Syma – Episode V

Syma

Syma is the spiritual successor to Scima Invasion Crew (SIC).  While SIC was fun to play about with the concept, after a while I started to feel like I was cramping it’s style by trying to cram too much extra stuff in when there was no plan for it in the original.  SIC was, after all, designed as a two-day-to-make game.

Syma is a reimagining of that concept in the form of a Hub-Based Missions system that allows me to glue on extra content whenever and wherever I feel like it, as I come up with it, without affecting the style or theme of the game.
Overall it contains most of the basic stuff that SIC had, but in a much neater and more refined way, as well as containing several new tilesets, classes, scripts and challenges!

I consider the game technically complete, as the core gameplay is all there and working: the missions, classes, skills, levels etc.  Everything fundamental is there and working, and from now on there’ll only be additions and updates.  Instead of try to just pointlessly define when it’s completed and never update it again, I’ve decided to declare it complete now, and update it MMO style every so often as I come up with new content in the guise of “Episodes”.
Not that there’s nothing in it already!  By now, it’s already in Episode V and includes hours of gameplay and over a dozen missions, and Episode VI includes more classes, side missions and more options overall.

Since I update it just as and when I feel there’s enough new content to justify an update, I don’t want to have to sit and reupload stuff to Mediafire every time then run around updating hyperlinks, so instead of focussing my attention on RMN, where I can just update the file freely and easily.  RMN also has more screenies than I have on this blog, as well as more in-depth information and better coverage of the features:

Syma on RMN!

Pixel Brady: Scima Invasion

Some screenies to go with this blether?

Scima Invasion, lazily titled by breeding Sci-Fi and fantasy magic into the system, is a short repeatable game based around a small crew of specialists who invade a rebel base to save the world or some such. Truthfully there’s not really much of a story!

Features, you ask?

• Sci-Fi & Magic! Handguns, grenades, combat specialists and magicians all wrapped up together in a mission to punch through an evil base!
• Simple maps, simple graphics, simple story. It’s a simple game with simple mechanics. Sounds boring maybe, but that’s part of the point; to just be able to dive right in and play with class combinations!
• No free recovery points or Inns to stay at. You need to rely entirely on your crew and any supplies you find. You begin with plenty of supplies but they start running out as the enemies get stronger! Conservation is key!
• No levels! Your crew is always stronger and better than any baddies you find (except bosses!) so your only worry is supply attrition; can you save all your best stuff for the bosses?
• Ten available classes to mix, match and combine into your crew. With eight common skills between everyone and four unique skills per class, there’s plenty of tactical differences between using each class.
• All skills have unique and varied damage calculations which are shown in the descriptions for you to accurately and tactically decide which skills are best used at any given time.
• Permanent death! Losing someone hurts your chances of completing the mission, but airlocks across the base allow you a chance to request backup from four other crew members waiting to aid you!
• Three different paths leading to the bases inexplicable core. Each path can be backtracked and taken (if you want) to give you different bosses and paths to take when trying different class combos.
• Unlockable Boss Rush Mode!  Fight every boss in the game in direct succession with no ammo refills, no backup calls and no breathing time between!

Oh, it was Details you wanted?
It’s a simple game based off a simple concept I wanted to try implementing. There’s literally more tutorial textboxes than there are dialogue/story, as that was never really a part of it. I liked the idea of seeing sci-fi and fantasy magic put together (which is something I rarely see) but wasn’t as interested in story as the concept itself.
It also helped with the skills, as I mixed together “tech points” (a victor script) and mp use. Between the ten classes who have their own skilltrees, everyone has a various mix of skills utilising both of them to different degrees. By then putting unique damage calcs to each skill that involved a mixture of stats, and then limiting ammo boxes and mp tonics, it forces you to tactically decide which skills to use when, so you always have some left over for the boss.

These classes include a Marine who uses firearms to attack. These weapons do very strict damage that’s modified only by an enemies defence. They target single enemies, while Grenadiers will use explosives that target everyone.
There’s also a Healer who uses magic that heals based both on their magic attack, but the targets own magic stats as well. Healers use magic to heal whole groups at once, while Medics use single target heal and buffs that (non-magically) deal strict amounts rather than stat based.

The rest of the game? The mapping is uninspired visually, although the game as a whole is mapped out in such a way that there are three separate routes to the boss (with backtracking possible) so I just spent more time actually planning routes than trying to prettify it. I kept one tileset throughout the whole game, but made an effort to change the basic visual look after every couple of bosses.

But besides that; you can save anywhere, death is a permanent feature so you have to conserve even peoples lives, but every so often you’ll find an airlock where you can request up to four more people to come and help you.
Most importantly is just the cute, chibi battle appearance! So harmless looking, but I think it goes well

Anyhoo, blether over.

The game was made in a couple of days so is the main reason it appears so simplistic or even sparse, but again; t’was more about putting the concept into practice than making a pretty game.  These types of games can always be remade if they work after this stage!

Will be out soon; just wanna finish playtesting it and polishing it up.

Full Project Mapping

http://rpgmaker.net/games/4175/blog/7737/

sbester commented on his game profiles blog that he had nearly finished mapping for the entire project, yet got months worth of eventing to go.  Now this is strange to me, as I (as I’m sure many do) make the game one map at a time, with the full eventing and maps within it, with only a couple of other side maps that are needed at the same time.  Making the entire games worth of maps seemed, at first, bizarre and weird, because “how would you know where everything goes?” but then again, you make things happen based on the map; there actually seems very little reason to not map everything first.

I’ve been thinking about it and am so curious to try it out now, because part of my problem in updating is thinking that I need to start everything from scratch and that sheer exhaustion puts me off; the potential to just finish eventing and move onto the next map ready to set it all up straight away would get rid of that, create more of a flow with game making.  It’s not very flowing to have to stop, think, find tilesets, build the map up, then get back to eventing.

Should try it on one of the projects but not sure yet.  Might do it on my next mini-project (which I have some ideas about, at least!)