ROOTS'S PROFILE

About
Hero of Allacrost is a single player 2D role-playing game inspired by classic console RPGs. In Hero of Allacrost, the player will explore rich environments, solve challenging dungeon puzzles, and fight strategic battles in an active-time based system. The game is free open-source software, built using a custom engine, and is currently available across several platforms including Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. In addition to the game, we also develop and release a custom map editor for the game.

The three major design goals we are striving to meet with this title are listed below.

• Prioritize efforts on developing engaging gameplay and a compelling narrative
  
• Eliminate tedious and micromanagement mechanics that are commonly found in RPGs.
  
• Make battles interesting, challenging, and requiring of a high level of strategy from the player
  

The About page on our website describes several of the game's core features and how they enable us to meet these goals. The RMN game page for this project is available here.


Activity
Our latest release was in June 2015. This was a development release, which is essentially a snapshot of our work in progress. Below is a link to download it as well as a walkthrough video of this release with commentary.

• Release Files: http://www.allacrost.org/download
  
• Release Video:
  

The next milestone we're working toward is another development release that continues where our previous release left off, which will finish out the current "chapter" of the game. The major requirements for this release include map design, scripting, and creation of some additional artwork (map tilesets and around a dozen sprites). The anticipated date of this next release is sometime in September 2015. This is what our team will be working on for the next couple of months.

By the end of this year, we will be making an official release. This will be a fully designed, balanced, and polished product. It will be an iterative improvement of the September 2015 development release with some amount of additional content and improved event scripting, dialogue, and several noticeable improvements in the UI and other areas of the code. This is the team's current long-term goal. More information about our upcoming releases can be found on the Roadmap page on our wiki. This includes a list of all the major tasks that must be done along with their current status.


Compensation
Allacrost is created and distributed for free. Because of this we cannot offer financial compensation to those who work on the project. Our team members are quite content with putting forth their efforts into what we believe will someday be a great game to share. We learn a lot from each other on the Allacrost team and you will absolutely learn new techniques and skills from those whom you work aside with. Having this experience will also make you a much more attractive candidate if you are seeking to enter into the gaming industry. Some of our team members have been solicited by recruiters for well-known game development companies. Your full name will appear in the game credits.


Talent Needed
This project took a long hiatus and as a result has a very small team at the moment. We would really like to rebuild a team of dedicated, passionate individuals who share the vision of what Allacrost is to become and want to be a part of making it happen. Becoming a member of this team means more than simply getting told what to create. We strongly encourage people to participate in design discussions and offer their own ideas to improve the game and the project itself. Although the core design of Allacrost is pretty well-defined at this point, there's still a lot of unanswered design questions and features we have not yet implemented. There's still plenty of room for you to influence this title should you be interested in doing so. While we are seeking core team members, we're also happy to welcome contributors who prefer to help out here and there with adding a new feature or creating new art or music, but aren't as invested in this project.

You can read more about what it's like on the Allacrost team and our philosophies by reading about our team policies on our wiki. Listed below are the specific needs that we are seeking to fill and what people who fill those roles can expect to be working on for the next couple of months.

Game Designer
A game designer is one who assembles and combines the code, art, and music produced to create the game's experience. One of the primary responsibilities of game designers is to create maps using our editor and write the scripting code to make those maps come alive. For our next release, our designer's main focus will be on the expansion and scripting of an existing large map. There will also be work involving the design of battle skills, enemies, and perhaps some balancing involved.

Links:
(1) - Various pages of information for our game designers
(2) - Qualifications and skills needed, as well as directions on how to get started
(3) - A list of content on our roadmap that our designers need to complete

Pixel Artist
Pixel artists create the majority of the game's graphical assets. This includes map tilesets, sprites, and various other in-game artwork. Pixel artists have a large amount of freedom and those in the past have gifted us with some quite brilliant pieces. Below are some examples of our current pixel artwork so you can get an idea of our style. If you feel this above your skill level, please don't be intimidated. Even programmers create some of the art occasionally, and they are certainly not this skilled. The most immediate needs for pixel art include: a castle interior tileset, various demon sprites, and a few more sprites that represent townspeople.

Links:
(1) - Information on rights to an artist's work and how to get started
(2) - Lists the types of artwork found in Allacrost. The Maps, Sprites, and Icons sections cover pixel art
(3) - Explanation of our artistic styles, influences, and design



Traditional Artist
In addition to pixel art, Allacrost integrates usage of some more traditional artwork styles as well. These commonly come in the form of portraits and landscapes. See below for examples of this type of artwork. The most immediate needs for our traditional art include: face portraits for some major NPC characters, a body portrait of a generic soldier, and a landscape representing a desert castle-town.

Links:
(1) - Information on rights to an artist's work and how to get started
(2) - Lists the types of artwork found in Allacrost. The Backdrops and Portraits sections cover traditional art
(3) - Explanation of our artistic styles, influences, and design



Composer
Allacrost already has a number of tracks unique to the game and a thematic arrangement. But we are still missing a couple crucial pieces of music to complete our next release. These include: a "danger" theme to be played when a city is under attack, and a "legend" theme played when the main legend of the game is first heard. Below are links to some of our current compositions.

Links:
(1) - Musical influences, style, and technical information
(2) - Selections from our soundtrack available on our website

Writer
The most important responsibility of a writer is constructing the dialogues seen in the game. They also assist with the narrative (a novel) that the game's story is based off of. Writer's also have the unique ability to strongly influence the events and actions that occur through the game by using their written dialogues and imaginging scenes for us to produce to fit. The most immediate need we have for a writer at the moment is to improve the existing dialogue in the last release (which is essentially a placeholder at the moment) and to help with the design and dialogues that will take place in the next release.

Links:
(1) - Two full chapters of the standalone narrative that the game is based on.


Joining
Follow this link for information on how to join our team and what you can expect from working on this project. If you have questions or wish to give feedback, feel free to either post a reply in this thread or contact me directly if you wish to inquire in private.

author=Erave
New WIP area, the Water Garden.

Wow, that looks awesome! The only thing that looks like it could use some more work are the north/south stairs that lead into the water pits. They don't blend well with the surrounding tiles and seem like they are "pasted" on to the map. I think they would look better if the bottom of the stairs were partially submerged in the water and the top had a little bit of stone space before the first step.

author=LockeZ
I like villains that are sympathetic. Ones with strong motivations and interesting personalities that could almost be good guys. I don't think this is the same thing as badass, though. I like some "badass" characters like Magus from Chrono Trigger and Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight, but I think all of the characters you listed are lame - they're just walking outfits that fight really well. Jowy from Suikoden 2 and Seifer from FF8 fit the archetype that I like, but are definitely not badasses; they're really quite pathetic, but I think they're fascinating characters. Arthas in Warcraft 3 is a fantastic villain, but in World of Warcraft everything that made him interesting is gone.

I like stories that are tragedies, and that definitely plays into the types of heroes and villains I want to see. It's not a coincidence that every character I listed either starts out as a hero and later switches sides to become a villain, or does the opposite. Every villain was a good person once - some of them still are. I want to see how they got where they are now. I want it to feel real.

I second this. I don't like antagonists (or protagonists) that are one-dimensional. I appreciate a story so much more when I can understand and related to the villain's purpose and motivations. If they are simply unquestionably evil, that's boring. Having said that, I do love those epic moments when a villain clearly establishes that "son of a bitch must pay" mentality from the protagonist or player (Kefka from FFVI comes to mind).

author=RedMask
I'd like to try XIII eventually I don't really care that a lot of people hated it because of it being linear. I'll probably enjoy it. The only FF games I refuse to play are XI and XIV the online time wasters that are mostly void of story.

I really don't mind games that are overly linear either, but FFXIII took it to the extreme. What bothered me most about XIII was the tedious crystarium leveling system (aka Sphere Grid 2), and the ridiculous equipment/loot system. Wasn't terribly impressed with the story presentation either.

I refuse to play XI and XIV for the same reasons you cited. I won't play any MMO game in general, as I don't want to get addicted or play a game that costs a monthly fee.

I hope XV turns out to be a fantastic game. I really do. But I've pretty much written off SE as creators of fun RPGs at this point. Maybe they'll learn something from past mistakes, but based on what I've seen and read so far, XV looks to be more of the same. The only thing they improved was the graphics, which I could not care less about.

Yeah, I forgot to point out that dealing damage to a part in our title also deals damage to the enemy as a whole, same as in your game. It has to, since we don't have individual HP counters for parts like in your design.

Here's a question for you: does every skill/ability target a single part of an enemy? Or do some allow you to target the enemy "as a whole"? And what about abilities that target multiple enemies? How do you handle that?

We have three types of skills (all of our attacks, magic, etc. we call skills). Those that target a specific point, those that target a single enemy (or ally) and those that target multiple enemies (or allies). I can't recall at the moment how the latter two work, but I know it's one of two things. Either they just target an enemy's base stats and completely ignore the parts on their body, or they attack each part, and we divide the damage dealt by the number of parts and sum up the totals. So for example, say we cast a fire spell on an enemy with 4 parts, and 1 of those parts is weak to fire while 2 more are resistant to it. We'd deal the damage to each part and divide that number by four, then we add up the damage dealt to each part and report that as the total damage. This way we can still factor in the weaknesses and strengths of each part in the total calculation.

Do you do something similar to that? I'm curious how that works in your design.