Baru: Charge

Charge is the command that allows Baru to gather psionic energies. Charging uses up mana, but it enables powerful tech skills that are available for the rest of the battle; if the battle ends and a new one begins, Baru must charge again to regain tech. As the game progresses, you will be able to charge several times in a row, each time unlocking more powerful skills. The first psionic skill available is called Ether Fist. It deals good damage based on your Attack and Magic combined attributes. The skill deals damage as well as stunning the target, so it remains a useful skill throughout the game.

Although powerful, psionic skills don't have much functionality outside of battle. It's not a good ice breaker for parties and usually doesn't help the party get around challenges. Since the tech tree is limited in usage, Baru will have to make heavy use of his elemental skills to compliment it. Most of the characters have their specific skill progression as well as the capability for elemental magic mentioned before. More details on everything to come some time later. Oh, and fun fact: the charge command has the same sound effect as the Warcraft 2 BloodLust spell. HgraaAAAH!

Baru Bio

Baru is the self-proclaimed protagonist and main character. He likes to study magic and doesn't need much motivation to quest for knowledge. Sometimes he gets carried away by his studies or whatever aspect of magic he's in to, giving him a sort of unsocial nature. He feels detached from the rest of society and resides in an abandoned castle.

He has an innate psionic ability that gives him some serious in-combat power. He can skip his turn in battle to focus his mental energies to unlock new psionic tech. These skills expand as time goes on, but may have an undesirable side effect.

Baru is proficient with one handed blades and gloves. All of the characters are proficient with one handed blades (daggers and swords and such) and one other weapon type. Gloves don't have spectacular damage output, but they usually give you a defense bonus. All characters also have a particular resistance and weakness. Baru is resistant to psionic attacks but is more susceptible to the blind bad status.

Voice sample: "Ugh, hard mode; and here I thought this was going to be another lazy day." (Link)

Elemental Skills

One pretty sweet feature of the RPG is the ability to choose your how characters learn their skills. As the plot progresses, the characters will encounter gemstones that will allow them to put a point in to one of the four elements: Fire, Water, Air, or Earth.

You can combine elements to form advanced tech. For example, getting one point in Water and another in Earth will enable Quicksand. The list above only shows some basic 1-3 point Water skills; getting 2 points in Fire and 2 points in Air will enable a massive lighting spell. What are the other combinations? Half the fun is figuring out what you'll get.

Also, when you select an element to level, you gain a bonus to an attribute. Fire gives a bonus to Attack, Water to Magic, Air to Agility, and Earth to Defense. Leveling elements also gives you a special passive bonus (e.g. Air allows you to jump up and down cliffs and over obstacles). This system adds a good deal of longevity to the game. For great justice.

Plot Overview

Here are some screenshots of the game. The image above is the title screen you see when you first start the game. Below is an ingame screenshot.

In this game, the characters are blighted by a series of misfortunes. Monsters and demons begin to flood the land, a mysterious dark curse is spreading, and the weather abnormalities bring about destruction on an untold scale. Along the way, they'll be antagonized by the forces of badassitude. Yeah, fairly generic plot starter, but it's told well by a series of hilarious cut scenes.

What is this??

Hail, blog readers / internet randoms.

I've been working on an RPG for the past few years called the Awesome Adventure. The game plays something like those old SNES RPGs, but with some Awesome (with a capital A) applied to it. Features? Right, here are some:

• Voice Acting
• Dynamic Skill System
• 10-20 Hours of Game Play
• Unique Menu System for Each Character
• Very Developed Side-Quests
• 'Extreme' Difficulty Mode
• and a Zelda Themed Dungeon

This list of crap doesn't actually tell you anything about the game itself, but I'll add screenshots and all kinds of glory to this blog tomorrow. Daily updates for the win.