• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS


Basically, we're confident in the project but bricking it anyway, so if you wanna swing by our Facebook Page with a like'n'share or follow our progress on Twitter (@TheEriasLine) you'll be helping us out in a genuinely big way. Thanks!




------------------------------------------------------------------------

The World

While stars were fading from the night sky, human engineers were rapidly constructing the Artificial Sun that now warms and energises the world. Erias now drifts alone in a lifeless ocean of total darkness.

Back on the planet's surface, the power of harnessed solar energy has spurred an industrial revolution that brought startling technological advances in the space of less than a decade. A monetary economy has largely replaced the old systems of trade and bartering that were the mainstay of human societies for hundreds of years. People are quickly abandoning their nomadic existence in favour of a more stable life in the world's first cities and towns, drawn by their modern technology and supposed high standards of living.

Everything continues as though an endless future lies ahead.

But time is running out.

A deal was made in secret to extend the lifespan of the world by granting humans the capability to build their Artificial Sun. Repaying this debt will mean systematically destroying every human achievement and ambition, all to feed the investigations of a powerful and ruthlessly curious entity.

Unknown to almost all, civilisation is hurtling towards the total self-destruction that this entity demands.

And punishments far worse than death wait for those who try to resist it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brother and Sister

Orphan and Skyler have recently arrived in Verdamm searching for a place where they can settle and end their lives as vagrants.

But they found the city to be far from the utopia that stories describe and, before they can leave again, are forcefully conscripted into the 'Operatives'; a shadowy network of agents, murderers and thugs born from the city's merciless depression.

Their almost impossible first assignment sets them on a path that will force them, and their bond, into a fight against events spiraling towards chaos.

To survive, they must fight for the lesser of evils and for each other, all while enduring the ominous fascination of a strange intelligence...

...an intelligence obsessed with testing the limits of their love and proving that it can be utterly broken.

"This is why you are both invaluable to me.
Nothing would stop one from protecting the other.
Nothing and no-one too important to sacrifice.
But I will keep looking.
You're merely humans, after all."

------------------------------------------------------------------------


Play time:
approximately 2 - 3 hours.


Note:
(There are RTP inc. and no RTP inc. downloads available.)


Warning:
Contains some gore and several instances of very strong language.



Latest Blog

New design pieces. Very pleased!

New design pieces. Very pleased!

As you folks know, our Kickstarter campaign launches on Monday (August 24th, 2015).

Although I knew getting everything prepared for it would mean a lot of work (work I was enthusiastic to tackle) I learned a little lesson about underestimation.

Of course, everything's in place. It's all be proof read, polished, reorganised, rejigged and tweaked to (hopefully) as close to perfection as possible.

I'm very happy with the designs I put together for it, so I wanted to share with you guys:

First, the character bios:

One area where Omnis is a little weak in terms of content at the moment is artwork. We've got Oksana Kharitonova on-board now as our dedicated character artist, but in the interim I've done my best to make use of the sprites:





A big part of my approach to making the KS page look good was having graphics for titles instead of plain text. It's a common approach on KS, but there aren't many who make their titles animated!:

(this is a 50% resolution version)



And, finally (though there's lots more on the page itself), I decided to make pretty versions of our pledge rewards:



I realise these images a little big and unwieldy for a blog post, but I really went overboard on resolution to try and guarantee the best quality when they were uploaded to Kickstarter.

That's all from me, folks.

Hope to see you on Monday!

-S.E
  • Cancelled
  • Commercial
  • Elder71
  • Chris23
  • ProjectLeftover (Composer)
    ekatemari (Concept Artist)
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • RPG
  • 10/03/2014 04:25 PM
  • 08/11/2023 12:23 AM
  • 10/01/2017
  • 237382
  • 67
  • 1694

Posts

Pages: first prev 123 next last
Elder71> And thank you for your prompt and sensible response, which is a notable quality in a creator ;)
I am glad to hear that the demo has improved on those fronts, I will be sure to try it and hopefully lay my criticisms to rest!

In any case, I have no doubt that this is a work in progress and that it can improve. Perhaps my tone was a bit harsher than necessary, since you appear to have this at heart too. I've just seen too many projects do much better on style than substance, and it is a shame when they have as much potential as yours, so I reckon a small nudge early on can be useful.

Tropes are not inherently bad (and you can hardly avoid them all), and I am quite sure that the story may reveal its strength later, but that's not the message you want to put in a demo. There should be a large enough hook that one can guess at the depth behind. Your hook is perfect in terms of atmosphere (for all its tropeyness, the haunted mine is really well done and works perfectly as a set piece, then the tone change with the train and the countryside are much welcome), but less so in terms of narrative. I may backtrack on this after checking the new version, though.

As for the gameplay, what there is now is certainly not bad, and it could be sufficient if that is not your main focus. (Edit: crucially, it is rather enjoyable in an unobstrusive way, which is also what I think of a lot of commercial JRPGs - you don't play them for the battles, but those are not a pain either).
But if you or someone else in your team can give it some thought, it would be nice to have something that goes beyond sufficient and into daring. I've always felt that the RPG community is neatly separated into story games with okay gameplay, and inventive mechanics with no story at all, which is sad.

That being said, once again I am quite sure that you will have no trouble selling it in the present state. Most of your audience on KS and beyond have different (dare I say more conventional) expectations, and you cannot be perfect at everything nor please everyone. So I certainly won't blame you for choosing your focus and keeping at it!
@Hasvers
I think part of the problem has been that the project has relied on existing custom scripts so far, meaning that the creative side of the mechanics has been restrained. If we raise funding then that gate will open and we can have a real play/experiment.

The story will always be the focus, though. It's a shame that the concept doesn't come across strongly for you and I take your point precisely about needing to show off all strengths in a demo. I don't think a newer version is going to change much of your impression on this point, sadly. The story barely gets started in the demo compared to what's planned for the bigger picture.

With funding (not to bang on about it) I'll have more room for creative expression. Have you read anything by China Mieville, perchance?
shayoko
We do not condone harassing other members by PM.
515
i must of spaced,i didn't even notice it asked to save somehow right at you get off the train
so ignore that one :3

other notes
don't have exact sentences,but theres 3 misspelled words over the course of the train dialog

and unless i missed something how did skyler know it was dillans aunt? she only said family lived there o.o
/
also np :3

Sign
Feed the Devs not the trolls!

author=shayoko
don't have exact sentences,but theres 3 misspelled words over the course of the train dialog


I'll have a careful look for them during my next playthrough.

author=shayoko
and unless i missed something how did skyler know it was dillans aunt? she only said family lived there o.o


I'll check this out as well. Very very observant if you're right!
author=Elder71
With funding (not to bang on about it) I'll have more room for creative expression. Have you read anything by China Mieville, perchance?
Well I'll be sure to chip in anyway! (NB: I would have contributed scripts directly, since what you are mentioning isn't extremely involved, but I already have too many projects to commit to anything without a huge probability of dropping out. Hope you'll find a good and cheap scripter!)
And I have read Miéville, if he is among your chief references I can only approve of your taste ;) I've also reread your setting description and there is something reminiscent of Iain Banks there. So I may well be surprised by what you end up doing with these ingredients.
author=Hasvers
Well I'll be sure to chip in anyway! (NB: I would have contributed scripts directly, since what you are mentioning isn't extremely involved, but I already have too many projects to commit to anything without a huge probability of dropping out. Hope you'll find a good and cheap scripter!)
And I have read Miéville, if he is among your chief references I can only approve of your taste ;) I've also reread your setting description and there is something reminiscent of Iain Banks there. So I may well be surprised by what you end up doing with these ingredients.


I've got an official site in the works so I'll be posting that link and updates and stuff there, here, everywhere.

I love (love, love, love) the Bas-Lag books. I'm strongly inspired by them, but cultivated weirdness at those sorts of levels was too much of a workload for me on my ownsome. There's so much stuff in the works, it's really exciting!
Tried the demo =) this game is really intriguing. I loved it. very good story too :)
author=CreativeMinds
Tried the demo =) this game is really intriguing. I loved it. very good story too :)


Very glad you liked it - the story has a lot still in store, I can't wait to properly get to work on the full game.
author=Elder71
author=CreativeMinds
Tried the demo =) this game is really intriguing. I loved it. very good story too :)
Very glad you liked it - the story has a lot still in store, I can't wait to properly get to work on the full game.


And I cant wait to try more of it :) Good job m8 ;)
Just saw one of this game's (many) astonishing screenshots on the front-page. Still such a disappoint how it all turned out :(

Any plans to potentially give it another go with the Kickstarter?
author=Blindmind
Just saw one of this game's (many) astonishing screenshots on the front-page. Still such a disappoint how it all turned out :(

Any plans to potentially give it another go with the Kickstarter?


I don't think I'll go the Kickstarter route again. I didn't like how it turned me into an accountant/marketing executive rather than a designer/story teller.

I also learned that I have a long way to go in terms of developing my skillsets before I can make Omnis the way I want it - so it's probably for the best that our KS failed so miserably.

Maybe, just maybe, when we've got a big enough fan base and I'm not so naive, maybe then we'll give it another crack. But for now I just want to dev for the love.
Your skillset is more than fine. You have the rare ability of creating awesome pixel art, as well as a great story. A 100,000+ copy commercial game is well within your grasp. You could make the next To The Moon or Lisa if you just pushed yourself again.
author=lianderson
Your skillset is more than fine. You have the rare ability of creating awesome pixel art, as well as a great story. A 100,000+ copy commercial game is well within your grasp. You could make the next To The Moon or Lisa if you just pushed yourself again.


That - now that means a lot man, thank you. I do try and maintain that kind of confidence moving forwards, though it's very rarely easy.

I think the thing with Kickstarter, for me, was that Omnis stopped being about love for a story and characters and a game world and became about budgets and twitter analytics and promotion deals and sending out mass press emails. Ultimately, that all took a massive toll on my passion and really muddied the waters when it came to my motivation.

For anyone else reading who's interested in the state of the Omnis project, here are some areas where I feel Omnis needs to be improved before its ready to go again:

Uno: Animation.
I've put a lot of practice in with static pixel art, but I'm only forcing myself to learn better animation techniques recently. I'm also trying hard to get a better grip of colour palettes, smear frames and more interesting/expressive animations in general.

Zwei: Story.
The demo was too long and took far too much time to get across a few basic plot points. This is an issue of needing both tighter writing and much more focused level design (quite a few people got lost and frustrated in the first area, which can only be because the layout wasn't clear enough).

Trois: Mechanics.
I'm a story person, and a lot of Omnis' proposed 'custom mechanics' were shoe-horned in after the fact. When the time comes, I'll be redoing the demo and redesigning everything with those mechanics at the core, rather than stuck on to the periphery like dung beetles on s**t.

IV: Fanbase
I stubbornly insisted on launching our Kickstarter before we were ready. I did this for reasons related to my personal situation, and freely admit that I refused to acknowledge the obvious warning signs:
< 100 likes on Facebook and most of our 700ish Twitter followers were just other devs looking for publicity of their own.
When we launched our Kickstarter, we did it "silently" (as one ezine put it) and never really had any hope.

(At the risk of sounding a bit sycophantic, I'd here like to repeat my gratitude and appreciation for everyone who did back us, as well as for everyone who's offered feedback, reviews, criticism and everyone who enjoyed the demo despite its bloated size)

What I learned is that a really polished project page, lowish fundraising goal and a demo with a lot of provisos and promises attached does not a successful KS campaign make.
I noticed while playing it years ago that the battle system had terrible framerate. (mainly due to my mediocre computer at the time) This, tbh, was a little disappointing and ruined the combat for me. So much so, that it solidified my choice in keeping my own game front view.

But there´s two easy answers to this. 1, computers are better now, so the average person will now have good enough hardware to compensate for it. And 2, if you compress your battle sprites and animations with those free online picture compressors, the lag will literally be cut in half so no one will ever experience it, and yes, the pictures will still look exactly the same. It´s a win win. (according to a couple scripters I know, VX Ace doesn't use caches, so it has to constantly reload stuff all the time, hence the lag and why everyone should compress their stuff)

That, and I think the puppet switch puzzle being a little too hard for a early game area are the only constructive criticisms I have on the demo. Everything else was solid, and that looking out of the window part was cool af. (also, I remember some faceset needing work. I think it was the random guy)

I´m glad you´re putting more time into this, and I hope you put it on Steam, even Early Access if you have to. Kickstarter was just one route to making Omnis successful, and every game has different routes to get to success. Kickstarter was just not yours. But you honestly don´t require it. You don´t need to hire a pixel artist, because you are one! Yes, you´ll still have to work at your job or whatever it is that you do, so progress will be slow, but some progress is better than none. So take this game off hiatus goddamnit!
author=lianderson
I noticed while playing it years ago that the battle system had terrible framerate. (mainly due to my mediocre computer at the time) This, tbh, was a little disappointing and ruined the combat for me. So much so, that it solidified my choice in keeping my own game front view.

But there´s two easy answers to this. 1, computers are better now, so the average person will now have good enough hardware to compensate for it. And 2, if you compress your battle sprites and animations with those free online picture compressors, the lag will literally be cut in half so no one will ever experience it, and yes, the pictures will still look exactly the same. It´s a win win. (according to a couple scripters I know, VX Ace doesn't use caches, so it has to constantly reload stuff all the time, hence the lag and why everyone should compress their stuff)

That, and I think the puppet switch puzzle being a little too hard for a early game area are the only constructive criticisms I have on the demo. Everything else was solid, and that looking out of the window part was cool af. (also, I remember some faceset needing work. I think it was the random guy)

I´m glad you´re putting more time into this, and I hope you put it on Steam, even Early Access if you have to. Kickstarter was just one route to making Omnis successful, and every game has different routes to get to success. Kickstarter was just not yours. But you honestly don´t require it. You don´t need to hire a pixel artist, because you are one! Yes, you´ll still have to work at your job or whatever it is that you do, so progress will be slow, but some progress is better than none. So take this game off hiatus goddamnit!


The tough puppet puzzle was an example of me trying to cram too much into the demo. That would have been better as a later in the game puzzle, you're right.

Our kickstarter campaign and the demo itself got absolutely torn apart on reddit when we promoted it there, so I've got a lot of (very valid, though I was devastated at the time) feedback to work on from there too before moving forward.
Damn, that´s sad to hear. People can be pretty ruthless sometimes, especially if they're anonymous. (and even more so if they're not the target audience)

Edit: out of curiosity, I searched for that reddit, and yeah, I see what that guy was saying. If you´re gonna say you´re different, than be different. Omnis is different, but not genre breakingly different, or at least not yet. Like, look at Lisa the Painful. THAT game is different, and everyone can tell this with just one glance at both the premise and the screenshots. But I´m sure you already know this by now and have since devised a master game making plan of some sort. >:)
Hey, glad to hear more from you, even if it's not all easy things. I think you've been doing great with this project, and I want to reiterate my support.

Also, it is crucial to have something in your hands before you start improving on that thing, so even if you're surely aware of it, I'd like to say: beware the trap of remaking the beginning of your game so many times that it never gets an ending. The final version of the game's beginning is probably something you'll craft at the very end of development, as hooking people from the start is the hardest part and requires full knowledge of what's coming after.

I haven't seen the criticisms on reddit, but while all constructive and valid criticism is good (even if hard to withstand sometimes), not all valid criticism is actually going to push you towards making your game. So I recommend being very careful in teasing apart the improvements that would lead to a better version of Omnis, and those that would lead to a different game altogether (or an unfinishable one).

I trust your vision, and hope that you'll recover from the blows to your motivation!
Did you by any chance use 'Capiticus Calvaria' from The Binding of Isaac as a soundtrack for the game? Sounds awfully familiar, with minor changes(?).
author=Slimy_D6
Did you by any chance use 'Capiticus Calvaria' from The Binding of Isaac as a soundtrack for the game? Sounds awfully familiar, with minor changes(?).


No, I think that's pure coincidence; the music was all originally composed by my friend James. The similarity is striking, I agree, but I trust absolutely that no plagiarism took place :)
The demo contains the equivalent of one mission. There are no free heals so you have to make the limited supplies last. This, paired with respawning enemies means that you will want to avoid enemies whenever possible. The mapping is pretty fancy and is probably entirely custom made. Against the demo's final boss, it had this corona beam or something that very quickly takes out 2/3 of my party, leaving the tank to have to fight all by herself. At least the tank has some decent damage on her, so it wasn't too bad. Another character doesnt even have an attack command, all they can do is use bomb items that you craft from ingredients that you may or may not have. They had to defend for most of the game.

It's an interesting game. Kinda sad if the kickstarter failed or something, the top tweet link is also deceased so I dont really know what happened there.
Pages: first prev 123 next last