Board Thread:Program Announcements/@comment-1490123-20131113012715

Forgive any grammar errors. I made this at like, 2 in the morning. And the internet broke me anyways.

=--Story--=

Our hero, Gale, a traveling merchant, is heading home to see his family for the first time in months.

On his journey home, he sets up camp by a road, and closes his eyes to sleep... And after some time, he opens his eyes to see the sky was still dark. Feeling wide awake, and wanting to get home as soon as possible, he starts to get up, but he notices that he was in a dark forest. The trees around him were all twisted, and covered in purple leaves and grey bark. The ground bellow him was also a dark purple, and the moon peeking through the trees seemed to have a twisted smile on it, as it stared right at Gale.

He stands up, and finds his pockets are empty, and that his wagon was gone, all that was left was a tattered bag he was never able to sell.

While he was confused, and even a little bit scared, he wanted nothing more than to see his family once again. So, the merchant picks up the bag, and stuffs it into his cloak, before setting out to try and find his way home.

=--HUD--=

Green Bar: Health. When it empties, Gale passes out. To restore Gale's health, you can use various potions, or bandages. It'll also fill gradually with time, the rate of restoration determined by how full Gale is. If the bar turns red, it means Gale is seriously injured, and health will not restore naturally. To get rid of the ailment, use a specific potion, or several bandages. It'll also pass with time, but it takes a loooooooong time to heal.

Yellow Bar: Hunger, Water, and Stamina. The main part of the bar represents hunger, which depletes with time. Water is represented by cracks. The more thirsty Gale is, the more the bar starts to look dry and cracked. (There are 5 stages of cracking.) The more thirsty Gale is, the faster his stamina and hunger drains. Finally, stamina is represented by the hunger bar. Darked parts of the bar represents lost stamina, and stamina will not exceed Gale's current hunger value. Stamina drains when Gale is running, when he has certain status ailments, or when he gets sleepy.

Blue Bar: Ether meter. Kind of like a magic meter. It can be used to restore health, or allow Gale to use his Gali Blade/Bow, and maybe double jump, if I feel like adding it. It's restoration speed is determined by Gale's Mentality. It can be completely refilled by sleeping. You can also find/make ether crystals to restore health.

STR, MEN: Strength and Mentality, instead of bars, these are represented by numbers.

STR: Determines how strong Gale's attacks are, and maybe how fast he can move. STR decreases when Gale is hungry, or gets hit too many times in a row.

MEN: Represents Gale's mental and emotional state. Determines how accurate his hits are. Decreases when Gale hasn't eaten for a long time, when taking alot of hits, or when in low health. Mentality can be restored by defeating enemies, spending time at camp, or eating. Prepared dished restore more mentality than when eating raw ingredients. It might also determine how easily Gale can sleep.

Eye: Represents how sleepy Gale is. It has 5 stages. At stage 3 and further, Gale's mentality will start to drop. At stage 4 and further, Gale's stamina starts to drop. And stage 5, Gale will eventually collapse. He may wake up with a cold or other ailment if not at a camp.

Battery: Represent how much battery power Gale has. Batteries are rare, very rare, but can be used to power his flashlight, which can light his way in dark caves, cleanse darkness covered objects, or it can be used to power his phone, which can be used to call loved ones and restore his mentality.

I'm not quite sure how to handle dying in this game. I'm thinking Gale will either have lives, or will always just wake up at camp. Could maybe a hardcore option, die once and that's it.

=--Various Gameplay details--=

-The Map-

It will be randomly generated... to an extent. The map is split up into several sections, and each section is made using a template. The order of the map, and the enemies, animals and gather points within are all random. I'm not sure how big the maps will be though. Or how the game will be won. It could either be, reaching a certain point in the map, or collecting pieces of something. I'm also uncertain on whether the map will be completely straight, with a few caves, above and below the usual path, or if the map will go up and down, and left and right, probably from having maps or large cave systems. But in the latter case, I'd need to figure out algorithms.

-Camp-

Camps can be set up on any spot on the map, and only require a campfire to be made. It does require alot of wood however, but Camps prevent any animals or monsters and gather points from appearing in that area. Here, Gale can sleep, cook, and craft items, unless it's raining and the camp was set in an open air part of the map.

Gale can also build lean tos, which protect Gale from rain and other weather, and allows him to stay asleep more easily, and shacks, which restores Gale's health and prevents Gale from getting attacked while sleeping. Both also help Gale's mentality, but both also require alot of materials, lean tos needing wood, and shacks need wood and stone.

Finally, you can store items at camps. Stored items, somehow, always carry over from camp to camp. (Probably due to the programmer's laziness.) But you can only have 5 camps set up at a time. Building more than 5, will cause a random old camp to collapse. If you want more control on which camps stay up, destroy old ones yourself. You'll also get some of your materials back.

-Time-

There is no day night cycle, as the forest Gale is in is stuck in midnight.

-Darkness-

Often, food items are found covered in some sort of dark fog. Eating them in this state will cause Gale to get sick. To be able to eat them, either have a flashlight or torch out when you collect them, or go to a camp with an lit campfire.

-Potatoes-

They seem to grow in this land undeterred, and are never found covered in darkness. They're also the only food Gale can plant and grow. They don't require any care, just time. It takes about 10 or so minutes for a potato to fully grow.

-Water-

Is hard to come by. And almost anything Gale drinks has a chance of poisoning him. Water may also be covered in darkness. To get clean water, either, look in caves, or use certain herbs to cleanse water. Otherwise, you can restore Gale's water by eating certain foods, uncooked.

-Ether Skills-

Sword: A long-ish sword, has slightly better reach than regular weapons, and it can even be used to mine. (To an extent.) It's also kind of weak.

Spear: Has a long reach, and is stronger than mid tier weapons. Consumes a good amount of the Ether Meter though.

Bow: Can shoot clear across the screen. Basic shots only use up a little bit of ether, but charge shots drain up to a 1/6th to a 1/4th of the meter, but it can pierce through multiple targets, and it kill most enemies and animals in one shot.

Double Jump: Not much use to this.

Heal: You can restore Gale's health using the ether meter. A full meter can heal up to half of Gale's health.

-Misc Details-

Dropped items glow white. Objects you can interact with also glow white when you're close enough to do something to them. Cooked food always glow red. This, is just because I added plates to the sprites, and the white glow would, mix in with the white of the plates.

=--Lastly--=

I need help! I've made most of the food and Gale sprites myself, but, I need help with the backgrounds, and enemy/animal sprites... also, the sprites I made, kinda suck, and could use some touching up. And, I may have accidentally over written some of them. 