Wild Journey (medieval fantasy RPG)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Some preamble before we begin

What will you read doesn’t represent the final version that will be submitted. Both this thread and the WIP might change, might not.

So, here goes nothing.

Wild Journey is a text-RPG with a style not far from those of FF Classics, Lone Wolf, CYOA, and similar descendants. This is a rewrite of my old WIPs Hikayat: Of Black Eye and Untitled Medieval-Fantasy RPG.

For those who are familiar with the old WIP

I’m sorry! A big apology from me!
I’ve always wanted to write an attention-grabbing story with an active thread that pitches a lot of views, but never managed to actually write one. To be honest, I was kinda sad at that time that I’ve gone hiatus for a super long time.

However, I can’t keep my mind off of this. This story, this world, had become my passion project that leaving it out will simply haunt me back in the future. So, here it is, the “remastered” version of my old WIP! tadaa :raised_hands:t4:

If I’m allowed to be selfish, let’s start anew. Thank you for the feedback you left in previous WIPs, but they’ll be likely irrelevant at here. Any plans I’ve planned in those old threads will also be obsolete. I’d like to open a new clean page and start again from the beginning.

Don’t worry, though a lot has been changed, the core story is the same: an adventure rpg in a science-fantasy world. There is still this pseudo-hegemonic-Roman-Empire, and the general intro is “voyage to the New Land.”

Once again, a big apology from me, and thanks for reading this until the end!

The plan going forward

With experience, I’ve learned that trying to put a regular update would burn me out without anything productive to give.

As such, I’ll be treating this like a display in a museum.
One at a time, I’ll be here updating things and replying to comments. When I’m off, I’ll work on the WiP alone in my room, with a cup of choco milk and a pack of biscuits (whenever available. Otherwise, just a jug of water should do it).

I might also update the worldanvil page one-off (yep, there’s also the wiki worldanvil page!), though I’m not going to post its updates in this forum. So, be sure to follow my world page, there! Or simply ask me here, that’s fine too.

However, as visitors, you guys can freely enter and leave the museum: leave comments, argue with others, and play the available WiP! Simple as that!

I can’t promise you regular updates, nor promise you to keep the thread alive to avoid auto-lockdown timer. But as long as I can still type on my keyboard – at least – I’ll keep working on this in my free time.

But enough with the sentimentals!

This first post is the place where you can see the update progress and changelogs, as well as the link to the WiP. Perfect for those who just want to jump right in.

The next post, one down below, is the main post where a detailed summary is available. I might also do dev-blog-style posts that detail certain aspects of content or my reasoning on why I do stuff the way I do.

Links

DEMO
(:warning: I’m rewriting significant portion of the demo. You might want to hold off on giving feedback for now)
Wiki (Donyakaya World Anvil link)

Changelogs
  • Currently none
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<~ Pending cleanup and revamp>

About Wild Journey

Set in the fantasy world Valena, the world was once ruled by strength and mana. Giant beasts roam the wilds, demonic nightmares skulk the night, and powerful mages lead the humanity. Constant battles for species survival were ignited on every front, until one day, power from the outer world conquers us all. Valena was shattered, and the world was even more roiling chaos.

That is what believed by many. Evidence from the past shows a great battle that causes great destruction; the world seemed to shatter in one decisive blow. Now, the beasts are less feral, the nightmares are less scary, and the mages are nothing but shadow of their former glory. Perhaps, if we dig the earth again, we can recover what was lost?

Let’s go treasure hunting!

Wild Journey is an action-adventure RPG focused on acrobatic monster-hunting, merciless swashbuckling, treacherous tomb raiding, and spectacular spellslinging set in the somewhat medieval fantasy settings, but not really. I take heavy inspiration from old CYOAs which are more akin to tabletop experience than classic novels. Expect big 'ol textwall, overly detailed details, and complicated stats as I always struggled to get over.

The story begins on your childhood, discovering and fascinated by something that opposes the truth which the world has believed for who knows how long. However, as all hero stories should start, you managed to ruin that very thing and went crazy about it. The wacky parts then passed and now you’re thrust into a lifelong journey to restore the thing. Or not. Who knows?

Are you prepared to take the risks, face the consequences, and do the impossible?

As I’m writing this story, I also did some modifications to CS itself. I talked to Dan, and there seems to be a “green light” from his end. However, to prevent things unwanted, I’ll be focusing on the story and make do with what CS has for now. If I’m indeed going to publish with the modified CS, well, it’ll be something to think about in the future.

Oh yes, the link is on the first post in case you missed it, just like what I often do.

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Third post in a row woohoo
So, welcome welcome. The game is currently pretty short, which should take you about 5 to 10 mins reading time. And I’m a pretty speed-reader.

Though it’s playable and should be bug free, for now, expect some broken images and the << double angle brackets >>. I’ll try to fix them fairly soon, but don’t take my words for it.

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Glad to see this posted. Was hoping to see something like this from you; I’ll be in your corner cheering you on all the way, even if I lurk most of the time.

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Happy to see this back! :grinning:

I would suggest disabling use of the wip menu options untill they are implemented, as it was a bit strange that they all led to the same place.

Also trying to enter the stat screen causes eternal loading.

A guide to the symbols you use, might be useful.

They self-sustain, they self-aware, and capable for self-generation.

I think there’s an “are” missing.

“… a large group of men, which seem running amok in chaos and confusion.”

… men, who seem to be running…

Isn’t being a slave means giving up your freedom?

Doesn’t being a slave…

…

First impression: Its all rather enigmatic, and a bit confusing, so far.

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Whoa… I’ll expect numerous quest on this. I love an ongoing plot the most, but I’m the kind of player who never finished Skyrim’s main story. :grinning:

Ah, one thing… how are you going to explain the story? Through narratives? Dialogues?

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There is a loop at this part. Three iterations for each choice before the state change to “I can’t …”

3loop

If I try to restore it from the beginning I get this:

Uncaught Error: 0.Prologue line 130: invalid line; this line should have a scene name followed by an error message: *selectable_if (loop1 != 4) #@{(loop1 >= 3) I can’t see|I look around with my eyes}.

Missing names

names

names2

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Hello again, folks :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed:t4:
There’s a super minor update that I’ve uploaded just recently. Nothing too big, but there should be no longer broken image.

@The_Lady_Luck

Summary

Thank you! All your suggestions are noted, but there’re some things I want to address.

The Main Menu choices? Hmm, most of them should be unselectable.
Just curious, but are you playing by swiping on your phone? I noticed that you can still swipe on the greyed out choice.

As for the symbols I used, it’s nothing complicated really.

  • ⓘ (circled i) is a recursive choice that you can pick over and over again. Usually contains noncritical info, so you can freely pick this without the fear of advancing the plot.
  • ► (right pointer) on the other hand is a bit tricky. The idea is to make the choice as something that advances the plot, kinda like The Witcher 3’s highlighted options. But as you might’ve seen, there’s a 2-option *choice on your response to the slavery topic, and both options have them.

This enigmatic confusion. Is it something… good? Something bad? :grimacing:

@Silver_Eye Ah, fellow modders I assume?
Don’t worry, though. The RPG format I planned may follow the standard “pick a quest” style, but I’ll try to make it clear whether a mission/quest is important to the plot development, or just simply a side-content.

As for the story, I’m not sure yet. I wanted the plot to develop organically, so maybe there’s a mix between the two. But if you’re one of the geeky type, I obviously planned something of a Codex thing. Might take a while until it’s there.

Psst, fun fact It's 2 + @2 loops. The first 2 loops are "true recursion," followed by 2 looping per choices which modify the options.
Summary

So, yeah. Maybe I should’ve told you guys this before, but that frustrating, confusing, weird looping is intentional (because that’s what I want to evoke). I thought that since you can save your progress anyway, I’ll let that stay as it’s. But if you still find it disruptive, I can try to fit in a jump-start to the character generation.

As for the missing names, they’re not really missing. I’m just that bad with names. Help.

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No, no, leave the loops, I like that idea. About the creation of names, check this site:

donjon; Fantasy Random Generator

It has all classes of generators: names, towns, castles, inns, npcs well detailed, demographic calculator, ships, coats of arms, maps, worlds, planets, calendars, inn’s menu, dungeons, weather, and more and more. It’s very useful for writers and role-play :sunglasses:

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Oh lord this is gonna be an exciting story to seeeee

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Very promising! I can’t wait to see how it’ll turn out.

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Hello!
Yes, the continuation is in the writing.

But I’m currently focused on creating the workflow of the combat system. Building the concept works well so far, but making sure the code can be used as flexible as possible proves to be challenging.

And sometimes I hesitate when adding a new variable, though it’s really important ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I guess we’ll see how it goes!

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A K? Wohoo.

a%20k
a%20k1366×768 70.1 KB

I honestly not sure how should I feel. I guess I successfully pulled about 1k people to cluelessly read the story? Yay!

Anyway, to celebrate this occasion mini-ly, I’ll let you guys know on what I’ve been working on and what the next update will be. It won’t be a big one, but it will greatly overhaul the existing scenes and flow.

Here's a snippet of the latest progress on combat 
*label hitchance
*comment 20--100% on 10--50% CA
*if combat_advantage < 10
	*set hitchance 20
*elseif combat_advantage > 50
	*set hitchance 100
*else
	*set hitchance 20+(((combat_advantage-10)/40)*80)
*return

*label critchance
*comment 25--40% on 60--80% CA
*if combat_advantage < 60
	*set critchance 25
*elseif combat_advantage > 80
	*set critchance 40
*else
	*set critchance 25+(((combat_advantage-60)/20)*15)
*return

*label dodgechance
*comment 5--80% on 10--90% CA
*if combat_advantage < 10
	*set dodgechance 5
*elseif combat_advantage > 90
	*set dodgechance 80
*else
	*set dodgechance 5+(((combat_advantage-10)/80)*75)
*return

*label load_self
*set combat_advantage cs/(cs+foe_cs)
*return

*label load_foe
*params code
*if code = "slime"
	*set foe_hp 50
	*set foe_damagebot 2
	*set foe_damagetop 4
	*set foe_cs 10

:warning: Balance is subject to change
Like, totally subjected to changes.

What is coming on the next update:

  1. Cave-adventure scene overhaul. Now you’re actually exploring the cave properly. Beware giant boulders and gas chambers. It’s still quite linear, mind you, as ancient ruins don’t randomize nor content-generates.
  2. Limiting player interactions in this prologue. Less interview-style choices overall.
  3. SOME DRAAMA.
  4. Finally, a character generation.

Feel free to throw in some wishlist while I’m still cooking the update.

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I request to use a Charge Blade, wear cool armor from bloodborne, meme references, game references, very lovely RO’s, Magic, some deep lore, and ability to mount monsters. I also request for a very detailed character generator :slight_smile:

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:<
Would this cookie suffice?
:cookie:

So… for starters, pardon me if there won’t be many references since my gaming experience are mostly YT backseat, and I’m limited on net quota. But would it be okay if I say that two biggest inspirations of this are Hollow Knight and Undertale? Oh, also totally yes on Mordhau.

And fear not, mortal! For I boast my character generator as the most detailed one ever created! Until I can get it running, at least.

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I saw the undertale reference! Also you don’t just have to homage other video games! You can homeage a move for example.

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Yeah that’s good enough. However, I’d really love it if you can at least do the bloodborne outfit.

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I will take the :cookie::slight_smile:

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Oh, I’ve somehow managed to miss this one. Will have to add it to my “to read” list when I can get the time to sit down and go through it. I like what you’re doing with it, it’s really unusual.

I get what you’re trying to do with it, but I must admit, I thought it might have been bugged myself and it was only that I clicked things a few more times that it went through. I’d be wary about having something like this in the very start of your game, as I worry that some people would not continue to click and just write it off as a bugged game with a bad review in the stores. Up to you though, that would just be my worry :slight_smile:

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Ah, HAAH! I’m totally embarrassed, right now!
*Ahem, sorry. It’s really unusual when a published author commented on your thread, especially if it’s someone like you :grimacing:

Admittedly, I agree that early part is confusing and confounding. I thought it was a genius move like, “aha! My WiP is unique!” but now I’m a bit regretting it.

I’m currently streamlining the whole thing and see if I can get the tone as I like it. But to be honest, I’m still in love with that early section I’ve written. Feels like it has a strong motif behind it. Let’s see if I can rewrite seamlessly and not-so-confusing.

P.s. I’ll also put a warning at the main post that a big rewrite is coming. It’s not that I don’t accept feedback, but in case someone wrote a giant wishlist out there, I don’t disappoint them.

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