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Soul Saga! A J-RPG inspired by Playstation classics.


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This looks pretty interesting, certain elements seem somewhat stereotypical (such as the female protagonist's "secret love" for the male protagonist), but other then that it looks pretty cool. 

 

Damn, I love how there's so many cool Kickstarted projects these days..........

Edited by Chaos Warp
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Well it's not that it looks bad, it's just... it doesn't seem great.

 

I think it was the J-pop

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Really gotta be honest. With the characters they have, this sounds like it'll be kind of generic. Not only does it have a mechanic girl who secretly loves her childhood friend (totally nothing like Winry Rockbell from FullMetal Alchemist), a heroic optimist who wants to lead a group (in this case a guild) and hates his father who is missing, a tyrannical black knight villain of an opposing group, and a post-apocalyptic setting where the world has become corrupted, and a land of the sky where people are protected by a layer of clouds (nothing like Skyloft, right?).

 

I personally like the music they have, but... Everything else just seems blah, to me. Maybe if it was an intentional parody of common JRPG archetypes and tropes it would be interesting, but to do it seriously just seems lazy. =/

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Elise looks like Mega Man Legends' Roll.

Edited by MarcelloF
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13 days left, and several updates, its coming to wii-u btw
putting it in spoilers cause there are 5 of them


 

 

Jobs Boards Unlocked! "Let's Play" Schedule!

Update #22·Jul 1, 2013·22 comments
 
Job Boards Unlocked!

Another stretch goal down! We've unlocked Job Boards, and that means we have a WHOLE lot more optional and meaningful content. Explore the world of Oterra, help the citizens of Medonia, rank up your Guild, and get paid while doing it!

The Job Board has a ranking system that will allow you to take on more dangerous quests as you complete them. The jobs follow the stories of different citizens and factions of Medonia, allowing you to delve more deeply into the lore of the world. You might be starting out as a mere caravan bodyguard, but you'll be hunting dragons with your airship in no time!

Updated Stretch Goals
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Let's Play Schedule

Two nights ago about a hundred of us got together and played Final Fantasy 7... and it was awesome! Let's do it some more! I've come up with a tentative schedule here, and if you have suggestions I may be able to alter it, like the specific game we'll be playing.

  • Monday, July 1 @ 5PM Pacific - Breath of Fire 3
  • Wednesday, July 3 @ 5PM Pacific - Suikoden 2
  • Friday, July 5 @ 5PM Pacific - Breath of Fire 4
  • Saturday, July 6 @ 5PM Pacific - Final Fantasy 10
  • Sunday, July 1 @ 5PM Pacific - .Hack

Each session will be approximatly 2 to 3 hours long. Later on we'll set up another schedule for the last week. =D

You can find my channel here: http://www.twitch.tv/thedisastercake

Thank you!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I can't say it enough! It's amazing how far we've come in so little time. Once the word started spreading to the right people, Soul Saga garnered a lot of attention very quickly! We still have a lot of stretch goals to get out, and only 2 weeks to do it in!

If every backer brought one more person, we would blow through 4 more stretch goals!!! Let's blitz those Facebooks, Twitters, and Forums and get some more backers! =D

22 Comments

Changes to Creative Tiers
Update #21·Jun 30, 2013·42 comments
 
Let's knock out those stretch goals!

So in an attempt to help you have a reason to increase your pledges, I am trying to come up with new digital in-game swag that you can grab.

Some changes so far include both NEW tiers and alterations to existing tiers:

Hey, look! That's my NPC!

I've opened up the "Hey, look! That's my NPC! + Swag!" tier by 2 spots. This seems to be a popular tier level, and I want to maintain is exclusivity, but we do want to hit stretch goals so I am allowing for 2 more backers to get in on this. This tier allows you to retexture and name an NPC in the game using existing models.

Be a part of the SAGA!

This tier now allows for you to create a NPC that could join Mithos' guild, be a shopkeeper, or pretty much anything you'd like! This is a non-combative NPC.

Level Designer

I've decreased the availability of the "Level Designer" tier by 1, so now there is only 1 spot left!

(NEW) Be a part of the BATTLE!

This tier allows for you to create a NPC that participates in combat! This character can join Mithos' guild as a playable character, be a side quest guest, or maybe even a secret epic boss! This NPC could participate in any battle you like too. Even maybe a giant monster that can only be beaten by the Airship battles! It's all YOUR choice!

What In-Game Swag do YOU want to see?

I want to help you have even more reason to pledge to Soul Saga! What type of digital in-game Add-Ons would you like? Preferably these would be things I could fit in for under $100. Please let me know in the comments!

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Airship Combat Unlocked!
Update #20·Jun 30, 2013·37 comments
 
We did it!

Another stretch goal bites the dust! =D

Not only do we get to fly our airship around Medonia... we get to shoot down dirty sky pirates and giant monsters, too! This new battle mechanic will also open up new possibilities for interesting story mechanics! Which ones? Well, that'd be spoiling the surprise. ;)

Updated Stretch Goal List
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Thank You!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! We have broken into the realm of 6 digits, and it's because of you! I can't thank you enough for helping me spread the word about Soul Saga. There's no way I could have gotten this out there without your support. We are building such an awesome community that I just can't believe it. I'm excited to be able to work with you over the next year on Soul Saga!

Also, last night's live stream of Final Fantasy 7 was really fun! I'll make a schedule today for more! =D What times are best for you these next 2 weeks? Which games would you like?

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Let's Play Final Fantasy 7!
Update #19·Jun 29, 2013·17 comments
 
Let's talk about the classics...

So a week ago I set up my system so I could stream some classic JRPGs and play them with my new friends... that's you! Let's take a ride back to a time when a 300 polygon character was considered the pinnacle of technological advancement!

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Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 ( copyright SquareEnix )

I've never tried streaming before, so I'm going to do a test run tonight starring Final Fantasy 7!

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Let's Play!

So tonight at 10PM USA Pacific Time (that's Seattle time) I am going to get on my new twitch.tv channel and play some Final Fantasy 7! Please come join me! There's a chat room where we can all chat together and I'll be chatting a little bit about why I love the game and inspirations I'm pulling from it for Soul Saga.

You can find the page here:

http://www.twitch.tv/thedisastercake

Seeya there! =D

Also... only $3000 until Airship battles!

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Airships Unlocked!
Update #18·Jun 29, 2013·18 comments
 
Airships!

We did it! =D Because of your awesome efforts you now get to explore Medonia the way it was meant to be: on the back of your very own Airship! If you've ever played Skies of Arcadia then you'll understand the type of system that will influence Soul Saga's Airship exploration. Explore new lands, discover ancient landmarks, chase down sky fish, find hidden treasures, and more! The sky's the limit... literally!

 
 
 
Updated Stretch Goal List
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Thank You!

Thank you so much! I keep saying it, but I could never say it enough! Thank you! =D

 


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  • 2 weeks later...

ok, couple more updates, also its the last week, its going strong, now can be supported via paypal, and is now going to be on Wii-U, PS4 and vita
 

 

Guild Battles, paypal, and add-ons!

Update #29·Jul 9, 2013·20 comments
 
Guild Battles Unlocked!

We've unlocked Guild Battles! These are large scale battles that allow you to fight with your entire guild against giant monsters and swarms of foes! This gameplay element will be woven both into the story and into the optional content like the Forgotten Beasts.

Updated Stretch Goal List
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Paypal options are open!

I have been getting a lot of feedback from some backers that say they can't pledge via amazon payments, and would like to pledge via Paypal instead. So I've opened a Paypal page! If you know anyone who was waiting for Paypal, please let them know!

Paypal Page: http://www.disastercake.com/paypal/pledge.php

 
Add-On Pricing

I wanted to make sure everyone knew about add-ons! Add-ons allow you you adjust your pledge if you would like some extra swag or game copies! Please follow the instructions in this video here (How can I change my pledge amount?) to increase your amount by the ad-ons you'd like. Then when I'm ready to ship stuff, I will send you a survey to clarify which add-ons you pledged extra for.

Pricing:

  • Digital Copy of the Game - $15
  • Digital Copy of The Sound Track - $15
  • Digital Art Book - $30
  • Digital Copy of Instruction Booklet - $5
  • Private Beta Access - $15
  • Playing Cards - $15
  • T-Shirt - $30
  • Physical Game - $25
  • Physical Game + Physical OST - $35
  • Soft Cover Art Book - $30
  • Elise Figurine - $125
  • (First) WiiU Key - $10
  • (Any after First) WiiU Key - $15
  • (First) PS4/Vita Key - $10
  • (Any after First) PS4/Vita Key - $15
 
Thank You!

Thank you so much for supporting Soul Saga! I can't believe we've broken $150,000! It's all thanks to you and your support. These last few days are gonna be some big ones, but it'll still be up to all of us to make sure that it goes well! Let's keep blitzing Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else where we can try to pull in some people so we can hit all those stretch goals!

20 Comments

This Week's Let's Play!
Update #28·Jul 8, 2013·26 comments
 
Let's Play!

Last week was buckets of fun with nearly 100 viewers hanging out during the live streams at twitch.tv/thedisastercake. We covered lots of information about Soul Saga and even put our heads together to analyze the game design elements in these classics to help identify what it was we love about them! Because it went so well I'm going to do it again this week! Here is the schedule:

July 8th - 5PM Pacific - Chrono Trigger
July 10th - 5PM Pacific - ???
July 12th - 5PM Pacific - ???
July 13th - 5PM Pacific - ??? (All-Day Marathon)
July 14th - 5PM Pacific - ??? (All-Day Marathon and Last Day of Kickstarter!)

This week we're going to do something a little different and decide the day before which game we will be playing. We may pick up from our last save points, or we may play some new games. We'll decide when we get there! ;)

Also, in celebration of the ending moments, we'll be having a 2 day marathon of streaming where I stack up on energy drinks and we work together to conquer some games for 8 hours each day! I'll be live streaming right on through the last seconds of the campaign, and we can all pop the cork together!

Final Week!

It's been quite a month for all of us! I can't believe nearly a whole month has gone by already. It's hard to believe that only 3 weeks ago Soul Saga had only a handful of dedicated fans, and now there are nearly 4,000! It's still hard to comprehend the bounds that Soul Saga has broken in such a short amount of time. Yesterday saw a large increase in backers with the holiday weekend over, and if we work together to push the word out for Soul Saga in this last week I'm sure we can knock out those last few stretch goals!

Thank You!

Thank you so much for your generous support! Soul Saga couldn't have made it without you, and I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart that you made this possible.

Facebook Stretch Goal

We've just broken 1,600 fans on Facebook, but we have nearly 4,000 backers! I'd love to see the support roll over into Facebook, so as an incentive I am going to add a new recruitable character for your Guild when Soul Saga's Facebook page reaches 3,000 likes and then an additional character every 1,000 likes after that! This offer only stands during the Kickstarter campaign, though! ;)

If you haven't already, please like and share Soul Saga's Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/soulsaga

26 Comments
Forgotten Beasts and Let's Play!
Update #27·Jul 7, 2013·21 comments
 
Forgotten Beasts Unlocked!

We've done something we may very well regret later.... we've unlocked titans so terrible that history itself tried to erase them from its pages. These monsters are by far the strongest foes you'll encounter in Soul Saga. They will take all of your skill, power, and strategy to beat them. You'll encounter these titans both on land and in the sky, so be prepared!

Updated Stretch Goals
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Another Kickstarter

If you are into visual novels then you may want to check out Megatokyo. It's a manga styled visual novel created by an American that's been able to go way past it's funding already!

 
Let's Play .Hack!

In about an hour I will be doing another Live Stream for .Hack! I want to show off the e-mail system a little since I will be doing something similar with the smart phone you get in Soul Saga!

Please join us at 5 p.m. Pacific here: http://www.twitch.tv/thedisastercake

This is a great time to talk with me directly, so bring your questions! =D

What's Next on Let's Play?

Please let me know what you'd like to see in the next Let's Play line up for this week! I'll be airing the same days as last week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) at the same 5PM time, but next weekend (Saturday and Sunday) we will be pulling a marathon for our final hours!

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Wow, they really managed to get a lot the goals they listed: kudos for that.

When i will get a PS4, i'll remember to get this game.

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So the Kickstarter for this has ended and we reached enough to unlock Garen's Saga (after the creator lowered the amount to unlock it that is).

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  • 1 month later...

Hmm... I dunno. :/

 

I really want to like this because classic RPGs are fantastic, but something about it is just extremely amateurish to me. Can't get into it.

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  • 3 months later...

Looks interesting, but which designs are the final ones? I think I prefer all the ones on the left except for the robot.

 

The game itself sounds interesting, too. I might consider getting it eventually, although a lot of the details do seem incredibly generic to me.

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The designs on the right are very Bravely Default, don't you think? I hope they can deliver on all their promises. more (good) games in this genre are always welcome in my book. I have a fondness for JRPGs from my childhood.


Looks very American for a JRPG.

I don't really think so. JRPG is very clearly the genre of the game. Their art beats, also are all totally old-school Final Fantasy. Look at that logo!

 

I do agree that occasional bits here and there are pretty dead giveaways that it's American-made. But it's not the majority feel of the game, and it's not like they can call it a WRPG anyway- it shares nothing with the vast majority of Western RPG games, so referring to it as a JRPG is fine, I think. 

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Looks interesting, but which designs are the final ones? I think I prefer all the ones on the left except for the robot.

 

The game itself sounds interesting, too. I might consider getting it eventually, although a lot of the details do seem incredibly generic to me.

The ones on the left are the new ones, its gets kinda obvious due to poly level, but its also clear on the site

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Eurgh: i'm really not liking this new design (or old, i'm referring to the left coloumn), aside maybe for Mithos (wich btw, now looks more similar to Cloud). Elise was way better with blonde hair and bright colours, Max is just meh to look and Garen has lost all the menacing appearance that had with his Golbez-looking design.

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The left columns are apparently the new ones. Really weird; you'd think the old ones would be on the left and new on the right (which is why I got confused). Personally I prefer the "new" ones except for the robot. I didn't really like the generic black knight look honestly.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The Coding Begins

The past two weeks I have been working literally non-stop on getting the code base for Soul Saga set up. I had originally planned on jumping right in to the combat prototype, but as I sat down for the code, I realized it would be a much smarter idea to lay the foundational code for all of the supporting elements before getting into the actual game itself.

So I pushed the combat prototype farther down the “to do” list and worked on the level loading, character loading, basic stat system, Saving/Loading/Deleting files, maintaining player settings, basic movement, basic camera functionality, Xbox 360 controller input, mouse and keyboard functionality, basic user interface functionality, and a few other things. I got all of those already set in solid place. Next I’m planning on working more on the character movement in the world, basic world enemy AI, then moving on to the combat prototype mid this week. I think 1-2 weeks from now is a good milestone for the combat prototype now that all of the other stuff is in place.

Graphically speaking, there currently is not much to show. However, these key elements are an important part of the game as a whole and I had to make sure they were all in place before starting on all the fun stuff.

Some Design Choices

Some smaller, but important, design decisions have been set in stone as I laid down the coding foundation.

Xbox 360 Controller Support

The Xbox 360 USB Controller is probably the most popular PC controller on the market. I can attest that it works great for the PC, and I hear it also works well on other systems. I love the feeling of having a controller in your hand, so I am going to make sure that Soul Saga works perfectly with one.

At the moment I’m not sure if I will be able to support other controllers, but it may be a possibility for me to figure out a way to add them later on in development. My input system is modulated away from the rest of the game, so if I have time I may be able to put a “custom” mode for input that allows for you to manually set all the key bindings.

Keyboard Only Support

If you like the feeling of only using the keyboard to control the game, you also have that option! Actually, this is the same input scheme as the Xbox 360 controller. Simply by selecting the “Xbox 360 or Keyboard” input style, it enables full keyboard and full controller support. Currently all you need is the arrow keys or WASD for movement and menu navigation, the enter button for interacting, and the escape key for bringing up the menu. More functionality will be entered later.

Mouse and Keyboard Support

I REALLY dislike when games don’t support a mouse when they are for the PC. I mean… crikey, that’s what the PC is all about. Even though Soul Saga’s control scheme is perfect for a controller, I am also going to make sure that the mouse is just as powerful of an input tool.

Currently in “Mouse and Keyboard” input mode, the mouse is utilized to interact with all of the GUI and to trigger actions, while the WASD keys are used for movement. My plan is to also allow you to move with the mouse, but this will require some testing to see if it works well with the different camera angles.

This input style is the default style when first loading the game, and can be toggled back to if you temporarily switch over to the Controller mode. It’s simply called “Keyboard and Mouse”.

Camera

The camera for Soul Saga will be a static “following” camera that changes angles at certain screens to get better views of vistas in the environment, similar to Final Fantasy 7 and Chrono Trigger. I had spent several days putting a more dynamic and “sweeping” camera system in that was similar to Final Fantasy 10, but it became obvious that a system like that would take a while to implement perfectly.

A Final Fantasy 10 styled system would require each scene have a lot of time spent meticulously planning out the paths the camera could take, and making sure each possible position had the perfect view of the player.

However, going with a system like Final Fantasy 7 / Chrono Trigger allows me to spend a little less time fudging with exact camera angles, but still give a slightly dynamic feel to the world by changing the camera angle up for some scenes.

Three Save Files

There’s something about having 3 save files that is just extremely nostalgic. Zelda hasn’t changed this system in years, and seeing a loading menu like that gives me nostalgic shivers even in new games. So for Soul Saga I’ve decided to go with having 3 save slots that are all there right at the menu. For a game like Soul Saga I feel like you don’t really need more than that anyways. I know a few people want “infinite” save files, but I am firmly putting my foot down on the classic 3 save slot limit style.

The below picture is just what I’m using for the prototype, and does not reflect what it will actually look like in the final version of the game. What you see below is actually 100% functional. Any existing save files are previewed, clicking a preview loads the game, and clicking on the “New Game” slot will open a new game.

So, he just recently started the coding... Um... In related news there's some debacle going down on Neogaf about this Kickstarter: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=759617

And in more related news the sites forum has been shutdown.

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This kinda depresses me. I had wanted to try and do a Kickstarter to make my own game. Granted, I had planned on creating a couple of smaller games first, so perhaps that's the difference. At the same time I planned not to directly clone or mimic any games but have slight inspirations. (For example, on-field battles similar to Chrono Trigger, with a greater emphasis on sneaking up behind enemies to gain an advantage.)

 

I've still been trying to be very cautious as well, though... Kickstarter is cool and all but I wouldn't know where to begin. I'd have to carefully plan everything out.

 

 

I hope he can still pull off this game, it looks kinda interesting, but I dunno. It does sound like the whole thing is coming into question.

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  • 2 months later...

first alpha footage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=k7ILBF8DuBw

 

looks decent to me, but only 3D RPG similar to this that I've played is Skies of arcadia the dreamcast version

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I'll admit, despite how questionable the game looked earlier one with concerns about the developer having problems getting the game out, this is looking pretty decent (didn't actually watch the full video yet, just the intro snapshot looks good).

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