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Post by Gingie on Mar 2, 2019 0:35:49 GMT -5
So in another thread, I mentioned a little something about rewriting a story I'd written and published here on the forums back in 2017, then publishing it here, again, after I'd finished the prologue. Well, I finished the prologue. I hope you enjoy the story. I'll try to keep a consistent flow of new parts being released after I finish rewriting the first couple parts. Feel free to criticize in any way you like. Hopefully, it'll be constructive criticism but hey, beggars can't be choosers. Other aspects of my written world will be released alongside the main storyline. The thread will be bumped with new posts containing new parts of the storyline. With that out of the way, the main inspirations for the story are mostly Terraria, Sword Art Online, and GD. Dark Souls, Castlevania, and other games influenced certain aspects of the story as well. Prologue In the later years of the 2010s, there was a lot of unrest surrounding the Triple-A game development studios and their tendencies to lock more and more features in their full-price games behind paywalls. DLC packs that cost half of what the original game cost for barely a fraction of in-game content. Content that would seem insignificant and arguably should’ve been free is locked behind a paywall. Some companies would go as far as locking powerful characters behind an in-game gambling system that would otherwise require hundreds of hours to unlock.
After some time, the large development studios began going out of business one by one as game enthusiasts around the world began boycotting their games, in certain cases, the stocks of larger companies took direct blows because European countries began passing laws that directly banned in-game gambling. Certain more dignified companies began working together to find a way to deliver a positive experience for gamers around the world. Over time the companies became one super-company, P.I.N.G. The name on the surface seems to be an abbreviation of some sort, but it’s nothing more than a reference to what’s recognized as the first video game by pop culture, Pong developed in 1972 by Atari.
P.I.N.G would take the gaming world by storm with one game. The development process of the game was constantly kept a closely-held secret by the company. Only certain gameplay elements, what consoles would run the game, as well as the project name in the company, coined “Project Percival” were made public. Ultimately, nothing was truly known about what was going on during the development cycle of Project Percival. Even the closed-beta was mostly kept a secret.
During the closed beta, one million individuals across the planet got a copy of the game, along with it, a metal box. It was discovered the game itself could not run on a conventional gaming console, and so, the developers created a console that existed solely to run Project Percival-- the “Chrome Reader”. The few lucky individuals who received a copy of the game were carefully watched by P.I.N.G, who didn’t want anybody but game reviewers to speak about the game publicly, and if one did, they were sued for violating a legal binding contract.
On release, Project Percival was given the official name “Revenite”. It was and still stands as the most popular game. Revinite tapped into neurons in your brain to make the player the controller. Even going as far as feeling actual pain, albeit with the pain index (a way of controlling the pain a player feels) at no more than 25%. The Chrome Reader had built-in ways to monitor health-risks. Multiple systems were put in that monitored a players heart rate, drowsiness, hunger, and other needs a player may ignore or forget about while playing Revenite. The Chrome Reader would automatically shut down if a player neglected to take care of themselves, only turning on after a player had done what needed to be done.
The game was unique in that players could create their own worlds and features. Soon after release, the game received multiple expansions. Each expansion was a different genre of first-person game. With the aforementioned player-created worlds and features, this paved the way to trivializing most games. If you wanted a tactical shooter, you could either make one or find one. If you wanted a fighting game with dedicated combos, you could make one, or find one.
Aside from a hacker attack during the beta test that ended up indirectly killing a player, the game released without incident.
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Post by Gingie on Mar 9, 2019 0:40:23 GMT -5
Whoops, it's been a while. Been dealing with stuff irl tho so w/e Here's Part 1-- 10 pages in google docs. A hazy mist cloaked the cold city, from afar, the city looked dull. A cold, unforgiving, urban atmosphere. But upon getting closer-- you begin to see much more. You can see men and women wearing suits, lazily sulking to their jobs. Children gazing wistfully at the toys in the store windows-- occasionally getting distracted by a stray cat meandering by. It was business as usual for the city.
Despite the average day, a young ninth grader, Alex, had his mind filled. His mind had been enveloped by something new. Something extraordinary. Alex zipped through the crowds of children and adults. The words "Gamers Landscape" flashed fluorescent green. He was nearly there. Alex picked up the pace, his legs began to burn, he squinted his eyes
Alex thought about the game as he hopped off his bike and locked it to a trashcan near the Game Landscape. A poster advertised the console he was looking for; "The Chrome Reader" as well as a game was advertised alongside the console. Alex stepped in, and was astonished to see how empty the place looked, aside from a few older teenagers poking around the FPS isle, and an employee restocking some shelves.
Alex glanced around, looking for the Chrome Reader, it took him a minute, but he found a row of boxes, each advertising its features, along with the features of the game. He snatched a box in the top shelf and sped to the front desk, wallet in hand. The employee strutted over.
"Is this all?" He asked, scratching the stubble on his chin.
"Yeah, it should be." Alex glanced around at the other games on the shelves
"Membership card?"
"Nope."
The man slid the box over a scanner, and Alex handed him the money.
"Thanks!" Alex called politely.
The man grumbled something in reply, but Alex was already out the door, completely forgetting about him.
Alex rushed home, as fast as he could. When he got home, he rushed upstairs and immediately began unboxing the console. Overtaken by a large number of wires, he began hooking them together, and studied the console, it was a small rectangular box thing, barely an inch high, and maybe four-to-five inches long.
After Alex managed to sort out the cords and get the console hooked up to his computer, he pulled out the last parts of the console. A pair of headphones, with a futuristic visor bending around the front of the headphones, sticking out of the back, were some small "wings" of a sort, similar to the small wings on Valkyrie helmets, but solid and with sharper angles. Two small tabs stuck out the lower front of both of the earphones.
After Alex plugged the headphones into the console, he studied the two other things he had pulled out of the box. An assortment of cords, with some sticky pads, as well as the game itself.
Alex powered on the console, and it whirred to life, and a box popped up on his computer screen.
By the time Alex had finished getting everything set up, he was covered in the small sticky pads and looked like he was about to get tested on by some evil doctor. It was strange. He slid on the headset and pressed the "eject" button on the console. A small disk-dock thing slid out, and Alex popped in the game.
There was a dull chime and a menu popped up. But it wasn't on the monitor, it was on the narrow band stretching across his face.
Is this your first time playing?
[x] Yes
[ ] No
Alex wasn't exactly sure how to select, he tried raising his arm, on the visor a hand raised up from the side of his character. There was no way a developer could do this, was there?
Alex touched the "No" and the X blinked down into the box next to the no. "No way..." Alex whispered, then he gasped. He had heard his voice, but, again, not in the real world, in the game.
With a quick hand motion, the X blinked back onto the box next to the yes, and Alex tapped it twice.
Suddenly a spiral appeared, and there was a loud buzzing sound. Alex felt a sensation and he zipped towards the spiral, which was shimmering bright colors, blue, yellow, orange, green, it was beautiful! Then everything went white.
"Hello!" a cute voice chimed, Alex groaned, he was feeling kinda "fuzzy". "Excuse me, you can open your eyes now!" the voice replied. Alex opened his eyes and squinted, it was still relatively bright. Alex blinked a few times, and his eyes adjusted. A gentle song played. He was lying down.
A hand lowered into Alex's vision. "Well come on, sit up!" the voice chimed. Alex grabbed the hand and pulled himself up and glanced around, there was almost nothing but whiteness. In front of him stood a short girl, with short blue hair, and a pink streak going down from her bangs to the tip of her hair. She was cute.
"Finally, you woke up! I'm Tutsie!" She extended her hand.
"U-uh Hi, I guess," Alex replied, shaking her hand "I'm Alex, um, where are we?"
"In the tutorial zone, silly!"
"Excuse me, where?"
"You're in the tutorial zone, I'm a tutorial NPC if you can't tell."
"Is there like, a dude version of you? Sorry, just outta curiosity?" Alex probed,
"Yep! Although, we have certain 'shifts' I guess."
"That's nice."
"Well, let's get started, shall we?"
"Sure, why not."
Tutsie snapped her fingers and three little medallions fizzled from a bunch of pixels in front of Alex. "In this game, there are three main classes, Mage, Warrior, and Ranger!" the three medallions turned into three people, two men, as the Mage and Warrior, and a woman as the Ranger.
Everything darkened, and a spotlight shone on the mage "Mages have a large selection of weaponry, and while they are capable of conjuring weapons, they always have a 'conjure' debuff, which slices the stats down to 1/100th of the normal stats," Tutsie paused, the spotlight moved to the warrior "Warriors also have a large selection of weaponry. They could use anything from a stick to a Scottish Claymore! Warriors are capable of some magic, but only to buff their weapons with certain elements or debuffs, such as paralysis or bleed, but it still requires a potion, and a mage to be there," Tutsie paused again, and pointed to the ranger, the spotlight moved to the ranger "My personal favorite; the Ranger! The Ranger has a significantly smaller choice of weapons, but they generally have piercing buffs, which makes them a dangerous foe in battle! They aren't capable of applying any status conditions on the other hand..."
"Wait a second, why not?" Alex cut in
"Because then they'd be far too overpowered!"
"Well, they already seem like a broken class to me."
"You have to remember though, they are restricted to a certain ammo pool."
"Ah, right." Alex finished
"Earlier, as I said, they have a significantly smaller choice of weapons, they're restricted to weapons like firearms, and bows."
"Wait a second, firearms?"
"You know, guns? Pull a trig--"
"Yeah, I know you mean guns. I just didn't expect guns to be in the game."
"Well, that's all for the explanation of the classes, any questions?"
"Only one,"
"Yes?"
"What're the strongest weapon-types for each of the classes?"
Tutsie blinked, and sighed, as if she was annoyed for a second, "Well, in terms of raw damage output, the staff for the mage, a two-handed greatsword for the warrior, and a high caliber single-shot sniper for the ranger. You’d have to search around the community for the actual weapons themselves."
"Aj, alright. Thanks."
"Before you continue into the game, what companion would you like?"
"Companion? What?"
"Companion, y’know, like a pet!" Tutsie snapped her fingers again and a little blue fluff ball with big eyes appeared and snuggled up to her. Tutsie giggled.
"What're my options?"
"Anything you can think of."
"So, technically speaking, I could make you my companion?"
Tutsie blushed, Alex wondered if she’s actually an NPC.
"I uh-- I mean, um, yeah, probably I think that’d technically be possible.”
After some time, Alex finally decided. He’d chosen a baby dragon. He was silently excited to hold a baby dragon. "I've decided," Alex spoke up
"What companion did you choose?"
"A baby dragon."
"Oh wow, nice choice, other users who chose a dragon as their companion have grown closer with them."
"Why though?"
"Well, you raise them from an egg!" Tutsie made a swift hand movement, and a small egg appeared in her hand, it was speckled. "When they hatch, they're designed to match your personal desires, at least to how it looks." She handed the egg to Alex
"Tell me more about the companions." Alex felt the egg, it was heavy, and warm to the touch.
"Well, companions, as I said, are like pets," Tutsie paused, "They serve as a service animal in a way."
"So like, it guides me across the road if I have a blind debuff or something?"
"No, not really. You’ve got the wrong idea."
“Then explain it to me.”
"They can tell when you're feeling down in the dumps, essentially. When you're not fighting something, they'll automatically spawn if you're feeling depressed," Alex felt a warm sensation in his chest as she said this "But if you're in the middle of fighting something and you're in critical condition, the game will force you to a spawn point. From there your companion will do its best to make you feel better. If you become critical, however, you just get logged out of the game."
"That sounds amazing." Alex gaped
"Let me mention, companions are designed to be taken care of. If abused or neglected, a companion will grow hostile and eventually try to run away or kill you."
"Who'd abuse something meant to help you though?"
"Terrible people."
Alex wondered if the tutorial was over yet, he’d felt like it had been going on for around half an hour. He wanted to play. He wanted to see the game. He wanted to see a baby dragon. "Well, I think this should be it for the tutorial," Tutsie said politely.
"Aw, darn Toots, wish we could've had more time together." Alex teased.
There was a fizzle of pixels, and Alex held firmly to the baby dragon egg. The main menu popped up, with the title of the game in a fancy font "Revenite". Alex raised his arm and selected the "play" button. There was another swarm of pixels.
Choose Class:
Warrior <
Mage
Ranger
Alex remembered the explanation of all the classes; It took some thought, but Alex settled on Warrior. He liked the idea of swords, daggers, and anything else in that vein of weaponry. Ranger had some nice abilities, as well as Mage, but Warrior just seemed to be the most fun class. A sword in its scabbard wrapped itself around him. Another menu popped up;
Choose Race:
Animus <
Elv
Human
Aquos
He looked over his options, would there be any difference in what he chose? Would they have certain abilities? The on-screen example, while selected on "Animus" showed a man with dog ears, and a woman with cat ears. Alex wasn't into cat girls. He sighed and selected the next option; Elv.
The man and the woman fizzled into different appearances. They lost the animal features, and some larger, pointed ears, took the place of normal human ears. The man grew some longer hair, and the woman's face reformed itself, to look a bit better. It'd fit if he chose Mage, or Ranger, but, he didn’t. He skipped Human and went to Aquos.
The man and woman changed again, they had thin, spiny slits around their neck, and some fins protruded out of their head, and the back of their arms. A bluish tint covered their skin. The woman was wearing some sort of tiara with a red gem, and some lacy clothing. The man was wearing swim trunks and nothing else. The lack of clothing kinda bothered Alex. Human it is.
Alex selected Human, and another menu popped up;
Choose Element:
Fire <
Water
Earth
Air
Electric
Poison
Dark
Light
Fire: Higher attack, lower defense
Alex didn't know there were elements, why hadn't Tutsie mentioned these? Alex was at a loss again. The options all had their pros and cons, Earth had higher defense, but a lower movement speed. Light allowed for extremely high defense, but extremely low attack power, and the opposite for Dark. Alex wasn't entirely sure what to pick, they all seemed like wonderful options, but he had to make a decision.
Electric. He decided on Electric, the stat buffs were “Intense attack and movement speed, severe lack of defense.” Besides, in other games, he found Electric type things were fun to use, the speed was always ridiculously silly, though. Alex double-tapped the Electric with his free hand, and he felt a surge, not only in himself, but also in the egg he was holding.
The menu disappeared, and Alex was plunged into another spiral vortex, engulfed in an unpleasant feeling all over his body. Again, a bright light blinded Alex. He felt nothing, at first, and then he hit something hard, he squeezed his eyes shut, and counted to 10. 1... 2.. 3.. 6... 8.. 9.. 10! He opened his eyes again-- he wasn't blind! He was sitting in some sort of, town square, four short pillars, 3 meters tall each, stood around him, forming the corners of a small square. The sides of the square opened up to four streets.
Alex shook his head, getting his long hair out of his eyes. He held on to one of the pillars and trudged out of what the spawn point. A large man walked by and waved to him, and Alex politely waved back, still dazed from the bright light.
Alex realized how little Tutsie had actually taught him. How do I bring up the menu? He thought to himself. The egg in his hands wiggled a bit, and there was a chime. Suddenly a drop down menu scrolled down from a corner, and everything sort-of just loaded in. It showed his items, his abilities, and a progress bar on the egg.
Companion Birth Progress: [========95%======== ]
(3 minutes remaining)
Only three minutes!? Alex was ecstatic! And then he remembered, he'd need food and water. What if his dragon was herbivorous though? What if it didn't even have teeth? What if it was some aquatic dragon, that could only live in water!? Alex brought up a map, found a Companion Shopkeep, and dead sprinted to the Shopkeep. He was faster than he had expected, and now an HP and EXP bar lay in the upper left corner of the screen. As well as his level.
Lv. 1
HP: [======50/50=====]
EXP: [ 0/250 ]
Alex arrived at the store, the town's music, a relaxed Celtic song, changed into a more, lively song. "Howdy!" a man behind the desk called.
"Where can I get dragon food?" Alex replied
"Dragon food? Why would you need that?"
"For my companion, it's a dragon."
"Hmmm... How long until it hatches?"
The man said, pointing at the egg.
Alex checked; 45 seconds. "A little under a minute."
The man jumped up from behind the desk, and hurriedly set up some sort of towel-blanket-nest. "Put the egg in here, son." and he moved a candle over.
"O-okay," Alex settled the egg in the middle of the nest and stood back. "Excuse me, but why are we doing this, exactly?"
"When dragons are born, they require a perfect temperature, equal to that of its master's body heat. Make sure it sees you first and smells you."
The music changed again, to a sort of lullaby song, with a gentle chime. "Here it comes." The man whispered. Then the egg wiggled, and a tiny crack formed at the top. A gentle squeak sounded. The crack got wider and eventually spread into a small hole, where a tiny little snout poked out. Some tiny talons came out, and gripped the eggshell, and broke off a piece, allowing a tiny head to pop out, it was adorable. The tiny head was similar to that of some large carnivorous dinosaur, like a T-Rex, but with a longer snout. It yawned and forced its body through the thin shell.
Alex wiped off the egg slime from the baby dragon, it had some sharp spines going down it's back and shimmered white and pale blue. There were spikes on the tail, each in the shape of a lightning bolt. The small wings tried to raise themselves up but flopped down. Perhaps the baby dragon was too weak to raise its own wings at the moment. It made a high pitched gurgling noise and rubbed up into Alex's chest.
A small beep scared Alex, he brought down the menu, and he had new items:
Companion Food x1
Companion Bed x1
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