Shifting gears: implementing the framework of Project Lions into a new setting and game.
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:
