Blade of the Poisoner

[eshman]

I am currently designing a game around the Blade of the Poisoner series by Douglas Hill. I think that the story itself is pretty good - I've read it several times (even though it is typical of the Fantasy stories that have been written). The first time I read it I was in Jr. High, so don't think I'm weird or anything by reading this book.

The characters are as follows (in semi-order of their appearance in the book):

Jarral - the 'hero' of the story, if there had to be one.

Archer - a huntress that frequents the area where Jarral lives.

Cryl - a wizard and conjurer who is adept at developing those that may aid him in, one day, overthrowing the Demon-Driver one in the world.

Scythe - a masterful swordsman who sees without the use of his eyes.

Mandra - a young woman from royal lineage that has the power to cloud or remove clouds from men's minds.


Here is the synopsis of the story: Twelve-year-old Jarral and three friends with strong psychic talents fight the evil of Prince Mephtik the Poisoner, who serves the Demon-Driver.

The book basicly revolves around Jarral, a young teen, who has lived in a sheltered world for the years of his life so far. He currently lives with some older friends of his parents in a small village in a remote part of the Wellwood (a forest area in this world). His village is attacked and destroyed while he is out playing in the woods alone. He is then met by a friend, Archer, that frequents the woods around his village and they attempt to outrun the soldiers and a creature, called a Widow, that were sent to destroy everyone in the village by Prince Mephtik, an underling of the Demon-Driver (who controls the world by his ability to control demons - hence the name). They are eventually caught by the Prince whom then marks Jarral on the chest with the Blade - an evil-empowered dagger that has the power to kill whomever is even scratched by it by the light of the next full moon. A wizard, Cryltaur Tabbetang, sends assistance in the form of Scythe and the Lady Mandra to assist in trying to cure the blade-wound and thus saving the young Jarral before his death.

I'm a fan of the series by this author and I thought that a game about this would be great, so I am going to use 2k3 to make a game about it using resources that I have gathered (probably close to a gig at this point if not more). I've taken classes in Visual Basic.Net and I've found them to be useful in programming in 2k3 so far as I play around with the different features it has.

I am currently only in the development of the story and map designs (as I'm waiting on a custom-built pc to replace the one that died on me). I do have some map designs down on pen and paper and many pages of notes and ideas I've brainstormed on.

Here are some in the works links to map designs I had for the game before I lost my pc:

A village in the game:
http://www.gamingw.net/pubaccess/53333/Village.GIF


A forest outside of the village:
http://www.gamingw.net/pubaccess/53333/forest%20path.png

Sorry about linking to another website, but I can't upload/download anything from my work pc.

Please let me know what you think so far. I hope Meis stops bye...

[FHZebedee]

Just wondering... Are you going to implement a sort of timed gameplay or something? Is this going to basically just follow the plot, or give players time to go and see some extra stuff along the way?

I like the way this sounds so far. Definately something fairly new, and you have a mature approach to this. I'll be keeping my eye on you.

[eshman]

I plan on embellishing upon the story as presented in the series quite a bit and presenting more areas than are mentioned in the books.

I am planning on an in-game timing system whereby certain items will be available upon completing tasks within a time period.