Ghost Shards: The Stonesinger

[StrawberrySmiles]

XALE is a world governed by the eight Divinities of the elements: Ashe, Rayne, Glacia, Terrin, Starr, Luna, Silva, and Tempess. They keep the world protected and regulated.

Over time, these goddesses have been mysteriously falling asleep, affecting the seasons in catastrophic ways. As a result of their slumber, lyrical priestesses known as Stonesingers, are convinced by the Crusaders to make a pilgrimage across Xale to awaken all eight Divinities to prevent further calamity.

But how will the heroes avoid the deadly wrath of the goddesses?

Understanding the mystery of ghost shards may be the key to victory.

Narie Tearwyn
Age: 19 | Race: M'vyr | Weapon: Sword

Narie is a short-tempered, headstrong young woman and the twin sister of Sarie. She has a strong sense of justice, vowing to protect her loved ones with her life. Knowing the danger Sarie must face, she travels with her sister.

Sarie Tearwyn
Age: 19 | Race: M'vyr | Weapon: Staff

Despite being the older twin, Sarie is actually much more frail than Narie. She is a peaceful-loving girl, preferring the art of speechcraft over physical fighting. Sarie is currently engaged to Kyran, her true love.

Kyran Sage
Age: 21 | Race: Human | Weapon: Twin-blades

The self-claimed protector of the Tearwyn twins, Kyran is cocky and very optmistic. Nothing seems to bring him down, even as he faces death in the face. He is currently in love with Sarie and is her fiance.

* Action Battle System with Allies
* Voice Acting
* Custom Artwork

DEVELOPMENT, ARTWORK, AND WRITING
Nerd Bomb Studios
(Star | Melanii(pon) | Princess_Klutz | Ninja_Slap | Catfire321)

GRAPHICS
Enterbrain (RTP)
Wyatt (Various tiles)
Thutmose (Cloud autotile)
Venetia (Various tiles)
XMO (Logos)

SCRIPTS
Pathfinding (RPG aka Cowlol)
Auto-Scroll (Sephiroth Spawn)
XAS and Addons (Moghunter and Xiderowg)
Ccoa (Universal Message System)
Enemy Detection (Gubid)

 

[The Law G14]

Hey, this looks nice! The story seems pretty interesting and I like the custom graphics you have there with the main characters (did you make them?). Also, the world map, did you make that yourself, if so, how? I've been trying to make a world map for my game, but I never really liked it too much, yours seems really good, though. Did you use a graphics program or something else? Very nice project, though, keep it up :D

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Thanks!

My fiance, Star made the character portraits himself.

For the world map, he drew out the world, I outlined it in Paint.net, then placed a texture over it and added the markers and numbers, myself. ^^

 

[Zankoku no Yami]

Haha, right after I send a PM I see this. Guess I should browse the forum before going straight to my PMs, hahaha.

Looks awesome so far! I love the art design on the menu. And a world map! The next thing I need to work on myself, hehe.

Can't wait for some more updates; like videos or even a demo!

 

[Jason]

This is looking pretty good so far, the story seems pretty straight forward so far but I assume there's obviously more happening than what's just been described, I mean, I'm assuming the twin sister will play a pretty big role in the story for example. The idea of those Ghost Shards could be pretty cool, it sort of reminds me of the emotion cores from Portal for some reason.

I've got a few questions about the Ghost Cores by the way,

Will the player be able to interact with them? Say, for example, the Jecht Spheres from Final Fantasy X contained the memories of Jecht, Auron and Braska, and gave Tidus a new ability if you found one... will you be incorporating something similar to this in the game if the player finds a core that contains a memory or skill?

What about the voice and heart, will these do anything significant if we collect them on their own? Can they be used in any way at all?

And for the last question, would it be possible to find four shards and put them together to revive the former person, or is that just nonsense on my behalf?

Also, I love the world map and the character portraits, they look really cool!

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

@Zankoku Thanks. I'm glad you like what you see. ^^

@ Jay-Jay

Star is telling me this:

The answer is they will be able equip the Ghost Shards and increase certain abilities. If they have any basic skills to the Ghost Shards you can learn them. But you cannot learn advanced skills. You can equip voice for sound skills, but you cannot you equip heart because of negative side effects. There are story based events pertaining to the Heart Shard, though. He says he'd like for them be equipped, though.

Ghost Shards were not really meant to revive people, only Necromancy including the whole Ghost Shard, can be used to resurrect the person. And the person would have to have been dead less than 7 days, unless their body was kept in a cryogenic state. A Ghost Shard will react to its other piece by glowing. A whole Ghost Shard, is unstable and will try to take possession of anybody living or non-living - but won't woke on someone who's already decayed.

I can see some quests involving Aelina reviving people using Ghost Shards.

Some people get Ghost Shards when they die, but some don't - it depends on how they died. Natural causes death would not get a Ghost Shard.

Hope that helps. ^^

 

[Jason]

Ah yeah that's understandable, in that case I'll just wait until you update the thread with new info so I can read and ask more questions :thumb:

 

[Daxis]

was planning to reply sooner, but then stuff happened. Like a game of LoL and customers and lunch

Anyways, japapnese katakana. Lol.

The map tries for a look of oldish map on that old parchment thing (that's the feel I get from it). However, there are clear parts where you can see it as something made on computer: the clearness/clarity of the lines for example. Not sure what can be done about that: paint dot net doesn't have those specific MAKE PARCHMENT LOOK OLDER techniques, but then again, I only use it for copy, paste, and gaussian blur, so idk

Does your world suscribe to any ideas of pangaea? All the continents look a bit disjointed, and doesn't seem like they'd fit together. If it doesn't suscribe to the idea of pangaea and its plate techtonics shit, then it's all very cool. The island surrouned by little peieces of land looks like an embryo, and looks pretty nice.

Sandsidhe wouldn't have dragonfly wings in hot, cold environments. Any special adaptations of theirs that don't reply on magic?

peititeyls and eliteyls seems a weird way to differentiate the two, in any language. Question: all languages the same?

About the icespire archipelagos: that's not an archipelago

evertear castle: weird as hell location for a castle. Same for the templess ruin or whatever
Are evetear and evertear different?


"Although she has a seemingly soft and gentle disposition, something is odd about her - as at times she can be quite sarcastic with her creepy sense of humor. " I don't know, thought of you XD

Just noticed the time thing in the corner of the screenshot. You think you have a way to make it a *slight* way to make it more apparent? Then again, I just noticed that while in game players would been told of it already, so whatevers

The next screen looks stylized. Gonna skip too much critiquing cause i'm not the best at graphic design or UI optimization

The map screen looks considerably bare. Also, feels like the pillar of whatever seems to appear out of nowhere. Additionally, that little area seems the most detail and real of the entire map (not counting the totally iced parts near the water, since it should be like that. On THAT note, would a tree with leaves and whatnot like that be that close to the water?) Even if snowed land are like that irl, making them detailedn enough in game to keep the attention of the player seems more important than stout realism (imo).

In the last screenshot, again, the numbers are light, and certain parts of the character portraits are closely light as well, making it *slightly* hard to distinguish the numbers a bit.



Not replying too much on chars and story and whatnot since I don't know too much about. Other than that, looks nice, hopes you get done

*classic Daxis critique- find all the bad things and then say it looks good- done

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

The only thing I'll say is that when I requested for the logo to be done, I did NOT ask for Japanese letters. >>

I'll let Star handle your post, because he's the main guts of everything. ^^

Also, that's not my personality. Get out of here. j/k

 

[Star]

The map tries for a look of oldish map on that old parchment thing (that's the feel I get from it). However, there are clear parts where you can see it as something made on computer: the clearness/clarity of the lines for example. Not sure what can be done about that: paint dot net doesn't have those specific MAKE PARCHMENT LOOK OLDER techniques, but then again, I only use it for copy, paste, and gaussian blur, so idk

That's Strawberries deal, she'll handle this or won't. xD

Does your world suscribe to any ideas of pangaea? All the continents look a bit disjointed, and doesn't seem like they'd fit together. If it doesn't suscribe to the idea of pangaea and its plate techtonics shit, then it's all very cool. The island surrouned by little peieces of land looks like an embryo, and looks pretty nice.

Nah, I always hated that part of science class cause I was all like BULLSHIT, some believe, but our story doesn't deal with that.

Sandsidhe wouldn't have dragonfly wings in hot, cold environments. Any special adaptations of theirs that don't reply on magic?

hmm? I got lost at this question. both Frostfae and Sandsidhe are the same type of race, with dragon wings. Only one is of darker hair and skin and the other is lighter hair and skin and able to handle opposite climates and can use magic better based on those climates.

peititeyls and eliteyls seems a weird way to differentiate the two, in any language. Question: all languages the same?

Petiteyls or Petite and Eliteyls as in Elite, they are all Teyls but either halflings or full fledged size.
All the languages are the same except for ancient divinity language and some monsters or creatures like Forest Nymphs have languages like the ancient divinity language

About the icespire archipelagos: that's not an archipelago

Hey, she is the one that wanted to come up with fancy names, I was just fine with Icespire Island

evertear castle: weird as hell location for a castle. Same for the templess ruin or whatever
Are evetear and evertear different?

Pretty fancy eh? It used to be just an island mansion that ended up being a castle. Since it's surrounded by water, no moats necessary. Evetear is a Mispell.

Just noticed the time thing in the corner of the screenshot. You think you have a way to make it a *slight* way to make it more apparent? Then again, I just noticed that while in game players would been told of it already, so whatevers

I don't want it to be annoying, but I was thinking of making it flash when new days appear or time changes in story based events.


The next screen looks stylized. Gonna skip too much critiquing cause i'm not the best at graphic design or UI optimization

The map screen looks considerably bare. Also, feels like the pillar of whatever seems to appear out of nowhere. Additionally, that little area seems the most detail and real of the entire map (not counting the totally iced parts near the water, since it should be like that. On THAT note, would a tree with leaves and whatnot like that be that close to the water?) Even if snowed land are like that irl, making them detailedn enough in game to keep the attention of the player seems more important than stout realism (imo).

It's basically a battle map, I personally would never make outside maps like this, but if she would let me make invisible barriers, I
wouldn't have to come up with stupid creative ways to keep the player from reaching the corner of the map.

In the last screenshot, again, the numbers are light, and certain parts of the character portraits are closely light as well, making it *slightly* hard to distinguish the numbers a bit.

Might need a better font altogether for scene_map stuff.

*classic Daxis critique- find all the bad things and then say it looks good- done

[/quote][/quote]
Classic is right. I get these all the time, then I pour salt down my throat and hold my tongue.

 

[Daxis]

For the sandsidhe thing, I don't think that such a race would adapt, or adapt well, to a hot, desert environment. Oh, and the title post said dragonfly wings, so I was thinking dragonfly wings would be like really bad to have in the desert air and sand and whatnot.
but so anywyas one's more adapted to different climtes and adapted magicks to live there. Gotcha.

Main reason I asked about the time thing was that some maps may make it hard to notice the time. If it can flash at certain points or is more recognizable in game than I think, hey, cool beans.

 

[gRaViJa]

I like the project so far, but the topic says shardS, while the logo says shard (i hope this hasn't been said before, because then i look stupid)

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

@ Daxis Yeah, they're really just Faeries. I could easily give Sandsidhe different wings than what Aelina would have. ^^ I believe however the races were created, that's how they were made.

@ Gravija Hmmm... I noticed that too. We have another logo, but it doesn't say "Requiem" at the end.

 

[Star]

I gave it a whirl at fixing it.

@Daxis It's just the fact that they have Dragonfly wings right, not the dark skin and hair and the enhanced fire abilities and defenses?

What kind of wings would suit a desert?

 

[Jason]

Wings that would suit a desert? Vulture Wings?

 

[Star]

Wings that would suit a desert? Vulture Wings?

Ewww xDDD I don't know if buzzard wings would suit them, it'd make me think they are gonna eat dead carcasses. Hmm.. Dragonfly... Dragon. What about Dragon wings? Then the Frostfae would be best suited with Dragon wings themselves or Faerie wings.

 

[Daxis]

well, i think i'm taking this a bit too realistically, but i don't think wings would really fit any creature that exists in deserts, without the use of magic (which can easily be used as reasons for whatever)
Wings, whether they be dragon, dragonflies, or etc. generally don't fit desert creatures. Well, I'm sorta thinking actual, sand and sun desert, wings generate a LOT of surface area, which thus absorbs a lot of heat that generally won't be feasible. Especially for human sized creatures, the wings would have to be massive to support flying, magic notwithstanding. Additionally, occasional powerful winds in the desert can blow unwary winged-people away, if the wings are open to recieve such winds.
Otherwise, maybe the wings can do something like fold on itself, protecting the sandsidhe from heat or something?

Oh, just noticed, which was one of the things bothering me about the logo:

It looks like
Ghost
Shards
Requiem
not Ghost Shards: Requiem
lemme explain

all three words utilize different fonts and stylizations (GOD i love that word). All three words occupy different lines. They all become distinct from each other. Thus, it gives a feeling that each words stands on its own. Additionally, ghost has that japanese katakana going on, which, since I understand that katakana, makes the logo read a bit more like Ghost: shards requiem for me. The fact that requiem has that line thing makes it seem a bit more like Ghost shards: requiem, but not by much. Having Ghost Shards on the same line, or better yet, the same stylization, would help alot to alleviate this.
Then again this entire post is a gigantic OCD nitpick so

 

[LiquidMetal91]

Believe it or not, but this is a desert creature with wings...

However, it would be harder to sprite right..

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Again, I did not make the logo. Didn't I mention that, Daxis? O_oa

 

[Daxis]

Just saying. Adding critique where it's due. Just mention my statement to the guy that did then.