Last Dream - A Hindu - Buddhist mythological fantasy adventure ( FULL GAME. Scheduled Oct 3rd)

Hi everybody! :smiley:

I’m thrilled to announce that my new game Last Dream is officially finished.

Concept/Synopsis:
An unexpected apocalypse takes you away from your hi-tech metropolis, sending you to a distant, very different world. In this new fantasy world, elemental magic permeates the soil, Buddhist philosophy leads people’s lives, and Hindu demigods (Devas and Asuras) fight for supremacy.
Why did you get here?
Is there a way back home?
But most of all, is this reality, or is it just a dream?

I got a lot of inspiration from the following:

Features (so far):

  • A unique world with many Buddhist and Hindu mythological references.
  • An original Yin-Yang battle system. Choose the right “way to behave” for every combat round. Study your enemies’ stances, Elemental properties, and surroundings to win.
  • Fully customizable MC (appearance, gender, orientation, etc.)
  • A profound and emotional story. Your choices will shape your character’s feelings and attitude toward people and the world.
  • A long and branched story with many different ‘endings’ and NPCs that will play significant roles.
  • a Loop mechanics. Like Samsara in the Buddhist philosophies, you CANNOT escape so easily the story, not even dying :stuck_out_tongue: (let me know what you think of it).

It consists of 25 chapters and 260K+ words.

I am thrilled I finished this project, and I sincerely hope you will like it, too.

Thanks in advance for everybody’s enthusiasm. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback! :gift_heart:

By the way, Happy Summer to everyone! :sun_with_face:

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your story is very interesting :heart_eyes:

there will be RO ?

i read that soon.

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Yh the debut is REALLY inspired by FF so much that i left dashingdon because that’s where i saw it first to come here and ask u. But my question has already been answered in you’re post so yeah and the story look interesting too. I haven’t finished it cause i immediately left to ask u this so i’m going back to playing this.

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Hi everyone!

First of all, thank you for the enthusiasm! :gift_heart: :beers: I am really overwhelmed by mps of appreciation, thank you!

@rialta Of course there will be romance. At the moment there is only one option (that suits your “orientation preferences”) but I could probably add more if people ask for them.

@Raphael_Sylva Exactly! FFX has a very special place in my heart. This project is also intended as my “tribute” to that fantastic world and to those amazing characters. :love_letter: I hope you like my personal “retelling” and “customization” of some of the game’s features.

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Ooooh… It’s nice to see A Hindu - Buddhist mythology here. I love the Digital Devil Saga storyline, thanks to its Heavy Hindu - Buddhist influence. So this is piqued my interest.

Including a planned RO, makes it more interesting.

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OMG! I LOVED the Digital Devil saga too! Very tricky gameplay, but awesome story!

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Finally something HINDU, thanks hope you do awsome :star_struck::star_struck:

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What? I don’t get it. Why do I have this stupid “ritual” thing? Why am I so annoyingly bubbly? Why are the default hair and eye colors unnatural, and wtf is a “hot-blooded” hair style? What makes my default egocentricity 75% when I haven’t made a single choice? I have barely started and have no idea how I can even begin to place myself in this character’s shoes.

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@Dhruv_Jyoti I will do my best. I appreciate your support. Looking forward to your feedback. :slight_smile:

@geldar Thank you for asking. You start as a “sports superstar,” that’s why your “Ego” is relatively high. Most sports superstars have their “pre-match rituals”, and this MC is no exception. As it usually happens in Japanese Anime/Manga, your hair and eyes have “unnatural” color and style (but you can, of course, choose a “natural” one). Let me know if I can be of further help :smiley:

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I think this must be your first time trying to write fiction. Characters do not swing wildly between personality traits in the span of milliseconds, especially not traits that are being tracked yet are unchanging throughout it.

EDIT: Ok, I see this is far from your first time writing fiction, as you’re quite a prolific writer. This is something you must already know, then, so I’m at a complete loss as to what’s happening in this story.

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If resembling anime is the motive behind the colours, perhaps it might be as well to have some normal ones too? Plenty of anime characters have naturally-coloured hair and eyes. Frankly, I was put off a little by the strange colours, and like others have no idea what ‘hot-blooded’ means when used to describe hair.

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I love the art design of this and I think you did a good job on this I enjoy your work and weirdly enough I’m the biggest fan of these types of designs they really get me interested in what’s going on here

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@geldar, I appreciate your concern. If you have time, please let me know how you suggest improving it. I will do my best to follow your advice. :slight_smile:

@FabricSeat Thank you for your feedback. :smiley: This is an anime-like story. That’s why I mainly provided “unnatural” colors. Regarding “sideburns,” I didn’t know how to call them, so I went on TV tropes and found this definition. If you have a better one, please tell me, and I’ll use it. :smiley:

@Takashi_Shin Wow! Thank you very much! The cover is WIP, but I think I will go that way. I’d love to hear any further feedback on the story and characters. :love_letter:

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Hi, congratulations on posting a demo that has both sizable content and explorative choices. I am very intrigued by the premise and would love to explore more of this blending, ever-shifting world across both time and dimension. I applaud the effort you put in both in writing a story and crew giving an immersive game. Brahma knows I can’t do that. . . Anyhow, here’s a couple thoughts I had during my read. Feel free to take them with you if they’re helpful.

This is a long response I brewed up at 2am in the morning. So I’ll put it under tab cut.

Summary

PLOT - There is a lot, a lot, a lot going on. We’ve got space time travel, crossworld cultures with nonhuman characters, a sport (I’m not familiar with personally), a real place that is markedly destroyed in different times, and references between sport and religion paired with a complex relationship with a disappeared parent figure.

Wooo, it’s hard to digest that in 4 chapters, and I understand this is a dream-reality shift, but it does make me feel dreadful to turn the page after a while because there is very little dependable foundation for MC to stand on. I’m not sure if there’s a better way to ease into the different worlds, but maybe the main character might benefit using science to make sense of this. That way, we would have a better transition from the “real” world to “magic” world, and the experience would feel that much more shocking should the laws of physic be violated repeatedly in even the smallest ways possible. The issue with the parents seem really complicated and it would be an instantly-relatable element in the real world before we head to the magic world. Maybe begin with an emotion memory or interaction between MC and Shiva. Because I know she’s a big deal in both worlds, but at least the MC should have a personalized memory of the mother before she disappeared at age 10. They must have some interactions for the MC to have such strong emotional responses. You’re drawing the point that Shiva is a star champion, an important woman in Shangri-La, paladin to Lord Gonzo. She’s a big deal. But to young, young MC, she’s just mom before she disappeared. It was clear to me she was lost during some special training, but I don’t understand why the MC would hate her so much for disappearing — the only plausible reason would be MC really loved her and then thought she abandoned them. But in the interaction with the father, that was not the case. The MC must love her or hate her for some reason we can see — with the woman being as a simple mom to a child. That’s one of her most important facets to our character. Then the different emotional responses would make sense in the choice box. I also feel like we’re forced to like the theurge. The adjectives are pretty pushy on making us stutter and “feel the love or attention” for her. That’s not a very pleasant way to like that character.

CHARACTER - The main character definitely has a backstory and has a recognizable “coming-of-age” and “make-a-name-for-myself” vibe that’s popular in manga and anime. I’m thinking an enthusiastic “!!!” main character paired with unwitting, cynical horror show survivor. Like Naruto meeting Ichigo on the same first episode. That’s an aspiring hero who wish to work for a goal versus a lone wolf high schooler who just saw a monster nearly kill his sister. The reactions and motives toward the ends were markedly different. Frankly, that’s a very big gap in personality to shift between, and I find my main character inconsistent as a result. You can’t be both chirpy and cold within seconds. Unless he’s having mania episodes or suffering other traumatic influences or spells. And the main character seems to make the same mistakes repeatedly, to the point I’m wondering if the past scenes taught them anything at all. The Shangri-La was clearly warned as a forbidden topic when we met Koji(?) but my main character keeps bringing it up and repeatedly apologizing to everyone. A more natural reaction would be to speak less and observe more. But that doesn’t seem possible, even when I repeatedly check the stats to see how I can make my main character respond differently. The forced - “I’m new here so I ask questions that might make me sound crazy” gets very tiring, and I’m pretty much at my breaking point when my MC starts apologizing AGAIN for the rash comments. (I can’t keep showing people who’s boss when it’s life and death situations. The stakes should be higher than the MC’s own pride). I would assume the MC is designed to be impulsive or egocentric, but by the 4-5th time, there’s gotta be a point to change tactics and stop drawing unwanted attention. This is why I feel the age might be too young, and that the MC might only be 15 - 17 years old. Star athlete aside, this MC feels like a teenager and I’ve no idea what level of education and prior world foundations they got. How many years have they practiced? What was their dad and upbringing like? Did they attend public / private school or just focused on competitive sports? Are there other emotional connections in the world they came from aside from un-reachable parents? They need to be more rooted in the real world for us to step into their shoes. (The bastard child from “I, the forgotten one” + Sidestep from “The fallen hero” really made me feel as a reader between the past / present. They were smoothened with enough backstory details to be MCs I can and want ! to follow into dangerous, bizarre territories). I got established foundations to depend before we time skip or world jump. That would improve immersion.

WRITING AND WORD CHOICE - You use very strong weather and description to help mold the mood, which works great in helping readers distinguish different scenes and world-shifts. But some words also nags at me in the corner of my mind long after that scene ends. Others have mentioned the “hot-blooded hairstyle” which I’m not sure if it’s anime style, spiky hairs, or. . . a hair that literally makes you feel hot and frustrated. I appreciate the choices for colorful hair because I figured dying hairs to fit team colors were fine and explainable. But, then we have no descriptions for the character’s height, build, body markings, and that does weigh down on me because I wonder if what the MC is doing would fit their image. Words like “chuckle” or “giggle” really bothered me in the context because I can’t imagine my MC doing that in their supposed personality. (Why would they chuckle when a collar was squeezing their throat?)

The elements, rituals, and mythical creatures were really cool, and add lot of thrill elements to the story. But the backside is — maybe too much, and I must wonder if every detail is necessary. There must be gain in some way to justify certain otherworldly elements popping up. (Why does Sun Wu Kong have reserved hands? What do those hands do? Why does our theurge summon a dragon beast?)

I have a lot of other ideas but because I played at 1:15am and it’s now 2:30am, I would have to cut my response short. I hope this would help in some small ways as you navigate and bring us along on this complex world. These are just inconsistencies I felt that held me back, and I wish to share them in case you are looking for feedback. Some of these issues might be addressed as we learn more about the plot and MC, but others are just. . . hmm, really out of context and I don’t know if it’s intentional.

Keep up the creativity - and please please please don’t put exclamation marks after every sentence my MC says!!! !!! !! !

PS - by Wu Xing, I assume you mean the Five Phases. But you mention there are 6 elements. Not sure if that’s intentional or otherwise. If you wish to keep 6 elements, I recommend changing the name to fit the numerical phases. (六行) Liu Xing. Liu would be 6, and Xing would translate to Phases, which means everchanging stages. In this case, light and dark, air and earth are ever-changing into each other and phasing together. They go clockwise like water vapor —> water —> ice. They are mutually dependent and cannot be marked as exclusive, eternal elements. So maybe more on that…. We can brainstorm.

Till then, good night!

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Wow! Thank you SO much, @Veraynea ! First, thank you for playing it to the end. Second, I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this lovely feedback. I will take my time to study it thoroughly and then be back to you. In the meantime, THANK YOU! :love_letter:

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That was roughly my first reaction when I read Dostoevsky. Fiction styles developed in different countries can represent emotion and character very differently than the conventions of “realistic” English fiction writing. Gil is writing here within the conventions of anime…and I’m sure it’s helpful for him to hear how oddly that can land with people not immersed in it.

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I haven’t read Dostoevsky, but I can assure you that characters don’t do that in anime either.

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Equally thrilled as everyone else seems to be about seeing Hindu-inspired writing! One thing you may wish to consider - Shiva is a distinctly masculine name, in my eyes, and I suspect also in the eyes of many others, especially those who are of South Asian descent and/or religious backgrounds which link to the Hindu triumvirate of gods. Therefore, I find it really odd to read about my mother, Shiva… It’s a bit like having a father called Persephone, or something equally, well, unexpected.

@geldar
It might help the author if you could be more specific as to what exactly you are criticising, on what basis, and how it could be improved. From my experience with anime, characters do flip-flop through feelings and personality traits at an alarming pace. I could, of course, be misguided.

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Ok, why is everyone railing on me and me alone when Veraynea said exactly the same thing?

Just stop ating me. Please. I’ve said all I’m ever going to say. I’m gonna mute the thread now.

Wow :flushed: @Havenstone I am so humbled you compared me to Dostoevskij. I am not worthy of such privilege.

@geldar I can assure you nobody here hates you. I really appreciate the time you spent contributing to my little work and I promise I will do my best to comply with your expectations. You are welcome to express yourself and to share with us your opinion every time you like. Thank you for being here. :blush:

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