Chefe
Erudite
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2005
- Messages
- 4,731
American Hare is dead.
Final Post said:
Everything about American Hare can now be found here:
http://americanhare.wordpress.com/
Third post said:The Ultimate Game of Choices and Consequences!
You play as a humanoid black-tailed jackrabbit, waking up in the small Mexican town of Santa Rosalía, in Baja California. You don't know who you are, what you are, why you are here, and how you came to be. Travel through Central American and discover the mystery behind your own creation.
American Hare is an alternative style RPG I've had swimming around in my head for a while. I plan on it being an intuitive text-based RPG with a slick interface and hand-drawn sprite cutscenes and backgrounds. This isn't a swords and magic fantasy game, it's not a futuristic game, and it's not a post-apocalyptic game either. I'm getting tired of these. The year is 2287 C.E., and things are realitively similar to now, except for the obvious technical advances and some geography changes. You play as a rabbit who wakes up in Santa Rosalía, on the peninsula of Baja California. You start in a room that is almost completely empty. It turns out that you are in the house of a family that discovered you. They're extremely religious, and think you're a demon. Your first mission is to escape.
It's a classic amnesia tale, only this time you don't even know your name, and the only thing you do know is that you're not human. Your quest is to discover why you are a talking rabbit. You'll traverse large parts of Central America, mingle with the locals, get work in various fields, and make connections that will link you to the source of how you came into existence.
I plan on a wide range of paths you can take. In good RPG style, none of these paths are set in stone. They will twist and turn as you progress through the story. Here are several eventual paths I have thought up that I believe are interesting.
- For the people who like to play goody-two shoes, watch out. Picking the good option will not always be easy. You might find yourself turning into a religious fanatic or a psychopathic vigilante of justice before you realize it. You could be so good that people come to hate you for your better-than-everyone ego.
- For the people who like to play pure evil, you're not safe either. Death is permanant, and you can find yourself in situations that it is impossible to get out of without restarting the game. If you do want to be evil, and go out of your way to make the meanest possible choices, you will find yourself coming face to face with the moral choice being the most beneficial.
- It will be very easy to become a lunatic in this game. You are a talking rabbit, after all.
The dialog class system assigns you points for most dialog choices in either the good, bad, or crazy territories. These determine what kind of character you are and drastically shape the way you can interact with the game world.
Combat and death will not be handled lightly. There are no turning random corners to find yourself face to face with a hostile gang who wants to battle right there in the streets for no apparent reason. There are no random battles or monsters, or anything like that.
You choose your skills at the start of a new game. That's it. What about your name? Well, because of the amnesia, you don't know it. You will obtain different names throughout the game based on what people call you. You could go around calling yourself El Diablo or Fluffy, to name a few.
Skill system
Your skills determine what you can accomplish. You are given four points, and each skill can have either one, two, or no points in it.
The available skills are Mind (Intelligence), Body (Strength), and Focus (Skillfulness).
Job system
Each job or career provides connections and a way to travel around the world, which is very important as you cannot simply walk from city to city (you'd die in the desert).
The available jobs are migrant farming, missionary work, and drug trafficking.
Evil
This will be the first RPG to give you true evil choices. Being bad isn't just about random killings and demanding rewards anymore. If some paths are so incredibly amoral that no one can bring themselves to actually travel them, then my job was a success.
Locations
The story will be centered around the countries of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Second post said:You play as a humanoid black-tailed jackrabbit, waking up in the small Mexican town of Santa Rosalía, in Baja California. You don't know who you are, what you are, why you are here, and how you came to be. Travel through Central American and discover the mystery behind your own creation.
The assisted skill paradigm means that skill work in tandem with each other. Body and Speech give you the power of physical intimidation, for example. Mind, Body, Focus, Speech, and Tech are your available skills.
The dialog class system assigns you points for most dialog choices in either the good, bad, or crazy territories. These determine what kind of character you are and drastically shape the way you can interact with the game world. Your greedy bandito might discover that the most beneficial way is the most moral, or your do-good samaritan could become a religious extremist before you realize it. There is no turning back, and no last minute morality changes. This is a game of extremes.
Where to visit while traversing the region?
USA
- Arizona
- Nevada
- Texas
- Florida
Mexico
Guatemala
Honduras
Belize
San Salvadore
Panama
Cayman Islands
What about jobs? You can find work as a Humanitarian, Migrant Farmer, Archeologist, Agent, and Circus Performer.
Input, criticisms, praise, suggestions, and pictures of Carrie Underwood are welcome.
Original post said:This is an alternative style RPG I've had swimming around in my head for a while. I plan on it being an intuitive text-based RPG with a slick interface and hand-drawn sprite cutscenes and backgrounds. The problem is, I have no experience with programming, so anyone out there who can give me some tips on where I should start would be great. I figure it would be not that difficult for me to learn how to program a text based game.
This isn't a swords and magic fantasy game, it's not a futuristic game, and it's not a post-apocalyptic game either. I'm getting tired of these. The year is 2287 C.E., and things are realitively similar to now, except for the obvious technical advances and some geography changes. The game will take place in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and eventually Arizona. You play as a rabbit who wakes up in Santa Rosalía, on the peninsula of Baja California. You start in a room that is almost completely empty. It turns out that you are in the house of a family that discovered you. They're extremely religious, and think you're a demon. Your first mission is to escape.
It's a classic amnesia tale, only this time you don't even know your name, and the only thing you do know is that you're not human. Your quest is to discover why you are a talking rabbit. You'll traverse large parts of Central America, mingle with the locals, get work in various fields including drug trafficing and migrant farming, and make connections that will link you to the source of how you came into existence.
I plan on a wide range of paths you can take. In good RPG style, none of these paths are set in stone. They will twist and turn as you progress through the story. Here are several eventual paths I have thought up that I believe are interesting.
- For the people who like to play goody-two shoes, watch out. Picking the good option will not always be easy. You might find yourself turning into a religious fanatic or a psychopathic vigilante of justice before you realize it. You could be so good that people come to hate you for your better-than-everyone ego.
- For the people who like to play pure evil, you're not safe either. Prison and death are permanant, and you can find yourself in situations that it is impossible to get out of without restarting the game. If you do want to be evil, and go out of your way to make the meanest possible choices, you will find yourself coming face to face with the moral choice being the most beneficial. You might turn into a Robin Hood type figure.
- For the people who like to play pure neutral, you're in the wrong game.
- It will be very easy to become a lunatic in this game. You are a talking rabbit, after all.
Combat and death will not be handled lightly. There are no turning random corners to find yourself face to face with a hostile gang who wants to battle right there in the streets for no apparent reason. There are no random battles or monsters, or anything like that.
It is probably a good time to describe stats. The stats are static, and while there are secret ways to obtain an extra point or two (similar to Fallout), they will, for the most part, not change. They also build on top of each other. The stats are Brain, Persuasion, Guile, Science, Tech, Muscle, Survival, and Weapons.
Brains
This affects your overall intelligence level. That's it. Max this out if you want to be an idiot savant. You'll need some points allocated here to really get anywhere in the game, from helping your other skills to understanding advanced words that people will use (for example, low brains won't allow you to understand the word "specific", it will come up as a random garbled letters). You can play without any brains, but it will be really, really tough and probably not that fun. With Persuasion, brains will give you a wider selection of intelligent options to use.
Persuasion
How affective you are at persuading someone, obviously. The neat thing here is that it is useless without high skill in another area to determine how you can persuade.
Guile
Lie, cheat, backstab. Resolve issues through cunning and wit. Solve puzzles and create them with masterful trickery. With persuasion in the back wing, you can become a very successful liar.
Science
Givin your intentions, to find out why you're a talking rabbit, you will come across many people in the scientific community, and will have opportunities to solve scientific problems. This is the second most useless skill in the game, but it will give you a greater understanding of the "main quest".
Tech
As the years go on, machines become even more integral to our lives. In the 23rd century, dependency has reached an extreme. Knowing how to operate, fix, and build technical devices is a very useful trait to have.
Muscle
You can move stuff and fight people. With persuasion, you can physically intimidate the hell out of them.
Survival
Survival is the most useless skill in the game. Well, that is, unless you don't want to be bothered with visiting towns. This is the free-roaming skill. You can roam for miles and miles into the barren desert living on cactus juice and bugs. Travel routes play a large part in the game, and with Survival you can bypass it all, even most of the story. Max it out and you won't even have to find work; just live off the land.
Guns
Shoot things, and, you know, shoot other things. Here's the combat skill. This governs what guns you can be proficient with, and how accurate you are. You'll need this skill to be at least 1/4 full to even consider violence as a major option.
As you can see, even the basic concept is a huge work in progress.
Thoughts?