Draknier Story - Dev Diary #05 - New Art & Character, Project Vision, Battle Mechanics & Progression System, The Scale of Story, & Prototype Music

Hello again Everyone!

Here is the development diary for November! I'll immediately start with introducing another character, and new character artworks.

There were plenty of changes in the story so my previous dev diary that covered those introduction may become less reliable or obsolete.

With regards to character names, I took inspiration from "Nobiliary  Particle" and add a spin to it(Examples such as vahn, neuv, kreuv, nohr, vohn, etc.). It will be use to indicate nobility(e.g. <name> vohn <surname>). I'm still uncertain if I will make distinction between level of nobility, but this is what I have for now.

I am also omitting the "silent protagonist" I said before as it does quite limit me with the current scale of the narrative & storytelling.

Also, despite the possible changes that may or may not come in the future. There could be quite a bit of spoiler below(or maybe not really a spoiler as its pretty much introductory, most of these will probably be covered pretty much early in 1st episode/chapter), but nothing that is of major reveal.

New Character Artworks & New Character Introduction

Mihr - The Main Protagonist. Same cloth design as previous one, but had to change his looks. I feel like this one matches his character the best (actually had to spent a lot of time revising his hair). Was brought to a small rural village with dojo few years ago and without memories, ability to speak, basic knowledge, nor even walk properly. He loves to read a certain story book.
Fights using martial art, focuses more on using his arm and with heavy blows. Free-spirited and doesn't really talk that much.

Ayaciel -  Met Mihr when he was brought to the dojo and while she was still an apprentice. She is the one who taught Mihr the basic knowledge (to speak, to read, etc.). Currently a master at the dojo along with Mihr. Specializes in agile movement, while she uses both her arms and legs, she uses leg attacks a bit more. Passionate while having the tendency to be blunt.

Her prior cloth design was quite too simple so I had to revise it. While working on the revision, i took notice with the familiarity of an old artwork from 2012 so I took some elements from it and added to the current one.

Wina (Wilhelmina vohn Nemhain) - The same character as "Nem Adrest"  but with some changes to both her character design and some part to her narrative & motive. Had to change her name to reflect this changes, make it more meaningful, and sound distinct from the others. Although her family name "Nemhain" is also a  part tribute to her prior name . She is called "Wina" by people close to her. She is currently a high ranking officer in Dragnia Imperial Army and an adopted daughter of the Nemhain family head. Serious and compassionate.

I can't really speak much detail about her as the time when she shows up reveals quite a lot of major story element.  

Project Vision

I am really fortunate to be able to work on this jrpg project as I have supporters & people who take interest. This project is pretty much non-traditional when it comes to game development where most games takes years to develop before it releases. I want to approach this game as episodic (atleast, while the game is not yet complete). Somewhat similar to other Mediums (Manga/Anime) or  just like splitting Xenoblade Chronicles 2's chapters. This will allow me to divide the workload more efficiently and be able to put more work in the narrative of each episode and share it sooner.

I'm also looking into being able to skip to later episodes (e.g. episode 3) with level, stat, item preset (rather than going back to level 1). Otherwise, the default carry over of your save data from previous episode/chapter (doesn't need to do manually, as it is the default way of progression)

Battle Mechanics & Progression System

While I was originally planning not to innovate too much, there are things I want to try implementing(Although the battle gameplay is probably the last one i plan to work on and spend a lot of time on balancing, implementing, etc.).

- There are cases in some jrpgs where there are boss you can defeat, but right after you defeat them, they totally destroy you in a cutscene or something. It might not be immersion breaking for others(at least not much for me), but to some, it will.   I have some rough game design ideas to work on this .

- Characters getting nerfed when joining your party & forced party battle against 1 boss. This quite happens in the jrpgs  I've played. While I will be doing the traditional battle system and progression for now, after that in the future, I'm looking into working on a different type of progression if possible. As for the party battle against 1 boss, with how I am approaching this with the focus on narrative, I'll probably avoid it as much as I can. If there are 1v1 battles due to story, then it will be 1v1.

- Simplifying Stats.  I really want to simplify the character stats. While in the past, I find having multiple stats to be interesting, I want to make it more simple for Draknier Story while still having depth.

- With regards to DEF, I am looking into probably replacing it with something else such as block rate or something. I am also looking into omitting MAGIC, or perhaps replace it with elemental affinity, or have the MAGIC be the same stat as ATTACK, but make it more powerful while requiring more turns to cast (I will look into it more once I start working on the battle system).
(Breath of Fire IV reference - i love how simple it looks) 

 - I also want to make every playable character to be versatile as much as possible instead of focusing on 1 role. Meaning, you have more control to build the character the way you want to some extent (This is tied to the new progression I mentioned before). This will allow you to use characters in the party  base on your preference/love of character instead of stat advantages.

- As for the strategy element, there will be enemies that have behavior pattern. This will make it less RNG/random as long as you know your current enemy's behavior although some behavior will emphasize on RNG(e.g. maybe something like a crazy/loose screw behavior for certain monster type or something).
The more you defeat a certain type of enemy, the more details you unlock about them & when you use observe on them during combat (hp, attack, behavior, description[if there is a bestiary, will probably add the description there]).

- Focus on damage dealing. High-risk high-reward. This is currently my design focus, To make the battle hopefully more fast paced. Enemies will also deal high damage to you, putting your party members at risk if you don't put more thought in the strategy and just go all out attacking.

Both the 'behavior pattern' & 'risk due to high damage output' will make plenty of situation of less repetitive, and more of a threat (Atleast, in the default/normal difficulty). I'm working on making it less feel as a chore and more meaningful as much as possible.

- Some extra stuff i'm looking into is having a bit of customization with the battles such as allowing you to change battle music(at least against normal mobs) and which is obtainable as hidden bonus item/treasure or something. I mean, there are cases in some of the game , especially those with very frequent random encounters, that the battle music theme you love might become traumatizing for you or the nature of repetitiveness will make you hate it.
While it will give a signature flavor to the game, it is something I want to consider, and again, it is something i will look into it later on, it is still  far off in the pipeline.

The Scale of Story

The main part of the story is pretty much complete by now. There are many topics I would love to explore and include it in the narrative. Some of these are religion, ideals, science, prejudice/discrimination, regrets, lessons, and many more.

If I were to count if how many parts the story is, there are around 2 or 3 major parts(2nd and 3rd can be combined as 3rd is more shorter) although the 1st part can be self-contained and have a somewhat a mix of  open-ended & conclusion. The 2nd and 3rd part are pretty much dependent on their prequels as they are direct sequels. If we are looking into historical arc, there are probably another around 2 or 3 stand-alone parts (not as big as the major one, but can be expanded upon on).

For now, my current scope of focus when it comes to story is just the 1st part and maybe a bit of 2nd part.

(Lots of elements of the narrative and design are actually borrowed & inspired from the other core stories I've made (3 stories base from the old/concept projects).  

(These major part will be divided into multiple episodes/chapters and these episodes/chapters will be in the same game build)

 Music Prototype

Although music is far in the pipeline. I thought I could share some progress while I am still learning the very basics of music despite how embarrassed I might feel. Music is very important in my project and there are situation where I want to make tracks matching the cutscene, scenario, or story instead of an independent track.

I was thinking of dojo or certain place in the dojo for this short loop track.
(Also apologies to some musician for my beginner skills (ᗒᗨᗕ))

https://soundcloud.com/user-915680816/draknier-story-ost-prototype-inside-dojo-loop/s-4Efnr

I had another track (something like an optimistic/positive situation after a battle or the party talks and decide on something), but I think i'm not mentally prepared to share it yet(≧∀≦) , had to do some more tweak to it.
I am uncertain if you are interested in seeing my progress to music and if should I continue sharing music stuff like this? Or maybe just focus on sharing stuff like art and technical updates.

That is all of my update for now, so thank you again for your time, interest, and following the Draknier Story updates especially to my protagonists/supporters for helping make this possible! I hope you will have a great pleasant day ٩(^ᴗ^)۶!