- Joined
- Dec 3, 2017
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- 847
Story
Our intention is to create a feature-rich RPG that combines everything we love from old point-and-click adventures, action games, and puzzle platformers of the late 80s, all of this without the constraints of old technology, and with a strong emphasis on exploration gameplay throughout. We want to push pixel art aesthetics to their limits and use present technology for gameplay features and content that would never have been possible in the early years of computer games.
Why? In spite of being detained at a distant island monastery where all the intellectuals, scholars, monks and scribes are kept prisoners by the ruling power, he sees how all old records of the past are slowly destroyed, books rewritten and art over-painted. All in the way that suits the Emperor and his dogma.
He can't let the true history just be forgotten so he escapes the Island and starts searching for pieces of already lost history all over the continent.
And to complicate matters, our protagonist's quest is deemed a crime against The Emperor, necessitating utmost caution in every interaction. In this unforgiving landscape, secrecy is paramount. With eyes and ears lurking at every corner, our Scribe must tread carefully, mindful of the risks inherent in his mission to unveil the hidden truths of the Continent.
We chose a side scrolling platformer type of gameplay because we wanted to create an RPG where moving around the world is a gameplay by itself. We wanted to avoid a "walking simulator" as it is often the case in other RPGs where you just move from point A to point B. And if there is no combat in between the places, there is in essence no gameplay. With platforming, jumping puzzles and more, in Scribe, you always find yourself facing challenging environments.
Indeed, given that the art of this game is painstakingly crafted pixel art, our aim was to ensure that each location serves as a visual reward for players, while also enhancing the experience of traveling between them.
Here is small taste of what you can expect when you move around The Continent
There is a full day and night cycle and a dynamic weather system. And the world reacts to that. For example, it is more dangerous to venture into the forest during the night than during the day. But if you want to hunt some wolves, you better wait until nightfall.
The mechanic of writing your manuscript in our game is all wrapped around gathering information and clues we call "knowledge." A certain set of knowledge can form a "fact" that can be dragged and dropped into the page schema.
Finalizing the manuscript page gives you the final page illustration, and rewards you with experience points, skill points etc.
When you point at some entity, there may be various options available, similar to point and click adventure games. The "inspect" option is almost always present but there could be options like Discuss, Open, Use etc. Possibilities are limitless.
- Charisma - giving you a reputation boost in dialogues and trade.
- Strength - a higher number gives you more hit points and also affects the amount of damage dealt by close range weapons.
- Agility - a higher number means you grow your stamina but it also makes ranged weapons more effective. Additionally, your stealth skill becomes better.
- Magic - a higher number means that you can be charged up with more manna, and the magic weapons strength becomes higher.
Each weapon mode has its own cost. Close combat depletes stamina, while using bows also consumes stamina, although players have a finite supply of arrows. And magic needs manna, so a player must be charged with it. Powerful spells can take some of the player’s health when used.
By approaching another stealth object while in stealth mode, you can replenish your stealth and remain undetected.
Scribe has been in pre-production development for three years already. We have been working on it during our free time as a hobby and as a challenge to create something meaningful for ourselves. As we are progressing in our effort, we would like to reach out to possible future gamers, and gauge their opinion about this project.
We cannot imagine a better way to validate whether we are on the right path than asking potential players to back us via Kickstarter. If successful, it would be a big boost and help for us to deliver the best product possible. Navigating the journey from the pre-production stage to delivering a shippable product remains a significant endeavor.
We have done our vertical slice. That means a small part of the game is fully playable with all the features, mechanics, graphics, quests and art. That part will be later released as a free playable demo for certain backers. This should have full Scribe gameplay experience with roughly two hours of gameplay. This is already done but still needs some polishing.
What we need to do is design, implement and test the rest of the game world.
This means we need to add the remaining content into the game. While we have thoroughly planned out the entire story, the precise extent and details of the content hinge on our success here, on Kickstarter.
All the above might sound demanding and yes, it is. But we believe that with backing and with a few team reinforcements, we can deliver the full game within two years, with the scope and content as planned.
Risks and challenges
This is an ambitious project for a team of two. We are well aware of that, and we know that meeting all the deadlines we set for the project, and especially delivering the physical rewards might be challenging. We understand that the project is still in development and there are many issues that need to be addressed.However, if successful, we want to expand our team with people we believe can help us meet the goals set for the project.As we mentioned, the vertical slice is done. The main challenge now is to create the content, to translate our vision and ideas into reality.Is it a risk that there is only two of us? Yes and no. We got already so far without any funding, and we are not planning to ship the final product in a hurry. We certainly expect an approximately two years of additional work.But with the help of Kickstarter - apart from working on the game full time - we would like to hire a writer to translate our story into proper words and a sound designer to add sound where there is silence today.
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Really beautiful art style, as if Skyrim's and Kingdom Come's original concept art was by old Disney animators brought to life 
