of things to do. Not only will he die in less than a year - fate is a cruel game the demons love to play. And fate just decided for Hisao that no one can escape death. Not even those he thinks are indestructible.

What's even worse is that he can suddenly see all of those that are long gone. And then there's that promise one of the demons gave him...


World
The World of The Haunted World: Hell's Gate is split into three seperate dimensions.

"Real World" - Our Dimension: This is the dimension, the world that we know. The dimension we are living in. "Real World" is a strong word, but it's what fits best. We aren't able to see anything from the other dimensions, but we can interact with them, in a way. Have you ever tried writing a letter to a ghost? It's possible!

"The Otherrealm" - The Soul Dimension: Every dead soul that can't pass on finds their new home in the Otherrealm, a dimension that looks exactly like ours, but has entirely different rules. For once, ghosts don't need doors. Never try to open one, it won't budge. Souls and ghosts in the Otherrealm are able to see everyone in the "Real World". They can interact with them, despite not being seen by them. They are also able to interact with everyone in "Hell's Gate", however, they aren't able to see souls that are trapped in there.

"Hell's Gate" - The Dimension of Hell: "Hell's Gate" is, literally, the gate to hell. Once stuck in "Hell's Gate" you won't be able to return. Only people that lost their soul, have a black heart or sold their soul will be transported to "Hell's Gate", where they have to wait for judgement. Spirits in "Hell's Gate" are able to see everyone from every other dimension - however, they can only interact with spirits in "The Otherrealm". Not a single soul trapped in "Hell's Gate" is able to hurt someone from the "Real World". "Hell's Gate" is a twisted dimensions without any color but the one that represents fire.


Credits
Developer: Schwer-von-Begriff
Mapper: Schwer-von-Begriff
Artist: LuneaMaster (on Deviantart)
Game Logo: Sakurazaki (RPGMakerVX.net)



Follow me on tumblr for the latest news regarding the game and other projects of mine: http://schwer-von-begriff.tumblr.com/

Latest Blog

A new year, a fresh start! or "How I found my motivation after a year of not doing shit."

It's been a while.

I guess that's a resonable statement, though still a vast understatement, all things considered.
'Soon' - yeah, sure. How soon can soon be?
Or, rather, how much time can pass before 'soon' starts becoming nothing but wishful thinking?

Why am I even writing this much feelsy stuff?
Because I still care.


You see, life is rough and life loves to see me and my sarcasm suffer.
Always has been this way, always will be. Stuff happened.
My friend got better, but other things got worse.
I finished school, which is a plus, but the rest of the year was very...unfortunate, to put it lightly.

But my motivation came back, will probably come back even more after I finally hold my tiny kittens in my arms.
Two wonderful British Shorthair boys. They are pure sugar, I tell you.

I got better at drawing. And I think after all this waiting I can finally say what direction this project will take - I owe you that one.
And thanks to my New Years Resolution plan, I have figured out a safe way to work on everything that I want to work on!
Exciting.

From today onwards, this project is back in action!
Slowly, but surely, it will evolve into what is well-known under the name of 'Sidescroller'.
(Kind of. Like Dreaming Mary. The side without the scrolling. You get what I mean.)
2D.
Awesome backgrounds and sprites.
Completely reworked.
The Haunted World 2.0! ...or something like that.

Hope you stick around.
And Happy New Year!

  • Production
  • 0 of 7 episodes complete
  • Cirrocumulus-Cloud
  • LunaElto (Artist)
  • RPG Maker VX
  • Puzzle RPG
  • 01/08/2014 07:13 PM
  • 03/20/2024 01:35 PM
  • N/A
  • 133774
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Posts

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iddalai
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 for life, baby!!
1194
Love the artwork! :D
Subscribed!
Didn't know the game was posted here~ :D
author=AliceShadowRose
When have u the Game complete i want it @-<

yeah, keep on supporting~ :)
author=AliceShadowRose
When have u the Game complete i want it @-<


That will take some time. I try to release a demo in the next two months, though. :)
Looks really good, I like the plot and the art, I am definitely keeping an eye on this! Can't wait for the demo ;D
Awesome. I can't wait to play it.
The story and the concept is interesting.
*subscribes*

May I ask?
How's the game doing now?
author=karins_soulkeeper
The story and the concept is interesting.
*subscribes*

May I ask?
How's the game doing now?


Thank you, dear! The game is doing fine. I plan to release the demo in August. :)
Good to hear that! I'll be counting on it :)
Ok, I know it was just a demo, but there are some serious faults so far:

SPOILERS FOR THE DEMO

1-The "puzzles" are not intuitive at all, with no clues whatsoever to solve them, leaving them to a wild guessing game. I spent a good 15 minutes walking around interacting with stuff, until i finally found the random and arbitrary triggers to progress.
2-The keys are labeled, but we never know were the room is from the start. One of the keys is labeled as "Room 007" yet it unlocks the bathroom inside the room you found the key in! And there is no indication that the room we are in is room 007...
3-Some sprites change when you talk to them!
4-Taking place in a hospital, the game talks about various diseases and such, yet obviously no research at all was done on them. A single fracture is enough to amputate your limb? Chocolate is not a substitute for insulin, on the contrary. Also people just dont suddenly die from a hypoglycemic attack. Also, suicide pills lying around a hospital. Ok.
5-Not a single doctor/nurse in the hospital (altough, it could be plot related)
6-The insulin quest is broken. If you press Z/Enter during the bad end cutscene, you can actually move and leave the room, canceling the bad end. (And if the player is out of the room when the timer stops, no bad end is triggered)
7-The guy who has the insulin is in the party with me while we are searching for it, and the only way for him to give it to me is to trigger a completely unrelated side quest, which must be done before i know i need it, although it can be triggered after? Its confusing, i know, and thats why it shouldn't be like that.
8-If you are making us read through the whole life story of a NPC, at least give them a mugshot/name/relevance to the game.
9- The dialogue is unnatural, forced and stiff with sudden bursts of exposition. Mediocre writing at best.
10-Key in the sink, AKA, click random, non intuitive spots until you find what you need.
11- Inadequate RPG maker stock sounds. The door crossing sound. Why? www.freesound.org Enjoy
12- Hisao sees a dead and bloody body on the floor, takes an item from it, and only then realizes the guy is dead. Also, an anonymous stranger who knows his name joins his party and he is cool with that.
13- Is the game in english? Because Otosama is not english. I realize its set in Japan, but you either translate it or dont.
14-In Japan, people dont use their own clothes in the hospital.
15- And finally, the game isn't scary at all. (Probably because of the lack of SFX)

I really liked the lightning in the game though, it really sets the mood, and the object descriptions that give insight into the mind of Hisao.

As it is a demo, not much can be gathered regarding the plot, but this errors give The Haunted World a very bad first impression. Here's hoping the final version will be better, and good luck with the rest of the game!!
@Hope: Please do not hate me for throwing a lot of your criticism out the window, I will try to explain myself.

1. The side quest with the ghost lady isn't really intuitive, that is right. The Pill Puzzle, however, has hints. A lot of them. Interact with the pills and you will know what kind of pills they are. It's about trying to figure out what pill is not on the ground and thus the special pill. Not the most intuitive gameplay-wise, but that's because the heavy puzzles will come in the future and this was, more or less, a demo that shows different aspects of the game - in a light fashion that is not too difficult to get into.

2. I would certainly insert a script that shows what kind of room you are in at the bottom of the screen...if I could find one.

3. Some people already told me, that will be taken care of. It can happen. No need to be a sour little lemon (I'm only joking, don't worry.) when that can be easily changed.

4. The game isn't just set in the hospital - it is merely the starting point. Oh believe me, I did research. The girl says that her leg was fractured in such a way that they could not save it - and I read about things like that a few times. Huh? Where did you get the chocolate thing from? Kazuna needs insulin and she was trapped in that room for hours. She's got a really bad case of diabetes - she could certainly die from it. Maybe not that fast...but she could. Also, plot related stuff - that thing with the pill guy. Will be explained, but at a later point.

5. Plot related.

6. That can be, and I appreciate that you told me. I will fix it, of course. My beta testers did not find out about that. Just tell me and I will fix it. No problem.

7. That has a reason. But he isn't the kind of guy that throws an explanation at you for something like that. He wants the pill for a reason and gives you the insulin in return. It's a give and take situation. It's confusing because this game is about choice - I could not show that much of it in the demo, of course. The game is designed to evolve with the player's choices, though. If you forget something/just want to rush through the main quests you will have a hard time. If you fail with the Insulin then that won't result in the game ending in the complete chapter. You play the chapter with one more person dead. That's why it is optional - to show you that you can fail and, if you do, you should try to learn more about the people around you.

8. They do have a relevance to the game - to show that Hisao knows all of them, because he basically lives there. That is their relevance to the game. They provide story, some of them give you Side Quests. They have a reason to be there. I know that not everyone is a fan of that, and I do not hate you or anyone else for that. But they DO have a reason, is what I want to make clear.

9. Do you mean the 'plot'? The plot has not even started yet. Do you refer to Hisao's way of talking? That is SUPPOSED to be clunky and weird. That's Hisao in a nutshell, basically. Do you refer to Priam's way of talking? That's Priam's personality in a nutshell. OR do you refer to my way of writing? I'm not a native english speaker. If you see problems with my way of writing things, tell me and I will change it. I can not know such things if nobody tells me the problems, obviously.

10. Yeah, sometimes. That's what a horror rpg is about sometimes. Interacting with stuff. I will not make a huge mansion and let you search for one random item. But Hisao's room and his bathroom are tiny little things - you can easily learn more about both rooms by interacting with things. I do not know what is so wrong about that.

11. Because I couldn't find a new door sound. And because most of these sounds will change in the future. They certainly are not the best sounds, but they aren't the worst, either. They are generic, yes, but that does not mean they are bad. I know that you probably thought I would search for more free sounds - and I will certainly do in the future.

12. You could always first interact with the guy, you know. Hisao is not cool with that guy joining, he even questions himself if he was there from the beginning. Hisao is just a depressed being that is simply curious about what other people have to offer. It's not like he could run away from the mysterious dude, anyway. Hisao can be talked into a lot of things. Just take his and Priam's conversation as an example. He calls him a 'special snowflake' (and Hisao does not like that), but because Priam is so persistent he does not try to stop him. I don't think that you really know what kind of character Hisao is. Other people did, however, find him cute and love the way he talks about his life when you interact with things. I try to make that side of him a bit more obvious in future updates, though. =)

13. Yes, it is. Only Hisao refers to his dad as Otosama, because he is someone that has a really weird, really formal way of speaking. That just underlines it. Priam, on the other hand, has that 'old man' slang. It's a way to show how different the characters are and I do not think that it is inappropriate in a game that is set in Japan.

14. Hisao does, because he lives there. The other people that are in the rooms live there, too. It will be explained why soon enough. That's why they wear normal clothes. The other people that are just there to visit friends wear normal clothes too, of course. You will find countless people that are in the hospital only for a short while in future updates, but this little demo focuses on the people that literally live there. And there is a good reason for why they live there. Just give it some time to explain itself. This is just 30% of the complete first chapter...and the game has seven chapters in total.

15. It does not have to be scary. It is supposed to be eerie at this point. The scary stuff comes later. I am not a fan of throwing scary things at you when it's not time to make the game horribly scary just yet. I want to set an eerie mood that revolves around Hisao being sick to the very core. I do not want to throw the scary stuff in there if there is no reason for it to be there in the first place.

Thank you for your compliment, though. Please do not think that the game will be as simply structured as the demo is - that would be a false assumption. I wanted to create a little tutorial demo that shows you what kind of things you can do. I do not want to go all out with the crazy stuff that I planned for future updates just yet. Thank you, I will change some of the clunky writing and the little bugs in there, of course! You just have to give the game more time to explain itself. You can hardly do that in a 30 minute demo. =)
Thanks for your response!
As for number 2, you can make an image saying the room name, and make an event to show it for x seconds and then erase it, everytime you enter the rooms. The chocolate thing, i think the guy says Have some chocolate and the gives you insluin? Could be me remembering wrong!
@Hope: Oh, that could be it! I first thought about giving Hisao chocolate, but I erased that thought pertty quickly. I might have to change that one word. Thanks for noticing! I could do that, but the problem is that I only have so many pictures that I can work with. I try to come up with a good solution in the future, though. I will polish the demo, first of all. And no problem, if someone has something to say, then I will reply. =)
@Schwer
Having a diabetic father, I know the minimum about diabetes and it's not pleasant to see such a medical mistake in a game that talks about several illnesses.
When you have diabetes, you have a LOT of sugar on your blood, but that sugar won't reach the cells because it needs the help of insulin (which you have none). Giving chocolate will only make your blood carry more sugar, but still no sugar will reach the cells.
You should be careful when going deeper into the illness of your characters and do a little wikipedia research at least, you see. It's not complicated I asure you, it just requires a bit more time and you'll be able to produce a game with convincing details. This would also prevent people from getting offended or something (this world is getting way too sensitive lately and one must be careful)
Thank you for being so open to conversation and I hope you can improve all these aspects.
I'm sorry if I was a little to harsh on you, you're really young and your team is really small, but please consider that quality takes practice, trial and error! Your game will surelly come out a lot better than the demo, but please be sure to get a good beta-testing team, so that all programing mistakes are cleared!

I wish you the best of luck!
@Hope: I searched for a while, read through multiple sites. If those sites tell me something that is entirely wrong, then that is not my fault. I read that you can fall into a comatose state...so I based it off of that. I just made it into something that is worse than that...for reasons I cannot state right now. I will surely approach the scene differently in the demo update, but I won't change the dying aspect. Is that alright with you? =)

The chocolate idea isn't even in the game anymore and it only was at a time when Kazuna had other problems. Not this type of diabetes. I also want to include some fictional illnesses that I will throw into the game, so I thought about giving one to Kazuna...but it didn't really work all that well, so I changed that thought. Guess that idea was still stuck in my head when I had the diabetes thought.

No problem! I am always open to criticism. You were indeed a little harsh, but it's nothing that I can't handle. It's better to get some criticism and improve than just sugary compliments that do not help at all. While I won't change everything that you told me, I sure as hell try to improve and change some of the mistakes you pointed out. My beta testers helped me a lot already, but there were some things that I changed which caused other errors - errors that I wasn't aware of. That's why my number 1 priority is to clear those mistakes and make the game a bit more enjoyable by changing some things around.

Thank you! :D
Hmm, if she HAS to have diabetes (with all glitches covered and solid medical information in the game) then a bit of fantasy is acceptable and it becomes acceptable a quest like that (considering that this is a fictitional work and is for gaming) . But keep in mind that there are quite a lot of illnesses that require emergency treatment, like lung problems ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyspnea ), heart problems or an anaphylatic reaction ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaphylaxis ) - you need an alergic trigger to this one, but it can be as simple as an insect bite (or maybe an unknown cause?).
Wikipedia is usually a fairly reliable source, specially the english pages, and you have the source links below, that are usualy from scientific articles (which is 100% reliable medical information).

Oh! A fictitional disease is really cool! It could be a genetic something, since there are milions of genes that could combine in a wrong way all the time, and there are genetic diseases that affect as little as 1 or 2 people in the world, so any insanely weird thingy could be acceptable! Have you ever heard of alexandria's genesis? It's a fake disease but actually very convincing!

It's true! One needs compliments once in a while though! :) Doing something is way more praisable than doing absolutely nothing at all! :) I was a bit way too hasty posting my comment, I didn't even realize I was talking to such a young game developer, so I'm sorry!

And oh wow I just noticed how our icons look alike! Is your game art somehow inspired on The world end with you?
Should we be talking trough PMs?

Welcome!
@Hope: That could actually work way better than diabetes would...I might as well change it into lung problems. Would work better in-game as well. Huh...thanks for the idea! And thanks for the links as well. These will definitely come in handy.

I thought it would be a neat idea. I have to do some research first, of course, but I read about very strange diseases a while ago and that inspired me in a pretty cool way. Sadly I haven't, but I will definitely check it out, now that you recommend it!

Yes, that's right. I think everyone needs a compliment once in a while, and I really appreciate the fact that you told me some positive things as well. I worked on this game for a while now, but it took a long time to make/get everything that I need. I'm doing almost everything by myself, after all, so it takes quite some time to finish things. But I try to find a composer sooner or later, so that I can provide my players with original music.

Oh, please, don't apologize! I'd rather be treated like everyone else. I don't want any extra compliments and no one should be extra careful just because I am rather young. I can handle criticism quite well. It stings a little, of course, but that is just natural. It's fine, really. As long as someone does not behave like a total d*ck then everything is alright! And you did not behave like such a person.

Yes, my artist was inspired by TWEWY and I really like the art style of that game, so I was amazed that he could mimic the style so well. It's truly a wonderful art style.

If my writing style is a bit clunky and confusing in certain text boxes in the game, feel free to correct my mistakes. Neither me nor my artist are native english speakers, so it is quite difficult to get everything right.

We can talk through PM's, of course! If there is anything else you have to say that I should correct, then feel free to send me a message. =)
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