Topic: [RECRUITMENT] Castlevania: The Chaotic Concerto

[Dalles]

This applies to what X said as well as the topic at hand's question;

The storyline I've got for my game is so dusty I've forgotten the majority of it. If anybody's got a plotline or ideas for one but no game to incorporate them, drop me a line-maybe we can work something out.

I've thought about making mine the DCW game, but doing so would require me to make a full platform sheet for Julius and I already have a fuckton of spriting jobs to finish as it is.

Now I've already sent a PM to Dracula9 about my idea of a game (in fact I have the full storyline planned out as well as gameplay concepts, but I quite believe it wouldn't hurt to procure some assistance in case he doesn't reply to it, or additional assistance in case he does.

Anyhow, here's the basic premise:

It's a crossover between Castlevania and Chaos Legion universes, with certain aspects based off other games as well, however without the lore originally behind them.

The main antagonist (also the protagonist of an unlockable campaign) is Victor Delacroix from Chaos Legion. As it turns out, his soul shattered into two pieces similarly to Dracula's after the Demon Castle Wars, however with the key difference that this particular process was caused intentionally by Delacroix himself who wanted to eventually come back in case he was killed in battle.

The process however wasn't exactly well documented and nobody warned Delacroix of the influence of the soul parts' hosts on the mind of the resurrected one. Essentially, the resurrected Delacroix had many of his obsessions, phobias, preferences and so on carried over from both hosts, as well as parts of their own personalities, causing numerous mental disorders, including but not limited to: multiple-personality disorder, schizophrenia, sudden mood swings, and so on.

Eventually Delacroix comes to the conclusion that whoever was behind the world's and humanity's creation (Biblical God is strongly hinted) has made many mistakes in very crucial matters such as the way how the Garden of Eden situation was solved, or the Dinah rape situation and many others). He learns of Dracula and he is deeply sympathetic in terms of the entire situation with Elisabetha/Lisa, however as he also learns of the true nature of Chaos, he considers Dracula and any of his potential successors unfit to wield Chaos.

Essentially, Chaos is what everything is made of. It is neither good nor evil despite what Death may seem to think, it's an 'element' like fire or water or earth. Applying to the 'ashes to ashes' rule, everything that perishes turns to Chaos and from Chaos everything is created.

At one point during his studies, Delacroix states that it's time the Created Ones, the humanity, tried to truly replace the Creator as the wielders of Chaos. He considers himself a pioneer that'll pave the way for others to follow. He enters Castlevania and almost instantly, the castle reacts, changing, growing, evolving. At first Delacroix isn't able to control the direction of these changes, but as he dwells into the depths of the sinister building and continues to study Chaos, the castle becomes more and more obedient to his will.

It's then that Delacroix discovers the true nature of human women one of his hosts was attracted to. Each of the thirteen is a bearer of a single Glyph. Glyphs being his weapon of choice (just like Shanoa's from Order of Ecclesia) react immediately after Delacroix's call and the women turn into twisted demonic creatures and take positions inside the castle.

Delacroix's aim is to perform a ritual to open the castle's Chaos core and merge with it, thus becoming the Adversary for the Creator and seize true control of Chaos, eventually providing the power of Chaos to every human being, ultimately allowing humanity to ascend beyond the limits imposed by the Creator and free themselves of punishment for Adam and Eve's original sin, including mortality itself.

It's notable that at the early stage of preparations for the ritual, Delacroix already is able to resurrect anyone who died within the walls of the castle and the first man he resurrects is Joachim Armster, who is revealed to be his brother. Twin brother, no less.

One of his most daring undertakings is securing the position of his main confidant's. This person is sacrificed during another ritual and resurrects as a new Grim Reaper, thus replacing the original Death, forever. He shall be one of the most important characters in the entire game, and also an enemy in disguise, seemingly helping the protagonist over the entire campaign, showing his true colors only at the very end.

Delacroix's campaign will be mostly a prequel to the main protagonist's one, with only the final chapter of the game being an alternative to the main one: namely Farah, the protagonist, will become tainted with Chaos and replace Delacroix as the final boss. This 'going mad' will however make Delacroix realize that he needs to be way more careful with Chaos and when ultimately Delacroix becomes the Adversary, he'll be way more cautious with his new power.

The main protagonist however is Farah. A true Alien-3-Dillon-style-but-white anti-hero, convicted rapist and killer who at first seems like he's looking for redemption, eventually reveals way more selfish motives and ultimately really goes after redeeming himself.

An American citizen imprisoned in Romania for another one of his hideous crimes, Farah manages to secure his earlier release on parole thanks to a lawyer, Pierre Harker, who offers him free legal counsel in return for paying a visit to the castle and performing some innocent-looking but tedious work. Farah accepts the offer, however when they arrive at the castle, he is attacked by some monsters while Harker disappears. Unwilling to tolerate such an attack on himself, Farah decides to investigate the castle.

Eventually he discovers sinister personal-level connections between him and the new lord of the castle...

---------------------------------------
Gameplay:

* Delacroix
- uses his raven-black sword as main melee weapon and glyphs gained from bosses for enhancements/spells/other weapons
- his 'trigger' form is a Blackened Angel similar to Devil May Cry 4's Credo, but main difference is of course armor color and the fact that he can form any of his wings into a shield.
- moral choice differences: glyph sets and thus abilities are different depending on whether he spares his opponents or not.

* Farah
- has an o-katana as main weapon and besides that he can attack with his bare hands. Can capture souls of certain enemies to summon as familiars.
- his demonic 'trigger' depends on the weapon equipped. His basic one is an 'Iron Angel'. Later he can succumb to Chaos and replace his basic trigger with another, demonic form, but the ending will be bad.
- moral choice differences: weapons given from alive guardian bosses will have their 'blessing' given whereas taken from their corpses obviously won't. Also, succumbing to Farah's evil nature will eventually make his 'trigger change' and bad ending more probable to occur and eventually it may become mandatory.

Main Gameplay Traits:
- combine attacks: depending on the players' skill, the characters may be capable of truly artistic swordsmanship, unleashing barrages of stylish strikes upon enemies.
- non-linearity: choosing to spare your enemies will benefit you in various ways, but being evil will also come with a couple gameplay enhancements. Think BioShock, but it's not just for a gameplay achievement here: your gameplay is bound to change one way or another.
- non-learity EX: during talks with NPCs, even if you KNOW you'll fight them eventually, you may be either polite, rude, neutral, inquisitive and so on to affect the storyline further. Think Mass Effect. That's right. Save lives or ruin them as you wish.
- 2D Metroidvania goodness: A huge, growing before the players' eyes, varied castle that actually behaves as if it was alive.

Technicalities (what is needed):
- Basically everything. Coding, spriting, everything. I think we may use existing music as there is a HUGE library of awesome tracks we can choose from. We may skip voice acting if we don't get volunteers, but the entire rest, that needs to be done.

If you're willing to take a shot at it, please, do let me know.

Addendum: I do understand skepticism due to the fact that I am a newcomer. Caution from your side is perfectly understandable. If despite that you are willing to trust me that I can put your talents to good use, I'll be happy to forward my main contact details and any additional details on the project's storyline via Private Messages.

NEWS

September 10, 2012: We have our first unique arrangement thanks to squaretex. Also, the project now has a title... and an early logo that'll probably be improved in the future.

September 07, 2012: An aspect of the storyline has been tweaked. Thanks to VladCT for the input.

September 04, 2012: A character sprite (sans animations) has been provided by Jorge D. Fuentes.

August 31, 2012: It's confirmed! Lelygax and myself are on the project so far. For engine, we're considering Multimedia Fusion 2. Several character sprite requests have been made in the appropriate thread.

[Lelygax]

What a luck, a project crossover about a game that I know AND likes, with a old buddy (Dracula9).
What exactly do you need?

[Dalles]

Dracula9 hasn't replied yet so he may as well choose not to be a part of my project, I am sorry if I hadn't made it clear enough.

Like I said, practically everything: engine, sprites, graphics. May be borrowed from existing CV games or made anew if we're talking environment, as long as everything is brought to ONE quality level. Let's put Symphony of the Night as our visual quality threshold, shall we?

As for character sprites, due to many characters being new to the Castlevania theme, they have to be made anew.

Also, strong feedback on story & concepts: if I am wrong about willing to pursue something, I need to hear this.

Also, if anyone wishes to support me, I need availability: we need to BE there for each other fairly regularly to report progress, no matter how miniscule it is. I'd say once a week would do.

[darkmanx_429]

Story is interesting, you should drop the whole Chaos legion angle (I like that game...) and make it a stand alone Castlevania title...

[Dalles]

I've been crafting and molding this storyline over years, trying standalone Castlevania and standalone Chaos Legion approaches respectively. It just doesn't work out for me. And with Order of Ecclesia 'canonizing' the glyph use idea in CV universe, I have ultimately settled for a crossover.

There is a more personal reason to it: Victor Delacroix as he was portrayed in Chaos Legion was particularly close in his ways of thinking and acting to my own humble self: he made similar choices to what I would've done if facing a similar situation and many episodes of his life were similar to what I have faced. He simply has to be in this game, to me it just wouldn't feel like what I've written if I dropped the Chaos Legion angle as you suggest.

[Belmontoya]

There's something that's just cheesy and cheap about crossovers to me.

[Dalles]

I guess it depends on the approach... and execution. Most crossovers ARE cheesy and cheap. In one form or another.

To me, the most famous of them all, successful so far, namely Aliens vs Predator, was RUINED by the two movies. It'll never be the same again.

Or most superhero crossovers. Jeeeeeebus. Please, take this away from me.

Still, I quite believe that in this particular matter, it can be done right.

[VladCT]

I'm willing to give this one the benefit of doubt, but there's still something that irks me quite a bit, namely why would Castlevania instantly accept Delacroix as its new master? AFAIK it only accepts one who wields the power of the Crimson Stone, and I may have misread the first post, but I don't think there was any mention of Delacroix having the Crimson Stone.

[Dalles]

The castle as described by Alucard is a "creature of Chaos" and it's also referenced in Aria. There is nothing said about Crimson Stone -- however Death in Lament of Innocence is directly described as an underling to the master of the Crimson Stone.

And Death is NOT the castle, in any way.

Delacroix has been directly exposed to Chaos when he was possessed by Azrail, and he was exposed again when he committed suicide after the second duel with Sieg. Additionally, I think that Delacroix & Siela temporarily merged (Siela's circling around in air tactic suggests influence of Delacroix, whereas from the looks of her it's clear that Azrail also became a part of this Siela-Omega boss thing). They were later separated as in the outro she's seen separate and Delacroix appears beside her, however bottom line is: Delacroix has so many things in common with Chaos that he has the potential to control it directly.

P.S. Interesting argument there though.

By the way. The game's setting is POST-1999, so Dracula is already dead. It is unknown what happened to the stone, at least I haven't heard of an explanation as to what happened to it. And yet, we know from Aria and Dawn of Sorrow that the castle continued to appear and recognize new masters.

[Belmontoya]

If I were you I would shy away from crossing over into IGA CV-land. His storyline is way to out of whack and people will just gripe about anything that doesn't line up right. I personally think he made a jumbled mess of things. I would be much more interested to see what your own ideas are.

That's a big reason why I decided to nurture my own reboot of Castlevania with all new characters. I just got tired of all the same characters repetition.

It's good to see people with passion on here!

[VladCT]

Sorry, my mistake there. Still...

By the way. The game's setting is POST-1999, so Dracula is already dead. It is unknown what happened to the stone, at least I haven't heard of an explanation as to what happened to it. And yet, we know from Aria and Dawn of Sorrow that the castle continued to appear and recognize new masters.

Even then Castlevania wouldn't just recognize any new master, one has to be a Dark Lord Candidate, who inherited a portion of Dracula's powers upon his death. And even then it wasn't explicitly stated that Castlevania would instantly bend to a Dark Lord Candidate's will. Dark Lord Candidate or not, I still don't think Victor can almost instantly "own" Castlevania, so to speak.

[Belmontoya]

See what I mean Dalles? 

[Dalles]

I see what you mean, Montoya

VladCT, there's quite a lot of difference between a Lord Candidate who has a portion of Dracula's soul and with someone who is related to Chaos on a deep and personal level. This part may require reworking though, since I recognize your input as quite valid.

[Dracula9]

The only thing I'm worried about is gameplay. I've had a hard enough time rebuilding Adagio after my computer crashed, and it's just a simple Classicvania. Heavyswords and intense boss AI and post-boss weapons? Tricky as hell footing, right there. And I'm not the most experienced guy in GM.

[Belmontoya]

Dude you didn't tell me about your computer crashing! That sucks balls. Did you have to start on your game from scratch? Sorry to hear about that Dracula 9.