Quick Description

Name: VHEL
Genre: Real-Time Tactics
Players: 1
Production Phase: Pre-Alpha
Intended Audience: Girls 16+
Features:

* High definition, 2D art and animation.
* Voice overs
* A deep, lengthy storyline, with over 40 unique characters, and 20+ hours of playtime
* An ever changing economy system that's 100% player dependent
* Pure, real-time tactical gameplay, unlike any known previously
* Lush, alien environments
* Real-time day and night simulation
* Dynamic weather patterns
* Limited HUD, creating a vastly immersible experience
* Calender driven game progression
* Procedural Narrative (the story and gameplay unfolds dependent on how you play)
* No "Game Over"s



General

VHEL is a 2-D, story based, stealth focused, real-time tactics game set in a science fiction world known as Nor Prime. It follows the exploits of a young Bhacrio girl named Khana Faust, a courier in the southern region of Ivara, who undergoes strange metaphysical changes from a parasite known as VHEL, originally used as a means to power a destructive anomaly known as Skull over 13 years ago and also a parasitic commodity amongst mammoth-like hydrozoans known as Ragnic. As Khana, the player will explore the continent of Ivara in a rudimentary day to day simulation of her life as a courier while also engaging in confrontations with Ragnic -- usually within an evasive fashion -- in heart-stopping confrontations periodically, using alien tactics and strategies unique to this world alone.

Players are also introduced to a wide array of characters, situations, and events that not only challenges the player’s own modern perception of life, but also the player’s own morality, fortitude, endurance, loyalty, diligence, and problem solving skills. As with this, the player will learn about the world from many sources, slowly understanding the rapidly changing events taking place in Nor Prime (e.g. the fall of the Reaver Society, EDOC‘s deterioration, the true purpose of VHEL in the masses, etc.). With a focus on player driven progression, involvement, and immersion, VHEL eliminates the lesser commodities such as menus and the use of a traditional HUD system, to minimize the relapse in continuity from situation to situation. Needless to say, VHEL is the near equivalent to playing an animated movie -- the forefront of VHEL’s design and uniqueness -- using it’s cinematic presentation as a tool to captivate it’s audience with a distinct focus on timeless details and durability.

For many reasons, VHEL was meant to serve as a game with an indiscreet point of view about good or bad, saintly or demonic, morality or logic, etc.. People, in truth, aren’t branded as pure evil or never being the type to do bad things. Although these stereotypes and archetypes do exist, its not uncommon to know someone who’s gone down a bad road and has changed for the better. Likewise, it’s possible to find someone with a good heart forced or willingly doing bad things to others. This is the preconceived notion behind most of the characters and their motives within the game; everyone in the game falls in the “gray area“, comparable to the gray overcast that filter the skies of Nor Prime. To add in player driven gameplay that actively allows the player to alter the point of view of other characters therefore breaking the line between logic bound decisions and emotionally incentivized choices. This is VHEL’s entire aim and goal: to allow the player and the game itself to be affected by the choices and decisions one makes to the other. Its with this and the attention to player driven narrative, that allows VHEL to be not only a game you can play, but a game you experience and grow with.

Summarized: It's a big ass game focusing on story, chicks with issues, and awesomesauce RTT action!

The World -- Nor Prime

VHEL takes place in a world known as Nor Prime, a waterlogged planet with rainfall almost ¾ of its orbital year. It pertains two moons: Eroda, a turquoise moon 0.3 times smaller than Nor Prime, and Raa’Corda, a reddish moon fairly 0.8 times smaller but closer to Nor Prime in comparison to Eroda. According to EDOC’s historical documentation, Nor Prime is almost 2 million years old; a relatively young planet within the Yox Krim’Ba solar system. The people of Nor Prime are a collection of 3 diverse races who have created many formal and traditional customs around the planet’s overabundant source of water and Ragnic infestation. These races have slowly evolved various attributes due to their origin of birth. Due to Nor Prime’s distance to it’s star (sun), Sy Ra, Nor Prime’s surface temperature is fairly low, allowing it to be a hospitable world to various vegetation, although greatly populated by fungi. This is fact because of the overcast lingering within Nor Prime’s atmosphere caused by excessive precipitation; the clouds literally block out the sun from hitting the ground very often.

Nor Prime is governed by a one-world governmental chain known as "EDOC", short for Evolve, Develop, Ostracize, and Control. EDOC's purpose is to rid the world of Ragnic, the hydrozoans who roam the skies, the seas, and the surface, in search for food of all kinds.

What does VHEL even mean?

Visceral Hydro-Endosymbiotic Leprotic (relating to it‘s functions), or VHEL, is an endosymbiotic, parasitic anomaly, found within Ragnic, known to use bioconversion to create the substance murr -- known to naturally output highly concentrated, luminescent energy, which flows freely in the Ragnic bloodstreams. VHEL makes it possible for Ragnic to use bioluminescence and endure abnormal physical conditions along with the Ragnic‘s ability to slowly form a polymorphic exoskeleton. The sheer proficiency of the parasite has lead many biomurrologist within EDOC and the Reaver Society to create whole sciences (biomurrology), technology (MPA devices), and medical solutions for both modern and rural problems. It’s believed to hold unlimited potential to advance the civilization on Nor Prime by 400 years, theoretically speaking.

In more extreme cases, VHEL has been used as a stepping stone in evolution. The base characteristics and functions to VHEL creates a very clear picture as to the type of life people could otherwise have with it. Experiments have been conducted on actual people -- symbiotically infusing them with the VHEL parasite by means of murr. These people manifested a number of new attributes such as kinetic intemperance and proxy syndrome. The lack of murr within these tested bodies, however, alternatively created dramatic causes of leprosy.

Design

Unlike many games, VHEL is a high definition, 2D gaming experience emphasizing art in ways that's much more fantastic than realistic -- it's storyline leading to many more abstract nuances that are better represented with a painterly approach. Though the game does play along a limited 3D field, player navigation is handled with simplistic 360 movement, with depth being limited. Additionally, VHEL is a RTT (Real-time Tactics) game with features unique to itself.

What's the general experience like?

As Khana, the player will play through the storyline in a rudimentary day to day simulation. There are two parts that make up a general session of play: intermission and contract. Contracts are what the player will be doing a large majority of the time -- handling client based missions under varying time constraints, exploring the open wastelands of Ivara during the day and the night, confronting the Ragnic, and other such varying activities.

There are no "Game Over"s in VHEL. Instead, the game continues onward dynamically to scenes reflexive to player blunders. Due to this adaptive nature, much of the game is based upon procedural systems that dynamically alter the gaming experience based upon player preferences, skill, and moral choices within the story.

What kind of gameplay elements are present?

As mentioned previously, gameplay in VHEL is largely driven by real-time tactical engagements. Due to the meticulous nature of the Mouse and keyboard, VHEL is largely played via Mouse and optional hotkey support. This means that player movement is dictated by movements preset by the Mouse. Since couriers aren't super soliders or the like, characters like Khana and Nolan travel in small teams, and protect one another when situations grow rough. Guiding said team is the player's main focus.

Playability is unique since planning and execution is pivotal to success in the wastelands -- and since time is always a factor, making quick and decisive choices are a must. RTS games ordinarily suffer from player tedium and frustration, if the player is not formally conscious of the rules, exploits, and multitude of strategies. RTT games suffer from a similar issue, so to address such matters, VHEL is disctintly made for those wanting a comprehensible experience focusing on the basics of the genre, then expanding in a latteral dimension more incline to action games. (More on this later)


Are there any other varying forms of gameplay present?

Due to the direct context of the story, VHEL has a dynamic economy system known as "Trade and Value". Instead of using money for upgrades or other such methods of player progression, the player will need to trade items either given to them or found on the field, then trade said items for better goods in the game. Trade and Value, as mentioned, is a dynamic system that changes as the player does from each, in-game day. For example: if the player is more inclined to use one item regularly, then the odds of finding or trading for said item increases in general value. This makes it tougher to spam a general tactic and encourages frequent item allocation for accessibility reasons, later down the line.

Honestly, I'm holding a lot more information back than meets the eye, I just want to make sure I add only what's interesting and not my 300 page design doc, aka "My geek resume". =P

I'll add character portfolios and gameplay insights later when I have a free minute. Thanks for the support though. =D

oh man thats freaking epic, i cant WAIT to try it out!

Game development isn't anything too new to me really, so I'm aware that I have to be on the ball with the updates and be consistent so that everyone else is on point. =P

There are plans to release an Alpha/Beta build,  but currently, we're only in the Pre-Alpha phase, sadly. I'll be specific about our current status though: I'm just now perfecting my animation/ art style with Flash, so the game -- right now -- is just barely getting in workable animations and backgrounds. Our engine can handle a lot of over the top 2D visuals, something I bitched to my friend about having for a good 2 years, so as far as organization goes, we're about 80% on track.

@ Business: It's a hybrid -- 2.5D. The best example of how the game moves and looks in motion is probably Paper Mario from the N64, except with more surreal environments, with a Shadow of the Colossus motif.

Screenshots? Yes...but they're really old. Trust me, they aren't pretty...

Website? No...although we had a few experimental ones a year ago. =/

How long have we been working on this? 2 years solid, excluding the 5 years taken to develop the narrative, characters, and do all the research (it wasn't meant to be a game at first, but it changed into that over time)

Gameplay footage? ...Hmm...no, nothing yet. HOWEVER, that will be a reality once we can sync in character animations, finish up some test environments, and make sure it plays the way it's meant to look. My guess as to how long you'll have to wait............about 3 months, maybe. That's the longest amount of time, definitely, so you won't need to worry about the lenght of time.

However, I can guarantee internal development footage relating to how the animations and art are being done. I'll get something up maybe by Sundy. =D


EDIT:

OH CRAP, nearly forgot! I'll be posting up stuff regarding the gameplay SPECIFICALLY around Sunday. It's a bit odd to describe it in words, so I'll likely do something special for it.

That is pretty awesome 12, even though I didn't get around to reading all of it. (My attention span for reading posts on the forums is usually about 3-5 paragraphs.) But I did look at the pictures and read parts of your "short summary". I am looking forward to learning more and hopefully I will end up reading all of your post by the time you finish the game!

digging your art style.

I'm excited and scared at the same time! So, I couldn't really tell from the description, but is this game single or multiplayer? At some times it seemed like you were saying it was multiplayer, but at other times it sounded like it was single player.

Update - March 27:
I don't care if it has nothing to do with VHEL. D=<

...meh...no audio. Sorry. D=


Burlesque_Test_Vid_1 from Van on Vimeo.


This is just extremely early work I did using Flash before I was able to create the so called "impressive and ass kicking visuals" behind VHEL. I prefer not thinking of my in-game stuff as so, but whatever. As far as the game goes, I'll list out what I've been up to:

• A few new environmental objects were created -- trees, moss, rocks, boulders, a bunch of alien looking fungus.
• A finalized design for the Hecoy race was decided and rendered just the other day. Hands down, it's some of the most impressive work I've done lately.
• In-game UI is being finalized, though I highly doubt you'll notice them once you play.
• I finally started work on Khana's various gameplay animations, though what that means in reality is that I have to redraw high quality renderings again, and again, and again, and again, etc..
• My game design doc is almost 80% complete, which is saying a lot because there's over 300 pages worth of martial I had to work on just so that everyone who plays the game feels like it's a worthwhile experience.....so be greatful, people! D=<
• The storyline script -- the document with the acutal lines characters say -- is 45% complete. Don't get me wrong, it's not that the story isn't complete, because that's finished. It's because the script is...well...big. Very very very big. Bigger than my design doc, big -- so that gives you a clue how long this game is.
• A resolution glitch was fixed regarding image scaling in VHEL's game engine. Basically, various monitors would stretch out the aspects ratios, ruining picutre quality and consistency. It's fixed now -- no worries. =D
• Gameplay was tweaked a bit to make enemy encounters -- basically when you get caught by the enemy -- far less demanding and a lot more fun. 
  

That's basically it for this week. I'm hoping that next week I can show you guys more in-game screens along with possible gameplay footage(?). Don't look to deeply into that. If I did show you guys anything it would be an EXTREMELY rough build with half working AI, busted collision checking, and half assed animations. =/