Universal Zarista Games’ Cursed Stone expansion for Redshift’s The Quest - Open Betatesting

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by Catacomber, Dec 13, 2015.

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  1. Gondel516

    Gondel516 Active Member

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    #21 Gondel516, Dec 15, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2015
    Ok got an idea for a name! Maul! I have good reasoning, in the article Cat Síth is talked about, Darth Maul was a Sith, tigers maul people, so yeah. I think a knife/ dual weild sword that is about as strong as normal swords would be nice as a reward, I never used dual wield because I always had a more beneficial shield. I'm not sure what tone I want to do for my dialogue, like panicky, or cold and unfeeling, or sarcastic like "Oh my tiger escaped, I probably should get him back so he doesn't kill more people. Well I'm lazy, so go fetch him for me, I'll give you something shiny." I'm leaning towards a more intelligent approach, one that fits in with the All-Knowing astrologers guild.
     
  2. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    #22 Nullzone, Dec 15, 2015
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    re: Gondel's lost pet:
    I absolutely cannot remember the title or anything useful. But I once saw a really funny story/comic panel/don't know where a little girl beseeches the Heroes(TM) to find her cute little pet who ran away. Only it was all claws and teeth and, yes, cute. But also rather large and deadly, if memory serves.
    Would love to see a more comedic/ironic take on this than the original more grim and, let's face it, pretty standard idea ;)

    Oh, and definitely not "Maul". Everyone and their dog will think "Darth Maul", how creative ... not.
    Now, a *Sikh* named Mael, with only his trusty knife and hammer as companions, going out into the wilderness to vanquish the wild beasts. That'd get me interested.
    Recommended reading: Karl Edward Wagner's "Two Suns Setting". Has the vibe I'm aiming for.
     
  3. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    #23 Catacomber, Dec 15, 2015
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    I have read some H.P. Lovecraft short stories but none involving R'Lyeh. The ones I read scared the heck out of me but it was a good scaring. :) I like Lovecraft and of course so does Stephen King from my home state of Maine. The whole area is Cloud Island--a large island--and it's heavily influenced by old Scottish myths and legends.

    There are goblins, brownies and fairies. We have a Fairy Bridge and you can learn to make shoes from the Brownies or weave from the Fairies. But you can't do both. You have to swear allegiance to either. :) A lot of the landscape looks like the landscape in your link to Fairy Pools. Very craggy with cairns and rocks.

    Will look for Dagon. Thanks.

    I found these from mythic Gaelic lore for possible imaginary Corpse Island (agree-too common) names--
    Hy-Brasil
    and
    Kennaquhair

    or we could go with Culthuh, which has elements of Cthulhu. : )
     
  4. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    #24 Nullzone, Dec 15, 2015
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    Fluffy cuddly pink Disney Fairies? :)
    Or "real" ones? Unseelie: malicious, capricious, arrogant, cruel, etc...
    I leave it as an exercise to the reader which ones I'd prefer ;)

    Hy-Brasil rings a bell, I'll dig around a bit more.

    Also, I think we should avoid any direct references by name to the Mythos. Inspired, sure. "Hey, that's just like R'Lyeh"? Fine, too. Directly calling it so? Nah.
    Unless you want to go all-out on a Lovecraft theme, that is.
     
  5. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    i like the name! You can give a heavy sword enchanted with dual wield and a knife. Would Gondel's be ok rather than Gondel516's? I think an intelligent approach is always safe. :)
     
  6. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    Hy-Brasil is fine--it's in the ocean off Ireland in myth. I agree about avoiding direct references. There are both kinds of Fairies-- cruel and sweet :)
     
  7. Gondel516

    Gondel516 Active Member

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    i'm cool with gondel, that was the original user name, so completey fine.
    I have been thinking about the name maul, and I have a better one. Most tigers are in India, so how about the word Maul in Indian, lets see them decode that. Or maybe, because it is called Cloud island, Lightning Maul. Im having trouble getting Maul to translate, because my phone is slow, and my PC doesn't have internet usually.

    So you can choose the name - I like them all

    -Maul
    -Lightning Maul
    -(Maul in Hindi)
    -Or make the tiger white, name it Kirin, after the constellation
    -Anything else, I'm open to suggestions, I just want an encrypted meaning

    I really liked the idea of fighting him with the progressive sword, but can you make it to where you can't upgrade the sword until you fight the tiger, or the upgraded version of the sword will beat all lower versions of the tiger?

    Now for dialogue!

    "Hello {Player}, I have an odd request of you. My tiger, {Name} has escaped, attacked me and some town folk, and ate this magical lens I just finished creating! This tiger could easily destroy the whole island given the time, and that would probably look bad on me and the astrologers guild look bad, and well, nobody wants that. I may be an astrolleger, but I do dablle in a bit of magic, nd I created this Tiger from the stars, and that is why he is so strong, he has the strength of many suns and can adapt to almost any situation. Would you fight this mythical nearly - invincible tiger with the ability to dissipear if he so chooses, absorb a weapons very essence to make it invinsible to its touch, and claws and teeth as sharp as my wits. I heard of a weaponed said to be able to fight such a creature."

    Player:

    Sure, as long as their is a nice reward. I eat star tigers for breakfast

    Invincible?! Your sharp wits! I am no match for such a creature!



    I do not know much about the upgrade-able sword, so one I know more I can change the dialougue accordingly.
     
  8. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    #28 Catacomber, Dec 16, 2015
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    Hindi word for Tiger is Sher. To make him sound more ferocious maybe Sher Khan.

    Oops, Disney took Shere Khan. So maybe Sher something else. :)

    Or Viyakula-- means disturbed.

    Viyakula sounds like a killer Tiger to me. :).

    From watching TV programs about Hindi Tigers, usually they are not so predatory on humans unless they have no food supply or have been driven mad. So maybe devouring the piece of microscope drove them a bit crazy-- heavy metal poisoning?

    I can make it so you can't strengthen the sword until the first incarnation of the Tiger is dead and so on. Or the higher versions of the sword kill lowlier tigers which might be better.

    Creating the Tiger from the stars and the dialogue is fine. : )
     
  9. Gondel516

    Gondel516 Active Member

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    Sorry for all the typos, I was writing it in a hurry. Maybe change the dialogue so that I accidentally dropped the lens in his food, and that is what drove him mad. Maybe he won't have to die after all! I like the higher version of the sword kills lower versions of the tiger, it seems like less trouble to the player.

    I like the name Viyakula Bijalee. Disturbed Lightning.
     
  10. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    Name is good. Do you mean the last incarnation doesn't die? You can cure him?
     
  11. Gondel516

    Gondel516 Active Member

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    Yeah maybe just some dialogue that says he threw up the lens, and he runs off towards the astrologers guild, then my character says

    "Thanks he is cured: or whatever
     
  12. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    #32 Catacomber, Dec 17, 2015
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    That's fine. : )

    Three new testers added:

    cofunguy
    SkarFace
    pakaalito
     
  13. DeMenchev

    DeMenchev Active Member

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    #33 DeMenchev, Dec 17, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2015
    Yay, I really like all those ideas :)
    A few things excited me so much and I imagined quests about them, but now I guess I'm doing something wrong... Maybe if I forgot about it, I'd get a dialogue done sometime soon. I tried, it just turned out a bit too messy and I increasingly don't like it. Some stuff can be fit into skillbooks, I think that would be cool, or added as a different topic if it's good.
    I thought of a fantastic microscope-like device that can cast a big and detailed projection of the microscopic world the Hero can see and gain XP...Maybe I'll think up something different :eek:
     
  14. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    #34 Nullzone, Dec 17, 2015
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    @DeMenchev:
    You are looking for a Magic Lantern and/or Camera Obscura.
    Perfectly doable with medieval techlevels. Wikipedia on projectors mentions "The first known record of what might portray the idea of projecting an image on a surface is a drawing by Johannes de Fontana from 1420.". And all without Magic. In the world of Quest, more should be possible with the help of spells.

    Gain insights man was not meant to know, and be driven to insanity by the discoveries:
    "Rise of R'Lyeh 2 - Deeper into Madness. Coming soon to a Magidome near you. Caution advised: not deemed suitable for all audiences." ;)

    I really like that idea, the more I think about it. Forget all the microscopes and astrolabes, we are out to build the first cinema!
    Or, on a less joking note, the first Planetarium Projector.
     
  15. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    #35 Catacomber, Dec 17, 2015
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    I already have a telescope (can be given if you join the guild), a microscope (needed at least to madden the tiger) and an astrolabe (needed to go to Hy-Brasilia)?

    I think we can keep all these and still build a projector. :)

    Using the "play scene" command, I can play a scene of a projector with text of what you see or something similar--just have to be careful about overloading the graphics. What do you think?

    It could be that some necessary materials or magic could be found only in Hy-Brasilla.
     
  16. DeMenchev

    DeMenchev Active Member

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    Nullzone,
    Wow, nice! Can you put together a dialogue (or a text for a small in-game book) for the game with interesting facts or things from real life that can be useful for many players to know? Wouldn't that be awesome?

    Gondel516,
    About the progressive sword:
    Would it be better to be able to upgrade it very fast, like with a material that appears near the mad tiger when it obtains immunity to the blade?
     
  17. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    #37 Nullzone, Dec 17, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2015
    Thanks, nice to see you folks like what I dig up. And sure, I don't know what to do with all that free time anyways ;)
    Jokes aside, I don't quite get what you mean. A book with real life information like that about the first projector idea? Or fictional, translating those things into Quest format, so to speak?

    That'd need a really good backstory to be believable. Hhmm... does he really get immune to weapons? Or is just so aggressive that he doesn't care anymore when he gets wounded? Did he eat the magical plant equivalent of PCP? Could work, I think.
    And then you need to create an antidote to counter the effect. Of course, then a blowgun or dartgun would make more sense than a sword. Bows and crossbows are too powerful to deliver an arrow/bolt safely, as in without dangerously wounding the tiger and making him even more pissed.
    Otherwise, if the material suddenly appears conveniently nearby, it has too much of the typical RPG deus ex machina. McGuffin, I believe you young whippersnappers call it ;)
     
  18. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    #38 Nullzone, Dec 17, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2015
    @Catacomber, re: Astrolabe and getting to Hy-Brasil:
    Give me a few days do dig into how pre-modern sea navigation worked. A quick hop through Wikipedia already shows that it's a massive topic.
    How advanced is the tech in Quest in that area, any idea? How far can I crank things up?
    Is it still mainly experience ("sail around this side of the island, the other has dangerous seamonsters that'll eat you")? Are there compasses?
    Magical versions of inertial navigation systems, much more accurate than their mundane counterparts? Going all overboard with Magitech-powered satellites for GPS?
    Oops, UPDATE: just read that inertia navigation already is very high tech. The first rudimentary systems seem to have been invented around 100-110 years ago only.

    And playing a scene with some projection would be great. If it's new and never seen before, people should get all excited about a simple nightsky projection already. If I remember right, when one of the first movies - or even THE first one, showing a train riding into the station - played, people panicked because they thought the train will ride over them.
     
  19. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    Repulsa added to testers. :)
     
  20. Catacomber

    Catacomber Well-Known Member

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    The Quest is not that advanced in tech but I can try things. Just afraid to push the graphics to far.

    My thoughts about the tiger were that he would be wounded with weapon 1 then gain strength and dash off and you'd need weapon 2 to further wound him etc. until you could either kill or cure him. Am I wrong?
     

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