Well, since I'm already registered here anyway, I decided to show my
little probably overambitious game which I've been working on for around 2 years now.
It's a kind of a mix of JPRG and King's Bounty/HoMM series, written in C++ using SDL.
While the game is still an alpha, it has a lot of things done already (it's playable), but still much more to be done. I'd say purely code-wise it's mostly finished, but other things (content/story/mapping/art) are not even close, and sound/music, while supported, are non-existent :V
I'm doing this alone so the progress is not very fast, but I'm hoping to finish this someday.
There's no download yet, I'll release it once the game is good enough to be called a 'beta'.
Right now I just want to know if people are interested in seeing this finished. I'd also appreciate any help in the art/sound/music department.
Well, now for some screenshots, along with a description of some of the game's features:
Note: Alphes/alphes-style portraits are a placeholder and a lot of graphics/animations are still missing or not completely done (and thus look pretty bad), aaand since it's still an alpha, everything can change radically.
Screenshot linkThis is an example of combat. It's turn-based, with turn order decided by the character's Initiative stat. Speed is a different stat which decides how much hexes the character can move per turn. While they usually correlate, they do not ALWAYS correlate. For example, Sakuya has exceptionally high initiative for her average speed, while Youmu has low initiative, but high speed.
The characters can both move and attack in the same turn, although most strong attacks will be unavailable if the character has moved.
Screenshot linkOutside of combat, there is a usual exploration map, with items lying around and enemy encounters. They are visible on the map and most of them can move, they will chase you if they notice you (if you are much stronger, they will run away from you instead). This is turn-based as well, they move when you move.
The world is relatively free to explore, although there will be some story/order-of-visit barriers.
Screenshot linkAlso, time of a day changes, and your party's sight radius decreases as well. That is, unless you have Wriggle in your party with the "Guiding Light" skill which prevents this. Aside from that, just like you'd expect, youkai are more active at night, and thus enemies' spawn rate at night is doubled. Time moves at a rate of 20 seconds per step.
Screenshot linkEvery character has her own skill tree with own unique skills, both passive and active. I tried to make every character feel unique, and hopefully I succeeded.
The game will have at least 65 playable characters (and around 40 are done already, although they are still missing some or all graphic/animations), but the long-term (e.g. I won't work on it unless I'm sure I'll be able to do it) plan is to have around 90, e.g. almost everyone.
Screenshot linkSome attacks are powerful enough to be classified as Spellcards. Spellcards need to be "prepared", e.g. you need to put it in one of your character's spellcard slots. You get your first spellcard slot at level 5, second at level 15, and finally, third at level 30 (Patchouli has a skill which allows her to prepare 4 spellcards, and Kaguya can even prepare 5). Once you prepared it, you can use it once per battle, and you can't prepare any spellcard more than once (At the same time. You can unprepare/prepare spellcards as you wish, but you can't have two uses of the same spellcard.).
That's not the only difference. To actually USE a spellcard, you need to charge it first, which looks like this:
Screenshot linkA spellcard takes several turns to be charged, with amount of turns equal to its level. Everyone has level 1-3 spellcards, some have level 4 (Reimu's Fantasy Nature, Yuyuko's Saigyouji Flawless Nirvana... aaand Yukari's train :V). Level 4 spellcards are pretty much insta-win spellcards, unless it's a boss fight, of course.
While it's charging, the character can't do anything, but the spellcard has its own HP value. You can't hurt a character unless you deplete the spellcard HP first, however, if it's depleted, the spellcard fails. Once enough turns pass and the spellcard is charged, you CAN but you don't HAVE TO use the spellcard (you can delay using the spellcard for any amount of turns), which means that you can use spellcards not only offensively, but defensively. Patchouli actually relies on this heavily as her spellcards are tougher than she is herself :V
Aside from the regular fights, there will be boss fights, which may (they usually do) have some unique quirks like this:
Screenshot linkBosses usually have a LOT more HP than normal characters, and they have multiple HP bars. The boss battles are divided into non-spell and spellcard phases, and each has its own HP bar.
During non-spell phases, bosses just randomly (or almost randomly) use some regular attacks and are not very threatening. Now, during spellcard phases, they usually follow a specific pattern with their attacks, and they are very powerful: as powerful as regular spellcards, but unlike regular spellcards, bosses use them every turn. Some spellcards may be completely different and unique, for example Flandre's Four of a Kind, as you might expect, creates three clones, which proceed to behave just like in a nonspell phase.
What's "charge" for regular spellcards is "timeout" for boss spellcards. You can timeout a spellcard by waiting enough turns. Some (usually the final ones) spellcards have no timeout and some can ONLY be beaten by timeout, those are survival spellcards. Capturing a spellcard gives you additional exp, while timing it out does not.
Screenshot linkSo, stats. Combat affects your "Force"-type attacks' damage (these are mostly melee attacks, but not always, shooting with a bow is also a force attack, for example), Danmaku affects your "Danmaku"-type attacks' damage (these are ranged attacks which (duh) involve danmaku), Accuracy increases your chance to hit, Evasion reduces your chance to be hit, Defence reduces damage taken, Resistance protects from status effects and debuffs, and Concentration is a "support" stat which does a lot of things - it powers up status effects, buffs/debuffs, healing and a few specific attacks depend on it for damage. Finally, it also affects your Spellcards' HP value.
The bars below the stats are affinities: Magic-Physical/Water-Fire/Earth-Air and Dark-Light. They are essentially resistances, and you can't have both - you are either resistant to light and weak to dark, or resistant to dark and weak to light. There are skills and items that increase your defence against the specific element, and there can be a "damage reduction" effect against specific elements, so you still CAN defend against the element without sacrificing protection from the opposite.
Also, affinities, except for the Physical-Magic one, are not static. Every character has a base affinity, like Reimu here has a base 50 affinity to light. That means her affinity can change from -50 to +150 by using attacks of the appropriate element. If she uses a light-element attack, the affinity will slightly (or greatly, if that's a spellcard) shift to light further, but if she uses a dark-elemental attack, it will shift to dark. Using elemental weapons also shifts the affinity.
There *might* be some secret dialogues or even bonuses/skills which require a certain character to have a certain affinity, usually something you wouldn't normally expect, like Fire Cirno :3
Below the HP and MP values there is a Power value. Some attacks require a certain power value to be used. Non-spellcard attacks require either none or 1, and spellcards require 1+levelofspellcard. Aside from requiring it, spellcards actually consume power, so it serves mainly as a cooldown between spellcards. By default, you can gain power by dealing or taking damage, but some characters have some skills which allow them to gain power for different things (Cirno can gain power for freezing, Eirin - for healing, Hina - for debuffing, etc.)
Power limit is 1 at first, but it's increased by 1 every 5 levels until it reaches 5. You can increase it further with some equipment.
To the right are status resistance modifiers (they modify the resistance stat when it's checked against that status effect).
Screenshot linkNothing unusual here, just inventory.
Screenshot linkBy default, characters start the fight in a vertical row formation, but you can customize your party's formation freely.
Screenshot linkMarisa's danmaku is flashy, yep.
And another little thing. The characters' sprites are made of "bodyparts", and hair/eyes are colored by the game itself, so the game actually supports different outfits for characters.
For example,
Screenshot link:V
That's another very long-term goal, because it's pretty much only limited by art, not code.
The game also has support for multiple languages, and right now it has English/Russian/Japanese, and it even supports IME, although I'm unlikely to fully translate the game into Japanese just because I lack enough knowledge for that.
Well, that's enough I think. This post is already large enough.