#24. Idea Storm!

Okay, before I really part for like another month, I really have to write this down somewhere. I was doodling with Yu-Gi-Oh! format, making original card ideas and stuff, and got somehow funny and tried to benchmark Duel Terminal settings. I haven't written anything sci-fi enough, but I managed to merge Cthulhu Mythos and sci-fi settings, and tell you this, this is one interesting setting. So I decided: I'm taking this out of Yu-Gi-Oh! format and making this as original as I can.

Here is the synopsis, if anyone's interested:

We all know the parallel world exists, at least theoretically. Here is the world where parallel world do exist, and a group of "precursors" have thrived through the infinite worlds. One member of such precursors have wandered around the infinite worlds, and arrived this particular sector where a highly advanced civilization has fallen down to ruins. In this ruins this curious wanderer discovers a hidden library full of digital terminals, each containing a ghastly information and technology, so hideous and disastrous that no mortal is supposed to discover, or know at all in the first place. The terminals, dubbed "Thaumas" for convenience, have messed up the poor precursor's mind and soul, and as a result this once brave and bright adventurer has transformed into a gloomy, mad oracle of total destruction and a mere puppet of Thaumas... and something sealed within them. As soon as this monstrous fall has reported to the precursors the world will never be the same, as a newly lit blaze of war will consume the precursors, the Thaumas, and everyone within the infinite worlds.

Wow, did I just wrote this embarrassing stuff? Hope I can make better of this, or at least good of it. End transmission.

#23. Trust Issues

Long time no post... again. Expect this for next 12 months, my service is far from over. So I've been working whatever concerns me, when I came up with another slice of idea. So here it goes:

RPG is all about trust, isn't it? You, the Protagonist, trust your comrades, recruiting them for whatever reason the plot requires you, buying them items and equipments with your pocket money, and even saving their arses whenever the boss battle goes too marathon or just plain insanely difficult. The game encourages you with trusting your party members, giving them their own storyline, interaction features with you, and even directly affecting the gameplay. See Persona 3 and 4 for how it's elaborately done.

And here is the twist: What if it isn't? What if, hey, we cannot trust our party members?

So this will be an idea for mock-JRPG genre games, taking features and cliches from your typical JRPG and twisting it into something completely different. You will take control on your comrades, but beware, any false moves or undesirable actions and they will turn their barrels to your back. My suggestion of the setting is Westerns, where outlaws and low-life scums make a quick alliance for a game of pokerino and breaking it down for a penny or two too short.

Of course, I'm not the only one to come up with JRPG with trust issues, and in fact there is a JRPG game that introduces this feature, although it plays it straight, rather than twisting as I did. (It's called Criminal Girls, if anyone's interested.) Guess there really is nothing new under the sun, heh.

Other than that... not so much. End transmission.

#22. Sid Meier's Civilization... in FAITH (Special Thanks to Nakian)

Before I begin, I'd like to say thanks to Nakian, a superior of mine from my military service. He is one brilliant man, helped me with brainstorming, came up with something really interesting (tell you, in the end it was more of me helping his idea), and even allowed me post his ideas on this Workshop. So here we go:

It all began, as always, back in my high school life. I was doodling with some society and religion stuff, which I cannot recall now, and came up with an idea: Sid Meier's Civilization in FAITH. The player will create a religion, spread it, and conquer the world. Initially it was more of a fantastic setting rather than realistic, influenced by Age of Mythology, such as having "God Power" for player's advantage. It was a decent idea, now that I think of it, but it was a dead idea, for no one around me can program or even make a formal game development scheme. So in my old notebook dead idea of "Dogma" (named for convenience) waited, dreaming, or perhaps believing.

And now the stars are right... or, more likely, I told Nakian this idea and he found it interesting.

Nakian defined the central theme of new Dogma as below: "This is a game of making choices according to the given environment, to design and spread your religion through voluntary acts of the people with the subtle spiritual influences you give." This pretty sums up most of the new Dogma - you are a head of your religion, and you will create, develop, and spread your religion according to the setting around you and your people.

The premise of Dogma will be humanity's adaptation to surrounding environment, and consequently creation of religion as a form of culture. At the initial stage of the game you will given a handful of your people and vast, untamed nature around you. Everything around you - be it climate, landscape, fauna and flora - will decide what kind of life your people will live, and how to survive within itself. Player will take control of people and nature from the most simple questions: What do we eat? What do we not eat? (Sorry, no why or where for now.) What do we do with dead people? By answering these questions your newborn religion will grow, accumulating points on "Stats".

In a nutshell: You start with your people and the nature around you. You and your people will be influenced by the nature. You make a choice, which will revolve on making the best solution for given circumstances. Your choice influence your people, their lifestyle, and consequently the nature around you.

For now these are all we came up with, since the magnitude of the game has escalated beyond our grip. Nakian and I agreed on that this will be more of Risk than Civilization, and still working on realizing the gameplay. I have some ideas for campaigns or mods, but since it's kinda ridiculous making mods on a game that does not even exist, it can wait. As always, if you're interested, please let me know. End transmission.

#21. Gi Megami Tensei, Part 1: So, Where Should I Begin?

Gi Megami Tensei is on. I'm not joking.

Okay, I am tardy on Kriegspiel, and for that matter, everything else as well, but at least I'm advancing, inch by inch.

Last time I posted the SMT Fangame Idea Part 1, ATLUS was dying. Now ATLUS is back from the dead, and is energetic as ever. So much of spiritual successor since the original is still up and running, but still, I haven't given up of making a fangame. So here we go:

- There will be Tokyo. And it will be blasted within the first 10 minutes. Well, of course, this is SMT. The setting will be the post-blasted Tokyo, and the story will revolve around the survivors and demons.

- I have already come up with my version of Law Hero and Chaos Hero, who will be your temporary allies but split up as your enemies depending on your alignment. I will reveal them later on, since this will be top-class spoiler on storyline, but let me make one thing clear: I say Chaos Hero, but it's actually Chaos Heroine...

- So the central theme of Gi Megami Tensei will be, allow me quote myself... "History repeats. Humanity makes same mistakes over and over again. In order to break this chain, the history itself has to be ended. But from where?" You know, I'm a big fan of history, so I will take more than one leaf from history - to be specific, history of humanity in general, especially when two or more civilization clashed. You name it, Civil War, World War (both of them), or the Crusades...

- Since I'm learning a lot from history, expect some historical figures as demons. I am aware that this is SMT, not Fate, and still working on how not to make this whole thing just another Holy Grail War on Fuyuk... err, post-apocalyptic Tokyo.

Okay, that's it for now. Better grab some programming stuffs before I get anywhere. Too bad I'm still on my service. End transmission.

#20. Kriegspiel, Part 2: Almost Scrapped... Until Now

Kriegspiel is on. I was almost joking... for some time.

Okay, I admit, I found it hard way that making board game from scratch is really, really hard. Especially when all you have is your high school notebook full of your not-so-old shame. That plus my service equal... well, at least there were reasons that I didn't update Kriegspiel development. At some times I came this close to abandon all this shit and find out something more productive.

Until few days ago.

We all need a spark, don't we?

Here are some updates on Kriegspiel:

- Last time I babbled something about using Resources and adding Core cards. Well, screw that. I found out that using Resource-exclusive cards makes the game too complex, so I scrapped that out. Instead I benchmarked Dimension Zero, where you can use every other cards for Resource.

- Your ordinary card games involve playing your cards directly from your hand. Infinity Wars inspired me to do the other way; you play your cards indirectly from your hand. That is, first you place your cards on separate zone, which will be called Standby Line for now. Your cards wait a turn in Standby Line until they are finally played, at their respective cost, into field.

- The gameplay in a nutshell will be something like this: You have HQ, which grants your troops benefits or acts as a single powerful troop. You build Bases, on which you place your Troops. You attack your opponent's Base to diminish your enemy troops and take control of bases. When no bases stand between your troops and your enemy HQ, you can attack your HQ to finally prove victorious.

- The storyline is still in progress, but nothing has changed in general. Let me work on this for a while. A while. I hope.

Well, that's it for now. As alway, if you're interested, feel free to let me know. End transmission.

#19. Kriegspiel, Part 1 : Developing Board Game From Scratch

Kriegspiel is on. I'm not joking.

For about a month back in my service I've been working on how to make this delusion of mine into reality, and came up with some ideas. This includes gameplay, story, and actual pieces, as much I can. So here we go:

- First time I came up with Kriegspiel it was a trading card game, like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic the Gathering. Then I thought better of it, and considered a miniature game, like Warhammer. After an unexpected yet brilliant experience of Runeage in the army I made it clear: Kriegspiel will be a board game, with cards and other elements.

- What kind of game would Kriegspiel be? The essence of the game will be war; each player will build their army, take base and high grounds, and annihilate the opposing forces from the field. This gives me at least three kinds of elements required in the game: Troop, Base, and Resource. For Kriegspiel, each will be known as Unit, Base, and Core.

- So we have three major elements for the game. The problem is how to combine these elements into a flow of gameplay. Take Magic, for example. First you use Land cards to provide Mana. Then you use manas to play monsters, which takes the major role in the combat. You may also play Sourcery and Enchantments for your advantage. I'm having a similar concept for the gameflow, only I cannot make it out for now. I'll be working on this for the next few months, perhaps.

- As for story... I'm still working on the story, but the structure is almost there. There are three major factions in Kriegspiel: The Red Pricipality, a former city state led by slightly dysfunctional lord, now expanding its territory with merciless troops; The Black Union, a group of city states stood together from the Principality's invading forces; and the White Visitors, the mysterious beings from above, whose intention and identity enigmatic but firepower very well proven. I'll be updating the story as soon as I make it clear enough.

Well... that's it for now, I guess. This is not an easy task, but tell you, it's a very interesting one. If you're interested, feel free to let me know. End transmission.

#18. Kriegspiel is On.

Long story short: Back in high school me and my two friends (whom I can proudly call weirdos) went crazy and wrote a short piece of game scenario, or what we thought was a short piece of game scenario. It was revealed to be a dud, and we wasted an entire summer vacation on it. We enjoyed every single moment of it, though.

Now it's like four years since then, and I hereby declare that Kriegspiel is stil alive. I am a big fan of board games and trading card games, and Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic the Gathering have inspired me ever since then. Add a small epic delusion mostly derived from Dimension Zero, and poof! Kriegspiel is a small project of card game, featuring robotic warfare, alien invasion, and power game.


Here's the synopsis of Kriegspiel, if anyone's interested: Imagine a small planet inhabited by robots instead of humans. Robots live and thrive as humans do, and they build city states on the surface of their homeland. Among the city states is a kingdom, which we will call the Kingdom for convenience, whose might and fortune stands proud among others. But the Kingdom is cruel and oppressive, and some of the citizens revolt against their harsh masters. There is a riot, there is a suppression, and finally a portion of the Kingdom is seperated into the Free State.

Undoubtedly there is a major hatred between the Kingdom and the Free State, but each has their own trouble to overcome. The Kingdom has proven its weak side, and the army takes over the government and takes the power. The Free State is having a political turbulence, with the congress divided into two parties, refusing to unite. And this young (new?) individual, charismatic and ambitious, steps into the congress.

And there's a mysterious visitors from above the sky. For convenience, let them known as the Visitors. The Visitors are sleek, beautiful, and very, very powerful, annihilating the neighboring city states in just a few days and heading this way, both the Kingdom and the Free State. Origins and intentions unknown, the Visitors pose a major threat to both states, and sooner or later the war will be the only option for all three of them...


I'm revising the storyline, as well was developing game system and how-to-play. I'll update the project as often as possible, so if you're interested, please let me know and keep tuned. End transmission.