*Bumping at the request of a submission-wrtier*
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Clairyne: The Psychic School
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This isn't exactly what I submitted, but I wrote whatever I remembered, added whatever was inspirations came to me. Then, when I got the file back, I merged the two together. So although this isn't the original entry, the contest is over anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Genre: Turn-based RPG
Features: Single-player Campaign with Multiplayer-assist possible, Branching storylines, can play minigames
separately, some online and offline multiplayer modes, Music Room, DS Missions,
downloadable music to DS(which will play while it's closed and earphones are
plugged in, similar to the way Kirby Canvas Curse works when Pictochat search is
enabled), downloadable challenge missions during holidays.
Controller used: Nunchaku-style, or double-style.
I've always liked "Magic School" stories like Worst Witch, Mahou Tsukai Tai, and the latest I've heard of so far, "Harry Potter," so this is my take on the idea. The school is for psychics who manage the balance of positive and negative mental energies in the world. "Evil" people and actions are caused by a buildup of negative mental energy in a person, or by someone walking into an area where such energy is very dense.
Also, I've always liked the idea of explaining the unrealistic stuff that happens in games, instead of replacing them with realistic stuff, so you'll see a lot of things that may seem primitive, like the battles, but are explained while keeping with the theme of psychics.
Character Generation Engine
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I've always liked quizzes that determined your stats like in Dragon Quest III and in Ogre Battle, so a similar personality test will determine what your character will look like, what "weapons" they initially can wield, and which students join your party.
Story
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You create your main character, customizing names, looks, home country, favourite weapons, personality, &c.
You are a college student, uniform and all, who lives at and attends a private school in your home country. You never really got along with your parents for most of your life, so you were glad to be rid of them when you were accepted by the school.
You've known that you had psychic powers for a while, but only when you were pulled aside by your classmates one day after lights-out, did you discover that your powers were far more than parlour tricks. They take you to a "new class," in the hallway, beyond a door that you never really noticed before. In fact, even now you really have to focus to acknowledge that the door is in fact, there. Upon stepping through, you are unknowingly teleported to a room within "Clairyne: The Psychic School," a school located on a secret island somewhere between B.C., Canada, and Japan. Within the classroom, students are doing things such as fighting each other, waving their hands to create visual effects, or reading books without touching them. Here you are told that these people are responsible for protecting the world from being flooded with negative mental energy, and then negative energy cannot be eliminated, but it can be controlled, managed, and redistributed.
Your party basically goes around, flattening out pockets of negative mind energy as it occurs in various people, places, and things. Here's where the story branches out, and one ending, for example, could be that at the end, the heroes find out that they've only been building a large pocket of negative energy right at the school, by keeping the rest of the world safe. They go back and discover that the energy is so strong that the entire school is overtaken by it, and has become a horrible place where dark rituals and bloody sacrifices take place. The party seals the school so that the negative energy stays contained within the school forever ... until the sequel releases.
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Exploration
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The meat and potatoes of this game, like in most R.P.G.s, is a satisfying exploration engine, and an intense battle engine.
Movement is done with the analog stick, "Nunchaku" attachment. The default is to control the leader, while the other two follow with A.I. based on their personalities. A particularly ingenious party member may be able to solve really tough puzzles for the player, when he gets stuck, but at the same time, a clumsy, or a seemingly useless personality may just happen upon a lucky chance or two. z1 will switch characters and command the previous character to stay still, while z2 will switch characters and cause the previous character to follow. z1 and z2 together will cause everyone to return to following the currently controlled character.
Negative mental energy in the environment, in the air and terrain, will be visible to the psychics as a dark shimmering effect in the affected area. The player can draw a "selection lasso" with the controller by pointing the controller at the screen and holding the "B-trigger." This will start to draw a line that follows the controller's movements. If the "B-trigger" is released while drawing, then the line is cancelled. By closing the selection lasso upon itself, the closed area begins to shrink, much like the way bubbles form in "Yoshi Touch and Go," and any negative energy trapped within condenses into Negative Energy Manifestations (or N.E.M.s). N.E.M.s take the form of monsters and legendary figures from local myths and legends, and the amount of energy and even the precise location as to where it's condensed will determine what forms from the mist. In Ireland, expect mischievous leprechauns and such to form from small collections of negative energy, while a selection lasso that takes up the entirety of Vlad the Impaler's residence in Transylvania may summon the hideous form of Dracula himself!
Once formed, N.E.M.s will be attracted to the positive mental energy in living things nearby, and so they will try to merge and cancel that energy through physical and psychic attacks. The player can initiate battle by
1. touching any N.E.M.s. This will start battle with both sides relatively even
2. by getting hit by a N.E.M. attack, will start battle with the attack(s) made mimicked using the in-battle graphics, and the character(s) hit taking damage, while their time bars start at half the fill-level they normally do.
3. by striking a N.E.M. with any attack available to any character in the party. This will initiate battle with all characters that use that particular style of attack, getting a free hit with average damage calculation, before beginning battle with their time-bars at 150% their normal fill-level.
Multiplayer is possible in this mode with each character being controlled by a different controller. Just start inputting to take over a character in the second, third, or fourth position in the party listing. Rearrange the party listing to choose different characters.Press the Start Key on a controller or dock it to deactivate manual input and return the character to A.I. mode.
Saving
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Saving can be done at most any time, except inside of battles. Your character is taught a power word, that invokes the minds of all psychics in the world. By using that word, a psychic invokes all the minds in the world to take or send a mental image of everything that defines you at that point in time. This does not disrupt, or even disturb the minds of other psychics, however it takes some time, and great concentration on the part of the user.
Equipment
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Characters may equip as many weapons as their mental capacity will allow. A characters' mental capacity for weapons grows as they master previous weapon-types. Most gun shops, sports equipment stores, or sword/knife shops will usually have an area for psychics to enter, unbeknownst to any non-psychics, where psychic weapons of all types may be traded. Psychic weapons are equipped by the seller basically transferring the idea of the weapon to the buyer. From then on, the buyer has that weapon permanently written into his or her mind. Only someone who has worked as a seller has the skills to perform such a transfer with any reliability. Multiple weapons of the same type can be kept in this way and are chosen from randomly when invoked by the player, but if the player wishes to limit the weapons from which the random choosing takes place, then the player may "activate" or "deactivate" the weapons on his mental weapons rack, until the desired setting is reached.
Incentives to use a wide variety of weapons comes from different weapons affecting different types of psychic defences to varying effect.
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Battle
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Battle is of the Active Time Bar format presented in games such as Grandia 1 & 2, and Final Fantasies 4 and onwards.
Characters have an indicator that fills over time. Once filled, the corresponding character can be "Activated" by pointing the controller at that character and pressing "A." Once activated, a character's time bar shows up to the top of the screen and starts counting down until it is empty, where it returns to its original position and starts filling again. During the time that his or her bar is at the top and draining away, a player may use as many attacks as desired (see Equipment & Attacks.) When the time bar is empty, the corresponding player steps back in line and the time bar starts charging again.
The time bar's "active count down speed," amongst other stats can be changed to reflect a more powerful character as the characters level up. This is to allow for an exponential power increase, meaning that not only more powerful attacks, but also more attacks per time are allowed as a player gains levels.
Multiplayer is possible in this mode, as well. Any controller can be used to activate any character who's time bar is full, and for the duration of that character's active time count-down, that character will only respond to the controller that activated it. Multiple characters can be activated at the same time in this way.
The time available can also be manipulated by currently worn equipment and active psychic abilities.
Items
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Items are used by the player holding the "A" button, which brings up an arrangement of icons on the screen, each representing a type of item. The player need only aim at the item desired (which will highlight as it is pointed to) and release "A," then aim at the recipient of the item (who will also highlight as pointed to) and pull the "B" trigger. If multiple uses of the item are needed, then (providing the action-time needed is available) use of the same item is done by simply tapping "A," aiming, and pulling the "B" trigger again.
Sword
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A character wielding a sword is made to attack by the player swinging the controller at the screen, aiming across the enemy or enemies to be hit. The character will stand in place, or perhaps take a fighting stance while swinging their blade. It doesn't matter if the character is near enough to the enemy or not, because a "psychic slash" of that weapon will mimic the player's action at the screen. If the line traced in this way doesn't pass through something that can be hit, then a "miss" sign shows up on the screen. Any character hit by the slash takes an amount of damage determined by the attack stat of the sword-wielder, the length and straightness of the line, and what parts of the enemy were hit (critical-hits are determined in this way, too). High-damage attacks are done by tracing as wide a line as possible across the screen while both hitting the enemy and avoiding allies.
The attack amount is also divided evenly amongst the number of "hittable objects" that were intercepted by the slash, and rounded up to the nearest integer.
Sword-wielders may also stab. Stabs are faster, requiring less motion on the part of the player; however, a shallow enough stab will be too weak to damage the target.
Magic
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Some psychics prefer to use their powers to express themselves through battle, rather than relying on weapons designed by others. These are referred to as "Magic-Psychics." Magic-Psychics tend to develop unique abilities suited to their personalities, however, some personalities are more attuned to weapon-use, and training up in "Magic" would offer less effective means. Magic is cast by tracing a pattern in the air with the controller, then aiming at the intended recipient and pulling the "B" trigger. More complex patterns result in more complex spells, however they also take more time to cast, resulting in less moves per "action-time" during the turn.
Gun
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Guns are the easiest to use. Simply aim at the target(s) and pull the "B" trigger as many times as action-time will allow.
Boomerang
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Bring the arm back over and behind the head, Hold the "B" trigger, swing the arm, and release "B" during the swing. Trajectory and damage are determined by the angle of the swing, and when the "B" trigger is released. Critical hits are easier with this weapon, but it takes a while to learn how to use properly.
Shuriken
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Repeatedly flick the controller while holding it sideways to throw shuriken. More damage than psychic guns, but harder to aim.
More weapons would be available, some completely unheard of, with equally fantastic implementations.
Multiple wielders
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Because weapons are interchangeable instantly, being psychic manifestations of real weapons, a character proficient in multiple weapons can slash, cast, shoot, throw, &c. all on the same turn, provided enough action-time is given to do so. Incentives to do this are from enemies with variable resistances to which the player must dynamically react, or those that have weaknesses to one type of brain-wave, covered by barriers with different weaknesses.
Using two controllers
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A character who has skill in using two weapons at once may be controlled with two controllers. It's tough to aim with both hands at once, but more opportunities open up such as dealing full-damage to two targets at once, or double-full damage to a single one.
If the two controllers are held together, then it'll only count as a one-handed attack, though.
"Make-stuff" Engine
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One of the big draws of R.P.G.s is the ability to experiment with items to create new items, weapons, or in some cases, worlds. In this case, finding things that have a strong psychic energy attached to them, such as mementos, heirlooms, or even otherwise worthless trinkets that were held by a dying person, you can take the mental energy and combine it to discover psychic weapons, armaments, or clues to puzzles. Combining these items would involve any lab, with a psychic room. Within, the player would use the controller to mix and mingle psychic energies with various fluids, powders, ideas, and such, pouring one thing into another, stirring the mix, and perhaps even scooping out a sample to look at more closely.
Minigames
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Minigames are an essential part of R.P.G.s, and in some cases, they branch off into their own games later on. Here are the kind that can be incorporated into this game.
Sword-psychic's game - Tournament Fighter: The intricacies of sword-fighting are brought out in this minigame as each swing, thrust, and parry can mean victory or defeat. Can be played in online Multiplayer Vs. No manual body movement controls, all player-control is the controller movement as the sword. The focus is on striking and parrying.
Magic-psychic's game - Music/Rhythm: The Magic Psychic needs to be able to coordinate movements accurately and with good timing. This game is an exercise in stamina and body coordination, to various music tracks and remixes from the main game. Can be played in offline Multiplayer versus, with 1 or 2 controllers per player. The controllers act like Samba de Amigo maracas.
Gun-psychic's game - 2D Sidescrolling Platforming Shooter: One of my favourite game genres. Move with the analog stick or d-pad, aim by pointing with the controller. It is possible to aim in one of 360 possible directions this way. The gun is on full-automatic, it is constantly firing, and the ammo is unlimited. Jump with the B-trigger. Can be played in online or offline Multiplayer cooperative.
Other games may be available based on various characters' weapon proficiencies, personality, or back-story.
DS Missions Engine
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Certain missions and minigames may be downloaded to the DS, to be played either for bonuses in the main game, or for a vs. multiplayer challenge to take on the road, or just to have something to do regarding the main game while the player is out.
On the moon: When negative psychic energy builds up in the moon, then weather and tidal catastrophes are caused. Why does psychic energy build up in the moon? A secret boss lies within, which is discovered when all the moon missions are completed. At any time that the players visit the moon for a mission, the DS interface is used. The data is downloaded, and may be carried away to be played while the player is out, on the bus, on breaks at work, or waiting for a friend at a meeting spot. If the player does not have a DS, then a DS is shown on the screen, and the touch screen is manipulated by pointing the controller at the screen and pulling the B trigger. If any buttons are used, then they will be mapped to the "A, a, b, SELECT," and "START" buttons on the controller.
2D Sidescrolling Shooter: Move with the D-pad or ABXY buttons, aim by touch, Jump with L or R. Can be subsequently downloaded to up to 3 other DS systems for multiplayer co-op. 360 direction aiming, as usual. The levels change to incorporate multiplayer-puzzles and challenges, and the enemies get tougher. When the game is reconnected, "make-stuff" items are generated based on the player's or players' score. Different levels from the Revolution version.
All DS Downloadables may be additionally downloaded with an assortment of "Make-stuff" items at the player's discretion, and when that player walks by someone else who also has some Make-stuff items with them, the two DS systems exchange data, and a new assortment of items is generated. Some secret items can only be generated in this way.
Something Neat:
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When you get a Game Over, a message appears, "Don't have negative thoughts, remember your mantra," before the player rematerializes at the last place they saved. A reference to one of my favourite N.E.S. games.
Topic: Dream Game Revolution Mega-Thread (Read 4333 times)
