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[In-Qu Games]

Story
Paper Knight's Story is a turn-based RPG set in the world of an old fairy tale.  However, unlike your typical story, the characters have become aware of the book's ending: the Kingdom is destroyed!  Having learned of this most troubling spoiler, the Kingdom decides to do... nothing.  Everyone is much too afraid of The Sad Ending or too busy seizing their last days to try and change their destiny.  There is, however, one lowly boy who finds the courage to try and stop the The Sad Ending from happening.  He sets out on a quest to find the Author's Pencil, an ancient relic said to have the power to change The Sad Ending into The Good Ending, and with the help of magical beasts known as the Apostropha, Nait very well may be able to save the Kingdom.  That is, unless Antag the Dark has his way!

Style
Paper Knight's Story is inspired by pop-up books as you can see from the graphical style.  It's actually a 2D game running on a Mode 7 engine to achieve this effect.  As you search for the Author's Pencil, you'll find many different and unique looking places to explore: forests, grasslands, deserts, caves, ancient ruins, wintry mountains and more!

Gameplay
First and foremost, we want Paper Knight's Story to be fun to play. The battle system of Paper Knight's Story may be one of it's most interesting features.  We are still working on implementing appropriate features, but as it is now we can confirm it will be turn-based and will include Action Commands.  The guiding principle for deciding features for it is Simple & Engaging.  Simple through the use of low damage values and stats, clean aesthetics, and low use of "number management" that many RPG's are plauged with. Engaging through the player actively participating in battle with button presses/combinations, classic dungeon exploration, and a cheeky story.

Screenshots:







Current Development Progress
-Basic Plot Elements
-Engine Tweaking and Testing (Mode7)
-Basic Gameplay

[SirNiko]

The paper mario inspiration is obvious, so the question is - what will your game have or do that paper mario does not?

[Savick]

Based on what you have now, I wouldn't play this game. The story doesn't make me care about the characters or interest me in it's detail. The art style is okay, however it needs some work. Don't emboss the text, it looks bad. Using pre-made textures in general doesn't look good to me. The same as SirNiko said about the Paper Mario thing. If you make a cut out 2D RPG about saving a kingdom, you're just making Paper Mario with a less interesting plot.

Get some crazy ideas and go some different directions with the stuff you have, but keep the original idea intact. Maybe have the protagonist die horribly against the big bad and tell the story about how the soul of the hero gets put into a monster and he saves the kingdom anyway. You know, mix it up. I apologize if this sounds harsh, but you're going to need to get used to all sorts of criticism if you're going to make good games.

[Blob]

Like what's been said, the style is plainly in the vein of Paper Mario, one of the best games ever, and instead of crediting it on your Kickstarter you replace it with pop-up books. Paper Mario has been a huge inspiration for me too and I'm really proud of that fact, you should be open about it as well.

Also you probably shouldn't use RPG Maker resources.

[In-Qu Games]

Thanks for the feedback, and I realize that Why should I play this game will be an issue for us to tackle.  

We do want to try to add a lot of twists to the game.  The most obvious one is that the "book" is already spoiled and everyone is aware of it.  Also, a more subtle one (from just looking at the media) is that the main character is certainly not a knight (he has a mage's staff) so the importance of the title "Paper Knight's Story" will come into play in more ways than one.

I'll continue to work on the art to make it look it's best. Sometimes it's hard to know how things should look like, or whether it has too much or too little detail to fit the style. I agree about the embossed text: the logo has been changed.

A reason to play this over PM is that it's free!
On a serious note, I'm not looking for "You should play this over Paper Mario," I'm going for "if you play Paper Mario, you should play this!" That aside, Mario has it's own set of tropes that it'll typically follow without fail, but we're not going to be limited to those nor the expectations of what a Mario game should be.  

@Blbo
Paper Mario is my favorite game, so I didn't want to hide that it was my inspiration (as you can see in the graphics & name) but I didn't know if it was appropriate (or legal) to mention that in the KickStarter page.  I have no qualms doing it here though.

The only RPG Maker resources used are the carpet and the two songs you heard in the trailer.  I've only been creating art for the game since Monday but we do plan to have pretty close to 100% custom graphics. 

[poe]

You forgot the battle animations are from RPG Maker, too

[SolarLune]

Looks pretty interesting, and I like the art style and how much it feels like Paper Mario. I think that it might be useful in separating the game from Paper Mario if you make the battle system real-time as opposed to turn-based. Maybe you could make the game more about communicating with the 'freaking-out' townspeople, rather than simply going on a quest from place to place doing things. I don't know, just throwing out ideas.

[Quarry]

Art style is eye murderous

[In-Qu Games]

Looks pretty interesting, and I like the art style and how much it feels like Paper Mario. I think that it might be useful in separating the game from Paper Mario if you make the battle system real-time as opposed to turn-based. Maybe you could make the game more about communicating with the 'freaking-out' townspeople, rather than simply going on a quest from place to place doing things. I don't know, just throwing out ideas.

Thanks, at this stage I'm actually really open to ideas.  "The Kingdom" will be the only town (or at least the only major one) so there will be a lot of importance placed in the relationships the "hero" has with them. Using a Real Time battle system is actually a pretty probable option, and i'll definitely consider it as I do more work on the battle system.

You forgot the battle animations are from RPG Maker, too

Hey, it's an RPG Maker Game.

Art style is eye murderous

I think it serves it's purpose, though maybe it's not the best looking thing.  Then again, I roll my eyes at pretty much every retro "8bit" pixelated style so it's probably just a matter of taste.

[Quarry]

I really hate gradient usage in vector arts, was what I meant

[moi]

it's important to have a coherent artistic style for all the elements, even if that means lowering the details on some elements

[In-Qu Games]

So I should change the gradients on the red curtains and the stone columns?

The characters and trees actually have gradients too, but they don't seem to stand out as much.  Or should I stick with solid colors?

[Quarry]

Get rid of ALL gradients, even ones in text and such

Use solid colors + paper or cloth or w/e textures


Also, kuler is your best friend (kuler.adobe.com)

[Blob]

Paper Mario TTYD used gradients at times, but they did it well by making them subtle and having more to the texture than the gradients alone.

The sprites you're using really have nothing more to them other than the gradients, and they're really noticeable in an ugly way.

[In-Qu Games]

Thank you for your replies!  I also appreciate the kuler link, that was really helfpful.

The gradient purge has begun. Created my own bathroom-esque "Tiled Floor" texture to replace the floor, went with a solid color for carpet and recolored the columns.

Hopefully this looks a little better. 

[SolarLune]

It does look better. I liked the columns in the foreground - if you could put them back, darken the middle, of the sprite, and make them partially transparent, I think it would help out.

[In-Qu Games]

Wow, I was trying to figure out the best way not to obscure the hero and transparency didn't even cross my mind.  Thanks for the tip, SolarLune.

Alright, newest version.

[SolarLune]

Better (in my opinion). I would say darken the pillars close to the camera, and make the middle of the pillars furthest from the camera lighter (like the pillars two pics back were like, but there should be more contrast with the light areas). If you look at your scene, the light areas are basically in the middle of the scene, with the people. Just some suggestions. Things are looking better, to be sure. The animations seemed a little rigid. Is that the limitations of the engine (RPG Maker, right)?

[PsySal]

Looks great without the gradients. Good job! The paper style is underutilized and very reasonable way to get content made for an indie, I think this has a good chance of succeeding. Just don't let yourself get bogged down tweaking artwork (gradient purge was well worth it tho)

=) Keep going!

EDIT: I should say I like the gradients on the last screenshot, i.e., the far background wall and the foreground, it works well.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Nice to see how this has changed for the better, you're doing a good job