Malavon Bio

It's Malavon! Oh noes! Wait, who's this guy again? He's one of the characters you encounter later in the game. He has an interest in gemstone McGuffins and a curiosity for magic. He's got a snazzy cloak and he's short. Heh.

Since Baru and Malavon have a similar outlook on magic, the two are usually competing with each other. There are a few instances where the two do battle to compare abilities. Malavon has a flat personality that doesn't really fit in with the party; he only stays with the group for a short time. His back story is mostly shrouded, but whose isn't these days.

Malavon is a Magi with little to no aptitude in melee combat. He has a good understanding of fire and ice magic. He can also cast a sleep spell that works well with his offensive magic. Malavon is able to skip his turn in battle to focus his abilities, increasing his MAG stat. He can use blunt weapons, but prefers staffs. He always wears a pentagram that gives him some resistance to bad status, and he is vulnerable to silver weapons.

Flooded Cavern

Here's a wateralicious level. You're sure to find a lot of plot points down here. What is it exactly? Well, it's a cavern. Filled with water. Hey, at least it isn't a generic sewer environment that inevitebly plagues most games. The music played here is called Cystal Teardrops from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Anyway, stop reading this blather and look at the pretty pictures.


You can swim in the water. Okay, more like, you can walk at the bottom of the sea floor (wtf). When submerged, you have a limited air capacity. Once that runs out, you die. It makes exploration of this area dangerous. The higher your aptitude with Water, the easier swimming is. You can also have some fun jumping around if you're adept with Air instead.


Don't count on your allies to help you here. Tsujin just flies over water and Skully's wolf form swims very quickly. You can find an item called The Holy Snorkle that gives you a slight boost in air capacity. Oh, and today is the first time I posted screenies of Tsujin with her wings.


Check out the gemstone McGuffin. A blue elemental stone in an area of water? Maybe there's some sort of connection/pattern! Har har har.

Items

If I were to ever print a manual for the game, this would definitely be a section. Why? Because good manuals have random lists. Since this 'blog' is looking more like a manual than a log, I might as well load it with mundane lists like this. So, check out these items:

Green Herb: Heals 40 HP. You can find these all over maps and TheDave sells them. Most towns don't sell these.
Exotic Herb: Heals 150 HP and cures paralyze. You can find these in remote areas, and sometimes TheDave sells them. Towns sure don't.
Forbidden Herb: Heals all HP but 25% chance to set HP to 0 instead. Secret merchants sell these.
Dilute Potion: Cures 25% HP. Junk heal. Useful for healing yourself outside of battle when item usage won't waste a turn.
Potion: Cures 50% HP. Useful throughout the entire game. TheDave doesn't sell them, but every town will.
Full Potion: Cures all HP. Expensive, but useful in dire situations.
Grey Ether: Recover 25 MP. Ethers are expensive, but they fuel your special abilities.
Cyan Ether: Recover 70 MP. The bluer the ether, the better it is.
Blue Ether: Recover 150 HP. See?
Silver Ether: Recover 400 MP. Okay, so maybe silver isn't blue. Shush.
Black Ether: Recover MP, but drains HP. You can get these from monsters called Flying Hellfish. I forget what the exact numbers are. x_X
Prismatic Tonic: Recover all HP/MP. Good luck ever finding them.
Union Plume: Restore near-dead allies to 14 HP. Low-budget restoration item.
Phoenix Down: Restore near-dead allies with 40% HP. Mass produced somehow. Maybe there are Phoenix farms or something.
Phoenix Tear: Restore near-dead allies with all HP and recovers 80 MP. A revive of awesome.
Hero Meal: Full recovery for entire party at save points. Used to be called 'tent', but I figured that was a lame name.
Scroll of _____: Enables one time use of spell. There are dozens of scrolls, several emulating elemental skills, several unique.
_____ Orb: Causes a specific bad status to target when thrown. There's also a super powered version called the Omni Orb that inflicts every bad status.
_____ Tonic: Permanent stat increase. Comes in several different flavors. Always hidden in sneaky areas.
Card: You can look at cards any time (outside of battle). When you activate them, a card album appears and you can browse through the cards you've collected. Monster cards show you their stats, their skills, their resistances/weaknesses, and what items they can drop. The cards themselves are ridiculously hard to find but they can give you some insight. Gotta collect 'em all.

There are also a slew of status recovery items (antivenom, pills, restoration, etc), but this list is good enough as is. All it needs now is some pictures.

Teh Jamesy Bio

Teh Jamesy is a character only seen on the aforementioned hard mode. He's a bizarre character that is more or less the avatar of randomness. Sometimes he joins the party. Sometimes he attacks the party. Sometimes he does both in the same battle.

He has three main skills: Asian Strike, Asura Strike II, and Stealth. Asian Strike deals random damage and might cause random bad status; sometimes it's useless, sometimes it breaks the battle. Asura Strike II deals around 999 damage and causes every bad status (including instant death), but it costs more MP than Teh Jamesy has, making it utterly unusable. Stealth allows Teh Jamesy to escape from battle. He uses stealth all the time to sneak up on the party and to Ninj away. Teh Jamesy is the only character who is able to equip every weapon in the game.

"Apparently."
"Ninj!"

Extreme Mode

I like games with a good challenge. Although Awesome Adventure is challenging already, I decided to take things to the next step. You can set the difficulty to EXTREME when you start a new game. Extreme mode absolutely destroys casual gamers and noobs alike. It's also hilarious.

Start the party by going in to the Options menu. XSTREEM!

In extreme mode, all of the dialog has been rewritten. The characters are all very fourth wall breaking ("As long as we survive to make it to the save point.") and are paranoid of a horrible evil ("No, on a day like today, death is around every corner. Death will try to sneak up on you..."). Even the terrain itself is malevolent.

You'll have to master the system and rethink battle strategies in order to get through this vicious difficulty. Extreme mode deviates heavily from the plot. It's pretty nonsensical, but hilarious. There are several aspects of the game that are unique to this difficulty (e.g. Teh Jamesy encounters, Merewen as a playable character, an eviler version of Kyamu, etc). Try playing through the game on normal before attempting this.

Zelda Dungeon

Like any respectable RPG, this game has a slew of environments. I'll post details of a new area every few days. I'll start things off with the Zelda themed dungeon I mentioned before. Here are some screenies.
It's dark. You're able to light torches, but they only last a few seconds (or more depending on your aptitude with Fire). The darkness makes it hard to spot monsters slinking around.

There is a lot of hidden treasure in this dungeon. You'll need to find items to bypass various obstacles.

There are rupees scattered throughout the dungeon. Green ones are worth 1, blue 5, and red 20. They are shiny and make a charming blip effect when you collect them. There are several treasure rooms littered with these shiny grabables (yes, grabables).

The power glove, the hammer, flippers for swimming, these are all items you can find in this dungeon. Also note the hearts; you can collect them for free healing. Handy stuff! Since this dungeon will be Zelda themed (inspired from the SNES game), you can expect to see puzzles and pushable blocks.

Kyamu Bio

Kyamu is a mercenary. To make ends meet in times of peace, he does treasure hunting for some mysterious guild. He is completely oblivious to magic and always carries around a huge instrument of death (preferably a 2 handed sword). He would rather act than ponder and would rather fight than argue.

Kyamu does not have much social grace. Skully is afraid of his creepy vibe and some other characters are generally afraid of his death dealing persona. He randomly encounters the party and in a few instances, you have the option of joining him on one of his treasure hunts. In hard mode, he might attack the party if you piss him off. Sometimes he mocks the other characters if they are doing poorly (dieing to intro baddies), or if they are horribly under leveled.

As for skills, he has an assortment of basic sword and combat skills that don't consume any mana (he doesn't have any MP anyway). He has skills like Sharpen, Lunge, Cleave, Charging Golf Swing, among others. He can only use a special technique once every two turns, so they can't be effectively spammed. He is resistant to bludgeoning damage and is prone to bezerk. Below are some examples of facial expressions.

Voice sample: "Sounds interesting. I just came to buy something from TheDave." (Link)
Voice sample: "Anyway, I've got to get going. Don't get eaten or anything." (Link)

Bad Status

Before I go off on tangents about what skills can do, a fundamental understanding of the game would be teh pwn. Here are the bad status effects in the RPG. There are a few other 'status', like grappled and passive for scripted battles. Below are the common ones.

Near Death: Characters who fall to 0 HP are rendered unable to fight. If the entire party is prone, the monsters eat you and you die. GAME OVER, GG. x_X

Poison: Deals 5% Max HP damage per turn, so this skill will kill any target in 20 turns. Unlike most RPGs, many bosses can be poisoned. Persists even after battle.

Venom: Deals 10% Max HP damage per turn, double that of poison. This status only lasts a few turns, but it will ruin your HP by then.

Silence: Disables all magic tech and skills that require voice (like Insult). Lasts 4-10 turns.

Disable: Disables all non-magic tech, such as weapon techniques. Lasts 4-10 turns.

Confuse: Randomly attack allies or self. The effect is cancelled if the subject takes damage or after 3-8 turns. Magic attacks don't break the confusion.

Bezerk: Randomly attack enemies with a 30% miss chance. There is a small chance that damage may cancel the status, otherwise, lasts 3-8 turns.

Stun: Subject losses next action. Stunned targets lose all evasion.

Paralyze: Disables all action. Lasts 3-8 turns.


Sleep: Disables all action. Lasts 4-10 turns or until the sleeper takes damage.

Blind: 70% miss chance with physical attacks. You can still use items, defend, and use magic tech. Lasts 4-10 turns.

Merchants

Most monsters you beat will drop some cash. Some monsters drop items (such as equipment or consumables) while others leave behind poachable items (like scales or pelts). You can also find cash in yellow treasure boxes. Great, riches, but it's no good unless you can actually spend it. So how does the merchant system work?

Most of the game play will take place far from cities. You can usually find TheDave during these random adventures; he sells basic healing items and a few pieces of equipment. From time to time, the party will visit various towns. Most towns have a blacksmith, an alchemist, a magic shop, and a fur trader. The blacksmith sells a huge assortment of equipment, even very expensive late game stuff. Blacksmiths also repair damaged armor, and some can improve regular armor. Most alchemists sell healing and restoration items, while some sell offensive throwable items. Magic shops have expensive magic items and spell scrolls for sale... bet you couldnt've figured that one out. Fur traders exchange monster items for practical items. You can sell scales/pelts/etc to any vendor, but you get a better deal if you wait until you can get them to the trader.

There are also several secret merchants that sell ridiculous items. They are only found in the most clever of awesome secret places. So far, none of the play testers have found such a vendor. Kahahahah...

TheDave Bio

TheDave is an enigmatic character who is always on some kind of mission. He tends to find the party wherever they may be and has a sneaky influence on the plot. Sometimes he tells the others what he's doing and may even ask for help on the mission. He is a part of a mysterious guild that gives him the intel he needs. TheDave always overstocks on items and usually sells them to the party for a tidy profit. Since he can be found in the middle of dangerous areas, his random merchant services are very helpful.

TheDave's character class is Ranger. He is skilled with the bow and has minimal skill with Fire and Earth magic. He can develop his magic skills with the aforementioned gemstones. If he joins the party, the group gains a slew of items, so it's not a bad idea to follow him around. Even though he seems to be everywhere, he's only actually in one place at a time; you probably won't encounter him if you backtrack. TheDave has a tendency to take items from random treasure boxes before the party gets a chance to. Rest assured as he will probably sell them to you for sick prices.

"Yarp?"

Damage Types

There are a few set damage types in the game. Pretty much everything will have a specific set of strengths and weaknesses.

Physical damage types:

Slashing: Common damage dealt by blades. More effective against fleshy targets.

Blunt: Unarmed attacks, gloves, maces, and slam attacks. Great against things like skeletons.

Piercing: Teeth (wolf) and some special attacks deal this damage. More effective against large targets.

Ranged: Bows and throwables. Deals extra damage to flying things.

Silver: A special damage type that is particularly effective vs shape shifters and undead.

Magic damage types:

Fire: Deals huge damage. Very effective against snow dwelling creatures or flammable things (like mimics, the evil treasure chests).
Water: Ice blasts deal modest damage at a more affordable mana cost. It kills what fire can't.

Air: Deals more damage against flying enemies and less against burrowing ones.

Earth: Anything not weak against the other three elements is probably weak to this one.

Holy: Great for banishing demons and destroying undead. Not effective against Mystics.

Psionic: Very effective against spirits and magic beings. Not effective against constructs.

Dark: Corrupts and destroys all natural life. Not effective against hell-spawn.

Tsujin: Summon Wings

If you haven't guessed already, Tsujin can conjure wings and fly around. The wings are large, white, shimmering, and full of magical goodness. These wings give Tsujin a bunch of bonuses, but drain MP over time. When she summons them, she is purged of most bad status and gains significant regeneration per turn. She also gets new skills depending on how high her level is. Most of her tech is holy/divine stuff like Celestial Bolt (direct damage) or Wing Embrace (self heal/dispel). While flying, she is able to do some fancy sword attacks (disabled if you have a bow equipped instead). You can choose to end the flying state any time, or it will cancel if the battle ends or you run out of MP.

Wings are useful in combat, but Tsujin seems to use them all the time outside of combat as well. She is able to fly around and skip platforming segments entirely. Unfortunately, she can't carry both Baru and Skully so the three of them usually travel by foot. Since she enjoys spamming her wings, she'll probably wind up consuming all of the ethers the party has.

Tsujin Bio

Tsujin (also known as Zujin, Zujie, and Zuggles) is part of a group of people known as the 'Mystics' who live on floating islands. She spends most of her time on the surface world. She likes shiney things and ponies. She can sense auras and is easily scared. For example, if the party encounters a wasp, she runs around screaming the whole battle.

Tsujin has the ability to conjure shimmering white wings. These wings give her the ability to fly as well as a bunch of other bonuses. Her character is inspired largely from Legend of Dragoon. More info on this ability in the next update.

Other than simple blades, her weapon of choice are Bows. Bows deal extra damage to flying targets. Tsujin gains special techniques for both bows (i.e. snipe) and blades (i.e. flyby attack). She is resistant to holy magic and weak against psionic attacks.

Voice sample: "Because it's an adventure! And it's awesome!"(Link)
Voice sample: "You think splitting up in a monster infested cave is a good idea?!"(Link)

Leader Swapping

Check out the different styles of system menus.


While playing through the Awesome Adventure, your characters change their marching order and different people lead the party. Every time someone takes control of the party, the entire GUI and sound scheme change. Even the music is different for other characters. For example, Tsujin's system is green and pink and has a Zeldaish sound scheme.


Variety ftw.

Skully: Wolf Form

Lycanthropy makes Skully one of the most interesting characters to use. Since Skully levels slightly faster than other characters, it's possible to 'power level' one form to have an exclusive wolf or normal build. Both forms have their own tech skills.

Changing between the two forms uses up mana, but every time you make the switch, you recover some health. The wolf form has more HP, agility, and base attack damage than Skully, but has less MP and defense. The wolf form is also unable to cast spells, but it gets new abilities of its own. The wolf form gains a special resistance technique depending on what Skully's first element is. For example, if Skully leveled Earth, the wolf would have a skill called 'Jade Fur' that increases Earth resistance for the battle. The wolf can also use skills like Rend Flesh (big damage and causes disable) and Carnivorous (recover health from attack), among others. Late in the game, Skully becomes quite adept with dark magic.

At the start of most battles, Skully is in her normal form. Even if you end the battle in wolf form, she will usually revert to her normal self. At times when you are exploring the map, Skully may change forms to swim or jump past obstacles. She doesn't like using her wolf form in town for fear of random werewolf slayers hunting her for no reason. Slayers are bad news to Skully because they usually pack silver weapons which do triple damage to shapeshifters (ouch).

Skully Bio

"Sup, bitches." Skully is one of the protagonists in the RPG. She's got a sharp tongue and she points out people's idiocy. Her back story is mostly unknown, but she lives near a forest where she befriended a fat catlike thing named Totoro.

Skully is a lycanthrope; she has the ability to turn in to a wolf and back at will. This ability gives Skully a huge advantage in battle. When Skully gains experience, her normal form and her wolf form gain experience independently. Both forms have their own unique skills. For example, Skully can insult the enemy to cause bezerk, while the wolf can confuse the enemy with an eerie howl. Both forms level slightly faster than the other characters, so it's not hard to keep a good balance of experience. One downside to the wolf form is that it cannot use many items (such as throwables and scrolls), but can consume restorative items.

The wolf's main attack (teeth) deals piercing damage. Although the wolf form can't use any items, Skully's normal form can equip stuff. She is proficient with blunt weapons like hammers and maces. These weapons deal bludgeoning damage and usually have a good chance to stun or knockout the target. Skully is resistant to instant death techniques, but is mortally susceptible to silver weapons.

Voice sample: "Where are you going? Other way, genius." (Link)
Voice sample: "LOOK OUT!! Something's coming!" (Link)

Gameplay Info

I've thrown a bunch of information on this blog already, but what does it all add up to? What is the gameplay like? Let's see what I can describe in three paragraphs.

Most of the gameplay is from a top downish perspective. You've got an objective (such as walk in that general direction) and you'll encounter bits of inter-party dialog, monsters, treasure boxes, and some other surprises. The frequent dialog bits help move the plot along, but you can always get distracted with exploring an area.

Sometimes, exploring an area can pay off as you might find an arbitrarily positioned treasure box. In hard mode, these boxes can be trapped or mimics (a monster). As for monsters, the game doesn't actually have the common random encounter system that most classic RPGs are blighted with. Instead, you see the enemies running around on the map and you can choose whether to beat them down or go around them, something like Chrono Trigger. Some monsters will wander around with a set route, some will randomly move around, and some will have specific behaviors (e.g. chase you if you steal their treasure).

There are a few other platformer elements to the gameplay that add depth. You can swim (your competence depends on your water level), you can light candles in the dark for some interesting lighting effects (more effective with a high fire level), you can jump across gaps or up and down walls (depending on your air level), and so on. There are a few puzzles along the way and some 'escape before the timer hits 0:00' areas. And, of course, tons of amazing secret areas along the way that you'll miss over and over. Sometimes talking to those random doodads can get you something special. Madness, isn't it? You have no idea.