Selatria and My Game Design Philosophy

Selatria:

I have been working on Selatria (almost) non-stop the last few days. I want to be done with all of the main cut-scenes by the end of the month... hopefully. Most of August and September will be spent making them look pretty, swapping graphics and appropriate animations in as they're finished...

The goal is to have chapter 1 done by the end of the year. I am planning on releasing Chapter 1 for free, and the whole game for sale via digital distribution. It'll likely be sold for less than 10 dollars, nothing too extravagant, but I at least want to use this project for funding for some licenses in the future. (As well as compensate the team, obviously!)




Although Mage is technically the main character, his best friend Melodia cares for him and has more of a cold-hearted/beat-them-up personality than other role-playing game female archetypes.




While Mage is naive and overconfident, Melodia is very intelligent and often taunts her enemies (and even friends) if she feels that they aren't worth her effort.

These particular cut-scenes I'm working on is in chapter 1 when Mage and Melodia return home. They come to see that their home has been taken over, and unsure of who or what has done such a thing, they charge through their town of Availia trying to find answers.





Game Design Philosophy:

Selatria is the second game project that I have worked on and the first of which I actually worked on a team with. Dojo Adventure I primarily developed by myself, and I felt like there was a lot of things I could have done differently. And I still may revamp the whole game after I finish Selatria, depending on if I am motivated enough or not...

Going off that tangent, my main motivation for Selatria was to have a really classic RPG experience mixed with somewhat of a new feel with games that come out now. (Like a lack of excessive punishment for example.)

I remember playing Lufia for the first time in the mid-1990's and watching the Sinistrals in battle die epically in the beginning scene. It wasn't a FMV or anything like that, you got to control the battles and everything in the opening sequence, prophecy, whatever.





The only problem was that there required an excessive amount of grinding and walking back and forth, I hate grinding. And I think I developed a good alternative to it, but without making the game feel short because of it. I'll have to explain that in a future blog post! (If the design and plans go as intended.)


Downloadable Content:

I don't really believe in DLC in the form of having to spend money on new outfits or anything like that, but I wouldn't be against the idea of designing bonus chapters at the end of the main story and sell them off. It depends on how the game is received when it's completed.



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Perhaps I should go try and get some sleep now. On Friday, I will post my next write up on Naoki Yoshida. I have a lot I want to say about FFXIV's future.



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