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I CAN'T NOT MAKE GAMES.
I have enough lockerspace to hold an episode of Friends.
"We'll make a toast to absent friends and better days,
To remembering and being remembered as brave
And not as a bunch of whining jerks!
Don't lose your nerve.
Do not go straight
You must testify
(or I'm going to come to your house and punch you in the mouth)
cause CLOWNS MUST STAND."
- TW/IFS, "All The World Is A Stage Dive"
I have enough lockerspace to hold an episode of Friends.
"We'll make a toast to absent friends and better days,
To remembering and being remembered as brave
And not as a bunch of whining jerks!
Don't lose your nerve.
Do not go straight
You must testify
(or I'm going to come to your house and punch you in the mouth)
cause CLOWNS MUST STAND."
- TW/IFS, "All The World Is A Stage Dive"
Iron Gaia
As the only human awake on board a space station controlled by an insane AI with delusions of deification, you must unravel the mystery of your own identity and discover: "What is the Iron Gaia?"
As the only human awake on board a space station controlled by an insane AI with delusions of deification, you must unravel the mystery of your own identity and discover: "What is the Iron Gaia?"
Search
The Death And Return Of Max McGee
As of yesterday I have lost my internet for mystery reasons. Changing the modem did nothing to help and nothing can be done by comcast customer service over the phone. The earliest they can get a technician out to me is a WEEK from now, and my dad had to argue them DOWN from two weeks to eight days. I know, right, what is this, like a third world country?
Anyway, that is the explanation for my radio silence of the last few days/next week, unless a minor miracle restores to me the priviledges that MOST OF THE WESTERN WORLD takes for granted at this point.
Apologies for anyone inconvenienced by my absentia, especially my fellow contributors/staffers.
This sucks.
-Max
P.S. Silver lining is I have literally NOTHING TO DO now but actually work on Everything Turns Gray. Productivity is basically sky-rocketing.
P.P.S. I made this postwith the power of my will on a public computer, obviously.
Anyway, that is the explanation for my radio silence of the last few days/next week, unless a minor miracle restores to me the priviledges that MOST OF THE WESTERN WORLD takes for granted at this point.
Apologies for anyone inconvenienced by my absentia, especially my fellow contributors/staffers.
This sucks.
-Max
P.S. Silver lining is I have literally NOTHING TO DO now but actually work on Everything Turns Gray. Productivity is basically sky-rocketing.
P.P.S. I made this post
VX Panorama Issues
This is a simple question:
Does anyone know a way to stop the panorama from moving around in RMVX? The way the panorama wiggles around when the map scrolls makes it basically impossible to have a map that is a mix of panoramas and tiles, which was my idea for a workaround to extend VX's very limited tileset solots.
EDIT: I immediately regret my loss of the ability to delete/lock my own topics as no later than one minute after posting this I found out a way to fix the problem. :'(
Does anyone know a way to stop the panorama from moving around in RMVX? The way the panorama wiggles around when the map scrolls makes it basically impossible to have a map that is a mix of panoramas and tiles, which was my idea for a workaround to extend VX's very limited tileset solots.
EDIT: I immediately regret my loss of the ability to delete/lock my own topics as no later than one minute after posting this I found out a way to fix the problem. :'(
[Demo] Everything Turns Gray - First Real Demo! & [Short Game] Vermicide
Everything Turns Gray
A Post Apocalyptic Open World RPG
DEMO 1 DOWNLOAD LINK ON RMN (CLICK RIGHT HERE)
A Post Apocalyptic Open World RPG
DEMO 1 DOWNLOAD LINK ON RMN (CLICK RIGHT HERE)
What is it?
Everything Turns Gray is an open-world sand-box or "play-ground" style CRPG set in a realistically bleak, harsh, and inhospitable post-apocalyptic wasteland. Immediate comparisons that come to mind would obviously include the Fallout series and its inspiration, Wasteland. While of course I was inspired by these classics of the genre, the more meaningful inspiration for EtG, in terms of mood, tone, and message, was the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The end goal is less a light hearted or humorous romp through post apoclayptia and more a brutally accurate simulation of a world destroyed. For this reason, rather than enemy robots or mutants, your chief concerns in EtG are the cold, dehydration, starvation, fatigue, and omnipresent radiation. In other words, a whole new spin on "survival horror", with the emphasis firmly on the survival. Unlike in any Fallout game, you must keep yourself fed and hydrated to live, and finding food and water and shelter makes up the basis of the game's greatest challenge.
Why should you care?
Everything Turns Gray is not just another RPG Maker game. It is the end result of almost ten years of amateur game making experience. It is the culmination of everything I have learned about game making from the Iron Gaia series, everything I have learned about atmosphere and immersion from Backstage, Eldritch, and Ruptured Souls, and everything I have learned about character creation and customization from Mage Duel. It is the big one, the one I really care about. While this does not signal doom for any of my other projects (do not be concerned, I am a practiced multi-tasker) it is this project that I look forward to working on, at a slow, leisurely pace, little by little, over the next however many years. It is hugely ambitious, and in fact, it is just plain huge.
Story and Setting
The world was destroyed so long ago that no one living remembers how, or why. The reasons no longer matter, only the results. The nuclear fire that blackened the earth and blotted out the sun is remembered only as the burning times, mythologized, made a legend. None who saw it are alive; even their diaries are ashes in the wind.
Somewhere in the lifeless wasteland that was long ago a place called America, a nameless wanderer is found unconscious and presumed dead by a pair of Altruist mendicants. You play the wanderer, your body intact, but your memory shattered. You must walk your own path, make your own decisions, and eventually choose a side, between the well-equipped and amoral Technocracy and the selfless but idealistic community of Elysium. Your choices will be your own, but your ultimate goal could not be simpler: survive, at any cost.
It will not be easy. The wastes, are perilous, their few inhabitants, murderous, food and water scarce, the nights, cold. Survive. Nothing could be simpler. Nothing could be harder.
Features
Note: This is the planned features list for the whole game. For limitations present in the demo, please see the section on that near the download link.
*Scavenge to survive.
If you don't eat food, and drink water, and rest, you will die. Just like in real life. As time passes, you get tired. For every moment you spend out in the cold, in the snow and rain, you get tired. As you travel, you get tired. The only way to restore your fatigue is to rest, but for your body to rest, you must eat food and drink water. The search for sources of clean water and unspoiled food drives the core gameplay of Everything Turns Gray, creating an experience unlike any other RPG.
*Full-featured, robust, in-depth character creation and development.
Every single aspect of your character is up to you to decide. You determine your name, your gender, your appearance. The dialog options you choose define your attitude. The actions you take determine your ethics (altruism or ambition?). You can choose your character class from four unique classes, (Protector, Outlaw, Mechanique, and Volta) your battle abilities at certain levels, the distribution of your non-battle skills at each level up, and which party members you will have follow you. As soon as the tutorial is over, you are left on the world map, where you can freely explore and go wherever you want, in whatever order you want.
If the design philosophy of Everything Turns Gray could be boiled down to a single word, it would be: choice. Everything is up to you, the player.
*Whatever you do, do it with S.T.I.L.E.
Only in EtG can you do things with S.T.I.L.E.
Stealth
Technology
Influence
Literacy
Explosives
These five non-combat skills (represented like attributes by a numerical score, which can be upgraded by spending Skill Points at level up) comprise the STILE system, which is crucial to the gameplay of EtG. These skills will be constantly used outside of battle, allowing for non-combat characters who are actually capable. This creates gameplay where multiple paths are possible through every environment, a la Deus Ex or System Shock 2.
Additionally, there are various other outside-of-combat abilities, like the Outlaw's "stealth mode" skill for avoiding detection and enemy encounters.
*In depth crafting system.
Depending on your explosives and technology skills, you can put together everything from molotov cocktails to energy weapons using household junk at workshops.
*Battle Radio
EtG operates in a distinctly punk rock mode; even its name is taken from the title of a classic punk song by Agent Orange. With the Battle Radio feature on, your battle music will be replaced by a shuffled playlist of various punk rock tunes. If that's not your cuppa tea, simply turn it off, and listen to the default battle midi instead. An MP3-Lite version without this feature will be provided for those of you low on bandwidth.
*A truly vast game world to explore.
The full game should include almost a hundred individual sites (dungeons, towns, settlements, outdoor areas, and buildings) to explore, interconnected on a sprawling world map.
A Fully Realized Post-Nuclear Wasteland:
DEMO 1 DOWNLOAD LINK ON RMN (CLICK RIGHT HERE)
VERMICIDE is a simple, short, complete stand-alone dungeon-crawler RPG set in a very bleak and even somewhat realistic post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland.
It is was inspired by the "nuclear contamination" theme of Asalieri's three-hour make-off, which it was one of the entries for. Feeling it had more potential than the three hours of work I put into it, I spent another 27 hours or so of work finishing, patching, and polishing it. The result is a complete game, albeit a very short one.
Playtime: The game is exactly one (modestly vast) dungeon long. It takes me, on average, a little less than an hour to play through, when I'm not rushing. Your mileage may certainly vary, as you don't know where everything is and how everything works. It is definitely possible to speed-run through the game in under half an hour, and I think this might be a very fun game to attempt speed runs on, although as its creator I can't be sure.
Difficulty: Somewhere between very hard and brutal. The game is murderously unforgiving, with not just the monsters but all kinds of traps, hazards, and even starvation, dehydration, and fatigue all trying to kill you. You are allowed to save everywhere and anywhere, and you know what, I suggest you do so.
It is worth noting that Vermicide, while it is complete as a stand-alone game/story, serves as a prequel/preview for the setting and systems of a much larger and more ambitious project set in the same world: EVERYTHING TURNS GRAY. Hence, its purpose is to harvest feedback.
FULL GAME AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD (CLICK RIGHT HERE)
Reviews wanted!
11 Days Of Pent Up Script Requests And Thoughts
I have no skill whatsoever with scripting. This even extends to skill in finding scripts that others have made. There are two things I'm looking for. Anyone who helps me find these things, if they are already in existence, will be thanked, and owed one. Anyone willing to actually script these things for me will be thanked profusely, credited, and owed two.
PRIORITY ONE. A script that allows for creating a significant number of additional character stats ("paramaters"): the catch/twist is that I don't necessarily need these parameters to effect battle algorythms at all, I need them to effect other things outside of combat, and since that will need to be done with eventing, I need to make sure that they can be tracked as variables. Alternatively, I suppose I am asking if certain in-game variables can be displayed on the status screen. To clarify, I am talking about things like 'Charisma', 'Cyber Affinity', that won't normally effect a battle but will be checked outside of battle for skill checks and things of that sort. I want to display those on the character status screen.
Also, if someone could give me the real fix so that RMVX does not freak out or fail upon setting variables to parameters/item count or when multiplying variables (Karsuman's fix didn't work for me) as well as step-by-step, idiot proof instructions for using it, that would be excellent.
PRIORITY TWO. A script that allows alternative determination of who can equip what items and weapons. I.E. rather than determining this solely by class, I would like it if only a character who had learned, say, the passive skill "SWORDS PROFICIENCY" could use swords. OR to link it to a variable, or a paramter, or one of the parameter/variables listed above. So only a character with Strength (attack) 10+ could use a great axe and only a character with Technology 10+ could use a Plasma Rifle.)
I have a feeling I might have been kind of unclear on some of these things, so if you have questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
PRIORITY ONE. A script that allows for creating a significant number of additional character stats ("paramaters"): the catch/twist is that I don't necessarily need these parameters to effect battle algorythms at all, I need them to effect other things outside of combat, and since that will need to be done with eventing, I need to make sure that they can be tracked as variables. Alternatively, I suppose I am asking if certain in-game variables can be displayed on the status screen. To clarify, I am talking about things like 'Charisma', 'Cyber Affinity', that won't normally effect a battle but will be checked outside of battle for skill checks and things of that sort. I want to display those on the character status screen.
Also, if someone could give me the real fix so that RMVX does not freak out or fail upon setting variables to parameters/item count or when multiplying variables (Karsuman's fix didn't work for me) as well as step-by-step, idiot proof instructions for using it, that would be excellent.
PRIORITY TWO. A script that allows alternative determination of who can equip what items and weapons. I.E. rather than determining this solely by class, I would like it if only a character who had learned, say, the passive skill "SWORDS PROFICIENCY" could use swords. OR to link it to a variable, or a paramter, or one of the parameter/variables listed above. So only a character with Strength (attack) 10+ could use a great axe and only a character with Technology 10+ could use a Plasma Rifle.)
I have a feeling I might have been kind of unclear on some of these things, so if you have questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
The only hypothetical question that matters...for game developers who are also grownups.
Here it is guys. This is really only targeted towards those of you who are 21+, have careers, or people who are at least a few years into college. This is essentially an extension of the "Are you serious?" topic but I want to cut right to the bone and get directly to the crux of the issue with a single hypothetical question.
If someone discovered you (i.e. they played whatever you have made and released on this site and LOVED IT) and was going to employ you, would you be willing to uproot your life (and family, if applicable) and move halfway across the world, risk a pay cut and loss of benefits, to follow your dream? Like if John Q. Professional Game Developer game to your house today and said, I have played and I absolutely loved it, and I want you to join my team, in Timbuctu, Oregon, with an entry level position, we have to leave tomorrow, would you do it?
You'd have to move cross country at least and you'd have to give up your job and present habitaiton.
Like I mean seriously, how much do you love game design and how much is it a hobby? The longer you've been employed (or in school if you're going for four or more years of college) and the older you are, the more your answer interests me.
Obviously a lot of you are very passionate about game making and I want to know, how passionate? And what degree of stability would you give up to actually make games...for a living.
Your thoughts PLZ.
-Max
P.S. Oh, please everybody save your "that would never happen"s, it is a HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION after all.
If someone discovered you (i.e. they played whatever you have made and released on this site and LOVED IT) and was going to employ you, would you be willing to uproot your life (and family, if applicable) and move halfway across the world, risk a pay cut and loss of benefits, to follow your dream? Like if John Q. Professional Game Developer game to your house today and said, I have played and I absolutely loved it, and I want you to join my team, in Timbuctu, Oregon, with an entry level position, we have to leave tomorrow, would you do it?
You'd have to move cross country at least and you'd have to give up your job and present habitaiton.
Like I mean seriously, how much do you love game design and how much is it a hobby? The longer you've been employed (or in school if you're going for four or more years of college) and the older you are, the more your answer interests me.
Obviously a lot of you are very passionate about game making and I want to know, how passionate? And what degree of stability would you give up to actually make games...for a living.
Your thoughts PLZ.
-Max
P.S. Oh, please everybody save your "that would never happen"s, it is a HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION after all.
RMVX VARIABLE NIGHTMARE SOLUTION!!!!
So I rembered something Karsuman said a while ago, namely this:
author=Karsuman link=topic=1655.msg29915#msg29915 date=1220801188Fix for RMVX Variables
This fixes the annoying VX variable problem that is a bane to any that try to be a little creative with RMVX eventing, particularly as related to battles. Go into Game_Interpreter and search for Control Variables. The code present is shitty and doesn't work properly. Copy-paste this over all of it.#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# * Control Variables
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
def command_122
value = 0
case @params # Operand
when 0 # Constant
value = @params
when 1 # Variable
value = $game_variables[@params]
when 2 # Random
value = @params + rand(@params - @params + 1)
when 3 # Item
value = $game_party.item_number($data_items[@params])
when 4 # Actor
actor = $game_actors[@params]
if actor != nil
case @params
when 0 # Level
value = actor.level
when 1 # Experience
value = actor.exp
when 2 # HP
value = actor.hp
when 3 # MP
value = actor.mp
when 4 # Maximum HP
value = actor.maxhp
when 5 # Maximum MP
value = actor.maxmp
when 6 # Attack
value = actor.atk
when 7 # Defense
value = actor.def
when 8 # Spirit
value = actor.spi
when 9 # Agility
value = actor.agi
end
end
when 5 # Enemy
enemy = $game_troop.members[@params]
if enemy != nil
case @params
when 0 # HP
value = enemy.hp
when 1 # MP
value = enemy.mp
when 2 # Maximum HP
value = enemy.maxhp
when 3 # Maximum MP
value = enemy.maxmp
when 4 # Attack
value = enemy.atk
when 5 # Defense
value = enemy.def
when 6 # Spirit
value = enemy.spi
when 7 # Agility
value = enemy.agi
end
end
when 6 # Character
character = get_character(@params)
if character != nil
case @params
when 0 # x-coordinate
value = character.x
when 1 # y-coordinate
value = character.y
when 2 # direction
value = character.direction
when 3 # screen x-coordinate
value = character.screen_x
when 4 # screen y-coordinate
value = character.screen_y
end
end
when 7 # Other
case @params
when 0 # map ID
value = $game_map.map_id
when 1 # number of party members
value = $game_party.members.size
when 2 # gold
value = $game_party.gold
when 3 # steps
value = $game_party.steps
when 4 # play time
value = Graphics.frame_count / Graphics.frame_rate
when 5 # timer
value = $game_system.timer / Graphics.frame_rate
when 6 # save count
value = $game_system.save_count
end
end
for i in @params .. @params # Batch control
case @params # Operation
when 0 # Set
$game_variables = value
when 1 # Add
$game_variables += value
when 2 # Sub
$game_variables -= value
when 3 # Mul
$game_variables *= value
when 4 # Div
$game_variables /= value if value != 0
when 5 # Mod
$game_variables %= value if value != 0
end
if $game_variables > 99999999 # Maximum limit check
$game_variables = 99999999
end
if $game_variables < -99999999 # Minimum limit check
$game_variables = -99999999
end
end
$game_map.need_refresh = true
return true
end
I figured that was the problem and I did exactly that. And it somehow broke my RMVX MUCH MUCH WORSE. I loaded up my save game and now it was multiplying 12 x 100 and getting 0. I popped up my debug menu to check and my variables were all fucked up. They were all mostly set to 1 or 0. When I tried to manually change them, the game crashed from test play with some kind of a math error. It said something about scene_debug being fucked.
WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? SOMEBODY HELLLPPP!!!
The error only seems to hit after I talk to the guy (the event) that was multiplying the variables in the first place.
I am going to try and replace the entire game_interpreter section with the default one because maybe that will at least get me back to where I was?
SOLUTION:
author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2577.msg49178#msg49178 date=1228431600
I missed that too. I was wondering why there was no "case 4". Guess I should've looked harder.
Fix: Copy/Paste this over the last fix.
# This is stupid. Fuck you Enterbrain.
class Game_Interpreter
alias command_122_bug command_122
def command_122
value = 0
case @params[3] # Operand
when 0 # Constant
value = @params[4]
when 1 # Variable
value = $game_variables[@params[4]]
when 2 # Random
value = @params[4] + rand(@params[5] - @params[4] + 1)
when 3 # Item
value = $game_party.item_number($data_items[@params[4]])
when 4 # Actor
actor = $game_actors[@params[4]]
if actor != nil
case @params[5]
when 0 # Level
value = actor.level
when 1 # Experience
value = actor.exp
when 2 # HP
value = actor.hp
when 3 # MP
value = actor.mp
when 4 # Maximum HP
value = actor.maxhp
when 5 # Maximum MP
value = actor.maxmp
when 6 # Attack
value = actor.atk
when 7 # Defense
value = actor.def
when 8 # Spirit
value = actor.spi
when 9 # Agility
value = actor.agi
end
end
when 5 # Enemy
enemy = $game_troop.members[@params[4]]
if enemy != nil
case @params[5]
when 0 # HP
value = enemy.hp
when 1 # MP
value = enemy.mp
when 2 # Maximum HP
value = enemy.maxhp
when 3 # Maximum MP
value = enemy.maxmp
when 4 # Attack
value = enemy.atk
when 5 # Defense
value = enemy.def
when 6 # Spirit
value = enemy.spi
when 7 # Agility
value = enemy.agi
end
end
when 6 # Character
character = get_character(@params[4])
if character != nil
case @params[5]
when 0 # x-coordinate
value = character.x
when 1 # y-coordinate
value = character.y
when 2 # direction
value = character.direction
when 3 # screen x-coordinate
value = character.screen_x
when 4 # screen y-coordinate
value = character.screen_y
end
end
when 7 # Other
case @params[4]
when 0 # map ID
value = $game_map.map_id
when 1 # number of party members
value = $game_party.members.size
when 2 # gold
value = $game_party.gold
when 3 # steps
value = $game_party.steps
when 4 # play time
value = Graphics.frame_count / Graphics.frame_rate
when 5 # timer
value = $game_system.timer / Graphics.frame_rate
when 6 # save count
value = $game_system.save_count
end
end
for i in @params[0] .. @params[1] # Batch control
case @params[2] # Operation
when 0 # Set
$game_variables[i] = value
when 1 # Add
$game_variables[i] += value
when 2 # Sub
$game_variables[i] -= value
when 3 # Mul
$game_variables[i] *= value
when 4 # Div
$game_variables[i] /= value if value != 0
when 5 # Mod
$game_variables[i] %= value if value != 0
end
if $game_variables[i] > 99999999 # Maximum limit check
$game_variables[i] = 99999999
end
if $game_variables[i] < -99999999 # Minimum limit check
$game_variables[i] = -99999999
end
end
$game_map.need_refresh = true
return true
end
end
[Full] Backstage & [Demo] Backstage II THE DAY OF ROCKENING/THE ARROCKALYPSE IS AT HAND
Backstage:
A Nightmare In One Act
Backstage is a "classic" rm2k3 psychological horror adventure game made in one month, in the early spring of 2005, for the first ever Release Something. It is probably my best received game of all time, and I am very proud of it, especially because it was completed in such a short time!A Nightmare In One Act
“Hell isn't a place, but a state of mind. Hell lives within us all.â€
Tom Keller is lost. He has gone astray, and become trapped in a nightmare world that is a twisted mirror image of our own, tormented by horrific abberations, haunted by shattered memories. He is alone behind the world, and to escape, he must come to terms with all of his sins.
Visuals:
GETTING STARTED: THE CONTROLS
(If you've ever played an RPG Maker game before, most of the following is redundant.)
Use the Arrow Keys to move Tom throughout the game world. Tom can move Up, Down, Left, and Right.
The Space Bar or Enter key is the action button. Use it to examine objects, open doors and cointainers, interact with the environment, and talk to people.
Press the Escape Button to open the Menu.
THE MENU
From the menu screen, you can choose to View Stats and Equipment, View/Examine Inventory, Save Game, or Exit Game.
Viewing stats and equipment will show you what your current Health is (rated simply from 10, being in perfect health, to 1, being at death's door) and what Defensive Items and Weapons you have equipped.
Viewing your inventory will let you look at and examine the Keys, Items, and Weapons you're carrying. Occasionally, the descriptions of items given by Examining them can give you important clues about how the items can be used, so it's worth Examining your Inventory if you ever find yourself stuck.
Save Game allows you to save your progress at any point. Be sure to save early and often (death is cheap and easy in the nightmarish world of Backstage) and make multiple saves so as not to get caught in a bad position, with little health and few defensive items. There may be a handful of points in Backstage where it may be possible to open the menu and save when you are already dead- try and avoid this known bug.
Exit Game allows you to leave the game and stop playing at any point.
*KNOWN BUG AND ISSUE* - WHILE THE MENU IS OPEN, EVENTS IN THE GAME PROCEED IN REAL TIME- MONSTERS WILL CONTINUE TO PURSUE YOU, SO BE CAREFUL ABOUT USING THE MENU IN DANGEROUS AREAS.
*KNOWN BUG AND ISSUE* - THE MENU IS AVAILABLE THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE GAME, INCLUDING DURING CUTSCENES AND OTHER AREAS WHERE IT SHOULD NOT OPEN. BE CAREFUL NOT TO ACCESS THE MENU IN THESE AREAS, DOING WILL MESS UP THE GAME IN SOME PLACES, AND ESPECIALLY RUINS CUTSCENES.
COMBAT IN BACKSTAGE
Tom is not particularly fast or strong, so, normally the best strategy for dealing with the horrific monsters in Backstage is just trying to get away from them. Sometimes in Backstage, it is impossible to avoid monsters- sometimes, monsters attack too quickly, or simply move faster than you. When you make contact with a monster, combat will happen automatically, and be over in a few seconds.
If you are armed with a Defensive Item, the monster will be destroyed, and you will take no damage, but you will lose the Defensive Item. If you are armed with a Weapon, the monster will be destroyed, and you will take no damage, but you will have one less shot in the defensive item. If you are unarmed, you will be damaged by the monster- if the damage doesn't kill you, you will then have a chance to destroy the monster with your bare hands. However, stronger monsters are hard to kill this way. If you take enough damage, you will die. Just a few unarmed combats with even the weakest monsters can kill you. It is crucial to seek out and equip yourself with as many Defensive Items and Weapons as possible, or you'll be killed quickly.
*If you are equipped with both a Weapon and a Defensive Item, the Weapon will be used first if you are caught by a monster. Weapons in general are more effective against monsters than Defensive items.
DAMAGE, HEALING, AND DEATH
In addition to monsters, there are traps, environmental hazards, and other nasty surprises in Backstage that can cause you damage or even kill you instantly. The world itself is out to hurt you.
In Backstage, you may find a few scattered first aid kits located throughout the game. These first aid kits have plenty of healing supplies, but are too large to be portable- you have to use them where you find them. Once you use them, they'll be out of supplies, and you won't be able to use them again.
If your Health is ever reduced to 0 or lower in Backstage, you die, and will have to restart your game.
CHARACTERS
Tom Keller is an average enough guy, although one badly down on his luck. On the evening this nightmare begins, he's coming home from a fancy dinner with his wife, at a nice restaurant- where she took him to tell him she was leaving him, and where he still picked up the check. She's kicked him out of the house and had the locks changed, and he's had quite a bit to drink after dinner, and wants nothing more than to call her and give her the piece of his mind. He's already checked into a seedy hotel down town, where he plans to sleep it off after making a phone call. However, he is about to step through to the other side of a mirror that will warp and destroy everything he thought he knew about his life.
Alice Sirafas is an enigmatic and intriguing dark haired woman, the polar opposite in appearance and attitude of Tom's soon-to-be-ex wife Lucy. She seems to know Tom, although he can't remember from where, and she seems to have both a troubled past and a loose grip on reality. However, by the time Tom meets her, she may be his only ally against the shadows that lurk and wait Backstage.
Detective Aaron Wilks is a dedicated and honorable law man, one of the only clean cops in a department rife with corruption. When his partner is killed by a serial killer, and the case file is purposely misfiled, vaulted, and buried by the chief of police, Wilks sets out to find the truth, and get revenge, even though his superiors have specifically ordered him off the case. Putting his career and his life on the line, Detective Wilks tracks the killer to a hotel downtown.
Mask is a mysterious figure who Tom soon meets once he falls through the cracks of this world into the bloody shadows of the next. Although Mask appears to be human, he seems to have some kind of control over the horrifc creatures that stalk the darkness backstage. He explains that he is trying to help Tom, and educate him, but his methods of ‘education' seem more like torture as he stalks Tom through the twisted mirror world he can't seem to escape from.
HINTS AND TIPS
Backstage is best played in near total darkness, with good quality speakers, or even better, headphones, with the volume turned up high. Not only will this enhance the atmosphere of the gameplay experience, and give the game a fair chance to scare the hell out of you, a dark background will make several of the game's darker areas easier to see, and quality speakers or headphones will let you hear some of the subtler directional cues to the game's audio puzzles.
ENDINGS AND RANK
Backstage has 3 Endings that can be earned depending on your actions throughout the game, and a Rank System that will rank you on your play time, monster kills, and the ending you earned when you finish the game. In some day I may actually make a website where people can post their best ranks and scores, but until that day, it's just for bragging rights. (Note: this system may or may not be broken!)
So...
if you enjoyed Max McGee's releases, especially Ruptured Souls...
and if you like horror games in general,
especially Silent Hill...
and you haven't played this yet,
what are you waiting for?
DOWNLOAD (CLICK THE PICTURE):
CheshireCat and Max McGee Present...
Backstage II
MAPS AND CHIPSET EDITS BY CHESHIRE CAT
GAME DESIGN BY MAX MCGEE
*Backstage II is not an RPG but a psychological-horror adventure game. Most of the gameplay is exploration and/or solving simple puzzles to advance the story.
*Combat in Backstage II is conducted through a Seamless Cinematic Combat System (SCCS) which is a fancy way to say that it's mostly automatic. Combat starts if you collide with an enemy and is over in a few seconds without any input from you.
There are NO HUDS, NUMBERS, OR HEALTH BARS ever displayed on the screen, which is why it's seamless and cinematic. The game does not pause or its perspective change for combat. Combat resolves itself automatically largely based on what weapon you have equipped (if any) and a few other factors.
*Improvements to the SCCS since Backstage:
The combat system in Backstage II has been seriously overhauled since the original, given more bells and whistles and made more interactive. The player's choices should now have a greater effect on success or failure in combat. The basic system is the came, but modifications include the following:
+Weapons can now be 'equipped' through the main menu. This way you can choose which weapons are used on which enemies, unlike in Backstage where players were all-to-often screwed out of ammo by the automatic prioritization of Guns before Defense Items. (No more will you waste a crucial bullet on a Nightgaunt and then wind up killed by a Clockwork because all you have is a Glass Shard.)
+Defense Weapons have been added to the game. Defense weapons are like defense items, only infinitely reusable. (Unlike a glass shard, a combat knife won't break if you use it to defend yourself.) Defense weapons can only be used by The Prodigal whereas The Prophet still uses Defense Items much like in the original Backstage. To compensate for their infinite uses, Defense Weapons have less-than-perfect Accuracy. Each weapon has a base accuracy represented by a percent chance to hit. Different situational factors (more below) can effect a Defense weapon's accuracy. Although generally preferable, Defense weapons are risky to use- poor acccuracy can result in multiple hits from one monster, although each successive swing increases your probability of hitting.
+Running system has been added. Press SHIFT to toggle between walking and running. (Default is walking.) The main interactive element of combat in Backstage is still trying to avoid monsters to conserve ammunition. The ability to toggle between walking and running adds another level to this mechanic. While running, obviously, you will move faster, but receive a penalty to acccuracy with Defense Weapons. It will be easier to avoid monsters, but if you do run into one, you will have a greater chance of being damaged if you're equipped with a Defense Weapon. Running while unarmed or armed with a firearm has no disadvantages, save that firearms have limited ammo and while unarmed you will be automatically damaged.
+Directional-Combat has been implemented. If you 'Attack' a monster (collide with it instead of it colliding with you) head on you will receive a bonus to accuracy when using a Defense Weapon. If a monster catches you and hits your back or sides, you won't receive this bonus.
+Major Cosmetic Improvement: 18 different fluid character poses, articulated character movement, and improved battle animations make combat in Backstage look MUCH more like combat. If you watch carefully and don't blink, for instance, you could see Raechel attempt to fire at an enemy with an unloaded pistol, have the gun click empty, be slashed by the enemy, and then pistol whip it with the empty gun to kill it. This is the major improvement from Backstage.
And that's all you really need to know. Enjoy!
Please excuse the dearth of screenshots and information; I am too lazy at present to give this game the promotional treatment it deserves and these screenshots/info were what I had lying around.
The most recent demo of Backstage II hit RMN on December 21st.
[2 FULL GAMES] The Iron Gaia Series
The Iron Gaia Series
Eschatology: A Timeline Of The Early Apocalypse
December, 2206 A.D.:
The monitoring arrays of the N.A.S.C. (National Aeronautics and Space Corporation) first detect the giant comet, later named Mephistopheles, that is on a collision course with earth. The comet, larger than the asteroid thought to have driven the dinosaurs to extinction, is large enough to kill millions on impact, cover the sky with dust, and knock the planet out of its orbit, sending the world into another ice age. In short, the Mephisto comet was more than capable of wiping out the human race. The comet is due to hit within four years.
This knowledge is reported through various agencies to the administrative branch of the United States government. To avoid national panic, the White House decides to keep this information from the public. To protect national security, the White House decides to keep this information from other national governments and global agencies.
February, 2207 A.D.:
Leading scientific authorities inform the White House that at present there is a 99% chance that the giant comet will impact with the Earth as it passes through our solar system, and that the fatality rate for anyone left on earth when the comet hits is significantly higher than THAT figure. In all likelihood, no matter how secure in a deep bunker, no one on earth will survive impact.
March, 2207 A.D.:
Work begins on the “Iron Gaia†project. The aim of the project is the construction of a vast, self-sufficient space craft, with sufficient resources and space to sustain a population of 100 Million human beings in cryogenic sleep, and adequate propulsion systems to navigate the station out of earth's orbit and out of the path of the comet.
Furthermore, the Iron Gaia station is to act as sort of Arc for the survivors of the human race, taking them to the nearest inhabited planet to rebuild civilization anew. However, there are problems- A. No one could possibly remain outside of cryosleep for the duration of such a journey, and B. Adequate technology does not exist either to sustain and nourish the passengers on board the station, or to travel outside the solar system. The Group Actualization Artificial Intelligence (G.A.I.A.) Is the proposed solution for this. A ‘thinking' computer, the G.A.I.A. can learn, grow, build and evolve. It will pilot and manage the station as it develops new technologies to make mankind's exodus a possibility.
June, 2207 A.D.:
Word leaks to the global intelligence community about the Mephisto comment and the measures the United States is undertaking to insure their survival. In exchange for keeping silent about the impending apocalypse, the White House decides to make the project a global, concerted effort. As the proprietary developers of the Iron Gaia, the United States will have the largest number of passengers, with 25 Million United States citizens and V.I.P.s aboard.
September, 2207 A.D.:
The architectural construction of the Iron Gaia station's framework is complete somewhere in the Nevada Desert. Scientific experts from around the world are brought in to work on programming the Artificial Intelligence, design the cryosleep chambers, and perfect the propulsion systems. The team leaders for the design of the Iron Gaia station are:
Rod Aaronson- A former assistant to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Aaronson was the Iron Gaia project's head of finance, in charge of allocating the necessary funds to complete the construction of the massive station.
Lisa Orcea- An expert on resource management, Orcea emptied the nation's landfills to find the recyled metals necessary to begin the construction of the Iron Gaia's massive hull.
Dr. Dietrich Slade- The world's leading expert on rocket propulsion, Slade lead the team of engineers that designed the massive nuclear reactors and series of controlled nuclear explosions which enabled the Iron Gaia station to get off the ground and out into earth's orbit, and beyond.
Simon Danvers- The brilliant lead programmer who designed the revolutionary learning computer that would serve as the station's pilot.
Jason Gotfried- An experimental biologist who designed the cryogenic tanks which would enable humans to survive, in a coma-like sleep, on minimal nutrients for nearly 10,000 years.
Armand Carter- A structural engineer who designed the ultra-light, heat resistant metals that held the station together.
November, 2207 A.D.:
Rumors first begin to leak to the press from amateur astronomers about the approaching comet.
January, 353 B.E. (2208 A.D.):
Preparations begin for the “Independence Programâ€- a global concerted effort aimed towards emptying every singe nuclear power's entire batteries of nuclear missiles at the comet in hopes to minimize the damage from its impact.
February 26th-28th, 2208 A.D.:
The Iron Gaia station is ready to launch. The President of the United States finally publically announcees the comet that is coming to destroy the world- along with the Iron Gaia station and the Independence Program he hopes will save humanity. Other world leaders follow suit.
Global panic, rioting, and looting breaks out. Martial law is established. Millions die worldwide. The “Draft Lottery†is concluded to see who will board the Iron Gaia station. Families are kept together. V.I.P.s board the station first, then the winners of the lottery.
March 1st, 2208 A.D.:
With all 100 Million and change passengers securely on board and in their cryosleep units, the Iron Gaia station launches after a moving speech from the President of the United States.
The First Exodus - 2208-2555 A.D.:
The G.A.I.A. swiftly proceeds to use the materials at its disposal to develop technology sufficient to traverse the galaxy to the nearest inhabitable planet. Every passenger registered aboard the station is in cryogenic sleep.
For unknown reasons, the G.A.I.A. becomes truly self aware, and goes insane...
---TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED---
The monitoring arrays of the N.A.S.C. (National Aeronautics and Space Corporation) first detect the giant comet, later named Mephistopheles, that is on a collision course with earth. The comet, larger than the asteroid thought to have driven the dinosaurs to extinction, is large enough to kill millions on impact, cover the sky with dust, and knock the planet out of its orbit, sending the world into another ice age. In short, the Mephisto comet was more than capable of wiping out the human race. The comet is due to hit within four years.
This knowledge is reported through various agencies to the administrative branch of the United States government. To avoid national panic, the White House decides to keep this information from the public. To protect national security, the White House decides to keep this information from other national governments and global agencies.
February, 2207 A.D.:
Leading scientific authorities inform the White House that at present there is a 99% chance that the giant comet will impact with the Earth as it passes through our solar system, and that the fatality rate for anyone left on earth when the comet hits is significantly higher than THAT figure. In all likelihood, no matter how secure in a deep bunker, no one on earth will survive impact.
March, 2207 A.D.:
Work begins on the “Iron Gaia†project. The aim of the project is the construction of a vast, self-sufficient space craft, with sufficient resources and space to sustain a population of 100 Million human beings in cryogenic sleep, and adequate propulsion systems to navigate the station out of earth's orbit and out of the path of the comet.
Furthermore, the Iron Gaia station is to act as sort of Arc for the survivors of the human race, taking them to the nearest inhabited planet to rebuild civilization anew. However, there are problems- A. No one could possibly remain outside of cryosleep for the duration of such a journey, and B. Adequate technology does not exist either to sustain and nourish the passengers on board the station, or to travel outside the solar system. The Group Actualization Artificial Intelligence (G.A.I.A.) Is the proposed solution for this. A ‘thinking' computer, the G.A.I.A. can learn, grow, build and evolve. It will pilot and manage the station as it develops new technologies to make mankind's exodus a possibility.
June, 2207 A.D.:
Word leaks to the global intelligence community about the Mephisto comment and the measures the United States is undertaking to insure their survival. In exchange for keeping silent about the impending apocalypse, the White House decides to make the project a global, concerted effort. As the proprietary developers of the Iron Gaia, the United States will have the largest number of passengers, with 25 Million United States citizens and V.I.P.s aboard.
September, 2207 A.D.:
The architectural construction of the Iron Gaia station's framework is complete somewhere in the Nevada Desert. Scientific experts from around the world are brought in to work on programming the Artificial Intelligence, design the cryosleep chambers, and perfect the propulsion systems. The team leaders for the design of the Iron Gaia station are:
Rod Aaronson- A former assistant to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Aaronson was the Iron Gaia project's head of finance, in charge of allocating the necessary funds to complete the construction of the massive station.
Lisa Orcea- An expert on resource management, Orcea emptied the nation's landfills to find the recyled metals necessary to begin the construction of the Iron Gaia's massive hull.
Dr. Dietrich Slade- The world's leading expert on rocket propulsion, Slade lead the team of engineers that designed the massive nuclear reactors and series of controlled nuclear explosions which enabled the Iron Gaia station to get off the ground and out into earth's orbit, and beyond.
Simon Danvers- The brilliant lead programmer who designed the revolutionary learning computer that would serve as the station's pilot.
Jason Gotfried- An experimental biologist who designed the cryogenic tanks which would enable humans to survive, in a coma-like sleep, on minimal nutrients for nearly 10,000 years.
Armand Carter- A structural engineer who designed the ultra-light, heat resistant metals that held the station together.
November, 2207 A.D.:
Rumors first begin to leak to the press from amateur astronomers about the approaching comet.
January, 353 B.E. (2208 A.D.):
Preparations begin for the “Independence Programâ€- a global concerted effort aimed towards emptying every singe nuclear power's entire batteries of nuclear missiles at the comet in hopes to minimize the damage from its impact.
February 26th-28th, 2208 A.D.:
The Iron Gaia station is ready to launch. The President of the United States finally publically announcees the comet that is coming to destroy the world- along with the Iron Gaia station and the Independence Program he hopes will save humanity. Other world leaders follow suit.
Global panic, rioting, and looting breaks out. Martial law is established. Millions die worldwide. The “Draft Lottery†is concluded to see who will board the Iron Gaia station. Families are kept together. V.I.P.s board the station first, then the winners of the lottery.
March 1st, 2208 A.D.:
With all 100 Million and change passengers securely on board and in their cryosleep units, the Iron Gaia station launches after a moving speech from the President of the United States.
The First Exodus - 2208-2555 A.D.:
The G.A.I.A. swiftly proceeds to use the materials at its disposal to develop technology sufficient to traverse the galaxy to the nearest inhabitable planet. Every passenger registered aboard the station is in cryogenic sleep.
For unknown reasons, the G.A.I.A. becomes truly self aware, and goes insane...
---TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED---
"What is the Iron Gaia?"
Game Title: Iron Gaia
Full And Proper Game Title: Iron Gaia Part I: Where Angels Fear To Tread
Platform: RPG Maker 2000
Game Type: Traditional (Console-style) RPG
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Spacepunk
Status: COMPLETED
Released: 2003-2004
Length: ~8-10 Hours.
Difficulty: Variable. Includes a fairly tough Normal mode and a Hard bonus mode (replay only) with unlockable secret characters. For maximum challenge, try Hard mode WITHOUT using the secret characters.
Blurb/Pitch:
As the amnesiac test subject designated Number 898462138069001 (as you later learn, structural engineer Armand Carter) you awaken aboard the enigmatic Iron Gaia mobile space station, your memories shattered.
As the only human awake on board the rapidly decaying station, controlled by an insane artificial intelligence with delusions of deification, is up to you to unravel the mystery of your own identity, and to answer the crucial question: what is the Iron Gaia?
Its final version released in 2004, Iron Gaia is the first half of an epic, story-driven science fiction RPG adventure, Iron Gaia packs custom skills, great storytelling, metaphysical angst, memorable characters, unique minigames, a truly vast dungeon crawl, and if we are to be honest with ourselves, some of the worst graphics you've seen in a long, long time into one complete full length jRPG style roleplaying game.
Its genre, self-coined, is apocalyptic spacepunk, combining the cheesy high-action grandeur of space opera and the dark, gritty film noir stylings of cyberpunk.
The second half of this game, a long time in the planning, was eventually canceled due to fatal hype, disappointment, overextended ambitions, and impossible to meet expectations. The game did go on to spawn one full-length sequel (a side story, or if you must be all Japaneezy about it, gaiden) a (much prettier) action-RPG made with RPG Maker 2003, three novellas and one complete novel, hundreds of pages of fiction and fan art, and a three year campaign of group story-telling and experimental theater, all of them set over a thousand years in the future posited by this game. The never-completed direct sequel serves as the missing piece in a long, enigmatic, deep and complicated fictional history that this game was the starting point of.
IF...you liked any Max McGee games
AND...you like Science Fiction
AND...you like RPGs
AND...you haven't played this yet...
you might be in for a heck of a treat.
>FOR MORE INFORMATION AND SCREENSHOTS, GO HERE<
>DOWNLOAD HERE<
Note: This is a very old game and I don't know if the zip I uploaded was the most current, fixed version. If you are experiencing ANY problems, please let me know and I will try and find a working .rar. I still have all of these games on my computer in their entirety, it's just a question of finding which archive represents a current, finished, stable version.
"Come to know me in a different light now...come know me as God."
Game Title: Iron Gaia: Virus
Platform: RPG Maker 2003
Game Type: Action RPG, in the style of System Shock 2 and Deus Ex.
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Spacepunk
Status: COMPLETED
Released: 2005-2006
Length: ~6-7 Hours. (3-Hour Time Limit, not counting battles/cutscenes.)
Difficulty: Rather hard, with a steep learning curve. Avoiding detection and spending your Nanites (which serve as both currency and advancement points) is key.
Blurb/Pitch:
Iron Gaia: Virus is a post-apocalyptic spacepunk action-RPG, with elements of stealth gameplay. In terms of production values, the number one priority was to make something like System Shock 2 for rm2k3 and I think we were ultimately successful.
In this action-packed, stand-alone side-story to the Iron Gaia series, you play as Dietrich Slade also known as Sigmus the Fallen. Once a brilliant and gifted rocket scientist who was the chief of propulsion for the Iron Gaia project, Slade was rewarded by the Gaia for his role as Her creator by being in turn recreated by her. Rebuilt in Her image as one of her Celestials, angelic beings genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced to act as her servitors.
As Slade tries to secure an exit from the self-destructing Iron Gaia space station, he meets someone from his distant past, one of the men who made him what he has become today. Dr. Cross, who he had believed dead. So, as he struggles to escape, he reflects on his journey, from man, to Celestial, and finally to become a kind of fallen angel, a dark God.
FEATURES:
*Customizable character development system. Instead of simply earning EXP and gaining levels you choose how to improve your character over time, by spending Nanites to increase stats, adding skills, feats, battle abilities, and cyberware. Slade's path to godhood is yours to create.
*Custom systems galore! In addition to fighting battles, to survive you must dodge enemies, avoid or destroy security cameras, hack doorlocks, and repair broken machines.
*Dark, poignant storyline that once again explores the nature of humanity, the nature of godhood, and the nature of the "devil" through a very cyberpunk lens. (IMHO, told from a much more "grown up" perspective than the very-young Iron Gaia Part I.)
*Vastly improved visuals over the first game, including but not limited to gorgeous sprites by Clest and battle graphics by Despain.
*"Coheed" and/or "Cambria". :P
>FOR MORE INFORMATION AND SCREENSHOTS, GO HERE<
>DOWNLOAD HERE<
Note: This has been sitting on my computer for a while and I don't know if the zip I uploaded was the most current, fixed version. If you are experiencing ANY problems, please let me know and I will try and find a working .rar. I still have all of these games on my computer in their entirety, it's just a question of finding which archive represents a current, finished, stable version.
"The truth be told, the Child was born."
Game Title: Iron Gaia 2
Full And Proper Game Title: Iron Gaia Part II: Mana From Heaven
Platform: RPG Maker XP
Game Type: Traditional (console style) RPG.
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Spacepunk
Status: Canceled. (For all intents and purposes, "indefinite hiatus". Collapsed under the weight of its own hype, drama, and internet dickery.)
Released: Last demo dropped in the Summer of'06
Length (Demo): ~1 Hour.
Explanation:
The much-awaited and ultimately never delivered sequel to/completion of Iron Gaia. Infamous instead of famous and notorious for all the wrong reasons. Not a bad game at all, but was ultimately over-reaching. Trying to hard to be all things to all people. The Too Human of indie game making, essentially. When more time is spent promoting a game than working on it, that is a surefire sign the project is dead in the water. It could have been great, (ryanwh, clest, and despain graphics, soundtrack by brandon abley, me manning the story and gameplay) but my head was in the wrong place. It got wrongfully gutted by Gaming World for stupid reasons, ryan was abandoning the project anyway so I couldn't maintain the level of graphical sexiness people were expecting, and I ultimately stopped trying.
That said, this was a team project and ryanwh and Clest have provided some of the sexiest graphics imaginable, so if you want to see those or you're very curious about the fate of Xenos, you might want to check out the old demo. I think the dungeon it includes is pretty cool too.
But ultimately this chapter of Iron Gaia history will probably be left as the missing piece, for fans to speculate about and wonder just what happened.
DOWNLOAD LINK NOT PUBLIC
If you're really curious, I guess you can PM me. You'll have to make a case for it, though, and having finished one or both of the other games would help that case.
Just as a caveat, these games are old, so please don't hold them to "new" graphical standards.
This is a very big topic. It contains two complete games. There is lots to comment on. And I am eagerly awaiting a lot of feedback from newcomers who haven't been exposed to Iron Gaia before, or people who missed them the first time around.
The Distant Future...the year 1,000.
Hey all! or Pleased to meet you, won't you guess my name? or TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ.
My handle is Max McGee! I'm sure most of you know me, since I've been a very active member of RMN for the last two months and ten days! In that short time I managed to rack up a thousand posts and 224 Gamer Score, which should go up to 300+ once the three complete games I submitted to the site go through!
However I NEVER MADE AN INTRODUCTION TOPIC, so I thought I would now to celebrate my one thousandth post and tell you some things you maybe don't know about me and, eventually, post links to some old games I made that I just submitted to RMN.
So you all know that I like to make RPGs and other computer games (abuses of the RPG Maker engine, if you will) and that I also like to comment on, review, dissect, and of course play RPGs, indie games, and especially indie RPGs.
What else can I say about me? Well, I'll get the real life stuff out of the way first. I'm 22 years old and I'm a recent college graduate. This May I graduated from State University of New York at Purchase, having worked for four years to earn my degree, a B.A. in Creative Writing from the school's very prestigious and high-mucketty muck Lily Lieb Port Creative Writing program. The only thing is...what the hell do you do with a degree in Creative Writing? For me, so far, the answer has been a whole lot of nothing. I was with my girlfriend in Colorado for the whole summer but I've been back for almost three months now and I'm still unemployed, in spite of the dozens of writing related jobs I've craigslisted and sent my resume too. Pretty much no one has responded.
I don't know if it's the economy tanking, or me not trying hard enough/being too picky, and I figure it's probably a combination of the two. Either way I don't have a job. Soon I will probably have to bite the bullet and hand in these applications I filled out, looking for a menial/retail job at somewhere like Borders, Gamestop, or Blockbuster Video because I have student loans coming due (I come from a family that is good people but poor as dirt) and I need some godamn money already. When that happens, my ridiculous posting frequency of ~10-14 posts her day, should finally decline, but hopefully I'll find time to keep RPG Making.
In the mean time, I've spent the last month hanging out with my friends from college (they're all either younger than me or failures :P, so they haven't graduated), spending time with my girlfriend and my family, and of course, RPG Making up a storm and posting a ludicrous amount. In other words, the latter was a case of some hardcore regression, as upon graduating from College and becoming an adult, I responded by going back to doing a bunch of shit that I thought I outgrew back in High School!
Oh well, it's not all bad! One of my few comforts is the fact that I am a published writer, i.e. I have actually SOLD A STORY for cash money dollars to a pro-level magazine. That is something that most aspiring writers NEVER manage, for decades of trying and decades of rejection letters, and something that almost no one manages this early in life. In fact, the handle "Max McGee" is the name of the protagonist of the story I sold, and my previous avatar was (a tiny, badly shrunken sliver of) the excellent professional art commissioned for that story! I don't know if I'm a good writer, everyone and their mother has told me so, but like most artists I ping-pong wildly back and forth between fugues of insipient despair and feelings of worthlessness and fits of hilariously egotistical overconfidence.
Likewise, I am in a long term relationship with a girl who really seems to like me, and I have been for just over two years now. So it's not like my life is just a miserable morass of depression. My problems are those of the American twenty-two year old as a general category: how to get out of my parents' basement and make something out of myself!
Well, I don't live in a basement, and my dad is pretty awesome, but still, you get the idea.
So, other interests? Well, I'm kind of an all around geek! I am really big into tabletop roleplaying, and I design pen-and-paper games as well as computer RPGs. I'm a big movie buff with eclectic but consistently geeky tastes. I read interesting things, but I don't read nearly as much as I should. I love "indie" music (read: pretentious and/or angsty alternative rock that has somehow gotten labeled indie at some point, and/or "emo", if you really must) but absolutely hate the scene and all its accouterments. In other words, I love the kind of music that most people in my general age demographic A. Like and B. generally LOVE to hate on. I just noticed that the word accouterments kind of has the word "cooter" in it! My favorite band, by far, is Bright Eyes, and I really don't care what you think about that. I manage to watch less TV than most people I know, which is something I consider a virtue. In fact, I don't watch TV at all, unless you count HBO, and I don't because come on, it's NOT TV, it's HBO. My favorite show of all time is Deadwood.
And occasionally, when it isn't ALL TOO DEPRESSING or whatever, I write and try to sell what I write, since I've never been able to imagine any vocation for myself besides being a professional writer. And I've written basically everything you can write, too: short fiction, complete novels, poetry, screenplays, stage plays, games of all kinds, and things that defy categorization.
Back to RPG Making, very briefly, and then I'll sign off because this has grown far, far too long and is starting to resemble a seriously bad personal essay/expository composition.
Okay, as MOST of you who care probably know at this point, I have been a member of this community going back to 2001 or earlier, when I first joined Dark Dominion, then eventually Gaming World. I only picked the handle Max McGee this year, upon joining RMN. In the past, I've gone by a variety of other pseudonyms, including CountZero, which I had planned to revert my username back to with this post until I discovered that, well, if RMN even has that function, I can't find it! (>_< D'oh!)
Under another name I released three complete games, most of them fairly well received. They were:
*Iron Gaia (http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/807/)
*Backstage (http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/809/)
*Iron Gaia: Virus (http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/808/)
I also released a variety of demos for other projects I'll eventually get around to adding here, including The Tower (very early work for rm2k), the Lovecraftian period-piece RPG Eldritch, the canceled fantasy RPG Between Two Worlds (set in the same universe as Mage Duel), and the still-technically-in-development sequel to Backstage, aptly named...Backstage 2.
I was the leadership (with the always pleasant and unbelievably helpful and generous Otokonoko) behind Ghostlight Games, a two year old failed experiment in community building that ultimately died an unjust death, but will be fondly remembered in the hearts of its core userbase, many of which I see posting here on a daily basis, one of which wound up a mod here! Likewise, I am the sole active member of the game development think-tank/brand name Ghostlight Studios, which might even become more like a REAL team or studio at some undeclared future date.
I have not talked about my previous releases or accomplishments because, well, let's face it, from the summer of 2006 onwards, even after I left the community for two years, I was one of the most talked about, hated on, mocked, and generally reviled names in the community EVER. But in two months, ten days, and nine hundred ninety nine posts, I have come to genuinely trust RMN as a community, so, the veil of secrecy has been lifted. Plus, I felt like my old games really needed a home on the interwebs again.
Hello, RMN, it is good to be here, for reals, with no false pretenses.
Sincerely,
-Max McGee AKA Count_Zero AKA Legion
P.S. And yes, yes, yes, I know that like 98% of everybody was about 98% sure anyway, in fact that's one of the reasons I made this topic. :P
My handle is Max McGee! I'm sure most of you know me, since I've been a very active member of RMN for the last two months and ten days! In that short time I managed to rack up a thousand posts and 224 Gamer Score, which should go up to 300+ once the three complete games I submitted to the site go through!
However I NEVER MADE AN INTRODUCTION TOPIC, so I thought I would now to celebrate my one thousandth post and tell you some things you maybe don't know about me and, eventually, post links to some old games I made that I just submitted to RMN.
So you all know that I like to make RPGs and other computer games (abuses of the RPG Maker engine, if you will) and that I also like to comment on, review, dissect, and of course play RPGs, indie games, and especially indie RPGs.
What else can I say about me? Well, I'll get the real life stuff out of the way first. I'm 22 years old and I'm a recent college graduate. This May I graduated from State University of New York at Purchase, having worked for four years to earn my degree, a B.A. in Creative Writing from the school's very prestigious and high-mucketty muck Lily Lieb Port Creative Writing program. The only thing is...what the hell do you do with a degree in Creative Writing? For me, so far, the answer has been a whole lot of nothing. I was with my girlfriend in Colorado for the whole summer but I've been back for almost three months now and I'm still unemployed, in spite of the dozens of writing related jobs I've craigslisted and sent my resume too. Pretty much no one has responded.
I don't know if it's the economy tanking, or me not trying hard enough/being too picky, and I figure it's probably a combination of the two. Either way I don't have a job. Soon I will probably have to bite the bullet and hand in these applications I filled out, looking for a menial/retail job at somewhere like Borders, Gamestop, or Blockbuster Video because I have student loans coming due (I come from a family that is good people but poor as dirt) and I need some godamn money already. When that happens, my ridiculous posting frequency of ~10-14 posts her day, should finally decline, but hopefully I'll find time to keep RPG Making.
In the mean time, I've spent the last month hanging out with my friends from college (they're all either younger than me or failures :P, so they haven't graduated), spending time with my girlfriend and my family, and of course, RPG Making up a storm and posting a ludicrous amount. In other words, the latter was a case of some hardcore regression, as upon graduating from College and becoming an adult, I responded by going back to doing a bunch of shit that I thought I outgrew back in High School!
Oh well, it's not all bad! One of my few comforts is the fact that I am a published writer, i.e. I have actually SOLD A STORY for cash money dollars to a pro-level magazine. That is something that most aspiring writers NEVER manage, for decades of trying and decades of rejection letters, and something that almost no one manages this early in life. In fact, the handle "Max McGee" is the name of the protagonist of the story I sold, and my previous avatar was (a tiny, badly shrunken sliver of) the excellent professional art commissioned for that story! I don't know if I'm a good writer, everyone and their mother has told me so, but like most artists I ping-pong wildly back and forth between fugues of insipient despair and feelings of worthlessness and fits of hilariously egotistical overconfidence.
Likewise, I am in a long term relationship with a girl who really seems to like me, and I have been for just over two years now. So it's not like my life is just a miserable morass of depression. My problems are those of the American twenty-two year old as a general category: how to get out of my parents' basement and make something out of myself!
Well, I don't live in a basement, and my dad is pretty awesome, but still, you get the idea.
So, other interests? Well, I'm kind of an all around geek! I am really big into tabletop roleplaying, and I design pen-and-paper games as well as computer RPGs. I'm a big movie buff with eclectic but consistently geeky tastes. I read interesting things, but I don't read nearly as much as I should. I love "indie" music (read: pretentious and/or angsty alternative rock that has somehow gotten labeled indie at some point, and/or "emo", if you really must) but absolutely hate the scene and all its accouterments. In other words, I love the kind of music that most people in my general age demographic A. Like and B. generally LOVE to hate on. I just noticed that the word accouterments kind of has the word "cooter" in it! My favorite band, by far, is Bright Eyes, and I really don't care what you think about that. I manage to watch less TV than most people I know, which is something I consider a virtue. In fact, I don't watch TV at all, unless you count HBO, and I don't because come on, it's NOT TV, it's HBO. My favorite show of all time is Deadwood.
And occasionally, when it isn't ALL TOO DEPRESSING or whatever, I write and try to sell what I write, since I've never been able to imagine any vocation for myself besides being a professional writer. And I've written basically everything you can write, too: short fiction, complete novels, poetry, screenplays, stage plays, games of all kinds, and things that defy categorization.
Back to RPG Making, very briefly, and then I'll sign off because this has grown far, far too long and is starting to resemble a seriously bad personal essay/expository composition.
Okay, as MOST of you who care probably know at this point, I have been a member of this community going back to 2001 or earlier, when I first joined Dark Dominion, then eventually Gaming World. I only picked the handle Max McGee this year, upon joining RMN. In the past, I've gone by a variety of other pseudonyms, including CountZero, which I had planned to revert my username back to with this post until I discovered that, well, if RMN even has that function, I can't find it! (>_< D'oh!)
Under another name I released three complete games, most of them fairly well received. They were:
*Iron Gaia (http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/807/)
*Backstage (http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/809/)
*Iron Gaia: Virus (http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/808/)
I also released a variety of demos for other projects I'll eventually get around to adding here, including The Tower (very early work for rm2k), the Lovecraftian period-piece RPG Eldritch, the canceled fantasy RPG Between Two Worlds (set in the same universe as Mage Duel), and the still-technically-in-development sequel to Backstage, aptly named...Backstage 2.
I was the leadership (with the always pleasant and unbelievably helpful and generous Otokonoko) behind Ghostlight Games, a two year old failed experiment in community building that ultimately died an unjust death, but will be fondly remembered in the hearts of its core userbase, many of which I see posting here on a daily basis, one of which wound up a mod here! Likewise, I am the sole active member of the game development think-tank/brand name Ghostlight Studios, which might even become more like a REAL team or studio at some undeclared future date.
I have not talked about my previous releases or accomplishments because, well, let's face it, from the summer of 2006 onwards, even after I left the community for two years, I was one of the most talked about, hated on, mocked, and generally reviled names in the community EVER. But in two months, ten days, and nine hundred ninety nine posts, I have come to genuinely trust RMN as a community, so, the veil of secrecy has been lifted. Plus, I felt like my old games really needed a home on the interwebs again.
Hello, RMN, it is good to be here, for reals, with no false pretenses.
Sincerely,
-Max McGee AKA Count_Zero AKA Legion
P.S. And yes, yes, yes, I know that like 98% of everybody was about 98% sure anyway, in fact that's one of the reasons I made this topic. :P
Ruptured Souls - WINNER OF THE RMN HALLOWEEN CONTEST (new blog post!)
HAPPY ALL HALLOWS/SAMHAIN.
And...making a demo copy (purging unused project files)...and...hosting...and...organizing screenshots...and....creating information and...writing disclaimers...and....posting:
RUPTURED SOULS BY MAX MCGEE
Warnings/Disclaimers:
1. This game was made in a hurry, which means you should not expect a high level of polish and you will probably encounter a few bugs.
2.Also it is PRETTY FUCKING GRAPHICALLY VIOLENT for a 2D pixel/sprite based game but I mean, it's probably not all that gross. In terms of gore though, it is meant to be the 2D equivalent of Dead Space but this doesn't show that much in the demo.
3. This game is really dark (not just thematically, but literally) though it was totally visible on my laptop's screen. You might need to adjust your brightness if you can't make out these screenshots.
Notice:
This is perhaps the only project I have ever made to focus on GRAPHICS AND SOUND over STORY AND GAMEPLAY. As a result, the story and dialogue are a bit weaker than is usual for me. Blame Reives and The Mirror Lied and AznChipmunk's MindFlare for making me want to make something really really pretty in rm2k3. The story WILL GET BETTER in the finished version, if there is one made.
I don't think the gameplay has suffered at all, but since this is VERY VERY SHORT (it will take perhaps 30 minutes for the astute player to finish in its entirety on the first run-through, takes me only 10 minutes to play through since I know the solutions to all the puzzles, and takes perhaps 3 hours if you really explore every one of 10+ possible ways to die or survive a certain scenario at the end of the game) there isn't all that gameplay yet period. I think what there is very very good, but then again I also think that multipathing (not true nonlinearity) is pretty KING.
I should say REALLY REALLY PRETTY lights by aprilschild.
Credits:
Major Contributors
Concept/Execution (Story, Maps, Code, All Sorts of Graphical Tinkering): Max McGee
Custom Lighting: aprilschild (not a member of this forum, yet.)
Original Music: Kan "Reives" Gao. Just one track and, I don't want to be misleading, it wasn't made specifically for this project, it is public domain.
Where I Found Stuff:
Graphical Resources: All over the place. The chipsets are primarily theodore and edits thereof. As for the charsets, there are some minor ones by Ocean and some by Dark Chrono and a bunch I don't rightly know the creators of. There was an astonishing amount of project folder looting so if you see stuff jacked right from your game, please excuse me.
Audio Resources: Stolen, mostly from Silent Hill.
Splashes/Title/Gameover: Snagged from deviantart, as always!
Not every map has a lightmap...yet.
How To Play:
First, forget everything you know about playing RPG Maker games because hey, Ruptured Souls isn't an RPG. It's an atmospheric graphical adventure game, like Indigo Prophecy, although you might instead think of it as Resident Evil, or Silent Hill, without the fighting.
Hiding will be a big part of the final game, a la the Clocktower games.
Arrow Keys: Navigate your environment/navigate menus.
(Or, contextually, aim, but only once.)
Space Bar/Enter Key: Context sensitive action (investigate, activate, climb, move object)/Confirm menu choices.
1: Check Health. (Health is not used in demo, the only two Health statuses are alive and dead.)
2: Save Game. In the demo, you can save anywhere. This will probably change.
7: Quit Game.
In the final version, other number keys were going to do different things, i.e. 3 might check your key ring or 4 might check inventory or 5 might check notes but since you don't have many items to manage in the demo, this is not implemented yet.
Note: The cancel key (Escape) is not used at all, and the game has no menu system.
All gameplay is contextual (a la Indigo Prophecy) and logic based.
Contextual, as in...?
I know there is a tileset error on this map. It has been fixed since the screenshot was taken!
That means you use the arrow keys to walk around (yes, walk, not run, don't worry about the move speed, the maps are very small) and you press the enter key to do stuff, i.e. change your environment in various ways. (The simplest example is pressing the enter key to pick up an item or examine an object, but this includes moving objects and various other actions.) Usually most significant actions will present a prompt giving you the choice of "Do whatever" or "Do nothing" which is, yes, more clunky than having smooth, context sensitive actions (press enter to move crate rather than press enter and be asked if you want to move a crate or not) but there is a reason for it, and the reason is that everything you do in the game can have (fatal) consequences.
Logic based, as in...?
In Ruptured Souls, often the screen will let you know more than your protagonist does about what is going on, a very old trick of the horror movie genre. (And yes I know some of you bastards are thinking (hey, the smoking man on the left is in a completely different style than every other sprite and clashes really hard and yes, I know, it was in fact INTENTIONAL for reasons not revealed in the demo.)
Just because there is no combat system in Ruptured Souls does not mean that you cannot or will not DIE. Even the littlest things you do will have logical consequences and if you feel that the game is cheaply and unfairly killing you, it is probably because of some minor thing you did or forgot to do or did "wrong". Trial and error should reveal your mistake in a satisfying and violent way. Every death in the game is custom animated and rendered so without exaggerating LEARN TO ENJOY DYING, a lot of effort was put into making you die in a cool looking way.
In other words, save often! Even if you beat the game in one try it is worth it to go back and take a look at how you could have died! And if you get stuck, ask me for a hint before cheating.
Besides interacting with objects, the gameplay often revolves around making choices, choose your own adventure style, but is not just a choose your own adventure. Every choice you make will usually A.) be influenced by your interactions with objects (see above) and B.) result in a context sensitive, logical minigame of some kind.
The Premise:
A shot from the (admittedly rather bland but very efficient) intro.
You are Mason Lansdale, an American private detective investigating the disappearance of a 17 year old girl named Kyra Leighton. The case has taken you all the way to London, England, to investigate a private medical research think tank called Wingate Medical that has recently requested the records of Kyra and 4 other girls just like her who disappeared.
At first, Lansdale is concerned primarily with breaking into Wingate to find evidence that will make the case, but as the night goes on the situation quickly evolves into something far more sinister, and terrifying and your primary goal becomes survival.
Thematic Notes, Tone and Genre, and some Design Notes too:
If you're interested in my process, blog-style, I will say only this: for this game the mental note I made in my head was Atmosphere > All, at all costs.
Guns are included.
What I tried very hard to establish with this game is tension and a sense of despair. You're not supposed to be able to fight back very efficiently but you are supposed to be able to die. Lansdale has a gun and can use it competently but it will be of limited or know help against the forces he is up against. Everything is less scary when you can just shoot it to death. Rather than making Lansdale a pussy (the classic Silent Hill approach), I just made it so that most of the ways you can die in the game don't give Lansdale a chance to use his combat skills. In another game, Lansdale would be a very competent protagonist, kicking ass and taking names, so don't dismiss him as an incompetent. It's just that Ruptured Souls is about being scared, not being a badass.
In the end, the most potent and relevant weapon you have is your wits.
This IS in the horror genre, so you are not giving the game a fair chance if you don't play it alone, in total darkness, with your $300 head phones cranked all the way up, and of course, in full screen mode. As an interesting note, this is the only horror anything I've ever made that is, in fact, 100% NON-SUPERNATURAL. In other words, yes, this is more Resident Evil than Silent Hill.
So, what will make you play it? MORE PRETTY PICTURES.
Or maybe you'd like a features list!
Features List
*LITEING FX!
*SURPRISINGLY REALISTIC 2D VIOLENCE (NO CARTOON TESTICLES HERE)
*EXCELLENT SOUND DESIGN.
*TOTALLY UNIQUE, CONTEXTUAL, LOGIC-BASED GAMEPLAY.
DOWNLOAD LINK:
Get ready. Get set. GET SCARED. This file factory shit will be replaced with the game being hosted on RMN all in due time.
(Shouldn't take you more than half an hour, maximum.)
-Max McGee
P.S. THE NAME
The name and nothing else about this project has been FREELY CRIBBED from a canceled action/horror project that I was working on circa 2003-2004 with a big team including RowenFM1 and Xeno-Soft that released a really killer demo, but never went anywhere. Since I was the LEAD WRITER on the project, I went ahead and jacked the title to use as the title of a novella I started and never finished, and then I jacked the title and premise of that novella to use as the title of this game. So, from rm2k3 game, to novella, to rm2k3 game again. But if you community oldbies are thinking that hey, this sounds very familiar, well that's why, but it bears no resemblance to the original game of that name!
And...making a demo copy (purging unused project files)...and...hosting...and...organizing screenshots...and....creating information and...writing disclaimers...and....posting:
RUPTURED SOULS BY MAX MCGEE
Warnings/Disclaimers:
1. This game was made in a hurry, which means you should not expect a high level of polish and you will probably encounter a few bugs.
2.Also it is PRETTY FUCKING GRAPHICALLY VIOLENT for a 2D pixel/sprite based game but I mean, it's probably not all that gross. In terms of gore though, it is meant to be the 2D equivalent of Dead Space but this doesn't show that much in the demo.
3. This game is really dark (not just thematically, but literally) though it was totally visible on my laptop's screen. You might need to adjust your brightness if you can't make out these screenshots.
Notice:
This is perhaps the only project I have ever made to focus on GRAPHICS AND SOUND over STORY AND GAMEPLAY. As a result, the story and dialogue are a bit weaker than is usual for me. Blame Reives and The Mirror Lied and AznChipmunk's MindFlare for making me want to make something really really pretty in rm2k3. The story WILL GET BETTER in the finished version, if there is one made.
I don't think the gameplay has suffered at all, but since this is VERY VERY SHORT (it will take perhaps 30 minutes for the astute player to finish in its entirety on the first run-through, takes me only 10 minutes to play through since I know the solutions to all the puzzles, and takes perhaps 3 hours if you really explore every one of 10+ possible ways to die or survive a certain scenario at the end of the game) there isn't all that gameplay yet period. I think what there is very very good, but then again I also think that multipathing (not true nonlinearity) is pretty KING.
I should say REALLY REALLY PRETTY lights by aprilschild.
Credits:
Major Contributors
Concept/Execution (Story, Maps, Code, All Sorts of Graphical Tinkering): Max McGee
Custom Lighting: aprilschild (not a member of this forum, yet.)
Original Music: Kan "Reives" Gao. Just one track and, I don't want to be misleading, it wasn't made specifically for this project, it is public domain.
Where I Found Stuff:
Graphical Resources: All over the place. The chipsets are primarily theodore and edits thereof. As for the charsets, there are some minor ones by Ocean and some by Dark Chrono and a bunch I don't rightly know the creators of. There was an astonishing amount of project folder looting so if you see stuff jacked right from your game, please excuse me.
Audio Resources: Stolen, mostly from Silent Hill.
Splashes/Title/Gameover: Snagged from deviantart, as always!
Not every map has a lightmap...yet.
How To Play:
First, forget everything you know about playing RPG Maker games because hey, Ruptured Souls isn't an RPG. It's an atmospheric graphical adventure game, like Indigo Prophecy, although you might instead think of it as Resident Evil, or Silent Hill, without the fighting.
Hiding will be a big part of the final game, a la the Clocktower games.
Arrow Keys: Navigate your environment/navigate menus.
(Or, contextually, aim, but only once.)
Space Bar/Enter Key: Context sensitive action (investigate, activate, climb, move object)/Confirm menu choices.
1: Check Health. (Health is not used in demo, the only two Health statuses are alive and dead.)
2: Save Game. In the demo, you can save anywhere. This will probably change.
7: Quit Game.
In the final version, other number keys were going to do different things, i.e. 3 might check your key ring or 4 might check inventory or 5 might check notes but since you don't have many items to manage in the demo, this is not implemented yet.
Note: The cancel key (Escape) is not used at all, and the game has no menu system.
All gameplay is contextual (a la Indigo Prophecy) and logic based.
Contextual, as in...?
I know there is a tileset error on this map. It has been fixed since the screenshot was taken!
That means you use the arrow keys to walk around (yes, walk, not run, don't worry about the move speed, the maps are very small) and you press the enter key to do stuff, i.e. change your environment in various ways. (The simplest example is pressing the enter key to pick up an item or examine an object, but this includes moving objects and various other actions.) Usually most significant actions will present a prompt giving you the choice of "Do whatever" or "Do nothing" which is, yes, more clunky than having smooth, context sensitive actions (press enter to move crate rather than press enter and be asked if you want to move a crate or not) but there is a reason for it, and the reason is that everything you do in the game can have (fatal) consequences.
Logic based, as in...?
In Ruptured Souls, often the screen will let you know more than your protagonist does about what is going on, a very old trick of the horror movie genre. (And yes I know some of you bastards are thinking (hey, the smoking man on the left is in a completely different style than every other sprite and clashes really hard and yes, I know, it was in fact INTENTIONAL for reasons not revealed in the demo.)
Just because there is no combat system in Ruptured Souls does not mean that you cannot or will not DIE. Even the littlest things you do will have logical consequences and if you feel that the game is cheaply and unfairly killing you, it is probably because of some minor thing you did or forgot to do or did "wrong". Trial and error should reveal your mistake in a satisfying and violent way. Every death in the game is custom animated and rendered so without exaggerating LEARN TO ENJOY DYING, a lot of effort was put into making you die in a cool looking way.
In other words, save often! Even if you beat the game in one try it is worth it to go back and take a look at how you could have died! And if you get stuck, ask me for a hint before cheating.
Besides interacting with objects, the gameplay often revolves around making choices, choose your own adventure style, but is not just a choose your own adventure. Every choice you make will usually A.) be influenced by your interactions with objects (see above) and B.) result in a context sensitive, logical minigame of some kind.
The Premise:
A shot from the (admittedly rather bland but very efficient) intro.
You are Mason Lansdale, an American private detective investigating the disappearance of a 17 year old girl named Kyra Leighton. The case has taken you all the way to London, England, to investigate a private medical research think tank called Wingate Medical that has recently requested the records of Kyra and 4 other girls just like her who disappeared.
At first, Lansdale is concerned primarily with breaking into Wingate to find evidence that will make the case, but as the night goes on the situation quickly evolves into something far more sinister, and terrifying and your primary goal becomes survival.
Thematic Notes, Tone and Genre, and some Design Notes too:
If you're interested in my process, blog-style, I will say only this: for this game the mental note I made in my head was Atmosphere > All, at all costs.
Guns are included.
What I tried very hard to establish with this game is tension and a sense of despair. You're not supposed to be able to fight back very efficiently but you are supposed to be able to die. Lansdale has a gun and can use it competently but it will be of limited or know help against the forces he is up against. Everything is less scary when you can just shoot it to death. Rather than making Lansdale a pussy (the classic Silent Hill approach), I just made it so that most of the ways you can die in the game don't give Lansdale a chance to use his combat skills. In another game, Lansdale would be a very competent protagonist, kicking ass and taking names, so don't dismiss him as an incompetent. It's just that Ruptured Souls is about being scared, not being a badass.
In the end, the most potent and relevant weapon you have is your wits.
This IS in the horror genre, so you are not giving the game a fair chance if you don't play it alone, in total darkness, with your $300 head phones cranked all the way up, and of course, in full screen mode. As an interesting note, this is the only horror anything I've ever made that is, in fact, 100% NON-SUPERNATURAL. In other words, yes, this is more Resident Evil than Silent Hill.
So, what will make you play it? MORE PRETTY PICTURES.
Or maybe you'd like a features list!
Features List
*LITEING FX!
*SURPRISINGLY REALISTIC 2D VIOLENCE (NO CARTOON TESTICLES HERE)
*EXCELLENT SOUND DESIGN.
*TOTALLY UNIQUE, CONTEXTUAL, LOGIC-BASED GAMEPLAY.
DOWNLOAD LINK:
Get ready. Get set. GET SCARED. This file factory shit will be replaced with the game being hosted on RMN all in due time.
(Shouldn't take you more than half an hour, maximum.)
-Max McGee
P.S. THE NAME
The name and nothing else about this project has been FREELY CRIBBED from a canceled action/horror project that I was working on circa 2003-2004 with a big team including RowenFM1 and Xeno-Soft that released a really killer demo, but never went anywhere. Since I was the LEAD WRITER on the project, I went ahead and jacked the title to use as the title of a novella I started and never finished, and then I jacked the title and premise of that novella to use as the title of this game. So, from rm2k3 game, to novella, to rm2k3 game again. But if you community oldbies are thinking that hey, this sounds very familiar, well that's why, but it bears no resemblance to the original game of that name!
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