My Ideas: This Time Lost Beat Me To It

Today, we'll focus on the second of the RPGMaker games that I actually finished. Following my relative success with Oasis, I took a little time off to think about my next idea. I wanted to do something completely different this time, especially after playing the games others created. Some were ye olde generice RPG, yes. Many were even more cliched and formulaic than Oasis. But others found much more clever ways to use the system. The most famous of these innovative games was Remote Control, a game about a guy who is trapped in a television and forced to fight their way through popular (at the time) television show parodies like Pokemon and Xena. There were almost no random encounters and some incredible mini-games, even a fairly thorough dating game.
These inspired me to do something different, but they weren't my direct inspiration. That came from...a movie I don't know the name of. It was a minor action movie a decade ago about a heist that took place during a flood. That flood was what caught my attention. There was the urgency the average grind-happy video game lost, and the ever-shifting environment that turns peaceful settings into new hazards. After working on the idea for a bit, I was ready to get started.

And that was fine at the time. But then the idea got tricky. I'll demonstrate by explaining the plot. A guy wakes up on a mysterious island (I know,) with strange monsters and effects (I KNOW,) along with many people with mysterious, sinister pasts (AARRRGH!) I love Lost, but now I have to rationalize the similarities whenever I mention it. Like I did just now!

Eh, it's different enough that I can continue, and the game play itself is closer to Chrono Cross. I did away with both random encounters and standardized experience. Standard encounters can usually be avoided, though in some areas the path is too narrow to avoid the moving, visual enemies. And while they give money and items (more on that later,) they don't increase levels. Instead, experience is only given in boss fights. The normal path through the game is set so your main character at least will gain exactly enough experience to gain a level at each boss. However, the game is extremely non-linear, and fighting bosses elsewhere can be used to gain experience that helps boost levels.

But exploring is risky in addition to rewarding. Though normal healing and magic-bumping items are available, they're extremely rare, especially in the first couple of days. Instead, health and magic (called sanity points,) are only fully filled when you rest. However, whenever you rest, the day ends. And while the characters don't notice it on the first two days, every day, the island sinks a little, raising the waters. This is most important on the third day, when the island's lone village is flooded. Without the character's help, most of the island's inhabitants will drown or be killed by the monsters that rise up from the water. From there on, the stores are gone, and you have to pick among the surviving villagers as you explore. You will often find that if you go through an easier path to a location and rest there, you can't go back the same way.

All this is tied to the game's plot, as well. After the major twist on day three, the main character (the symbolically named Avery, damn you once again Lost!) learns that every other person on the island, even his friends and ambiguous lover, are guilty of murder or at least manslaughter! This leads them to conclude that the island is a sort of prison and punishment, or perhaps a test of will to the survivors. If they can survive, they might even go free. The mystery is whether the villagers deserve it and why Avery, who is innocent, is also stuck on the island.

The story's mystery and the players' freedom to explore as they see fit also means they can take advantage of the day system as well. Notably, they can use The Machine, a giant factory that characters can use to get new equipment. This is especially helpful after the village and its stores are destroyed, but while The Machine can be used to make more powerful weapons and armor than the village ever sold, it also had its costs. In addition to the game's money system, players had to find materials used to make weapons and armor. Finally, The Machine takes a day to make its products, delaying the results and ultimately making it inaccessible at the end of the game's time limit.

The day system also affects the ending. This affects how many other villagers besides Avery survive the island; the "bad ending" occurs if you wait until the last day to beat the game and only lets Avery live, and the "good ending" lets most survivors of the village (which can't be ever character) survive if the player finishes with at least day to spare. There are also hidden options; the worst ending occurs if you finish on day 2 or if you finish without witnessing the village flood or meeting the survivors afterwards, and the best ending requires Avery to beat the game alone on Day 1, which lets all the characters live.

This is nearly impossible, however, on the first game, so I implemented a New Game+ feature that lets the player keep the level, skills, and equipment of Avery and any other surviving villager. This also grants access to other hidden secrets, especially a hidden area located on the other side of the island from the village. This marsh sinks on Day 2 (the only place to do so,) has the hardest enemies to date, and is guarded by a nearly invincible boss. But beating it grants access to enough high-level enemies to boost the entire party to triple the level available in the normal game and a boss rush feature. But this was no ordinary boss rush. Instead, I got permission to use bosses from a good dozen other RPG Maker games!

Features like this make this my proudest actual game. Its writing may be amateurish compared to my modern standards, but inserting letters one at a time via game pad is agony in any situation. And the puzzles, customization and exploration, attempts at a deeper story, believable characters, and special features are enough for me to use this game in my portfolio, on the rare occasion it matters, even today. Hell, with enough of a budget, I'd probably try to make it today!