Furious Angels

[Trevlac]

If you go, furious angels will bring you back to me...

Increased school shootings, crime rates skyrocket, murders abroad, bloody, gory masses line the alleys and pubs of the street life. It's not new. These things have been happening since the dawn of society. Some humans just don't get along. But the again, some arn't human. Some are creatures that stalk humans in the night. Everyone is afraid of the dark, not because it's dark, but because you're uncertain what may be there. And sometimes there is something there. But you only fear what you don't understand. One group of people understands it all, the reason behind the increased activity of...things. People lose their memories more often each day. Some go insane, some quit smoking, some become devout Catholics, and some go on murderous rampages. Corporate leaders don't remember how they started their companies, rapair technicians don't ever remember studying for their work, and every day you feel like a part of you is missing. In fact, you don't remember the last time you saw the day. Only in the deepest memories. Not last week, or even yesterday.

"Welcome to the world of 2036. I bet you thought you'd be cruisin' round in one o' them flyin' cars eh kid? I bet my bollocks you were. No crazy techno-gizmos this year. Jus' murderin' rampagers an' sick an' twisted folks who'd as soon cut ya as look at ya. M'name's Jebediah, mos' of yeh folks call me Jeb. I'm one o' the ones that remember it all, see. But I ain' tellin' yeh squat 'cause you'll forget it like the res' of them come tomorrow."

What if the world was created five minutes ago and every memory you had was a fabrication?

Who would you be?



So obviously this game is my attempt at a Dark City / Matrix / Thirteenth Floor type of game. I intend to place it into the horror genre with occasional humor. The demo itself has no storyline at all, it is simply to test the mechanics of the game in its alpha stage. I've been hard at work on it for months now. Recently I've advanced it much further, so expect another demo with actual story soon. If you assume this is a project that will not be completed- think again. I've already completed the database and the story (including the script). All that remains are maps and fixing a few bugs. There will be voice acting as I already have recorded several things for in-game purposes.

When Lucifer's army wreaks havok on planet Terra, who will defend us? God? No, Angels.

Characters (click_the_names_for_character_art)

Trevlac Ehrgeiz: At only age 23, he is a man with a haunted past. He wishes he was lucky enough to forget it all as the others, but he's one of the stalking creatures of the night that everyone fears. Two years ago he was training to be a Vampire Hunter with his mentor, Sparta, when a group of Vampires headed by the powerful Marco Legount attacked him. They killed his mentor in front of him and incapacitated Trevlac. Given the choice to live or die by Troy, a female vampire of the group, he chose life and was sired that day. His blood cravings were easily ignored but he often went days weak and hungry. He rationalized that vampires needed blood but not necessarily human blood - so he hunted wolves and other mammals. Soon he discovered that his mentor was alive when he showed up at Trevlac's apartment two years later. Lucifer, head of the legion of demons was unleashing her army upon the world.

Alice Eisbrecher: Resident of Shutz, Germany, Alice was an average youth. That changed when she suddenly started having memories of people she had brutally stabbed - almost a hundred - all vivid and lush with detail. Even a blood-stained butcher knife was tucked neatly, almost delicately, inside her apron. This girl had met Trevlac before her memories and he knew her to be soft and kind, not sick and muderous. He tought her not to trust them, and she, in turn, trusted him. She now fights to define herself not by her memories, but by his memories.

Ordin Wales: A boy who was abandoned as a youth and left to be raised in a Catholic church. He had grown up believing there is no God but there certainly was a satan. He always said "You may not believe in satan, but he believes in you." He was right of course. He had no idea at the time of his donning the Preisthood, but Lucifer's army was being rent upon Terra. He's cocky and arrogant, you wouldn't think of Ordin as a preist when you see him - dressed in all red leather and a wide-brimmed fedora. This man is never wrong. His instincts are flawless. Upon meeting Trevlac, his life changed, perhaps for the worse. He is now as hated by Lucifer as Trevlac and Sparta, and is hunted just as ruthlessly.

There's three of the characters in the game. I'll post Sparta later. It is confirmed there will be 4 playable characters and 1 hidden character that you'll have to go through all sorts of hell to get. The "demo" that I am providing is very primitive and doesn't have every feature in the game and absolutely no story of the game. Let's go over some of the features that will be in Furious Angels. Now, I'm not like most people, I'm not going to sit here and make this grand list of awesome things without showing you I've done it. I'm posting links to screenshots with them.

Features: (click_the_bold_names_for_screens)

Active Battle System: Not the dreaded ATB in RPG Maker 2003, or the horrible front-on that comes default in 2000 and XP. A custom-made battle system where you swing real weapons and cast real magic in real time. Enemies will follow you around, and even act as a team. Enemies near bosses will protect the boss and heal him like a leader, this will allow for more strategy and interactivity within the game. I'm not just telling you, I'm showing you. It's in the demo. The only thing I havn't yet got working is the magic system. So it will be in the final release and not this demo.

Custom Spell System: Just like the Materia system in the popular game "Final Fantasy VII", the Custom Spell System allows players to equip materia to suit their spell needs. It adds stats (or subtracts them) and even has the ability to add elements to weapons and armor when paired with elemental materias. Honestly, this system works 100% the way of Final Fantasy VII's version without flaw. Except one flaw: I'm having difficulty making the code for this system work with my CBS. It'll be included in a future release. Since magic isn't working at this point, I didn't bother including the system. But feel free to view the screenshot and drool.

Custom Equipment Crafting (or Alchemy): You can make equipment, items, and key items by stepping onto an Alchemy circle (later you gain the ability to draw them with chalk) and fufilling the necessary ingredients requirements. This is included in the demo and you can make a weapon, an armor, and an accessory. The full version will have over 400 items/weapons/armors/and accessories that I've already made up. Don't bother trying to open the game and peer into the database though: I deleted everything not used in the demo and saved it as a new project. No peeking for you!

Custom Shop Window: Sadly, no screenshot for this one. However, it is in the demo. You will get to buy things Star Ocean style. When you buy something there is a limited number in stock and when you sell something to the store, it remains there (unless someone else comes and buys it at some point). So basicly, it works like real-world pawn shops.

Tabbed Menu System: FINALLY, a break from the age-old vertial menus! This is an iconized horizonal menu that's well-organized for you. Selecting one general area brings you to a more detailed selection list for your organizational needs! There is also a party switcher built right in much like in games of the Final Fantasy sort where you simply switch out anyone at any time as long as the story allows it. Three people maximum in your party, but there are 5 total available players. Items are further organized for "Key, Recovery, Weapon, Armor, Accessory, and Misc".


Detailed Status Window: The days of keeping up with every little detail about your characters are over. This game includes a detailed status window that displays all of your stats in a graphical bar indicating how far until they hit maximum. All HP/MP/EXP are displayed with a nice graphical bar to take away estimating when you need to heal or meditate. And even better is the feature I've never seen in any game before: radical element resistance graph. It's just a normal radial graph but it shows, visually, your resistance to certain elemental attacks. In the picture, Trevlac has a 50% weakness to Cold (so half damage is blocked completely), and the rest are 100% weakness. The graph can also show if you are OVERLY weak to something (say you're very flammable, you may have a 150% on Heat). Now, while the menu shows your location (which is awesome) it shows step count too. It was a stupid idea for me to stick that in there. Originally, I was going to make step count affect certain points in the game but on reflection I thought better of it. It will be replaced by something more useful like "current time".

Triple Triad: "OMG" you say? Indeed. It's playable in the demo once you complete the boss fight and return to the Alchemist. You can play against "Albus" and "Amy". The computer characters have 12 different difficulties, and each difficulty has a random series of cards that can be in their decks. So it never gets too easy even if you have the best cards. You can buy more cards with "Triads", which is a kind of minigame currency in the main game. There will be other insanely awesome minigames and even better dungeon puzzles. Pressing "Q" when you have TT cards will allow you to play anyone. I am also currently writing up code for FF9's TetraMaster.

I havn't set my sights on anything too high when I made this game. Everything I listed above is in the game and most are in the demo. There's several other small things that I didn't bother screenshotting like the "Errands" system where people pay you for short chores and things of that nature. There will be tonnes of small things like that which make the game even better. Currently I'm coding a pixel-movement system so that you arn't restricted to moving UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT, in exact 16pixel squares. It takes away from the realism and I want the game to be as intuitive and flexible as possible. Also, random note: I changed the title screen music from "Rob Dougan - Furious Angels" to "ES Posthumus - Pompeii" for demo puproses. The former music is better suited for the actual finalized game, but the latter is better for the demo.

Controls
Z = Attack
X = Menu/Cancel
C = Confirm
Q = Triple Triad challenge (only if you have cards)

Demo
This is a crude demo of my game just to give you an idea of what it will be like. Now, before you go off downloading it and just playing, take note of a few things. Firstly, if you use the save feature, the game crashes for some reason. I'm still working this one out. Also, the game MIGHT crash if you load a saved game (although if you do save, it WILL actually save, but it'll crash right after).

Furious Angels demo (8.88 MB)

The game, unfortunately, does use a dependancy, please visit this site and download the RPG Maker XP "RTP" (or Run Time Package). I can't figure out every single little thing that RMXP uses and stick it in my game folder. I tried hard but after countless testing and retrying, I couldn't find everything that needs to go in there. So I cut it all down the the basics and linked to the RTP. Sorry to you dialup users. (23.0 MB)



There's definetly more major systems to come. I already know what I'll be implimenting but I don't want to go shooting my mouth off until I can back it up with screenshots and/or a demo. Hope you all enjoy and have fun!

PS: Here's a few in-game screens for good measure. I just wanted to show that I make realisticly sized interiors to buildings. They are exactly the same size inside as out. These are from the up-and-coming demo.

Screenshot 0
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2

[MrMister]

dis game looks f*cken terrible...

Seriously though. Awesome.

[ZeroKirbyX]

I'm really glad you acknowledge that it's a lot like Dark City, that was the first thing I thought. Haven't played the demo, plannin' on it, and the only real problem I have is the FMA approach to alchemy. Other than that it's awesome.

[Trevlac]

I havn't seen FullMetal Alchemist. The only thing I know of Alchemy is my studies and many hours in cold libraries researching it. I call it an "alchemy" system but the true alchemy system is in the storyline. Alchemists are Seekers and are taught that while going through the three stages of life (Nigredo, Albedo, and Rubedo) you are to shed your material affections and confront the darkest part of your soul.

However, in Alchemy lore, they also crafted things "by magic". It's just lore. It's also in FA.

[Ben]

Sounds cool dude.

If you need help with Spriting, or Any tweaks to the XP graphics(Sprites, custom Art, otherwise), dont be hesitant to commison me. You obviously have the mechanics part down...

[Trevlac]

Oh nope. Done will ALL game graphics. Also, I dunno if you guys read it, but in the post I said that to see screenshots you click all the bold names.

[ZeroKirbyX]

Ah, right-o. As long as you understand chalk circles is more on the magic side, as alchemy is basically chemistry without any fuckin' clue what you're doing from a scientific stand-point.

[Trevlac]

Alchemy != Chemisty. In all ways. They don't have any of the same properties. It's like comparing Joseph Stallin to an eight year old.

Also, I added red exclamation marks for the truely retarded and unobservant.

[ZeroKirbyX]

Perhaps this is because I'm retarded and unobservant, but I see no red exclamation point, just a regular old uncool exclamation point. Or perhaps it's cause I'm using firefox, I have no idea.

Chemistry is not alchemy, but alchemy was the equivalent of modern chemistry, and as I said you had no real idea what you were doing with alchemy (at least if you were the average alchemist). The ultimate goal of alchemy was conversion of lead to gold, which eventually branched into the studies of serums, medicines, and even other transmutation attempts. We use chemistry for all that good stuff now, but we have an actual grasp on at least a minor aspect of it.

Alchemy: My urine is yellow, and so is gold. Perhaps if I was to piss on this lead, it will turn to gold!
Chemistry: Lead can be turned to gold by transferrence of electrons, but it would require 10,000 tons to gain ten cents worth of gold. Why the hell would I do that?

Albeit the numbers are off, you can see how one makes sense, while the other is feces on a stick.

But don't get me wrong, I have no real problem with you using it as such that would prevent me from playing, just pointing it out. Game looks awesome.

[Ben]

Ergo, Alchemy=Old School Chemistry

Trev.... Are you by chance a member of the Dubealex/Creation Asylum Forums?

[Trevlac]

Originally posted by gemini
Ergo, Alchemy=Old School Chemistry

Trev.... Are you by chance a member of the Dubealex/Creation Asylum Forums?

No I'm not. Edit: I take that back. After 5 seconds of research, yes I am. I registered once to check out what they might offer. I decided rmxp.net was a better community.


Also, ZKX and Gemini, Alchemy has nothing to do with chemistry. The whole "magic items" and "philosopher's stone" thing was created by Alchemists, who were being persecuted by the Church at the time, to ward off those who were unworthy or untrustworthy to learn Alchemy. Alchemy itself has nothing to do with chemistry, turning real lead into real gold, or anything you just described. It's the transformation of one's self into a "golden" being figuratively and metaphorically by shedding want of material things and fighting off the darkest parts of yourself. It's like a philosophy that turned into a religion. It is NOT chemistry. The "Alchemy" in the game is the Alchemy of lore, the Alchemy that people like you confuse with modern day Chemistry because the names are similar and because you've seen FullMetal Alchemist too many times.

[Brieg]

Bit? As in Digimon?

[Ben]

Dude...Ive never seen FMA.

[Revolution911]

I think the maps could be better. Maybe even that little health bar thingy could be a little...prettier. Nothing big though, other than that looks awesome.

[Meiscool-2]

Alchemy was, in a nutshell, the transformation of one element to another, via magic. Chemistry is the reactions of elements to produce a compound. In likeness, they both wanted the same thing to happen, but Alchemy deals with the impossible, such as turning lead to gold, and chemistry deals with the plausible, such as turning iron to rust. I wouldn't say that they are the same, or that they are completely different. I'd say they are just similar.