Topic: New Castlevania Fan-Project

[A2Z]

***UPDATE 2 POSTS DOWN***

---The name we have is Overture of Destiny. It will be a prequel to Circle of the Moon for GBA. It takes place 10 years prior to CotM with the battle against Dracula involving Hugh Baldwins father, Morris, and Nathan Graves' parents which we have named Abigail and William. We are intending to have the three characters have different play styles. Morris with whips, William with swords, and Abigail with more magic than the other two and a bow. We are intending to have a larger backstory for the plot before the game begins. Since there is the inevitable death of Nathan's parents we are still morphing the story around that fact. Some things we are wanting to make different or unique are keep things simple in number of items, make levels more distinct/themed, retain/expand on RPG elements, streamline the castle a bit more, introduce more horror elements, have a more character driven story, and some other things of that nature.---

Greetings to all you Castlevania fans! I am new here to this site and am really liking what everyone here is doing. From the music remixes, to the full on game developments, keep up the good work. I myself am an avid Castlevania fan and a friend and I were thinking of making a game ourselves since we didn't really feel like waiting for Konami to maybe make a new 2D platformer for the franchise. We were wondering if anybody had any good game development tips and tricks to share? Anything on programming, story writing, visual art, etc. would be most helpful and appreciated.

We have a good lock on where in the "timeline" we want this to take place, along with a premise, title, and characters. We have a decent amount of content we know we want to include, but we are still in the early stages. We don't want to reveal too much however, but so far we are hoping to have an entirely original story with new characters and include new and interesting game mechanics while still keeping to the good ol' feel of 2D Castlevania.

We know a lot of people here are already working on projects of their own and/or with others so we will not ask openly for assistance on the project itself. However, if anybody is truly willing to join us or lend a hand feel free to contact us here or via PM with what assistance you would like to offer. We are always looking to include new members/volunteers for any part of the development. All we would ask of you beyond your contribution is to keep any information on the project a secret. We want to treat this as close to a big name title release as possible.

Thank you to whoever reads this. We wish everyone else here luck with their projects!

[darkmanx_429]

What's the point of sharing all this vague information if you aren't even going to show anything or even give us plot details?

What game development tools do you have experience with?

What's the scope of your game? My suggestion is to just start with a small 1 stage level and just do that from beginning to end. That should give you the feel of what the rest of the game would be like if you choose to continue what you are doing. Some people get really turned off fairly quickly when they can't over come hurdles depending on the program they choose to use.

If you are looking for a starting point, take a look at the many fan-game threads that members have posted and go from there.

Here is my initial stage before I turned my game into a full scale project. I started using Multimedia Fusion 2 and now I am on Fusion 2.5.

Vamprotector: Stage 0 - Prologue Playthrough 4-5-2014


 

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

We've been burned before.

I admire your enthusiasm, but until something concrete (like darkman said, a one-stage developed platform video) is done, we take your project idea with a grain of salt.
Are you the programmer?  Or the artist?  Or the composer?

Be wary if you're 'the person with the idea', as that means you will have to depend on a good programmer regardless of what program or engine you end up adopting/using.

[A2Z]

Thanks for the advice.

Yes what we have is rather vague, so to elaborate...

The name we have is Overture of Destiny. It will be a prequel to Circle of the Moon for GBA. It takes place 10 years prior to CotM with the battle against Dracula involving Hugh Baldwins father, Morris, and Nathan Graves' parents which we have named Abigail and William. We are intending to have the three characters have different play styles. Morris with whips, William with swords, and Abigail with more magic than the other two and a bow. We are intending to have a larger backstory for the plot before the game begins. Since there is the inevitable death of Nathan's parents we are still morphing the story around that fact. Some things we are wanting to make different or unique are keep things simple in number of items, make levels more distinct/themed, retain/expand on RPG elements, streamline the castle a bit more, introduce more horror elements, have a more character driven story, and some other things of that nature.

So far we have been story writing, designing art work, and early stage programming. We don't want to focus too much on one area so as not to make any one area not feel cohesive with the rest of the game elements. Our own skill sets are rather meager, but we are determined to make an original game around this idea. Our starting program we are using is Game Maker. We'll likely upgrade to a better studio once the project has more "meat" to it and a more steady flow of production (Fusion 2.5 looks to be a pretty good program)

I haven't seen this idea pitched elsewhere so far. I might have missed it in the threads so if that idea has already been worked on or is currently in production please let us know. As for me personally I am doing most of the story and programming. Any other questions you have for us, or any helpful advice are always appreciated.