It will be a pleasure to explain The Pilgrimage to you!
But first, let me remove content that may not interest you.
The Pilgrimage is a jRPG that will include a new battle system inspired by ATBActive Time Battle, progress bars for RPGs that feels more engaging. I will focus on delivering a game that has diverse battle design.
This 1 minute trailer summarize the game's features.
I remember playing a game with an ATB systemActive Time Battle, a fancy name for progress bar like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger where most fights could be won by leaving your thumb on the A or X button. That is boring!
In The Pilgrimage, I introduce new mechanics that will break this monotony and, in some fights, bring a puzzle element.
I think the battle system is more engaging and is a good mix between a plan-ahead style and a more dynamic reaction style.
Here are some ideas I have for future battle design.
[1/6] Some skills may leave some deadly traces on the terrain.
[2/6] While a VIP has to move from point A to point B, you have to take the hit to avoid damage to be taken by the VIP.
[3/6] Some enemies must not be hit, or else they will retaliate with a big attacks.
[4/6] Hit the bad guy and he runs at you. Make him run into another bad guy, and they hit each other in a big explosion!
[5/6] While fighting enemies, you must constantly run to avoid the wall of fire deadly touch. There may some mandatory enemies to kill along the way, like a switch to open up a gate ahead.
[6/6] There is still place for your idea, your input!
Take the boss fight in the prototype for example. You have to notice that his shield increase when a sidekick dies. Instead of focusing your attacks on the small machines to save Mary first, you have to keep running between the sidekicks and the boss to damage it as much as possible while his shield is still low.
Yes. It was not included in my prototype, but this was highly requested by the gamers, so I will add it in the game. Some fights will be mandatory, but some may be skipped if you avoid the enemy line of sight. Battles will not happen on a separate screen and there will be no random encounters!
The story starts in a world where religion is at the heart of everyone's life, but having the religion central to the society's functioning will be challenged!
The story is about religions and their consequences (good or bad). It helped humanity organize itself and helped some people confront sad moments in their life, but it also came with power abuse and war.
The story is not fully written, so you have a say in how the story will unfold. Everything written here is subject to change until I code it! I want the story to include these themes: freedom of religion, tolerance, non-discrimination and peace.
The story and the world will be inspired by a general knowledge of history, but is definitely a work of fiction.
Thomas lives in a place where religion governs the world, so he is a strong believer himself. His wife dies, religion wars and some bad things done in the name of religion will progressively brings him, and his acolytes (a nun and muslim at least), to question their faith.
Muslims will be seen as the bad guys first, but while travelling the world, he will realize that Christians are not necessary the good guys too! We are all humans.
I don't believe in any religion, so the story will be tainted by my belief, but I don’t want to make propaganda for one philosophy or another. I want the story to include these themes: freedom of religion, tolerance, non-discrimination and peace.
It is your story, but my plan for now is that a religious revolt will follow in the next episodes and you will be in the heart of it!
Thomas' wife died in a tragic accident. Visited by an angel in his dream, he was asked to retrieve holy artefacts from across the world to resurrect his wife.
Thomas believes in a God, just like everyone in his town, but after his recent loss and other incidents, he will start to doubt his faith.
Thomas' first teammate is Anet, a Christian nun. When she was a child, she was adopted by Jeff, the city's priest, for whom she has a great appreciation of. All her life has been centered around religion. Travelling with Thomas, she will also start to doubt her faith, but it will be a major identity crisis that will bring her close to insanity.
The second planned teammate will be Anaya (name in progress), a female gitan, believer of another religion (muslim, hindu, or a mix of both). There will be some kind of rivality between Anaya and Anet because they do not have the same faith. Anaya will be more extrovert than Anet. Anaya is a traveling circus performer, where she works with her family. Her father want to force her into marriage, but being an independent rebel, Anaya does not want to, and will leave the circus on her own. The circus will be burned by a Christian army in a quest to purge the world from other religions. That is where we introduce religion war and discrimination in the game story. Anaya's family is not dead, so they may reappear later in the story, like when we travel back to Anaya's homeland to search the holy artefact of that religion.
I must warn you, this is just the planned outline. It will be rewritten with the community before coding the full game.
Ok, here they are:
Thomas will have to infiltrate the muslim's country. He will realize there that they are as kind as the Christians. Each time Thomas delivers a holy artifact to God, we will be more suspicious about God's intention. Mid-game, God will be the mid-game boss.
With God's gone, religion will have less control's over society and chaos will start to take place. We will see that religions helped organizing society. Thomas will have difficulty to accept that God does not exists, becoming insane. The party will collapse.
One year later, the party decides to regroup and to help society organizing itself (fighting the bad guys, educating people, giving hope, etc.) But Thomas is still missing. However, we heard of a pilgrim (he looks exactly like the Pilgrim's statue) that is travelling the world sermoning people: a new religion is born. The party will chase the Pilgrim.
The Pilgrim's goal is to gather enough power to replace God. He thinks that religion is a necessity to bring order to the world. It may not be a shocking revelation by now, but the Pilgrim is in fact Thomas. He will be the final boss of the game.
I wanted to destabilize the gamer right from the start. Focusing the script so much on religion is only the world initial state. I think religious wars and revolt will shape the world differently as the story unfolds.
Reality is not fun too, so I like to sprinkle some funny elements here and there. Here are some examples from the prototype:
I am sorry for that, but I am not a fluent English speaker. For the full game, the story will be reviewed by the community, so all writing issues will be corrected.
Sorry for that, I had so little time to make the prototoype, so I focused more on having a functional battle system. If you support my Kickstarter campaign, I will be able to work full time on the game and focus my time on your priorities. If some community's members want to, I may even include their NPCs in the game to add more richness to the world!
The Pilgrimage is your game. Because you are paying for it, you can do what you want with it.
You will be able to review, comment and give your ideas before I code the game.
Coding a game is time expensive, so I better do it right the first time. It is more efficient to know about your expectations right from the start.
I think that having your opinion at this stage is important to make a game that will meet your expectations. If I wait until beta, the time invested to make the game would be too high and it will be too expensive to start over.
A Community backer will receive the following benefits:
Yes, I will love to hear it. The game is still a draft, there is a lot of place for your opinion.
During the development of the game, I will setup a place to brainstorm ideas. Ideas will be discussed and voted by the Community, so the best ideas will emerge.
We will organize ourselves around different development aspect (story, battle design, graphics) so you can join only the group that interests you.
I will announce when each episode is ready, so you can play it right away.
Even if you don't have much time, you are still a part of the community. Important decision will be sent in a quick survey to all community's member like you. Like how the story will unfold after the episode you just played.
You are right, you should not have to pay a lot of money to give your opinion.
That is why I don't ask $250 like Undertale to make your NPC or $150 like Glitched to design an enemy.
Community's privilege, which also include access to episodes as soon as they are completed, is only around $20.
Ok, I don't guarantee to have your ideas in the game: you'll have to convince the Community. That also means that someone else's bad ideas won't be in your game: it's a two-way deal. Only the best ideas will be in your game.
My name is Philippe Ouellet, alias Filcius. I am a video game player, a board game enthusiast (see my collection), an experienced software engineer, and the dad of 2 children.
My dream is to quit my job to work on a personal game idea I have been thinking about for the last 17 years. I am ready to accept the risk and salary drop of being self-employed so I can accomplish this dream.
I am currently a happy technical lead for 8D technologies, where I have worked since 2008. I worked there as a Java backend developer for 5 years. In 2013, I obtained my current job position as a technical leader for the membership frontend website in PHP. Even though I had no experience with this technology, I proved that I can easily learn and master new technologies.
Christa is the lead artist for this game.
Christa is a graduate of Woodbury University in Burbank, California, with a degree in Game Art & Design. Raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Christa came to LA to pursue her love of drawing and video games. During her time at school, she has consistently been on the Dean's List and won the Woodbury University Award of Excellence, which is given to the top two Game Art & Design student of each class. Christa enjoys drawing things that are cute, dark, humorous, or a mix of the three. Also corgis, or probably just dogs in general.
I really want to make a game for you, what did you not like?
Last question! What did you like in this project?
Thank you for your answers, they have been submitted and will help make a better game.
Now, if you would like to receive news in the future about the next version of the game. It may take a while, so an email is a good way to keep you informed.
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Thank you for you input, I will try to make a better game next time.
