Project: Solcast

This is the Equipment Loadout Menu, which (if you’re familiar with these RPG Maker VX Ace scripts) you might might recognize a Yanfly’s Ace Equip Engine script. However, there’s a few additions I’ve made that you might notice -- in particular is the Customize command...

... Which takes us to Kread-EX’s Runic Enchantment. For the most part, as of right now, the script is mostly untouched -- with only one slight modification, which we’ll get to in a moment. Before that, though, you may have also noticed that each piece of equipment has a “Lvl. 1″ next to it’s name.

That’s because I’m also using Selchar’s Weapon Leveling scripts, which let you spend money to upgrade equipment. Let’s see what happens when we upgrade Aomi’s HF Blade to Level 4 and her RA-N2 Plating to Level 3.

As you can see, each piece of equipment now has more modification slots. In fact, the number of slots each piece of equipment has now corresponds directly to its level.

There’s been a recent addition to the ever-growing library of scripts I’m using for Project: Solcast: Vlue’s Formation script. Very impressive, very awesome script. Now, let me show you what I’ve managed to do with it AND another script, VE’s Passive States:

Here we have a mock party: Aomi the Android and her four friends, Test, Test, Test and Test. Their current Battle Formation looks like this:

Now, let’s see what happens when we move Aomi to the front row:

Her HP exploded! It’s six times what it was!

That’s because Aomi has an ability that increases her HP by a factor of six whenever she’s in the front row.

With evaluation formulas and Passive States, I’m able to determine a character’s position in the battle formation and apply corresponding effects. Back row characters could acquire abilities that let them regain HP or SP in battle, while front row characters gain boosts to defense or attack.

It’s been a while since my last update, and in that time I’ve had an opportunity to examine what kind of game I’m hoping to make with RPG Maker VX Ace. Or rather, I’m torn between wanting to make two different types of RPG -- one styled after games like Fallout and Arcanum: Steamworks and Magick Obscura, games which feature extensive player agency and development, and the other RPG styled after Japanese RPGs, particularly games like Arc the Lad II and the Grandia series.

Obviously, the type of game you can make with RPG Maker is somewhat skewed towards the latter type of game.

However... Lions, as a setting, lends itself far more suitably towards the former type of game. As such, I made the decision to put the development of Project: Lions as a game on hold for a while, and use the resources I gathered and created for it as the basis for the adventure RPG I had always wanted to make.

That game is Solcast, a Sci-Fi/Fantasy adventure that inspiration from games such as Grandia, Arc the Lad II and III, Skies of Arcadia, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Chrono Trigger, Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, and the Final Fantasy series -- notably V, VII, VIII and X-2.

I’ll explain how and in what ways those particular games will influence Solcast’s design in later posts. For now I’ll just leave with a concept sketch of the game’s heroine, Aomi the Android:

There’s a particular quirk practiced amongst the silver-skinned Dark Elven Aristocracy and elite that I’d like to talk about this update.

Dark Elven culture is both brutal and strictly matriarchal. Marriages in their society are arranged, and are viewed more as business acquisitions than anything else. In a sense, the matriarchs of Dark Elven families are themselves valuable properties, and they seek to achieve social mobility by selling themselves to wealthier and more powerful matriarchs.

As a result, Dark Elven marriages are strictly same-sex, held entirely between females. Since Matriarchs are themselves property of other Matriarchs, polygamy is entirely common.

Reproduction between married Dark Elven Matriarchs is similarly a matter of business. The “acquired” Matriarch produces a child for her buyer by having sex with a “stud” of her buyer’s choosing, usually a closely related male relative (Father, Brother, Son). Females born are heirs and properties of the buyer.

As for males born, well... that’s a whole other can of worms.

Because males do not factor into the process of these arranged marriages beyond merely conceiving future matriarchs, there is a perceived necessity amongst Dark Elven society to ‘control’ their males by way of castration.

I can honestly say that when I started this blog I was not expecting to update only once a month. I’m still adjusting to the new full-time job, though, so hopefully I’ll be able to allot my time and energy more efficiently as time goes on.

I suppose I’ll use this opportunity to talk about one of the Races of the world of Lions: The Nymphs.

The blue- and green-skinned Nymphs are an all-female race who reproduce asexually via a parthenogenetic cycle, a cycle similar in nature to the menstrual cycle in heterosexual race females.

Nymphs also produce a chemical within their bodies, a sort of natural birth control, which inhibits their asexual conception cycle. This chemical is only produced, however, during times of strenuous physical activity, and furthermore is only actually effective in sustained and regular quantities. Theoretically, this allows Nymphs who need to work, labor or hunt to go unburdened, and ensures that they only reproduce when they are in a place of abundance and safety.

Because Nymphs reproduce asexually, they lack genetic diversity, and as a result, disease and plague are tremendously dangerous. As such, necessity dictates that Nymph communities are kept small and isolated from one another. That way, if one tribe is annihilated by sickness, other tribes would remain safe and untouched.

Unfortunately, though this strategy staves off illness, it makes them a target for other dangers.

Between a new full-time job and some planned major overhauls to the game’s database, I haven’t had a lot of time to actually work on the actual game itself. What I have been doing, though, is working some on the game’s world and lore, especially the world’s various pantheons.

Gods in the world of Lions are fickle, and are inclined to mingle amongst the mortal races. They are powerful entities, who can inspire change in others by their very presence. Many gods possess overlapping aspects, such as fertility, or love, or justice.

I’m taking a bit of inspiration from the Elder Scrolls franchise in that there are several pantheons and cults, and many gods are worshiped within multiple pantheons.

Right now, I’ve got a few ideas for gods, though only a few are properly named:

Amnia: The Goddess of Life, Birth, Rebirth, Healing, Water, Resurrection, Fertility,  Cleansing and Bathing.

Somne: Goddess of Death and Sleep, Dreams, Nightmares, Premonitions and Aether.

Up until now, all of the Equip Skills have been based around the battle system in some way so far. But, by utilizing Victor Engine’s Events Conditions script, I’ve been able to create a new type of Equip Skill -- the Field Skill.

Here’s a demonstration:

Alright, here we have our test map, wherein I test out various mechanics. Right now, there’s a secret here, but we have no way of seeing it... right now.

So let’s pop into our Class menu and equip our Discover Secrets skill. And when we return to the field, what should we find but...

... A new friend!

In my screenshots in my last post, you may have noticed that all of the player characters were, well, attractive women. This is because, as I believe I may have mentioned in my first post, I want Project: Lions to have “Busty, voluptuous women wearing armored lingerie”. This statement was not an exaggeration.

I fucking love badass half-naked warrior women. Bring me your Ivy Valentines, your Lineage II dark elves, your Red Sonjas and Dejah Thoris’.

But enough about me, let’s discuss our heroines!

Godiva

Our first and primary protagonist is Godiva the human. She’s an imperial legionnaire, and a citizen of Lions, the White Empire. She’s a pragmatic, aloof sort of person. Her lineage one of prestige and high station, and as a result she suffers a burden of expectations that she is reluctant to live up to.

Titania

Titania is a Golden-Skinned, long-lived High Elf. How old she is, exactly, is impossible to say. Fifty or so years prior she was found, dead, presumed the victim of highwaymen. Her body was taken to a Bathhouse of Amnia, the Goddess of Life and Rebirth, and submerged in its healing waters where upon she was brought back to life. However, being within the precipice between life and death is tenuous, and coming back is not always possible, much less coming back complete. She has no knowledge or memory of who she once was. Titania is intelligent, kind-hearted, romantic to the point of gullibility, and a ditz in every sense of the word.

Bianca

Bianca is a Sea Dwarf, and a privateer employed by the Lionic Empire. Imagine a cross between, say, Gimli from Lord of the Rings and Captain Jack Sparrow, and that should give you a pretty decent idea of what the typical Sea Dwarf is like. Bianca is no exception. Rather, she sets the standard. She’s a womanizing lecher, and utterly shameless about it to boot.

Ophelia

Ophelia is a Vampire. Just as there are ‘corrupted’ Dark Elves, there are ‘corrupted’ Humans as well. Ophelia herself is an ostentatious, proud woman, and quite demanding of respect and adoration. But beneath her superficial pale skin lies the cold, unbeating heart of a genuinely good person.

So, I figure I might as well show off the Class system I bragged about in my last/first post a bit.

Hey, look, a screenshot.

So, yeah, I’m not what you would call a programmer. For Lions, I am going to be using quite a few third party scripts. The Class System itself, if you’re familiar with popular RPG Maker VX Ace scripts, is Yanfly’s Class System.

Here’s the Class menu, in all of it’s glory. The Assign Class command lets you choose which Class you want to use from the Class list. You gain AP from battles, which you then use to Learn Skills in the Learn Skills menu accessed through the Learn Skills command. But whereas with Yanfly’s vanilla script, you choose a subclass, instead here you’re given the option to Equip Skills.

What I did was modify Yami’s Skill Equip script so that it works with the Class System. It wasn’t terribly difficult.

Furthermore, by utilizing both Neon Black’s Passive Skills script AND Victor Engine’s Passive States script, I’m able to create a vast array of passive skills with various effects. You might be curious as to why I’m using two separate passive skill scripts; simply put, they both work very differently, and while there may be a certain amount of overlap, there are certain things one script can do that the other cannot, and vice-versa.

Anyway, here’s just a few of the skills you can equip. And, again, they are all fully functional. I’ll provide a brief explanation of how each works and how I made it work:

With MP Regain: Map, you regenerate MP as you walk around, whereas with MP Regain: Battle, you’ll regenerate it as turns occur. These are done by manipulating the MP Regeneration parameter that’s part of the RPG Maker program. However, the issue with that is that, by itself, the program does not differentiate Map regeneration and Battle regeneration. Using Victor’s Passive script, however, I was able to have a skill that’s only active on the field and another that’s only active in battle.

HP Up 20% and Defense Up 20% are pure stat bonuses, and they were made using Neon Black’s script. Nothing really to add, there.

Halve Lightning Damage, Null Lightning Damage and Absorb Lightning Damage all pretty much do as they say. However, it should be noted that Absorbing Elemental damage is not a native feature to VX Ace, and as such I had to use Yanfly’s Element Absorb script. As a result, Halve and Null skills are made through Neon Black’s script, whereas the Absorb skills utilize Victor Engine’s.

Darkness Proficiency and Darkness Mastery simply boost the strength of skills and magic that are Darkness elemental. No weird scripts necessary here, other than Neon Black’s. Proficiency and Mastery skills are simply made effective through damage formulas.

Equip Katanas and Equip Axes allow a character to equip those types of weapons regardless of their class. Using Yanfly’s Weapon Attack Replace script, each type of weapon will have it’s own unique attack formula, so there’s a certain strategy in choosing your weapons. Neon Black.

Attack +2 makes your character attack three times while it’s equipped. As this is a standard feature, all I needed to realize this skill was Neon Black’s script.

Restore HP on Guard restores the equipped character’s health while they are guarding. Using Victor’s Passive Script, I was able to set it up so that a character’s HP Regeneration Rate would be buffed but only while guarding.

No Surprise, MP Cost Down 90%, and 2x Item Effectiveness all pretty much do what they say, and all use native RPG Maker features, and as such all only need Neon Black’s script to work.

Utilizing Victor Engine’s Direct Commands script, when you equip Command: Steal and Command: Analyze, the equipped character gains two additional commands to their command list: Steal and Analyze. Steal uses Yanfly’s Steal Item script, whereas Analyze uses modern algebra’s Monster Catalogue script.

Project: Lions is a Japanese-styled Role Playing Game that I am currently making in, well, RPG Maker VX Ace, and hope to eventually release as a partially commercial product.

Now, I, of course, am well aware that games made in RPG Maker have a bit of a... well, stigma about them -- especially the commercial games. They’re cheap and lazy, often times, and most developers don’t even bother creating their own assets, and instead rely on the default assets that come with program. (Hell, most people don’t even bother changing the default menu sound effects).

I can assure anyone and everyone: I have taken several steps to ensure that my workload has been quadrupled. Possibly even octupled. There may be things that can and will be said about the game that Project: Lions will be, but ‘lazy’ will not be one of them.

As to what I mean when I say “partially commercial”: simply put, if nothing else, a version of the game will always be freely available. That said, it’s far too soon to presume what the difference between the free and the pay versions would be. Perhaps the pay version will be upgraded from VX Ace to MV, or maybe there will simply be additional content. Or there could just be a patch to uncensor nudity. WHO KNOWS!?

There are other goals I hope to achieve beyond simply making a commercial game with Project: Lions, such as:

A complete 40-60 hour-long campaign

Rich narrative and expressive characters

A deep and complex backstory ripe for exploration and intrigue

Busty and voluptuous warrior women wearing armored lingerie

An involving and deeply customizable character development system

Oddly enough, that last one is genuinely the closest to actually being realized. I’m utilizing a Final Fantasy-esque Job-like system, in which you can switch character classes and equip numerous passive skills to further customize your characters. I plan to have roughly thirty jobs available, and I already over 150 passive skills up and working.

You read that right: the character growth system is already functioning. All that’s really left is to, well, implement and balance these skills and classes. And these passive skills range from simple stat and ability boosts, to allowing your characters to use equipment and skills from outside their class, to regenerating HP and MP while walking. There’s even an ability that, once equipped, will double all of a character’s stats if their health falls below 10%. The shear amount of customization options already available in the current build is simply staggering.