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Evoking Character (and demo release!)

  • Sviel
  • 05/29/2014 12:32 AM
  • 189 views


The Whisper demo now available here!

One of the mainstays of the RPG genre is the tendency to include a story of some sort. Some of these are epics, such as Final Fantasy. Others are smaller in scale, such as Summon Knight II. Some aspire to twist your emotions into a knot, while others are content to lay out a reasonable setting for their gameplay to take place in. Truly, there is room for all manner of tales in the RPG genre.

With rare exceptions, however, there will always be interesting characters. The name Cloud Strife, for instance, is recognizable even to those who have never played FFVII, even though there is some debate over exactly how interesting he actually is. One can't ignore the slew of FF inspired characters, though, specifically the Spiky Haired Protagonists with Giant Swords.

Whisper was made with this in mind. It resembles Summon Knight more than Final Fantasy, though, as that style seems more suitable to a shorter game. For those of you have yet to play it (and you really should play it if you have a GBA), SK boasts a tight cast of nuanced characters. Some interactions will make you smile, while others will have you laughing outright. Even so, it dares to approach heavier topics and manages to handle them with the dignity they deserve.

With this demo, I aim to give a sampling of that atmosphere. Thus, it is short (5-10 minutes) and contains more theatrical elements than the game proper. The gameplay has been re-tuned to better fit the shortened format, but is still pretty representative.

This blog will be be shifting focus in the future, too. Whereas I've been talking about various game design elements in terms of mechanics, I'll be switching to storytelling and covering more Whisper specific topics. Interspersed within this, I'll do in-depth looks at various characters, including combat mechanics if applicable. Those will be ordered based on what people want to see, though, so let me know what you're interested in. Please keep in mind that there are several mirrors for this blog, and as such, the topics covered may not reflect the visible feedback.

Next time, I'll talk about the setting in Whisper, why I chose it, and how I crafted it.