TOA: An Elven Marriage dev thread

[jack1974]

So the first game will be called ToA: An Elven Marriage I am not going to say more than that for now, but this is the official development thread!

As you probably know I'm going to bring back the front/back rows mechanics, but merged with all the tweaks/improvements of the newest RPGs, like: degrading armor, resiliece stat (so several hits with less damage have a different purpose from big/slow hits dealing a lot of damage), more stats, new items generation, items with skills, etc etc

I am NOT going to spend too much time on the RPG part, not as much as I did with PS2, and I also want people to feel at home playing it, so I'm going to use a layout similar to the first Loren game. Will post full screenshots soon, meanwhile this is what I'm going to do with the characters on the battlefield:

as posted on Twitter: all the buffs are on bottom-left, debuffs on top-left, and when you click a target all the actions are on the right. I think it's cleaner this way vs the old version where everything was mixed up. Now you can see which debuffs the enemy has, while selecting a skill to use (useful to increase the debuff time for example, etc).

I'm also redesigning the use item skill to use a better layout, have the enemies flee if they're clearly outmatched (for non-key battles) etc etc. I'll be working on this on/off, since I cannot force myself to work 12 months straight on a RPG like I did with PS2 (and I have several other games to finish too).
But I still plan to have a beta out at end of next year or worse case, beginning of 2022 just in time for the 10-years anniversary of the first Loren game!!

[Jaeger]

Personally, I favor SOTW-style portraits, where you can see more of the character. On the other hand, they can take up more screen space, so I can understand why you opted Loren-style head portraits.

I hope you don't mind if I post an image from your Twitter:


While I generally like the combat UI in your games to begin with, having consumables displayed on a larger window is a an improvement.

[jack1974]

Thanks, yes I was unsure what to use: initially I thought a SOTW style, but as you said, each character was taking up a LOT of screen space.
Also, since this is a spin-off/however you want to call it (lol) but with Saren/Elenor and each game has cameos/NPC/past love interests, I thought reusing a similar layout and some GUI parts was better.
I also feel like the top/down layout is more intuitive than left/right (at least to me!).
And yes the bigger screen space for using the items in battle is definitely an improvement over past games

[jack1974]

I'm unsure what to do regarding the fact that in the game there are 6 party members, so differently from previous RPG, you don't need to bench them (of course, some people will do that, like a guy who wanted to play PS2 with 3 characters only! ).

I think maybe a kill bonus? but then that would penalize healers. Hmm. I might just leave as it is, but could look strange to see everyone always level up at same time? Haha I'm not used to it!

[Jaeger]

Level disparity in RPGs is not something I will miss. I'd rather skip the hassle of grinding so under-leveled characters can keep up.

[jack1974]

Hehe another person on twitter said the same thing. Well, that's easier for me, so I'm not complaining!!

[jack1974]

I am currently torn about a thing in the game, plot/romance related. Someone asked me on blog how would work with romances and while answering, I realized it might be confusing.

For example, in this game you can:
- start single, and romance the two new LI Lydia and Nathir (for now straight only, but I'll see if I can somehow find an artist to make the CG so they become bisex)
- continue a previous romance: Myrth or Rei

HOWEVER, there are also going to be some NPC from Loren. In particular, Draco is going to be a party member as well. I did this to have a more balanced party. But I am starting to wonder if having Draco present, and even as party member, but NOT being able to romance him could be weird ? I am starting to think that perhaps I should just remove him from this story (I wrote some very funny scenes, but they can be reused in another game).
And only show past romance characters in each game where they can actually be romanced.

So the party would be of 5, with maybe 1 slot for random NPC joining along the way, or Draco's place could be taken for example by non-romanceable NPCs like Apolimesho ?

[Franka]

My opinion: That would be very weird - in principle anyway, I've never romanced Draco, but I can imagine having, say, Chambara there non-romanceable and feel strange my character could romance her in a "parallel" game, but not here. Romanceable characters should stay in games where they can be romanced, imo. Non-romanceable guest characters could be cool though. I'm immediately thinking up lots of extra work with multiple rotating guest characters in a single game, but I know that's not what you meant.

[jack1974]

Yes that's the same thing I'm thinking
Well in this one I plan to have Apolimesho plus some interesting cameos (but of course not in the pool of possible past love interests).
Now that I think about it, replacing Draco in this game with another "tank" class is even better from the RPG perspective, since Lydia clearly will be a sort of hybrid mage/alchemist, and neither Myrth nor Rei are exactly front line fighters. So there would be only Nathir, and if the player doesn't pick Warrior/Rogue for Saren/Elenor, could be very unbalanced.

OK good, I've made my mind

[jack1974]

We're going to replace Draco (remember it's just for romance/story reasons, nothing wrong with him) with a non-binary dwarf called "Gruff"
(it's not their real name of course, and there'll be a sidequest about that probably)
I think with the help of editor to make sure I write everything the right way, the result could be fun and rather unique. We'll see