Legends of Alveron: Crystal of the Vale [WIP]

Well, I’m another newbie aspiring to write a ChoiceScript game. This is my first one and…boy, am I nervous!

So. Onto the game–for the present moment, this page will only list game details such as character customization, storyline, etc. I’ll have a playtest ready when I’m finished with the first chapter. So far I’ve done the prologue and I’m partly into the first chapter. Then I’ll upload more as I go along. Consider this a concept-test in the meantime.

I’m just going to say first that, since I’m a college student and I have other pressing RL obligations at the moment (such as caring for a litter of puppies), there might not be any concrete deadlines. I hope this doesn’t impede any chance of my game becoming a Hosted Game, but I’ll just have to throw it out there first so you don’t get too disappointed if I take too long putting up a new chapter. I honestly do want to become a ChoiceScript writer and hopefully write an official CoG game one day, with the ability to set firm deadlines and everything, but that might have to wait. In the meantime, please enjoy whatever I throw at you.


About the Game

The game style will be the interactive-novel type, where you go from one chapter to the next, but you still get to customize a variety of things and have a variety of choices/influences on the game. If the title wasn’t self-explanatory enough, the genre is high fantasy, although the main characters do cross over from the real world.

You play as either Anya Preston or Kevin Cavanagh, who start out the game by walking in a forest at night. They each have different purposes for being in the forest and eventually stumble upon a mysterious shrine that takes them to the world of Alveron. They wake up at the headquarters for the Order of the Vale, located in the Myrddin (mer-thin) Vale, Bellesée, where they learn from the Vale Knights about the circumstances of their appearance: The Crystal of the Vale has shattered, sending shards all over the kingdom of Bellesée. In accordance with an ancient prophecy, if the crystal is ever shattered, it shall bring two beings who possess a special type of magic from another world to Alveron to locate the shards, bring them back together, and make the Crystal whole again.

The Crystal protects the Vale (and subsequently, Bellesée) from attacks or influences of dark magic, so it is vitally important that the Crystal is put together as soon as possible. The magic possessed by the two beings in question awakens when they are in the world of Alveron, but is not present back at their home world. Anya and Kevin are two such beings, and the Crystal is housed in a special chamber at the Order headquarters, hence their appearance at the Order. Alongside four of the Order’s best knights: Sir Lorandil, Sir Darien, Sir Norah, and Sir Maurizio, they will receive training as Vale Knights and work to recover the Crystal’s shards.

Some notable points to mention:

  • The choice between playing Anya or Kevin is made at the beginning when you choose your gender.

  • Your chosen character’s name, however, is entirely up to you. You can give them any first or last name that you want, as well as choose what color hair, eyes, and complexion that they have.

  • The only thing that’s concrete are Anya and Kevin’s backstories. For example, Anya is in the forest to commit suicide because of her stepparent’s abuse. Kevin is chasing after his dog, who ran off the leash.
    BUT!
    You can choose who Anya’s stepparent is (a stepmother or stepfather), and customize Kevin’s dog from its name, gender, size, and breed. Besides the above mentioned concrete value, you can shape Kevin or Anya’s personalities however you want.

  • If you chose to play either character, you will have the opposite one as a romanceable option (depending on your preference). The opposite character will also retain their preset name, i.e., Anya Preston or Kevin Cavanagh, and a few preset personality attributes.

  • You have 5 romanceable options total for each preference (including the opposite character).

  • So you can be straight, gay, les, or bi. And actually, if you choose bi, that makes it 10 romanceable options.

  • Alveron is a medieval-based world inspired by the 12th century Norman-French culture that was predominant in Europe. Therefore, it has similar dress; bliaut, tunic, hose, etc.; but only some similar culture values (it is uncommon for women to be knights, for example, but multiple religions exist with no Mother Church).


[When the prologue & Chapter 1 are completed, link will go here]

So that’s what I have for now. You’re welcome to give me any feedback that you find necessary or ask any questions about the game. I’ll be looking forward to anything you might have for me :smile:

16 Likes

Wow, sounds like a lot of writing. I’m interested to see where it goes. When you say personalities, how many options are you talking about? Like, cynical, intelligent, carefree, faithful, deceitful, charismatic, loner, etc., and will the choices affect dialogue options?

@NoGo

Yes, quite like that! So far I have the personality stats listed as such:

Initiative
Charm
Cunning
Optimism
Vigilance
Resourcefulness
Curiosity
Brutality

And then a Reputation stat for, well, reputation. However, I’m still in the process of deciding what to drop or add. Like, I think I should add an Honesty stat, and maybe get rid of Curiosity (I was actually trying to find some word that meant Open-mindedness without being too wordy).

EDIT: Oh, pardon me. I also meant to say that the amount of stats you have on each variable determines your personality.

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For open-mindedness what about receptiveness or tolerance. Yeah, honesty would be a good one, instead of curiosity you could do something along the lines of laidback. I think this sounds like a good one, I can’t wait for a demo.

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Those suggestions sound great! I’ll give it a shot. I can’t wait to put up a demo either :smile:.

2 Likes

The demo is king. A lot of great-sounding ideas don’t hold up when you try to execute on them. I’ll come back in a couple of weeks and see if you have a demo :slight_smile:

This sounds like an excellent CoG. Outside of stats, will you also be adding relationship bars, or does the story just sort of move along depending on the personality of the OC as you play through?

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@Crotale True. Be sure to give me feedback when it comes!

@EkoBegins Thank you! I’ve been thinking about adding relationship bars, but was worried about swamping the stats page with so many stats (In addition to Personality, I’ve got Skills ranging from magical, physical, horsemanship, and etc). Would you, as a gamer, mind looking over that many stats?

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Personally, I kind of like having a lot of different stats, as long as it’s not too insane and they all have use. I like being being able to go in-depth with who my characters are.

3 Likes

I wouldn’t mind a plethora of stats as long as they all felt significant and had places to use them or flavor text for having high stats (for example “you estimate about least two battalions” instead of “that’s sure a big army” if you have good Military stat) Just like at Tin Star, it has like 20 stats and only a couple of them feel useless.

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All righty, thanks for the advice! I’ll go ahead and add the necessary stats.

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@Anemosu To indulge my curiosity, where does your name come from?

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@Crotale My username? I got it from the manga series Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom by Kazunari Kakei. It’s part of a wind spell that the main character says (Anemosu-Magia)

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@Ahnyks Now that I think of it, so would I. I’ll make sure that each of them has a good use.

@Anemosu I too, concur with whatever has been said. You’re also fully capable of experimenting with adding another page to the stat page to see if that’s how you would like to organize it. I personally enjoy having everything on one page, but I also don’t mind having a specific page for stats and a specific page for relationships.

2 Likes

@EkoBegins I never even thought of arranging it like that! Oh my gosh, thanks! I’ll try it out right now.

No problem. Glad to be of service!

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Can I just reiterate what people have already said: this sounds like an amazing game. I can’t wait to play the demo.

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I personally don’t mind seeing a lot of stats, if you’re willing to put them in and they are relevant to the game, I’m going to like looking at them and having those stats effect the game.

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If we are going to be training as knights will we be be able to choose a weapon to specialize in: sword, spear, halberd, axe, hammer, mace, etc., or maybe classes of weapons: blunt, blades, ranged, etc.? Also, will we be able to choose our armor type and magic or is that set?

1 Like