lil'bout'mistmare
Greetings to you all.
Since Matej promised some answers to your questions from me, he's been nagging and poking me around (and yes, as he told you, "kicking my sorry butt") , decreasing my potentiality to concentrate on the game code
, so I am giving in.
First some explanations: about the garage band. Oh yes. Consider me. I am one of the game designers & authors. At the same time, I lead the Mistmare programming team of me, myself and a novice... Yes yes... we're highly sophisticated, especially me, with all that years and years of University time behind.
Heh heh, looking at our vast and expanding team right now, I feel warm emotions of satisfaction... ID, EA, GOD, Blizzard, hide! You stand no chance against our sophistication, masses and financial resources. ;] ;]
Ok... sorry about that small burst of irony. I won't do it again, promise
So let's talk about the game.
It's going to be a FRP game, but not like most of those that I've played. It's going to be a game in a way *I* (myself as me) would *want* to play. Easy if you're a gamer and a programmer at the same time
You just do what you want (if there's enough time).
I want Mistmare to be (and I first helped designing it to be like that, now I am coding it to be like that):
- A fantasy adventure with a linear main story, just like of a good mystery movie or a fantasy book which is not just about smiting dragons, but about wondering the mysterieis of the fantasy world and its inhabitants as well.
- A role playing game which allows you to develop your character in any way you want, thus in term allowing you to play your own game, different from any other player. Depending on the way you developed your character, your tactics in combat, conversation and problem solving will have to differ. Depending on your tactics, your character will change. This is the circle that I want. If you're a fighter, you fight and so become a better fighter. If you're a diplomat, you buy your way out of fighting, and so become a better diplomat. And so on, in contrast to many other games: I am a fighter, and the game is easy cause I just beat up everybody. I am a diplomat and the game is tough because everybody beats up I.
- A role playing game in which the development of your character doesn't only influence combat. If you're an acrobat in Mistmare, you'll climb or jump out of many 'embarrassing' situations, but will also be able to strike faster attacks. If you're a ranger, you'll find your way out of a dark cave, but will also regain stamina in combat faster. And so on and on.
- A role playing game in which you do not build your character by distributing XP. Character development is integrated into the non-linear adventure part of the game. You work at the blacksmith's, gain some money and some strength. Spend hours in the library to improve your Lore, the skill of wielding all magic items (and at the same time the skill for reading old manuscripts), and your spiritual aspect will grow as well, but if you do that all the time, your character may end up corporeally feeble, forced to rely on spells and magic items in combat.
- A role playing game which is not all about numbers. Instead, there will be generated descriptions, astrological charts, and other visual influences of your character's growth. Have you seen the growing tree in the movie (website)? It's your corporeal aspect, and the three little circles around it are your affinity spheres... Read the "Gameplay" topic on the website to learn more.
- A role playing game with rules so complex that intuition *has* to come in when playing it. Yes. Everything influences everything. The blacksmith in the village has a high Forge skill, so all the swords he makes are sharper (but might broke sooner, who knows?). There's an excellent magic sword you found, but then you have an old axe from the beginning of the game, which is exceptionally aligned to your character by its astrological chart, and you've been upgrading it in every weaponshop you ever found... Your reputation of helping the rejected becomes so high that a group of rebels in another city approaches you and asks you for help, allowing you to end the episode in a completely other way than most other players will. Improve your healing spell (very useful during combat
) enough that you may heal a lethally ill king much later in the story, and never ever have any financial problems more... Etc. This is just a crumb, I could ramble on for hours.
Ok, there's much, much more... But this post is now already big enough... Save something for later.
Have fun, all of ye...