Notes for an action RPG

[classicdrogn]

This is very disorganise and SoC-y, but it just kind of hit me today that it would be fun to play something like Kingdom Hearts with these characters, and a slightly different combat ssytem from KH2 - I like the reaction command system becasue it lets combats be very cinematic - some of te boss fights that have strings of two or three of the commends in a row if you hit them at the rihght time end up being like the moves from FF7:Advent Children, which just rocks my socks - but I hate that it's based on the triangle button, rather than a top trigger, and while the Dusk Nobodies are good, a touch more of the surreal would be even more interesting.
It begins with a babble about weapons, because that was the starting point - a Tron-like character that wouldn't actually use a copyrighted character design outright, and weapns similar to but discernably different from the ones in TRON 2.0.
Also, being able to pick from a selection of main characters rather than being stuck with the one, even if their storylines are simiar in the broad strokes so only dialogues and a few character-swaps have to be made is the furthest I'm willing to get from a "design your character from scratch" model ala City of Heroes or Oblivion.
The point here is to keep things to what could be reasonably made if I got off my touchus and got to it, meaning no voice acting and a relatively straightforward game mechanic that could be done over CrystalSpace.
The reason I'm even posting it, is to solicit suggestions or outlines for plot and opponents, or design themes for a number of world areas - if anything ever results from it, contributing here would get you a line in the credits, but for more effort than you're willing to do for free more invovled discussions would need to take place, with part of the agreement that if reasonable attempts to contact you for your share fail at some far-future date when theoretical money might be made off a finished product, that the work as contributed may still be used.
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Weapoons, computer themed
Ping - basic gun
Upgrades:
Packet - spray
Trace - homing
DDoS - special attack, spray of homing thast returns from all angles
Cone shape primitive

Pong - big ball that returns after being thrown, pinball type special moves (would have to use a different name, since Pong is a trademark for the game - something pinball-related?)
Multiball - the obvious
Magnaball - homing
Bonus! - swarms of balls from all angles

Need something for a cube primitive - swords, maybe - d8 shape not cube, does melee weapons - sword, staff, spinny shield/saw thing - "Hack"
Armor - Gearhead helmet

Bullet time mode from r2 trigger or Rmouse or Bkey, NWN type context menus with center/default being GO! that lets youu move normally while the game clock is slow for an upgraedeable number of seconds. Some enemies can use it later, so higer slowdown levels available - cardinal slots are commands, diagonal slots open a new menu. Commands: evade, deflect, airwalk, hyper - hyper supercharges the move just started when bullet time trigger hit, including jumping - airwlk is for horizontal movement, jump+hyper is for verticaljumping normally in airwlk works but is not as high - bullet time duration based on endurance - normal fighting burns it slowly and cann be upgraded until it recovers slowly, bullet time chews it up two or three times as fast, also upgradeable to the point that with max upgrades bullet time burns it about as fast as normal combat initially.
(AT LAST! WITH SUPER BULLET TIME THREE, I AM THE PRINCE OF ALL JOHNWOOJIN ONCE MORE!)

Characters -
Tron ripoff digital warrior(ping, pong, hack, & gearhead equipment), penguin (gloves, umbrella & hat equipment) pizza guy (pizza, slicer, cheese, different hat equipment)

Story - pizza guy delivers to house. Guy playing fighting game with pet penguin inside, but just as he rings the doorbell an evil boss attacks! Guy blocks magical death beam with game console, is merged into digital warior. All three are sucked into an evil realm and must escape, then seeek out and destroy the evil! - player choice of main character from the three determines storylines, for replay value.

Boss is attacking everyone around, not just them - they just happened to be lucky enough to be able to escape the realm of evil. A return to beat final boss and rescue other people eventually required

Move with AWSD or left stick, camera with mouse, arrows or right stick. 3rd person view ala KH or TR, or FFX travel. Opponents autotarget when close, but with a ranged weapon 1st person mode is available and required for long range targeting

Digital warrior looks like Great Saiyaman with different textures, bandanna version, but Xenosaga scouter/visor rarther than sunglasses. Helmet also available, cape billows and flows like Spawn? Tron base bodysuit, Matrix falling-code fabric for tabard, cape is Tron motif with glowing circuitry in a geometric pattern.

Travel upgrades: digital warrior gets a hoverbike, Zach has a mini flying saucer Goblin Glider kind of thing, Pengie gets a jetboard, Grannie gets Air Trek inlines, Tee always flies. Tee fights barehanded in meolee range, and has "pick up and toss" bullet time commands as well as the most knockback per strength point . Fighting from the mount may be difficult to implement but desieable - see motorbike chase in FF7AC for why

knockback is a certain distance per strength point with melee weapons, and weapons may have modifiers to it. Falling damage counts if you are smacked into something or don't tap the jump key to recover in the air, if in a jumping attack you travel with the target and hit again at the end, REALLY HJARD if the attackkey is hit again at just the right time. Visible change to the target pipper during the attack window for big damage.

New character for party!
You have rescued MRS GARDNER, the nice old lady from down the street! Shovel, trowel, handbag/glock weapons, garden apron armor. Lara Croft at 85. Digi remembers her bringing him some cookies, Pengie rememberds her bringing him some fish, and Zach remembers bringing her a pizza and getting a mondo tip. Granny kicks ass, but has low endurance. "... Granny is hardcore, man." "Totally." "WARK-wark!"

Main char gender option, also "I like: []guys []girls []both []together OR []no romance subplots" Pengie can transform to human mode after learning magic.

New character for party! You have rescued TEE, biker-goth Tinkerbell. Teaches magic to other characters but is the best at it.

Digi: better at range and offense
Pengie: better at melee and defense
Zach: balanced offense/defense, best endurance
Granny: Super offense, moderate defense, poor endurance
Tee: good melee, excellent magic and stamina, no weapons or armor.

Standard arrowhead and diamond formations, Tee orbits randomly. Whether party members stay close in combat or range wider to pursue is available as a menu option, default being "stay nearby but engage freely." Several AI agression levels, and frontline/range/support role settings

Any character can be made the viewpoint character or soloed to solve distant-switch puzzles, but the main story is Zach, Digi or Pengie depending on which one is chosen. Finishing all three storylines unlocks some opponents and minor characters as playable models and a new storyline as a defector from the legions of evil for use with opponent models, but it is mainly a diffeerent beginning on the normal quest, where as a new recruit sent to round up captives you have a crisis of conscience and free them - for this storyline, before you begin you choose which normal character to take the place of, and that person is seen getting herded along with the other captives instead of landing seperately in the realm of evil and managing to hide. "Hey, new guy! Go round up the slaves... Or is that too hard for a green recruiit?" Catches character being replaced, sees him abused by the caravaneers, and leaves - finds the other characters and is confronted with a "this is evil!" speech, says that's why he's leaving, so let him pass - then they're attacked and have to work together, and by the time the arty escapes the realm of evil the first time they decide to stay as a unit and opose the Big Boss Man together.

Player allocates upgrade points to stats or skills directly, scripted events add new skills or bonuses - upgrade points can also be used to buy a new skill (like using a different weapon than the character's default set) from a non-hostile character who already knows it.
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- CD should really use that CS degree he's been working on for something, after allSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Rod.H]

I am thinking this might be possible to be made using the Neverwinter Nights engine. An idea would be fire this off to someone who's been making mod modules for it eg 2Flower, and find out if it's possible.
--Rod.H
"Trigger discipline? What's that?"

[classicdrogn]

The problem there is that NWN is built around a D&D rule core, and I really hate the D&D rules, even with the 3rd edition. No engine that relies on a class/level system is even open for consideration.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[jpub]

If you can recruit some decent programmers/graphic designers, the Oblivion engine would work.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel

[classicdrogn]

Well, maybe - but that would mean scrapping the bullet time special commands, which is one of the main things I want to keep. No, I expect the only way to get what I'm after in that respect will be to put together the engine myself (starting from CrystalSpace and the assosciated game engine project, like I said before) in order to have the key features of the concept.
Come on, though - doesn't anyone have any ideas they've always thgouht would make for cool villian, or game world? Dimensional travel is already a given, and if the very idea maes you say "GDWTF!?" even better. Like, for the Realm of EEE-vil, it's the inside of a hollow world like the Egar Rice Burroughs books, with floating islands ala Rayearth or Baten Kaitos, and the 'free the captured people' type quests feature flying around between the islands, which are devoted to mining and farming and things of that nature, knocking out the garrison and making off with the slave workers, avoiding or fighting minion airships as you go. High tch, high fantasy, modern - just DIFFERENT. Having the party show up in a world that's exactly like our own, only for some reason they're just the right scale to face off with the giant radioactive chihuahua that's about to attack the city, or a trip to Pengie's home in the Great Penguin Nation, where everyone shapechanges into penguins to fit in, including a hummingbird-sized, flying penguin-Tee.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

---

Pong - big ball that returns after being thrown, pinball type special moves (would have to use a different name, since Pong is a trademark for the game - something pinball-related?)

---

Pinball. Have it as a hollow sphere with, y'know, glowing lightning and everything along its surface, and a bright line through its axis.
Hmm. Another potential power for this would be Jackpot - a damage multiplier.
...this is tangling in the back of my mind with vague memories of something you brought up before - something to do with romance and dimensional travel and wierd aliens that adapted to the main character's mind a la Serendipity...
Anyway.
Penguin should be not so much of a combatant - I'm thinking that the gloves might do well for 'Stage Magic' tricks - say coin bombs for the basic attack, then summoning (explosive laden homing) doves, Mystic Tibetan Throwing Cards, and some sort of lockpick function. The Umbrella's applications are obvious - melee weapon, shield, feather-fall, sniper shot. The Hat, I'd suggest, would be used to access a sort of expanded infinite-storage inventory, where otherwise the characters would be strictly limited in the number of things they could carry. Penguin, even before gaining a human form, should be a very smooth operator - James Bond, only better.
Rather than hard-mapping the controls, I'd suggest letting them be configurable - certainly there were a number of times when I was quite irked by Jade Empire's setup.
I have no idea how to design offensive powers around a pizza-boy theme.
Possible 'Worlds'
-Desert Hell (aka, Planet Gunsmoke)
-Tribal Jungle (don't ask what's in the stew)
-Tropical Atoll (which mostly actually happens underwater)
-Ye Olde Countrie (some of the knights say 'NI!')
-Rocky Mountain High (welcome to Sky Haven)
-VOLCANO! (Some like it hot)
New Character for Party! You have rescued MAD ALEX, Sky Pirate of Infamy. Superb melee offense, midrange elsewhere. (Alex is a romancable character, and may appear as either gender depending on initial selections)
New Character for Party! You have rescued EN, Elven Ranger. Good melee, excellent ranged, so-so endurance, stealthy special powers. (Romancable, gender varies)
New Character for Party! You have rescued OG, Learned Tribal Shaman. Good-to-So-So in most categories, heavy-duty magics. (Ancient mentor figure? Nubile cave-girl? I leave it up to you...)
Okay, granted, all three of those are a little more standard that the examples you've given, but they can be a starting point to work from.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[classicdrogn]

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something to do with romance and dimensional travel and wierd aliens that adapted to the main character's mind a la Serendipity

---

The troub;e is I can't FIND that set of notes, or I'd have adapted some more of that list - the only thing I really remember from it now was that the little wierdie aliens moved in a manner that wold make people think I was ripping off Dusks if I released it now, and that I intended to have an affection system that actually canges something besides one or two scenes in the middle like FFX's utterly pointless version. Enough that if you piss them off enough, party members other than the main three will leave the party, and tha if you find the right approach some non-aligned but non playable characters will join. I'm thinking party size is probably limited to four, Tee being an exception as she flits around in low-poly mode as a vague human shape in a ball of light unless the camera zooms in for a closeup.
RE the ball weapon, Jackpot sounds good, but I think I'd use that name for what I listed as Bonus and Bonus be a damage multiplier for multi-bank shots, like the "Nice Shot, Sir!" bonus in Carmageddon or the "Multikill!" announcement in Unreal Tournament? Quake 3? One of those... Oh, I know! Call the weapon Breaker and then after you throw it you project a glowing disk in front of your hand, and hitting the attack button at the right time as it comes back will bounce it out again immediately - successive shots do slightly more damage as the enrgy storm builds around the ball, getting a long string gives XP bonuses or special drops or racks up a multiplier depending on how long... and, of course, at at least one point there's this wall that's gotta go, and it's the tool for the job. You are breaking out captives after all! You have to be in 1st person view and move the disk manually with the stick or mouse for that one, though, no nancy-boy attack-tapping for you! You don't have a limit to the number of times you can miss it, "drop the ball" and toss again, but you're on a time and you have to be doing a certain amount of damage in each hit or the bricks won't break.
A vehicle building system can also be expected, with how much I enjoy the gummi minigame in KH & KH2, but the whole cube-based grid has got to go. Shapes will be interpenetratable, but in order to make a design flyable you have to merge them with exceptions only for moving parts - boolean add, subtract, and overlap, if I can find informastion on how it works - processor intensive, but it's not something that happens in play, so you can just show the mechanic saying, "Okay, I'll get to work - sit down and have a soda." and then pause while it's calculated. Otherwise, some stock complex shapes and a simple vertex editor will have to do - simple enough to use with a Playstation style controller (Analog stick or mouse mves the cursor in the viewing plane, so does the Dpad/arrows but they hop to grid points. Shoulder buttons are zoom in/out on one side and undo/redo on the other, X is select/deselect, square deletes a point, circle adds a point, triangle switches betwen "auto triangulate" that puts a face on each three points facing the same way as the contiguous face if any and auto-line that only adds a line, and if you have three points selected and hit it it puts in a single triangle. Select and Start bring up menu modes, right stick controls the camera with an orthagonal working plane switching around depending on camera angle to be as close as possible to flat-on when you push the stick (R3 button.) Texturing is triangle-based for materials, but texture mapping is initially unlikely beyond a projection from top, side, or front, and the included map image creation tool will most likely resemble MSPaint - obviously your hardcore airships fan will want to be importing graphics from a real paint program, TIFF or PNG based and (as if!) readable from a USB flash drive or something on console systems. Being able to transfer saved games to and from a flashdrive also seems like an obvious idea, but I've never heard of a console game that would do it...
- CD
ETA: There will be several sorts of ninja, because you have to have ninja, but among them will be a vampire pirate ninja monkey whose travel upgrade is a saddled velociraptor, as a dig at the combination of cliches that make the stinkbomb known as Pirates of the Carribean. Why not a zombie pirate ninja monkey? Because rotting corpses are only fun as opponents, and this is a playable character. His name will probably be Chuckie, because Charles E. Monquet is one of my old RPG names. A sorceress named Illemina Kybard and her brother Alumin will probably also appear (romanceable), and a mid-boss Caleb Bones, playable in the unlockable minion-start plot.
Do you think I could get away with having an air-jellyfish sort of charcter as a possible party replacement for Tee (the tiny flier slot) without getting the Metroids people on my case?
ETA2: Also, 'manga style' cutscene sequences ala FLCL.
Hack (the d8 base melee weaopns set) forms a sword, halberd (sword... on a stick!) or double-ender halberd (and considering it's glowing, expect Darth Maul riffs) for the upgrade levels, and has some kind of helicopter whirlwind special attack thing. And yes, dammit, he has a multi-hit attack as soon as anyone else. I'm damn sick of Sora being the only one who can't attack like a spinning wheel of doom in KH2.SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

---

The troub;e is I can't FIND that set of notes, or I'd have adapted some more of that list - the only thing I really remember from it now was that the little wierdie aliens moved in a manner that wold make people think I was ripping off Dusks if I released it now, and that I intended to have an affection system that actually canges something besides one or two scenes in the middle like FFX's utterly pointless version. Enough that if you piss them off enough, party members other than the main three will leave the party, and tha if you find the right approach some non-aligned but non playable characters will join.

---

*roots through entire backlog of General and Fanfic forums*
...Grrr. 'Snot there any more.
It had started out as a dream, if that helps.
Other possible worlds -
FractalLand - a snowflake in three dimensions. And you walk on the flat bits. Yes, gravity rotates.
(some obscure synonym for shiny) - a city world. Like, a real city, with hundreds of NPCs (probably rendered wierdly like the shadow play girls from Utena or something, to cut down on the graphic-hog-factor) and buildings and room to explore and dozens of shops and, and, and... Because the cities you see in other RPGs pretty much never really are, they never make you feel like, wow, this is a big city.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[classicdrogn]

1 I know
2 Sigh, I know
3 Hee, Planet Escher! And I know what you mean about cities - compare the Luca that you see in the cut scene as you approach it the first time in FFX to what you can actually explore... Of course, RPGs rarely have an item list long enough to really make having more than three or four shops worthwhile...
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Happerry]

I was reading this and it seemed like something that would give someone an idea

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However, Xans victory was soon turned to shock and horror, emotions that Xan was getting sick of using.
Now youve done it, you fool! The parrot said, in nearly flawless orcish. Xan had heard of a parrot speaking common, but orcish was considered to be too complex.
You...can talk orcish? Xan said in disbelief.
I should. Ive lived on Draenor for ages, the parrot replied, still sitting on Longshores shoulder even as the man lay dead on the ground. At least, until that damn Legion started opening up rifts in space. Now I need to use inbred meatbags like Baron Longshore just to stay alive.
...you do who to the what now?
Watch, blue man. At this, a previously hidden cable protruding from the back of the parrots neck reared out of its feathers. Xan traced this cable all the way back to the base of Baron Longshores skull. The parrot gave a yank, and the organic cable came free with a sickening squelch.
The strange, very un-parrot-like appendage slithered back into the parrots feathers, and the bird detached itself from Longshores shoulder. On his shirt, there were large imprints of the birds talons. Now, thanks to you, I need a new host. I think you can figure out where this is going...
Longshores parrot flew at him, faster than Xan thought possible. He slapped it away, drawing his dagger and jabbing threateningly at the vicious bird. Chill, mon. You can get betta den me. I know a paladin you could...
Quiet! The parrot shrieked, darting forward and circling above his head. We will rise on this planet, just as we did on Draenor! So far, I am the only one...but there will be more! More, I tell you! Occasionally, the demonic parrot would dive and attempt to land on Xans shoulder, but the troll made sure to keep moving. The seas will run red with the blood of- the beasts words ended abruptly in a gargle as it impaled itself on Xans knife, too absorbed in its own speech to watch where it was flying.
Xan grimaced as he pushed it off his blade, and as soon as it hit the ground it exploded in a blast of dark magic. Xan stared at the spot, where not even a magical burn was left in the ground. No evidence. Of course.
Xan looked to his unconscious partner, and shook his head. It would be best to leave that part of the battle out of his explanation.

---

[classicdrogn]

After reading the original link from this thread in General Chatter and finding the site I linked to there myself, I have Made A Descision: The "home base" world will be The Future We Were Promised, complete with commuter rockets to the rest of the solar system and the infinite-inventory upgrade being to get the party's costumes equipped with Atomic Pockets, that shrink everything to submicroscopic size and enlarge it as desired. Granted, the noly thing I particularly have to do on the rest of the planets is collect the special edition Choco-Blastoff! cereal box tops from each one for a side quest, but and to serve as homelands for a bunch of weird aliens to be used as soldiers on one or both sides, but I'm sure something can be worked out.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Warning: Not Organized!
Combat, it seems to me, must be the foundation of any action RPG - that being what distinguishes them from more cerebral games like, oh, the Final Fantasy franchise.
Thus, start with the system for that. Gameplay takes place in a roughly isometric view - that is, things are three-d, but characters move and interact with each other essentially in two-d. Forward, back, side-to-side. Facing matters - figure that each character has a ninety-degree front arc they can attack within, an additional forty-five degrees to either side of that that they can defend against attacks from, and can only duck away from things coming from the other half of their world.
Controls are:
Joystick 1 - horizontal movement.
Joystick 2 - horizontal facing; can be overridden by a target lock function.
Shoulder triggers - cycle fighting styles.
4 main buttons - attacks.
The attacks correspond and interact with your character's balance - that is, say, if they're leaning back and you hit 'side attack' you'll get something quick and feint-like. Leaning forward and hitting 'side-then-rear' yields a spinning roundhouse - ideally, they should interact intuitively with the choice of attack and the movement modifiers the player can add with their joystick. This tactical element, plus the choice of different styles and the movement of characters and foes on the battlefield, should make for some pretty damned interesting combat without being really overwhelming.
Graphics and noncombatant behavior should be deliberately primitive, to save on processor time and memory space - needed because the maps should be huge - no, huge, to the extent that buildings have no tardising and there really are entire cities out there - and pretty much freely accessible. Even with modern hardware and a well-optimized engine, that won't be easy.
Obviously, there won't be much to do in most parts of those huge cities, but one of the core elements of the game's appeal would be the ability to add, like, entirely new trunks of story tree to the existing framework. That is, if the initial release version has three potential branches of its first major decision point, all of which go in completely different directions, the first expansion pack could add two more there and another during the endgame, and so on...
I'm really tempted to specify text-only dialog just to make this fractal expansion of plot easier.
So, game starts with you picking one of three characters to control, tweaking their build, features, hairstyle, and starting look to taste, then walking them through individualized tutorials that introduces you to their existing personalities, backgrounds, and abilities. They are...
ASIMA - Princess of Monta, heir apparent to the richest single ruler in the known world. She gets called in from daily arms practice by her father, who tells her that the treaty with the Jewel Kingdom looks to be going through and that she'll need to go off to meet her husband, and here's some advice about winning friends and influencing people. Disputing this order will only become available in an expansion. Playing Asima gets a run-down of the battle and character influence systems. She knows how to fight using a sword and shield. By default Asima is tall, blonde, and *koff* statuesque - the sort of woman who looks like she should be carrying a spear and the name Brunhilda.
ZARA - Harem-serf of the Knight of the Northmost Bend of the Deltan Kingdom, and undercover agent of the secret slave rebellion army. She undergoes a harrowing series of trials that test her readiness to become one of the army's elite shock troopers, the collapses into bed to sleep the sleep of the just. Playing Zara gets a run-down of the battle, crafting, and sneaking mechanics. She's also the only one of the original core characters whose gender changes depending on the player's setup choices - though either way is short, slim, and dark-haired. Zara starts out knowing a capoeria-esque martial art that includes hitting people with chains on top of bare-handed work and how to use a sling to deadly effect.
BASIR - Military officer of the Jewel Kingdom and one of its' crown's many nephews, sent to Monta to act as Princess Asima's guide on her journey to his homeland. He spends the entire tutorial getting beat up - pardon, 'sparred with' - by her bodyguards to see whether he's worthy to help protect her. Playing Basir earns you knowledge of the battle and magic rules. He starts out knowing basic short-sword techniques and what you might call assault magics - ie, he can blow stuff up - but isn't particularly good at either and looks almost aggressively average.
None of the three explain how to do anything to level your character. This is because there is nothing to do to level - it all happens automatically.
The speed, accuracy, and efficiency of any given action, along with, inversely and if applicable, the chance of your target blocking it successfully, are determined by what percentage of a hundred possible skill points your character has in that skill, which in turn start out at some minimal value and are added to, one tiny fraction at a time, whenever that skill is used.
That is, whenever you do something, like attack using a particular style, the game rolls a number, adds the base offense for your current style, adds your skill at that style, adds a potentially positive-or-negative modifier dependant on your difficulty setting and how often you've been dying recently, then compares that number to your target's roll+base defense+skill. Then, having determined who hit, it loads and plays a pair of matched fight animations whose ornateness would depend on whether you have high, medium, or low fighting skill. Carrying out an attack or moving quickly drains your endurance bar (whose size is determined by your endurance skill, which grows depending on how often you drain it past its standing skill percentage) - as its level lowers past maybe the last quarter, you start stacking up penalties to movement, actions, etc, leading up to essentially paralysis by 100% drain. Endurance drain varies by fighting style - empty hand sips daintily, magics gulp it down such that, at the beginning, you can kill three quarters of your stamina on a single lightning bolt or heal spell.
Your other relevant bar is blood supply. It does not regenerate outside of 'rest' mode, and, unless bound, wounds keep bleeding until they've doubled their original 'damage'. Hits are roughly tracked by body parts - limb hits have half damage but impede movement/certain attacks, head and heart hits have major damage multipliers but are only possible if there's a major difference between their attack and your defense...
New skills have to be gained through RP.
Romance and difficulty would be the 'campaign start' options - Three toggles ([ ]: Boys, [ ]:Girls, [ ]:Moresomes) and a slider.
So the game starts off with these three running through a rainforest to escape from the ravening hounds of a kingdom who badly want there not to be an alliance between Monta and the Jewel Kings, and incidentally could they have their sex-toy back while they're at it?
Along the way of this first phase they meet and possibly recruit:
ESSAM - Can be either one of Asima's bodyguard or her prime handmaiden, depending on your starting choices. Either way, though, E starts with lots of endurance and a good bit of the Great Honking Sword skill, making him a grade-A melee heavy. Red hair, even taller and stronger than her boss as a girl and an outright hominid mountain as a guy.
SHORU - Imagine your classically itty-bitty bit of Japanese Samurai Nothing... dressed as an Apache. S is primarily an archer, but has iaijutsu-like sword skills to back them up, along with certain divination-like spells.
OG - Wild (wo)man, like a short stocky version of Naruto's Inuzuka clan, with kanabo and the only healing spells you'll find in the core campaign.
It's not possible to switch to control characters other than your core one.
...I'm out of talking points that don't require dealing up great chunks of plot, which I don't think I have time for.
Thanks for listening, Ja!

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"Reseeestunce ees fiutil. Yoo weeel bee Useemooletud. Borg Borg Borg."
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Necratoid]

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Zach: balanced offense/defense, best endurance; pizza guy (pizza, slicer, cheese, different hat equipment); I have no idea how to design offensive powers around a pizza-boy theme.

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I can do that. First, its a pizza delivery guy. Why would he start off with a pizza cutter? Get that laters as an optional melee weapon.
The secret is in the bag. Think the heat retaining bag he delivers stuff in. That gives you a magic basic item like the console for the Digi guy.
Lets start off with the obvious... Zach has a bag of pizza (like those Dominoes Heat Wave bags) as he is transported just before he can hand off the pizzas. Its large square and blunt... making it a club or a shield. So the Bag of Freshness (which later Zach adds of Doom to) is his starter weapon. The BoFoD has a Defense and Attack rating on it. These can be increased later. It also has two pizzas in it. These and the BoFoD make up the core of his magics.
The BoFoD generates pizzas as time goes on, the more complicated the pizza the longer it takes to spawn. The effects of the pizza are determined by how you set it in the command window. You can have a number of pizzas cooking equal to the slots in the BoFoD. You can take them out in the command window... at this point I'm not sure if you should keep them as items (possiblely having them last until the pixie refines them into perment stock items, or they get cold and either are heal items/toxic throwing weapons) or just thrown out. The pizzas consist of 3 parts: crust, sauce/cheese layer (white pizza are possible) and a topping, at least to start. Adding cheese as a topping makes it a healing/recovery pizza. The starter pizzas are a one topping (crust and sauce/cheese layers are neutral) and extra cheese pizza (neutral crust and sauce cheese layer). The one topping is determined by the Q&A session at the start of charicter creation.
Zach's non pizza attacks are fire related that comes out of the bag. By pouring MP/endurance into the bag, Zach holding it flap forward until it overcharges and flames shoots out at the enemy ball, at which point any pizza in the bag is charcoal... which flys out in the fire attack and bludgeon (standard or the more powerful deepdish crust)/cut the enemy (thin crispy crust) and/or splatter (flakey or stuffed crust) into shrapnel. Toppings like spicy red peppers or status effect mushrooms add their effect to the flaming pizza bolt (though it works without a pizza). Later it can Have its AOE increased, add knockback increases (stat related), let you hold down buttons for a longer/shorter charge time (more time, more charge, more cost, more damage), or be turned into flame thrower style for hoards.
Another attack is taking the pizza from the box and throwing it enimies. This can be used to burn enimies, give targeted healing (AOE increases effect work with this (an ability should be added to not effect enemies, firing off only healing pizzas will make it a healing projectile)) or toss pizzas into gaping maws as a distractio/delivery method. This is good with status toxic pizzas and big enimies. Throwing pizzas into the distance should cause stupid/beast/hungry enimies that aren't undead or robots will have a chance of going after the easy food giving you a respite. Later a skill level could cause small fights over the pizza to break out until its eaten/destroyed.
The BoFoD is also cabaple of a Kirby like suction attack. THe point of which is to suck in enemies and hold them in their until the cook to death. If Zach takes damage the contained may escape the BoFoM still damaged, but free. If Zach blocks with the BoFoD the contained take some of the damage, but still may get out. The chance of escape is calculated by damage Zach blocks/takes in one go, enemy's remaining endurance, BoFoD shieldand containment skills, if the bag has leftover empty spots in it the chance of escape decreases, and sacrificed pizza in used slots. The pizza remaining in the bag in any slots needed to contain the enemy is destroyed when the enemy hits it and its effect bane or boon are used on the enemy. If the pizza heals the enemy heals. If its a attack pizza its a bad thing for the contained. If the pizza damage is crust related it does its damage once and is done with it. Its its fragmentary it adds a continuios bonus to the active damage, but increases the escape chance at the start. More initial damage, more initial escape chance. Status effects have an increased hit chance, as there is little room to dodge. Paralysis and sleep will make it much harder for them to escape, confusion will make it easier for them to get out or make them damage themselves/each other (making it a bit risky). Posion and the like are more likely to hit and a chance to get poisoned is done each time incriment they are in there. Using the overcharge flaming pizza attack sets the contained for with the attack increasing knockback chance (maybe stunning the involved for a second or five).
Then comes the reason to snuff them inside the BoFoD. You can get new types of topping meat for the BoFoD. You can also get other toppings dependant on the enemy. Also if they drop an item/cash its automatically grabbed, increase steal chance... though if it dies at the first round and the items may get trashed... making a message pop up about how you got what once was a X... or damaging the item if it has a quality rating. The point is to make it a balance between kill power and item harvest power. Different settings make Zach useful for different reasons. While Granny is a berserker and others take the magic artilery role Zach is the undieing guy that messes peoples up tactically. He be a white mage that lives long enough to heal you. He can keep the grunts off the heavy hitters or annoy them with hard crust cheese pizzas that negate their own damage with healing only the deliver status effect the melee fighters are immune to (negating possible friendly fire issues) or delivering status cures into melee. Zach could also Suck up enemies to poison them to sleep for item harvest.
Suction can also be useful for countering swarm attacks by things like bugs, roboteching missiles, throwing stars, and projectiles attacks... upgrade for taking in magic attacks (maybe skill level based). Making it a good reactionary command ability... Also good for stopping charging enemies of a certian size Size of bagable targets is determined by pizza slots and if nonempty spots are needed the pizza in them
is destroyed (starting at the bottom of the bag, making the order you enter pizza generation slots more useful). Besides the Attack/Defense stats the Bag of Freshness of Doom is upgradeable with extra Pizza generater spots (makes for pizzas at once and lets large enemies be sucked in), a divider so you can have some pizza slots used for attack/bagging and have some generate so they can have healing/recovery and toxic throwers. Also Fire power magic is part of it and so is shield/club skills. To make it so you can still fight without a chance/less of a chance of enemy release Zach can also wield daggers. Either in shield and sword (BoFoD and dagger) or duel wilding daggers respectively. Yes, a pizza cutter is classified as a dagger.
Lets see that magic BoFoD, melee, and role covered... so that leaves a brief ingrediant list and pizza explaination and armor/outfits. Armor should be related to delivery person or chef roles. His master armor could be taken from the Grand palaces chef for instance. Hats I like the idea of them reflecting his bosses tendancy to do theme days and be generally fad advertising happy... meaning he can wear any hat... it just may be rather less than useful. He can equip the hats (often at lower stats, though some at higher ones that normal, occasionally with extra abilities). In the Zach leads storyline you could also do a random optional subplot which has Zach wearing a different stupid hat at the right times (like boss battles) it slowly drives the evil mage general type ('Your all mindless idiots', I know everything, your minds are an open book' kind of thing) Just not get the stupid hats. Everthing has a logical reason after all, and these guys must be smart to cause all this damage to their group... so there must be a logical reason behind the hats. Only he can't find one and its gnaws at him til he starts to lose it... eventually leading to him changing the encounter style and giving a ranting insane speech about how he has the ultimate power of the 'Stupidest Hat of Them All' (though he gives it a fancy name, it looks like all the other stupid hats combined... at least in the description) and then attacks in a different style than usual. Ultimately you get the SHoTA as a bonus reward. One of those hidden easter egg features for the greatest hat/helm.
I realize that the suction move (and some of the other features likely) is not rationally easy in most systems so it could be a field they get stuck in alternately. I just thought
I'd state it for the record in that case. Anyway I still have the Pizza system to describe.
The pizzas are made of three elements, the crust, the sauce/base cheese layer, and the topping(s). The Crust is used to determine damage type. For instance, soft is used for healing and adds no damage, hard is blunt, thin is cutting, stuffed shatters. The sauce/base cheese is the damage multiplier layer, different formulas/combination add different multipliers. White pizza adds to healing, though. The third is damage type. First you have cheese as a basic heal/endurance topping. Meat adds more endurance, less healing than the equivalent cheese and visa-versa. Peppers and spicy hot things add fire. Mushrooms status effects, Anchovies damage endurance. Vegitables cure random status effects. You can use a topping and crust to amplify or counter each other.