next »

[McMutton]

Latest images:

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Key of Ethios is a 3d, party-based Zelda-like. The story involves Ellie, Van, and Gil; Three adventurers of Ethios, a land entwined among the branches of an immense world tree, manifestation of the Wysteria King, lord of Form and Chaos. The celestial bodies of the sun and moon are lenses, only a small part of a massive, world-spanning clockworks- the manifestation of the Archon Lady, master of Space and Order.

This story begins with Ellie receiving her adventuring license- the first step to becoming a fully-fledged Shieldbearer: a guild of heroes that spans the world. This is her ardent wish, spurred on by her adoration of the Guild's creator- The First Hero Adelaide.

To celebrate, Ellie's sister Fiora takes she and her friend Gil to Valhagura, the City of Pillars; a popular tourist spot known for its snowy fields, warm fires, and long history. But Valhagura has been abnormal as of late- bandits prowl the skies, winter has come early and harshly, and there is talk of strange disappearances...

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Main Characters:





Ellie acts as the brains of the group. A pint-sized Sun Tzu, her incredible cunning is a major contributor the group's impressive reputation.Ellie's smarts are rivaled only by her greed; she's always on the lookout for a chance to make some cash, and if you owe her a favor, you can be sure she won't forget.

Ellie is quite handy with a shield. She's the only of the three main heroes with a perfect defense, able to nullify any enemy attack. Her Parry skill allows her to stun melee enemies and reflect ranged attacks back at the attacker.










Gil is the heart of the team. Equal parts courage and strength, he's always determined to do what's right and aid those in need, and is always there to talk down Ellie's... Exorbitant prices. While his physical prowess is undeniable, the same cannot be said of his humor: He's always been one to crack a horrid joke, much to Van's chagrin.

His large stature lends itself to more forceful endeavors, and his offensive power is unmatched within the group. His Buster skill allows him to break through many walls and even fell trees, along with even the burliest of foes.











Van handles a lot of the party's legwork. He's a master of stealth, and often splits up with them, infiltrating heavily-guarded areas to scout and acquire information. While he tries to maintain a stoic facade he's quite easily flustered, usually by Gil's horrendous sense of humor.

He's incredibly agile as a result of his lifetime of training. He has superior evasive and acrobatic abilities making him quite an asset to the group. His Chain Grapple skill allows him to swing across chasms, keep foes close, and nab their stuff.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The gameplay is similar to Zelda's, but instead of having a bag full of gadgets, you've got your party of heroes that each have their own sets of abilities. You can switch between them at will so you've got access to the lot of your skills at any time.

Sometimes you'll have to combine abilities to do certain things; this comes into play with the Hold mechanic. Upon pressing the Hold key, everyone becomes active at once so you can have them all doing things. When Hold is active, a character will maintain their current action, even if they aren't the active one. It should make for some nice puzzles.

For example, having the shield maiden, Ellie, hold off enemies' attacks whilst Gil, the mighty warrior, operates a large mechanism, or using the ninja Van's Chain Grapple to free an enemy of their shield, leaving them open to attack.

Perhaps you need to cross a large gap that's nigh impossible to jump? You might use Gil's Bull Rush to knock over a tree and create a makeshift bridge, or perhaps use Van's Chain Grapple to swing across or make a tightrope of sorts so the others can walk across it.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

More characters; NPCs, shopkeepers, enemies, and such. A lot are a bit older and need to be retextured to bring them up to the quality of the newer ones.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Early, early demo build
http://rapidshare.com/files/436339212/KoE.rar

[deathtotheweird]

Also, would it be better to get opinions on features I may implement on this thread, or should I make new ones?

I'd rather give opinions on what you are implementing currently (as in right now) than what you will in the future.

[McMutton]

 I totally forgot about this thread. Anyway, I can't say anything about what I have currently, since... Well, I haven't anything. I haven't really touched Unity yet, aside from importing some models to check if they work (They do). So far, I've done some documents detailing various facets of the game, including a portion of the story, items, status effects, enemies, and a level or two, as well as the heroes' character models.

 As I said, Key of Ethios will be a sort of hybrid Metroidvania-Action-RPG. You have the basic RPG world map that you use to travel about the land. Different areas are opened to you as you progress through the story. Towns use an overhead kinda camera similar to the one in Tales of Symphonia. They usually contain shops wherein you can purchase weapons, armor, and miscellaneous items, as well as inns and taverns where you can get info and rent rooms. The levels, however, use are 2.5D, and are kinda like the levels in Paper Mario 2.

 Concerning gameplay, you control one of the three heroes at a time. However, you can switch between them whenever you wish, and this will be necessary to traverse the environment. Each of them have their own special abilities that allow them to overcome various obstacles. For example, Ellie has the ability to slide on her shield, which allows her to cross over water, lava, and such. She can also Parry, which knocks enemies off-balance and can reflect projectiles. Van can use his kusarigama as a grapple to cross chasms and reach higher areas. And Gil can shoulder tackle stuff, which allows him to knock over trees, and pillars, move rocks, and other such things. Throughout the game, they'll obtain items that grant them new abilities that will enable them to reach new areas.

 This mechanic is also used in combat. Aside from basic mooks, enemies will require the abilities of a certain hero to defeat them. Perhaps a flying enemy that fires projectiles quickly floats away as you try to attack it normally, so you use Ellie's Parry to bounce back it's attack to stun it. Or an enemy that defends itself with a shield, so you use Van's Grapple to take said shield, leaving it open to attack. Boss battles are similar, except that you need the abilities of all three to defeat them(Teamwork!)

 As you progress through the story, you meet a variety of interesting characters. Most likely, when you first meet them, you'll be aiding them with a problem or some such thing. Later on, however, each character will have what I call "Sidestories" associated with them. Rather than a simple small sidequest, these are longer storylines dealing with the characters' personal life.

 I forgot to mention the smithing system. The stores stock normal weaponry, little of which have any special attributes. The second option is having custom weapons forged. When enemies are defeated, they drop a variety of objects. Among these are different types of metal ores and gem fragments. They can also be found around the environment. The metals are the base of the weapon, and its appearance and attributes are different depending on what type you use. The Gem Fragments, on the other hand, are optional, but will add a number of elemental attributes depending on the type used. Both are divided into grades: D, C, B, A, and S. You can take them to a number of smiths that live around the land, and are also divided into the same grades. The grade of a smith determines the materials they can use. For example, a B-class smith can use materials of the same grade or lower, but none of the A-class or S-class materials. The power of the weapon forged, as well as the rarity of the material and smith, are dependent on their grade.

[gimymblert]

looks interesting, look ambitious, and you have no basic thing implemented yet? Seems that it will be hard to finish this ^^'
How does it control?

I had a "similar idea" (action rpg with multiple character) but you were controlling all 3 character at once

[McMutton]

 Nah, it'll be fine. The controls, you mean? I haven't bothered yet, as I need to figure out everything you're able to do before starting with them.

[McMutton]

Doing some GUI mockups.

Character switch:


Boss meter:

Damage

The skull changes in appearance as you damage the boss:


Also, a little concept for the mood/style of one of the first levels:

[Sam English]

Still making progress on this, I hope? Everything looks great. I'll certainly be keeping up with your project!

[McMutton]

 Indeed I am... Very slowly.

 Some new screen mockups:


(Green is health, Blue is magic (Used by Celeste), and Red is boss health)

 Detail:



 And some info about another mechanic that will be implemented. Which is some sort of Split Up/Hold Position thing. Upon pressing the assigned key, your currently selected character will hold their position, and maintain the action they were performing. It'd be useful in a number of situations.

 For example, say you have to use Gil to open a large door, which is done rather slowly. The only problem is, there's an unkillable enemy with ranged attacks that keeps interrupting him. So you use Ellie, and set her up with her Parry to deflect the shots. Then, using the Hold Position key, you have her stay like that, which allows Gil to open the door all the way.

[AaronG]

So glad to see you're still chugging along with this.  Placeholder art gave me a good chuckle, as well.

The hold mechanic sounds like it has the potential to lead to a lot of great level design so I hope you really take advantage of it!  Looking forward to hearing more.

[JaJitsu]

Zombie cancer!

[McMutton]

HYEAH! *High Five*

So yesterday I finally began implementing stuff. So far, I've got the movement and camera kinda down, and the character switch stuff kinda done. I plan on having the camera not follow you when you jump. Also, blox are placeholders.





Not much, but it's the most I've ever done.

[unsilentwill]

That is some amazing looking models and parallax you got there.

Though I know you've heard this here before, the anime face look is pretty grating, and lacks character. And character is exactly what this game will need since it is slightly similar in in implemnetation to another indie darling, Trine (http://trine-thegame.com/site/). But, the Metroidvania aspect could make it stand out for sure.

[McMutton]

 Thahnk'eh.

 Yeah, the faces have been mentioned many times. The only problem is that I don't know what else I could do. How about some suggestions?

 Also, model turnarounds:

[RCIX]

I dunno, the faces seem fine to me. *shrug*

[unsilentwill]

They're fine. Yes. But they could be more unique!

Mainly what I changed was eye ratio, nose existence, and chins angles.

Just a suggestion, like I said, the game and the rest of the art style looks pretty dang good.

[RCIX]

IMO the first resketch is good, and the last one is interesting, but the resketch of the middle character is just ugly.

[unsilentwill]

Yeah they're not perfect, but it's also not my project. The point is, in my opinion, anime faces do not show as much character and emotional depth as other cartoonish styles.

I've got nothing more to say on the matter and it wasn't super important to begin with. Keep it up man, the project is looking good.

[McMutton]

 

The point is, in my opinion, anime faces do not show as much character and emotional depth as other cartoonish styles

Really, it depends on how good the artist is at conveying character and emotion. I'm a bit lacking, but they'll get better. Anyway, thahnk'eh.

My musicians Sam English and Rukunetsu have been doing some music for the game. Check it out:






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKUj98Zj9uU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmepD0tP_eU

[McMutton]

Look! Basic combat stuff!

[McMutton]

 I've been doing a bit on the GUI. Do you think the item quickslots over on the right are too intrusive?