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Some of you might remember TEV (The Eternal Vigil), my old project that I put on hold to make Frostbite. Well-- it's gone, or at least I've overhauled it to the point where it can't even be recognize it.
I'd started TEV with a few coding tricks in mind and thought I'd make a plot as I went along. Eventually I did come up with a plot I liked, but by this point all the towns I'd already made no longer made sense and needed to be overhauled. This happened several times as I kept making plot changes. Eventually I realised I would never finish it.
So I started Frostbite, partially as an escape from a project that was floundering. I felt like a free man-- I had a plot I liked, actual direction, and a new linear format that really fit what I wanted to do. With Frostbite done, I couldn't bear to trade the linear plot-driven system to return to the old, stale, faceless-adventurer-wandering-the-oversized-world system of TEV, which was a shame since I really liked TEV's newest plot.
I started to think about what style scenario I wanted to design, since it was clear I didn't want to ever touch the TEV 'explore and collect coupons' system again. Firstly I vowed I wouldn't make the mistake of wasting time on detail while plot important towns aren't done (AKA-- don't waste time on NPC small talk when I don't even know what the King is going to say yet. I have pages of TEV dialog that are useless now, and only served to slow down and dissipate my interest in the project.)
Secondly I thought about some of my favorite BoE scenarios, since this approach hadn't led me astray in the past. I knew that plot-driven scenarios were my favorite, and my experience with FB showed that I enjoyed making singleton scenarios as much as I'd expected. However, this system was really geared towards smaller scenarios, not exploring a world (what I still had in mind for TEV, or whatever would become of it.) My original inspirations for this system-- Roots, Emulations, and Revenge in particular-- didn't help much here. Roots takes place in a single town, Revenge takes place on a single island, and Emulations was able to put you wherever *i felt like because of the whole ghost thing (which doesn't exactly fit most scenarios
)I was stuck-- but it was about this time that I was finishing playing the Arc (I'd started it way back, but had given up at FS. Now that I was between projects I decided to return to it.) I realised that I'd been wrong about FS, and that in actuallity it was an amazing scenario. I tore through it and Tomorrow, and was left looking for more (there wasn't-- curse you Al!!!) So I started to think about the Arc in relation to what I wanted to do, particularly FS. It had a huge world, with wars and plotting going on all about you. It was a epic scenario, but I never felt like I was thrown in the middle of a massive world with no direction(ATG.) "This is how an epic ought to be" I thought-- but unfortunately I wasn't planning an epic, and after the failure of TEV I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull of something as ambitious as FS.
I would find my answer in, ironically, my least favorite of the last four of the Arc (the good ones)-- Redemption.
It had everything I wanted. A gripping plot, a huge world, and yet no massive outdoors. Yet-- I didn't even LIKE the scenario. I wanted to figure out why-- where Redemption went wrong with a system that I was now toying with adopting as my own.
Firstly, it has Al's combat. That's enough to turn me off a scenario, since the combat is truly god-awful. There's way too much dungeon slogging, and for seemingly no reason. The teleporting system was, for me, wasted by simply ferrying you between random dungeons. The only thing unifying all this dungeon slogging was the pursuit of a few rare 'portal gems' which would eventually take you to a plot important dungeon. Hoorah!
But the portal system was still a good one, and exactly what I was looking for. You could have a massive world, but no wandering outdoors. You could give the player the opportunity to roam when you felt like it, or you could flash him to the next town. No more coupons. No more slogging. And thanks to my newfound love of singletons, no more faceless.
Threnody was born. I titled the thread 'Redemption done right,' but I'm not actually so blasphemous as to propose that Redemption really needs fixing (I came to appreciate this scenario after replaying it and pondering it so much.) In actuallity it's more like 'Redemption done my way.' I'm hoping it will work out as well for me as it did for Alcritas.
To recap:
-Singleton party.
-Plot driven.
-Possibly some freedome to roam (POSSIBLY)
-Redemption's Portal system
-'Retro' style design (As a nod to Redemption, I guess. I'm using a lot of old BoE floors and basalt walls for that retro feel)
Alright, that turned out way longer than I intended. You deserve some screenshots for sitting through my rambling.
Marvel at the retro!
A plaza, nothing retro but still purty.
Here's that infamous mob of green officials I talked about in the other thread. Help me people! They're so drab and there are even more in another part!
A guy with a boat.
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