The Shining Source

Low and behold we have our first concept art for what some of the characters look like. Again, they are only concepts and only in a single pose. We have not discussed if the made concepts are going to be put to use but at least we have a visual.

I am constructing a scenario storyboard to show step by step how the player would traverse through the game, since most game writers only write the story in book form and then have someone else do the scenario writing. I hope to have that done by the end of December while working on the main project.

I am drawing out on paper (well, on my laptop) descriptions of what the spells should look like. I want to stay away from the idea of using the looks that SF games (like the raining of fire balls for fire 2) have when casting spells since I don't want to have to deal with a Cease and Desist issue like I have seen happen to so many others in the past. So, the rummaging for new ideas of what spells look like when they are cast has become a huge inquisition and any thoughts would help, especially the summons. The other debate was do we want to work with a square fixed grid (as seen in most tRPGs) or do we want to work with a sphere radius grid (not as often seen but instead of squares it is a circle that orbits around the character and anything in its radius can be effected).

No new information about the website yet so bare with me.

The name of the game is still being discussed as, again, we want to stay away from the name Shining so not to be thwarted by a cease and desist.

Other points of interest...

- Blast spell changed to Holy
- Considering a Wind, Earth, Water, and Venom attack spell, thus creating a bigger variation between mages as well as adding more enemy weakness' and strengths. So (for example) one mage could specialize in Fire, Ice, Earth, and a status spell. While another mage could specialize in Bolt, Venom, Wind, and a status spell. And the final mage (per-say) could specialize in Wind, Bolt, and 2 status effects . Doing this gives more variation between which mage you would want in your party. It also can introduce more summons and a larger variation in summoning spells. Again, this is not in stone.
- The wind spell (we might call it Aero) would have a large range, similar to bolt but the capacity to be larger, but most likely the weakest offensive spell.
- The Earth spell (we might call it Tremor) would have a small range but be strong in dealing damage. We may make it the strongest damaging spell but it can only effect one square until level 4 when it can finally damage 5 in a plus grid.
- The Venom spell will deal light damage as well, but could also cause poison. The range would be similar to the range of fire.
- The Water spell (We might call Aqua) would be a large range spell that does medium damage, but this is really up in the air, since we might stick to just Ice. Most likely there will be no Water specific spell other than ice.
- Weaknesses of course are going to be implemented, but the base damage will be the foundation of such weaknesses and strengths.
- Introducing Elemental enemies as well as Elemental monster variations.
- Golems were going to be Earth monsters but changed to non-elemental. Weakness would be based on size and Golems are now placed in the Giants list along with Trolls and Ogres, thus all sharing the same weakness.
- Dragons are being implemented as strong enemies but still up for debate on how they will function. Want to give them breath attacks, regular attacks, and possible a magic attack based on what elemental dragon type they are. However, they will have their own listing and individual weaknesses and not share the same weaknesses as Giant type monsters (such as Ogres, Trolls, and Golems).

All enemies and characters take damage from ALL spells, the amount is segregated into three forms: Weak, Natural, Strong. Weak take 1.5x more damage than Natural and Strong take 2x less damage than natural. Below are the creature classes that would be strong and weak towards the base elements, if a monster type is not listed then they take natural damage. Note: Not all monster types are listed.

Fire - Weakness: Undead, Ice Monsters, Wood Creatures. Resistant: Fire Monsters, Earth Monsters, Bolt Monsters, Spell Casters.
Ice - Weakness: Fire Monsters, Reptiles, Insects. Resistant: Ice Monsters, Undead, Spell Casters, Giants.
Wind - Weakness: Flying Monsters, Earth Monsters. Resistant: Giants, Wind Monsters, Spell Casters
Earth - Weakness: Giants, Wind Monsters, Centaurs. Resistant: Earth, Flying (immune), Spell Casters.
Bolt - Weakness: Water Monsters, Ice Monsters, Humans (excludes Spell Casters). Resistant: Bolt Monsters, Spell Casters
Holy - Weakness: Undead, Demons, Venom Monsters. Resistant: Humans, Holy Monsters
Venom - Weakness: Humans (including spell casters), Holy Monsters. Resistant: Undead, Venom Monsters, Demons.