Vault

Started by winkio, May 28, 2014, 12:24:24 am

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winkio

May 28, 2014, 12:24:24 am Last Edit: June 03, 2014, 11:58:27 pm by winkio
On Earth, and many other backwater cesspools of galactic life, an adventurer is a heroic being whose greatness is idolized in tales of romance and conquest.  In the more civilized parts of the universe, however, an adventurer is just some shmuck with nothing better to do than go looking for trouble.

This, unfortunately, is your lot.  But cheer up, it's not quite as terrible a fate as it used to be.

At one point long in the past, your types packed the prisons of every planet as a result of their constant misdeeds, until some forward thinking politician by the name of Smarty McFartypants under a lot of pressure from the galactic press decided that the best way to fight crime was to legalize it.  All prisoners were pardoned, incarcerations and crime immediately fell one hundred percent, and Mr. McFartypants was declared the most popular guy in the universe.  Sadly, that popularity was short lived, as he was struck the next day by an adventurer driving a grand piano, which had only just become street legal.  Smarty died instantly, while the driver went on to run over a small child, the child's pet, and a rare albino landshark, before growing bored and deciding to have a go at playing golf with some ball bearings.

Yes, that's the type of person you are.  A grand piano-driving landshark-killing maniac.

In modern times, adventurers are free to be a general menace to the rest of the population until they decide to "settle down and become a productive member of society", or as those who are still adventurers call it, "have all your hopes and dreams crushed one by one until there are none left."  It is for this reason that XxSHOOT2KILLxX armed drones guard all but the most wretched and underfunded establishments, and for that reason that you never see an adventurer in a respectable and fashionable place like a tennis club.

I doubt you even know how to play tennis.  You would probably just try to hit the other player with the ball instead of scoring points.  Despicable.

Instead, adventurers are often found in the worst crevasses of civilization.  Some are at the local free clinic, either recovering from the physical and mental strain of their completely irresponsible risk taking, or stripping the joint of any supplies not defended by at least a level three security system.  Many plague the local dive bar, sharing rumors of mysterious and dangerous parts of the galaxy, or taking turns telling tales of their own adventures, each one trying to outdo the last with stories that grow more ludicrous and more suspect to creative elaboration as the night goes on.  Only a few loiter near rusty old spaceports attempting to stow-away on whichever ship is traveling to what normal beings recognize as the most remote, unrefined, and dull corners of space.  These adventurers are beginning on yet another of their namesake journeys: An Adventure.

That's what you are on.  Haha, sucker!

True to the spirit of adventurers, An Adventure has no criteria in terms of length or scale.  Instead, the most important criteria are that An Adventure be unorganized, dangerous, and exotic, which is to say, completely unlike the 'vacations' that civilized beings took to local hotspots and interstellar tourist attractions.

You managed to hit the nail right on the head, sneaking on a tax collection freighter and stealing an escape pod to head towards Vault, the so-called "living treasure planet".  According to the sketchy drunk/self-proclaimed "bajillion-aire" you met at the dive bar last night, this planet is chock full of ancient relics and dangerous wildlife, like all good adventure planets should be.  The thing that made it stick in your mind despite the staggering amounts of alcohol must have been the rhyme he used to described it:

"The planet itself is alive.  The terrain crawls, the creatures evolve, and the caves and halls twist, fold, and sprawl round and round and round again.  You can try and leave but the planet will shake and heave swatting you down to retrieve ever more treasure without reprieve, Steve."

No, your name is not Steve.  Or is it?  Who knows, it might be, but you have too big of a hangover right now to remember something as inconsequential as a name.  The rhyme continued:

"You must persist there is much you have missed and cannot resist taking, breaking, and making until you realize the twist!  Your freedom is finally won, leaving the planet you are done, until a future day you want more fun and decide to go back for one more run."



VAULT


Vault is a procedurally generated adventure game in the style of the 2D metroid games.  It is set in a comedic sci-fi world with a large variety of environments, enemies, and powerups, geared toward replayability.

In a few days, I will open up a recruiting topic if anyone is interested in joining (although the game will go forward as a solo project if there is no interest).  Development will be in C# with XNA.  There will be a summer development push for a prototype, optional refinement during fall and winter, and a kickstarter campaign launched in the spring for an additional year of development.

Hope you enjoyed reading :)

G_G

This sounds like an awesome project, winkio. You definitely have my support. :3 Look forward to seeing some more concepts. Definitely can't wait to see this reach the kickstarter stage.

Soulshaker3

I would defenevly help you making this altough until then I need to improve a lot my programming in c# but I think I could help you out and would only benefit me to learn how a good project is done. Btw I had a little experience with xna before made a single pong game in there
Hellow?

WhiteRose

I love the backstory. XD  I can't wait to see what the gameplay is like!

winkio

I'm trying to decide on a graphical style, but it's a little more difficult than I expected.  I'm planning on making the game tile based for a number of gameplay-related reasons, but I don't think the rigid tilesets of the metroid games fit the style of Vault very well.  I'm leaning towards more of a three toned shading style, inspired by Transmigration: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/388286.  I like how the backgrounds are flat and then the characters pop out with their animation.

@soulshaker: lack of experience/expertise is not a problem.  I just put up the recruitment thread if you want to take a look: http://forum.chaos-project.com/index.php/topic,14198.0.html

KK20

Maybe this can be a good enough reason to finally learn XNA. Just hoping I don't already have too much on my plate though.

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