Posting here because I don't know where else to put it. Plus, I may never have the time to actually develop something like this, so I'll just put it here for everyone to see.
Project Babylon is essentially an RPG with butt-tons of concepts mashed together. I guess, to better explain it, it's a 4-player coop JRPG with a battle system that's kind of like the Tales of Games mixed with a good dose of DMC 3, add in some card game elements along with a visual novel style story progression, and you kinda have the general idea on how things would look.
So,
BASIC PLOT
Essentially, there is an alternate earth fallen into chaos by the sudden appearance of a race named Void, creatures that seem to prey on any living organism. The initial outbreak had happened a centuries ago, and now what's left of the planet is only a barren wasteland, except for two things; The fortress cities humanity has developed to defend their existence against the new race- and the 'Babylon' gates, sites of ancient ruins which seem to repel the void from going within their vicinity. The currently existing humans (Different nations that had united together against a common enemy) created a singular army to focus all their efforts on- an army created specifically for dealing with the new threat.
Your role in the story is one of the otherwordly champions that accepted Gaia's request, and had their consciousness control a body made specifically for them. The task is to infiltrate the Army as one of its new recruits, and help strive towards their goal. Simple, right?
Well, the visual novel aspects already gives the sign that there's going to be multiple routes in the story, instead of the normal karma system applied. There are select events which you may not experience at all in your playthrough, and even will drastically change parts of plot, and even the characters- not just their opinion of you, but even their initial characteristics. However, the side effect is that the story isn't really that long. Two hours or four, at most- but that's just the main quest!
Now that we're finished with that, let me tell you about the-
GAMEPLAY
First, create-a-character. It's the usual stuff present here for an anime-styled rpg- choose hairstyle, hair color, eye shape & color, build, voice, and personality. Though there would be a slight change within the clothing options where you can wear the same piece of clothing in different ways- like tying a cape on your back, or instead tying said cape on your pants instead. It would make personalization much more unique, I guess, with people having the same outfits but not necessarily wearing them the same way.
Also, instead of classes, you can choose your character's proficiency on specific weapons- the more weapons you are proficient at, the less advantage you have with each proficient weapon, and the bigger disadvantage you have on non-proficient weapon.
The advantages you have with a proficient weapon would be:
-Unlocking any latent weapon ability
-A general increase on the weapon's stats
-Letting you absorb the weapon's skills faster
-There are more weapon skills for you to unlock
What is this Weapon skills and its relation to absorption? Well, that's because there's no level-up system in the game. Kinda.
Because of that, I'll have to try and explain the
BATTLE SYSTEM
Alright, if you've ever played a tales game, imagine that played on the keyboard. The left mouse click is your normal attack(which leads to a normal combo), while pairing your left click with any directional buttons would give a different attack. The right click works the same way as your left click, except its used for activating the current weapon skills you have equipped. There's also another aspect of the battle system, and those are-
Action cards. Action cards are pretty much short term achievements which gives you advantages in battle if you do them. To better explain, each Action card will have a prerequisite before you're able to use them, ex. A health potion will only work after you've taken 10% damage to your current health (though there are some exceptions to this rule). These cards have myriads of uses, from being item cards to spells, traps, and special attacks that could change the tide of the battle one way or another. There are generally two types of Action cards- "Manual" Cards, and "Auto" Cards. Manual cards are cards that have to be activated after completing the prerequisite to be used, while Auto cards activate.. well, automatically.
But there is a catch- every card could only be used one time. (or in some cases, multiple times, but they will only be able to be used on a single battle)
Every start of the battle, you're dealt 5 Action Cards (A Hand) from your inventory for use against your enemies, these are randomly picked from the assortment that you have, and once you've used them all up is when another hand is given. Don't worry about losing control in battle, though, as you can generally plan which cards will be picked by arranging them into decks and letting the game pick your hand from there. Seeing as how quickly the cards get used in a battle, monsters drop said cards in bulks, along with a few materials for synthesizing- but nothing else. Money is generally earned through trading, questing, or doing jobs.
Also, a stamina bar is present, along with a mana bar, so you can't actively use both for long amounts of time.
Speaking of earlier, let's talk about
QUESTS
This is probably the shortest part of this post. This game will have a somewhat open world setting- so you're free to leave the walls of your city behind and go to other cities, or just roam around the apocalyptic world. Sidequests and Jobs are differentiated as Sidequests are more akin to short stories, mini self-contained arcs, etc. (Possibly even omakes) while Jobs are usually minigames that give you money and increase one of your stats (When other members in your party are present, job mechanics are morphed into a more Mario Party-like experience)
That's all I've got for now, but I'll be updating this thread as I keep on remembering/thinking up things.
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Originally Posted by Ginko
