[WIP] Sora A Tale of A Hero

So heres my first WIP Sora A Tale of a Hero which will be a turned based rpg/jrpg style. I posted a few pics below with some general info. More info about the game can be found at the following links.

http://www.nissyokugames.com/

http://soraataleofahero.com/

https://www.facebook.com/nissyokugames

You can also Follow progress on twitter https://twitter.com/NissyokuGames

and the original showcase thread

http://forum.orkframework.com/discussion/938/showcase-sora-a-tale-of-a-hero#Item_46

The game it self will have a really in depth story line. Fortunately story telling is my forte and can promise a immersive story . But i am no 3d modeler, animator , scripter hence all my stuff is bought from the asset store. luckily Ork framework exists and takes alot out of the code part and money helps with the rest !

So heres a run down of the game it self.

Concept
Turned based rpg FF7 style
Indepth story
Multiplatform support: Windows PC and Wii U will be released first before porting to Mobile.

Release Date
TBA Im a 1 man team so hopping before end of next year 2015... ( should have a working demo with in the next few months )

Story Summery

The back drop story revolves around a young teenage girl named Sora who idolizes her hero Van, who is now the village chief of Violethaven which Sora was born an raised. Van has told many stoires to Sora about his adventures from his travels when hes was younger. Sora would sit and listen intently to each story with amazement wishing one day to have an adventure of her own. But unbeknown to her did she know that her adventure was about to begin....

Not going to much in to the story line it self i dont want to ruin it!

So check out my site and my threads and if you like what you see please hit the like buttons!

 

Hey, I like the art style and what your going for, keep up the good work.

 

Looks great.
Will it have some less top down view and closer view to characters ? The view is more like Baldurs gate games where the camera is a far view.

 

Based on the screenshots, I think you've got some improving to do.

First, the title screen. Your title's text is nearly illegible due to the font. It would be a better idea to base the artwork of the title off of a simpler typeset, and then artistically embellish it with additional shapes. A good example is Half Minute Hero. See how you can easily read it, but it's stylized such that it's readily apparent that it's a game about speed in a JRPG world, with JRPG mechanics?

Second, your dialogue box shot. The text is way too small; don't expect a player without 20/20 vision to be able to read that, and don't expect a player with 20/20 vision to comfortably read that; a little larger is better. This also ties into your dialogue choice; you've got far too many words. If you look at the old classics like Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger - Square RPGs, when an RPG by Square was an unconditionally good thing! - you'll notice they avoid packing the textboxes with words. A rule I learned in college, was the 'two-second rule' - If your dialogue takes more than two seconds to read, it's too long. Don't expect player's attention spans to be equal to your ability to write dialogue!

Next, let's talk about the menu screen. The main menu bar could use a redesign in that the length of the menu options aren't consistent (the wedge effect actually makes the design less pleasing) and it still suffers from text that is too small to be effective, especially as you're using an ornate font. The wood paneling in the party display is good, but I think that the box where the time played/money/current location is could have a bigger border set on the top and bottom, such that those beams look equal in proportion to the horizontal beams in the main party display.

You've made a good start; the main character is well-drawn, and I think your color choice is generally pretty good. I recommend reconsidering the UI concerns I've brought up, those will certainly help your game be more accessible and feel right.

 

"Fortunately story telling is my forte..."
Maybe proper English should go along with that. And everything Asvarduil said is right, like obviously right.

 

@Asvarduil yeah some of these shots were taken about 2 weeks ago then again this is only 3 months in the making so far so i got tons of work to be done.. the text box has been changed to be more readable still need to update that screen past week ive been mainly working on the gui getting that setup. unfortunately there will be spots in the game with lengthy dialog i dont got voice actors so for story purposes there will have to be. An the text in the box was just a test for my self not actual in game text But yeah gui atm is my main concern hopping to be fully done with it in the next week. thanks for your input very much appreciated!

@zenGarden Thanks! amd to answer your question, probably only see closer views in cut scenes at some points and for some of the actions in battle. other wise it will be topdown.

@Darrkbeast Thanks!

 

Excellent work for a start.

First off I disagree with Asvarduil on the Title's font. I actually really like it for what you've shown so far and personally find it's not too hard to read as long as you can read period. When I look at the images I think of a very nature and forest style game. So the Title's font reminds me of vines which actually makes me feel like it fits. But that's just how I feel towards it.

I do however agree with Asvarduil on the rest of his points. Some of the text is way too small and should be increased at least some as well as the scaling on your rect's in the in game menu.

I also like the image of the main menu a lot and the environment seems like something I would enjoy looking at when playing.

 

@Foestar Thanks and yeah i plan on keeping the title the way it is ive tried many fonts an nothing fits what i was going for except this one. Ill replace the pic of the dialog in a day or so when i got time to. but the pic thats there was just a test an the font has since been changed.

 

I agree with Asvarduil about the title, but if you do decide to keep the font, which isn't a bad decision, maybe separate it more clearly from the background with a white outer glow instead of the off green color it is now. It blends in with the background slightly because the outer glow is similar to the tone and saturation of level of the colors in the environment.

Overall though it has pleasing aesthetics.

 

Taking in what @Asvarduil said about the menu screen i have redone it and sized it up a bit me personally i like this new one and will keep it but still would like to know what you all think

@theANMATOR2b Ill see how that works out as of now im using a green shadow with a blue glow ill try it out with a white glow to see if it stands out more. Thanks for the input!

Heres the new pic of the menu screen, the equip button shows the hover image.

 

That looks a lot better. Also, your mistletoe and fruit details in the corner of your box are visible, and only minimally squished. That's a really cool detail, and a little layout made it that much better! Good call.

The up-scaled text is also easier to read, and take in at a glance. Personal preference is, due to how little information you're showing, it could be slightly bigger still, but we're slowly edging into 'personal preference' territory. Still...I think that helped, quite a bit.

Looking forward to your next updates!

EDIT: Some minor details:

• The plural of 'bounty' is 'bounties.'
• Sora's name overlaps the mistletoe detail in the top left corner of the party detail. Her light green name makes it begin to blend into that detail. There's a couple of solutions to this, but I think a better idea is to give your party detail equidistant gutters from the top left corner of the box, so that it fits within the box, but without overlapping your box details.
• Also, adding equidistant gutters to the player detail would help with the player stat display, because right now it feels exceptionally 'long', and the HP/SP/XP counters are really far from the label of the bar that they are tracking; it requires moving your eyes to make the connection! (It may seem nitpicky, but good UI design comes off that way in my experience...at first. Then, your customer complains and you wind up re-laying out your GUI...but, enough broad horror stories from my day job!)

 

@Asvarduil I was going to scale it up a bit more but then i was running into issues with line size with area names. other wise i would have made it bigger so instead i used a bold style on the font to compensate for text size.

 

Other than the excellent advice that Asvarduil has given you, I guess I don't really see the point in the fruits and flowers on the menu. It adds variety I suppose, but it also adds clutter, and looks kind of strange half dangling off like that. I think the menus would look cleaner without it.

I do like the font on the title screen though. Reminds me of the Mana games!

A few more things:

1. It's a pet peeve of mine, but I bloody hate bikini armor
2. Sora is the name of the main character in Kingdom Hearts, and this is what will come up in the first results on Google. I know you already registered a domain and all that, but it may be problematic..especially since you're in the same genre.
3. The game title "Sora A Tale of A Hero" is kind of a run-on fragment (with incorrect title casing). I'd change it to something like: "Sora: A Hero's Tale".

Keep up the good work.

 

I like the fruits and stuff : p
I do agree that the name might be an issue, that was the first thing that came to my mind when i read the title, kind of thought it was some Kingdom Hearts fan game : p
If its a JRPG i guess the Bikini Armor is almost a must have, lol

 

@BeefSupreme Yeah i took all that into consideration. But seems not to be to much of an issue if you Google "sora a tale" its right there on first page. As for the title, its set in stone. i did once have it like you suggested but changed it to what it is now and am going to keep it as is Also the less armor you have on the more powerful it is!

 

lol, right on. Guess I'm gonna start doing my coding wearing just a codpiece then!

 

@BeefSupreme lol Send me a pic of that and ill stick it in my game as a Easter Egg

 

As we all know, the protection conferred by female armor is inversely proportional to the amount of skin said armor covers. Absolutely!

 

How about I do us both a favor and NOT do that

Just out of curiosity, have you started designing the battle system yet? Always been my favorite part of JRPGs.

 

@BeefSupreme Yeah its in the works. Only have a prototype atm. But its going to be a basic turned based system, with random battles. Since im doing a top down view i have to do the battles in a different scene which is causing some issues with placement atm. But its on my list of things to fix once i get to it. The battle system it self will probably take me a month to get just right. If i can figure out how to add in a bunch of cool animations like group attacks and or summons then they will go in to it as well (Ork Framework is limited on this part). But as of right now the character has 1 normal attack and a heal for testing which the normal attack still needs tweaking since sfx and fx are out of sync with the attack it self.

 

Heres a couple more screen shots of the in game menu 1 is of the items screen with a tool tip hover and then 1 of the equipment screen with out hover and one with the hover. Im hopping as soon as Gil answers my question i can do something about the text spacing on the equipment parts its spaced to far apart on the shorter named parts which annoys me. So heres the new pics an as always tell me what you think!

 

Nicely done.

 

Wow, excellent work taking in what others have said and blending with your own. The menu looks super awesome now.
I understand what the others mean about the fruits. But I still like them and the name being a greenish hue personally. But I could understand a change to it.

It looks like it's all coming together quite nice. I agree with BeefSupreme on the skimpy bikini armor. I generally hate when characters are wearing nothing. But in some rare occasions I don't mind it. Generally when it's expected like native characters. But I would expect them to be vulnerable.

Anyways, keep up the great work!

 

Heres some new pics of the menu. This time around its just the option screen and a look at the soul power menu. The soul power window is basically the same set up as the items screen with the tool tip hover except all spell icons will have different boarders to show there attribute affinity. As always feel free to give input!





Ignore the spelling error its already been fixed

 

Heres some pics of the inside of the main characters house.

 

Good S***. Really loving the art style.

 

That's really clean and nice 3D art, it reminds me the "tales of" games interiors, beautifull.

 

Heres 2 pics of the item shop. i went for lighter shadows and lightened the shadows in the first interior pics to lightened the rooms a bit. working on the chiefs house atm still have 4 all together to do. which im hopping will be done before end of week. then its on to the battle system!





The npc model in this pic may change not sure which i want to use yet..

 

Quick update on platform release. Along with the Windows PC version I will be releasing on the Nintendo Wii U as well, before porting to mobile. Release date is still set for some time in 2015.

 

The more recent screen shots look a lot better.

Where I come from, a female hero is called a heroin.

 

You are right man. This heroin(e) and art style is dope

 

@Zomby138 female hero's dont need to be called a heroine. a hero is a hero no matter what sex they are. If your referring to the title that's not changing weather it would be a male or female but thanks for the input .

@primus88 Thanks!

 

Nice stuff! Good job!

 

I updated my site with a bunch of info and some new screen shots! No time to put them up here ill work on that later sorry.

http://www.nissyokugames.com/

 

Just a update on the progress im making. With all interior sections done for the first area i have started work on the battle system. As of now i got a prototype but its bug ridden so it will be a bit before its complete. once its done i will post some pics.

 

I see a future successfull indie game.
Keep up the good work.

 

@zenGarden Would be nice if it was ! Thanks!

Update: While im working on the battle system im also working on the first connection area The Withering Forest. Also along with the new area i will also be releasing a little more detail on the story line aspect of Sora A Tale of a Hero. So look forward to these new updates !

 

You should believe lot more in yourself and hat you do, really.
The overall levels, graphics , lightening are really good andit's the beginning only.
Main point will be to make a game not borring, if you can find a story with many plots ,mystery that makes the player wanting to play forward. Also the battle system i don't know how il you make it ? Menus only like FF games ? Menus + action buttons (Mario and Luigui RPG ) ? Or some action RPG system instead (Tales of games, FF Crysis core) ?
You can take a look for inspiration at a game like Xenoblade for the story, this is one rare game with story as involving as FF7.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GtLIVHUeAg&list=PL8_MtrUoIAHuQ8e6h92uMNcZ3IsNxurCI&index=1

 

@zenGarden Well i already got a story line waiting to be implemented with 1 or 2 side story's as well. ff7 style menus only turned based for combat system. Story line i have alot of faith in but main problem for me and probably take me the longest to do is the cinematics since i have never done them. To be honest this is my first game attempt. Ive played around with UE4, cryengine, and rpgmaker but never really did much with them. And since im no coder im using ORK framework. Like i said in my very first post im a story writer which is the only thing i got faith in lol. But all in all im quite happy with how every thing is working out so far. And im learning alot. just really time consuming. I think on my days off i spend almost 15 to 18 hours working on this game. But all in all from what i can see my biggest problem will be cinematics and a game trailer. Which if im lucky ill get to get started on those soon as i finish the battle system. I just hope I can figure out how to do these cinematics well enough to not ruin the quality of the game.


On a side note im releasing the first screen shots of The Withering Forest to the Unity Community first i dont plan to put any on my site till i finish the area but this is what i worked on last night in between tearing my hair out on the battle system.

First pic has no lightning ]



The second pic has lightning Image had to be cropped a bit more due to this site telling me the file was to big

 

It looks great.
About intro : Do like Zelda wind waker , some drawings and some text resuming the situation, than some camera travelling trhought some part of the level and finding the hero you control. Many games used stylised drawing and text instead of full CSG intros. Keep intro for for the end of development when you will have some almost complete game instead.
There is some cinematic tool on the asset store to make real time intro instead of CSG movie, where you can animate and change characters animations also any time on a timeline.

For cut scenes there is many clever cheap ways :
- like above using some tool to make real time cut scenes for action scenes only
- during dialog, using lypsynch and behaviour animations could be too much work for a small project, instead you oculd do like many games and keep the camera far away from characters and bring drawings of characters portraits with the right emotion and put the dialog text on top of the 3D scene.

Well, you can just look up at how low budget games deal with that

 

@zenGarden yeah i was planing on the portrait route for the cut scenes ORK has a built in thing for this which will allow for scene transitions as well so that i can kind of fade out and fade in to another scene which opens alot of ways to do things. I do have voice actors but my models are not set up for lip synch anyways. But even with the portraits and voice actors i lack the artist so far all the portraits are screens of my characters fixed up in Photoshop. But then again i guess i could still go that route if i just set up the scenes right and take a screens shot of it... but im thinking of doing what you suggested for dialog for the cinematics as well with a little more camera movement and character animation. I have no idea if this is a good idea or not for cinematics or if it would even work the way im thinking.. but i guess id have to try it out and just get input on it later when im ready to do this sort of thing. But i think my first thing i will try is a game trailer and perfect that cause im thinking of maybe doing a kickstarter . Havent really decided on this yet but i still want to get a decent trailer ready for Steam Greenlight.

 

About the cut scenes thaught about no transitions at all.
When you enter some area, You load a new scene where your heroes arrives in front of some boss from a TPS camera far above them, so you see them and you just bring in the lower part of the screen on the left the boss portrait, in the right the hero portrait talking, and you just put text on the middle. Or other ways like Chrono Cross or Vagrant Story dialogs, also why not FF7 style ?

About portraits you can simply take screenshots o your in game characters, than just turn them to something cartoon or stylized using image filters, but for emotions hand drawn would be better, you can find some artists on CG forums ready to help.

 

@zenGarden Thanks man your input really helps ill see what i can do when the time comes!

 

I'm not a big fan of the anime character style since I prefer some clothes with my women (yah, yah, I'm oldschool).

Other then that I think it looks really good. The Environments look great and kinda remind me of the old zelda games which is definitley a good thing. And the Ui fits well with the theme.

Would love to hear some info on the combatsystem. Are there any plans for gameplay videos anytime soon?

Good luck and keep it up.

 

@inko Atm combat system will be a Final Fantasy 7 Turned based style system nothing to fancy. Since i cant script even if my life depended on it.Why I thank God for frameworks like ORK framework. Hats off to "Gaming is love" he does a hell of a job!

And to answer your question about game play vids yes once i get the battle system done in the next week or so i will start doing some. Just to show how the battle system is set up. I figured it would be easier to show than to try to take screen shots of the system. But i cant promise anything to fancy Since I'm using what ORK has and have to go with what i got. I might have some summons not to sure yet if i want to do this since i have a huge array of spells to work with There will be alot of magic attacks the melee attacks will be made of of just combos like combo attack 1 2 3 ect... of course the names will be different and i will have graphics for them. but all in all i do plan to have it working good and clean when its finished. Party size will be 3 members not sure yet on how many members you will be able to acquire yet but im thinking a total of 5 or 6 atm. with 3 as main cast.

Hope that gives you some better detail on what to expect.

 

Wow! This looks awesome!! Just something I saw as a graphic designer: The text for the dialogs is too small, has so much text and also has a incorrect font because the Serif (and general style). That alone doesn't let the player enjoy the story at all. The font should be a Sans-serif and clear font, presented in little peaces and in a really comfortable size the eyes so the player doesn't make any effort to get into the plot, also, every text in-game should be the same, that's a basic rule of UI/UX Design. I hope this helps you

 

@DaveyD since those pics the font and dialog size has been changed the long text dialog was just a test to make sure it worked during prototyping.

 

Oh, I see. That's good to know. good luck with the game, I'm gonna be following it!

 

Here is some news on the game ?