Programmer Needed

For if anyone is interested, Im posting the design doc here:






Elium Project

Overview:

Elium Project is a fantasy themed, RPG-Action game with some aspects of other game genres at certain points in the game. The main goal is a game with not only great graphics and sound, but also great gameplay. Talking about gameplay, Elium Project innovates the RPG genre by adding action elements in a very interactive way, in which the player skill is more important than the character he uses (which also has a great influence on the player), and where the player can always learn new techniques to fight, combining the different moves, skills and magic spells.
The game also offers a non-linear story (which ends in the same, but that does not follow the same path), triggered by random happenings, but also by the player''s decisions. This adds some great replay value.
The game is designed for mature players, not only because of the violence in it, but also because the fighting system gets a bit complex as you play, and also that to succeed sometimes you have to really think what you are going to do.
Gameplay will be complemented by a variety of puzzles, with different difficulty ranges.

The story overview:

The three gods (peace, wisdom and war) created the world and the living beings in it, but having good and evil in equilibrium, and created the 3 minds to protect the world.
The world started to become better and evil started to cease.
But as good and evil had to be in equilibrium, the evil concentrated in one point, creating the entity of the god of evilness.
This god now wants to destroy the 3 good minds and the greatest fighters in the world stealthy by using his "servant", and get a proper body to be able to “live” and reign in the world.
A strange murder of a scientist makes the player start getting involved in the plot, and as the player goes on playing he gets more involved because of the strange happenings.
Then evil god’s servant objective is to make the evil god entity a reality, giving him a proper body that can hold his power and make him be able to stay in the world.
The player must then, stop the evil mind to make the evil god''s entity to be alive, and restore the peace.
The story gets a bit complex, but its always easy to follow, making it less confusing to the players, unlike other fantasy RPG''s.

The game is set in a time combination, where a lot of the stuff is like in medieval time (for a lot of aspects like weapons, towns, etc.), but also includes futuristic aspects (a bit of technology in vehicles, etc., and big cities will be totally futuristic).

Gameplay Features:

As already stated, the game genre is RPG-Action game, but it will have aspects of other game genres at certain parts of the game. These are:
· the "stealth" part (where to infiltrate somewhere or steal something important) - Similar to puzzle games, but with an action look and feel. (More than a puzzle, this is a "tactical espionage action" part (as Metal Gear Solid describes the genre), because it is in real-time)
· the "war" part, there is a war in the game, and in the war players will be able to fight normally like they do in the whole game, but in this part players will be able to give some basic orders to them to be able to succeed in the war and make it more tactical - Similar to normal RTS games.

The game feel is like no other game known about. This is because the fighting system combined with the RPG style has never been seen in a game. If I try to base it in other game, I would say Zelda64, combined with Oni and FF7, and some other games.
It can be compared to Zelda64 because it’s an outdoor action/adventure game with a very good concept and story, and the type of environment is similar.
It can be combined to Oni just for Oni''s non weapon fighting system, with a lot of moves and combinations.
It can be compared to FF7, because of the fantasy style, and also the environment. FF7 gets players involved in an epic story, just as in Elium Project.
The "Stealth" part can be compared to Metal Gear Solid, the same feel is intended to be in.
The "War" part can be compared to Quake 3 Arena while playing with allied bots, where the player is able to give some basic orders to the AI allies (which is a small limited group).

One of the game''s most important features is the fighting system.
As the game''s fighting will be in real-time, to get in a fighting situation you will only need to get close enough to an enemy so that he notices you''re there, to start the fight, just were you are. No warping to a battlefield or enemies that pop up from a place where there is nothing.
Monsters are placed inside a zone in the map, when the player enters that given zone, and they don’t respawn after they die. Bosses are always in the same spot, to add scenario and animation to Boss encounters.

In a fighting situation, characters will be holding their weapon (most characters will have swords or similar weapons) and fight in a melee setyle, having different attacks to a different zone of the opponent''s body (with different speeds and strengths each) and the ability to block with the weapon or shield (if its being held), causing weapon collisions and a touch of strategic decisions while fighting. The controls for fighting will be an attack button, which will be combined with different moves (e.g. atk + right = move1, atk + block = move2, atk + jump = move3, and so on, combining with all or the majority of the other buttons) to cause a different attack, having a big variety of options to attack normally.
Defense moves, will be performed with the character''s weapon or with a shield (if held). This is to keep the battles fast and be able to make the next movement fast. The attack and defense moves will make the player take the decision to attack or defend while the other player / the AI will do the same, so when someone attacks players they have to decide quickly whether to attack or defend; this is just an effect of the battle, to make players think more the move they are going to make after making one, but it keeps being a fast real-time fight.
Characters’ attacks will have a range of damage (e.g. you can make 24-32 damage), depending on how close and in which body part the attack goes, the damage will have more/less effect on the enemy. This also means there will be locational damage.

Players will also be able to cast magic spells to attack the enemy, increase their defense, heal themselves, cause effects on the enemy, or to increase their fighting power, speed or ability; with a mana bar that will slowly regenerate automatically while fighting, and having each character unique fighting skills to enhance the fighting system.
Magic will also have a learning curve for the character and the player (similar to the fighting system but also making it so that the character must also "learn" it), making it so that the character doesn’t just learn a spell one day and be able to do it always. when learning a spell, the character wont be able to perform it well always, and also if a spell is too powerful to cast, the character may be damaged, or faint.
All this fighting and magic systems are applied to a party of 3 members (always optional), in which players will control one character at a time, and the other two will have an AI which will not make them bother the player while he fights, but rather help him with other enemies and be helpful while there''s only one enemy to fight against. Also, players will be able to switch to another character at any moment on a fight.
The fighting system will also offer enemy targeting, allowing players to fight in a more comfortable way, always watching the enemy (this feature is like Zelda64''s "z-targeting").
The game will also feature a set of realism features, such as hunger, tiredness and such kind of status; which wont make a player die or affect significantly in their quest, but to make a small scaled effect on battles and normal movement. The player will be able to restore this status by in-game acts (such as resting, eating, meditating, etc).

The party member''s AI will be smart enough to be able to attack an enemy and not bother the player while he attacks another one, and to be helpful in a fight, but also to use magic spells to attack, defend, heal or help accurately while fighting. The enemy AI will also be smart enough to perform spells (if the enemy has the ability), to detect the most harmed member of the player''s party to attack to, or to perform techniques regarding the attack of the player''s party members, as well as be skilled enough not to make later fights easy.
Players will also be able to rest in towns, get jobs, buy a place to live, and have a life in a town. (this feature wont be put too much attention in, but if done, will be offered also as a game mode. see "life" game mode below).
Weapons in the game will be mostly swords, or weapons that can be balanced to fight against a sword; this is to cause the proper effect in fights, and also have weapon collisions of attack vs. defense while fighting.

Each player character will hold a weapon with one or both hands depending on the weapon type and if he will also hold a shield, the weapon they hold will be the one they want (which means the player can use switch to use another different weapon at any time); but each character will have a preferred weapon (customizable when creating / obtaining a new player). Preferred weapons will have a slightly better fighting performance in the player that holds it. (This gives the game a small amount of realism, since each person can handle a weapon better than other different ones).
There will be several weapon types, including swords, axes, maces, bows, knives, to name a few. Each weapon will have a damage range value (as stated above). Some of the weapons will be magic, which will determine if new stats [attributes, skills or magic spells] will be added.
When a weapon is not too balanced (e.g. bows, etc) the player will be able to select an alternate weapon (mostly small weapons like knives, etc) and will be able to change then in-game with a button press.

Armors will be like in other games, where there are different armors (in this case, the majority of armors will be light armors, trying to keep the fast movements of the characters), the player will be able to find better armors at certain points. There will be a wide variety of armors, some having bad attributes carried with the good ones (e.g. a heavy armor protects the character unlike any other, but makes him slower).
There will be several armor parts: main armor (chest), helm, shoulders, lower arms, shield (always optional).
As for armor''s properties, they will have a defense value (which will determine how much it protects the character), a durability value, and a magic value (which not all armors the player finds will have. The magic value will determine if new stats [attributes, skills or magic spells] will be added).
Armors'' graphics will be new models and skins for new armors you get, which will be "put" in the character model, and the user will be able to select if whether the model shows or not (this option will be automatically turned on for certain clothes).

In the world, there are humans, elves, feline-humans, lizard-humans, water creature-humans, and undead (which aren’t really a race, but a set of creatures without its own classify group, this are the monsters in the game that are not part of any of the other races, and as the name says they are undead). The most part of the world population will be humans, followed by elves, lizard-humans, feline-humans, and water creature-humans (in that order). (In this case the ''undead'' group is not included because they are not a civilization, just monsters that wander in the world).

Spells are divided into 4 different types: Attack, Healing, Fighting Enhancement, and Misc.
Attack spells are spells used to directly attack the enemy with elemental damage (each character will have an innate element, which are: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Dark and Light), elemental damage will be represented by elemental shapes (depending on the element).
Healing spells are spells used to heal any or all the members of the party. This spell is to be used in or not in a fight. Healing covers all type of status recovery, including stamina and mana, and also covers removing bad status from players, like poison.
Fighting Enhancement spells enhance the normal melee fighting, by adding power, speed, etc. to the weapon, armor or just by temporary improving the status of any of the party members. This one adds variety in the possible combinations to make attacks.
Misc. spells are spells used to do miscellaneous actions, like teleporting, create water, food, invisibility, see invisible, and so on. These spells are considered utility spells.

Monsters are different characters from every race that use the same type of weapons as player characters do, this to keep the fighting system balanced to players and monsters.
There will be a great variety of enemies, which include humans, demi humans or just monsters.
Monsters, like characters will also be a number of models with different stuff added (although, not as much as player characters; monsters wont have different physical attributes), which will be clothing, armor and weapons, as well as shields in some cases. Different weapons, clothing, weapons and shields as well as magic attributes will make a monster different from other, even though they use the same model. (In this case, this will cause the game to have a greater variety of monsters).

The single player will feature the following game types:
*Training: To let players get used to the fighting system and some of the game''s features.
*Quest: The single player story mode.
Multiplayer will have different game types:
*Cooperative Quest: The same as single player but with more than 1 person, each going his own way.
*Counter-Cooperative Quest: The same as cooperative, but players compete to beat the game on the same world.
*Arena: For the ones that only want to take advantage of the battle system but not of the game story. This mode will let players use their quest characters so they can battle with them, but also use pre-set characters.
*Life: Players will live in a town or city, get a job, get a place to live, and have a life in a town, and fight against other players in plain fights, tournaments, etc. This is designed to have a big amount of players at a time in a game. (if this is too complicated or there''s not enough server availability for this it wont be included in the game).
*War: Players will be able to play the war part of the single player game, in a multiplayer game; being able to select different battlefields, and each player having his own party and his AI group.
Multiplayer is different from single player because it allows players to help each other with quests, or splitting and going each in his own way, as well as just fight each other, or live with the "life" game mode.
Players will be able to chat, buy, etc., with NPC''s and other players (multiplayer). If in counter-cooperative, they will be able to fight for a quest item, trade goods, etc.

In a single player game, a player will start with the default character, and will get default characters into his party. However, all the characters will be customizable, allowing the player to change the character''s appearance (using the system explained below) and to set his initial physical (strength, speed, etc) and mental (self-control, temperament, etc) (Which will determine magic factors) attributes.
In a multiplayer game, the player will be able to choose his party members before he starts playing (also being able to change his appearance and attributes using the system explained below), which will be the characters he will use throughout the game.

The customizing system for the character''s appearance will be the following:
When the player gets a new character (Single Player) or sets up his starting characters (Multiplayer), the player will get into a screen where he will be able to select, first the character race (race selection will only be available in multiplayer games), then the physical shape of the character (height, weight, muscles) (from a small number of options for each, e.g. for weight there are 3 options: skinny, average and fat; and so on) and then get a default character (which can also be random) and customize his physical attributes (hair, nose, ears, eyes, mouth, hands, and clothing [shirt, jacket, cape, pants, shorts, boots, etc], also being able to change the colors (controlled by different skins) of the attributes the player is setting. The player will also be able to select the innate element the character will have (which will define his magic spells), and then the character''s attributes, as well as their preferred weapon.
(What do you think of this? is it good? would it be hard to program? I really think this is a great idea, but I need your thoughts).

Characters will have experience points and levels. They will level up at a certain amount of experience points (which will ascend as the player''s level goes up). Players will get up to level 99, but an experienced level 50 player (In this case, with ''experienced'' I don’t mean the character is experienced, but that the player knows well how to play) will be able to beat a level 70 player, which means levels are important, but the player''s skill and how he uses and combines the character''s different attacks, skills and spells are more important. In this case, the player will learn the main stuff he has to learn as fast as he would do in other games, but the fighting system will require more time, until perfection. And as the fighting system combines attack moves, skills and spells, players will most likely have a style to fight (as in real life) different from other people, making fights more varied, and realistic, since players will sometimes have to find a weak point in the fighting style of the enemy.

A reasonable amount of time will be needed in order to get up a level, a bit slower than most games. This is to avoid players having their characters in a very high level too fast and to make multiplayer a bit more balanced, and so more fun. Although lower levels are fast to raise, thus the first minutes of the game catch the player attention.
When players level up they will be able to spend their level up points at skills, spells, and attributes (each of the 3 aspects will use a different amount of points to spend to). Not all attributes will be available to spend to (since for example, your strength can’t magically go up in a so short amount of time). Rationally talking, when you gain experience in something, you become more skilled at it, so in this case, skill will be the most important (if not the only one) attribute to spend lvl up points to.
When a player spends lvl up points in skills or spells, the skills or spells will need some time and practice to have them fully learned and be able to cast / make them at any time and normally.
Also, when a player levels up his character, there will be bonuses such as:
*Magic stats: The player will be able to spread points to different stats of the magic spell, such as splash damage, the magic it leaves, the mana it takes, max. distance, accuracy, etc. Also, at a certain level the player will also be able to select certain stuff such as the mana drained with a corresponding effect in power (e.g. change a big-powerful-a lot mana taking fireball to a lot-weaker-little mana taking fireballs), and change other stats of the magic spells.
(Open to suggestions)
Besides the physical stats there are also mental stats, which will (among other effects) affect on the damage a magic spell will make (e.g. a character with a great self control will cause more damage than a character without much discipline).

As stated, the game offers a non-linear story, which means the story breaks into multiple paths. The option of taking a path in the game will be sometimes caused by player decisions, and sometimes caused by triggers which will randomly change. This is so that the player can’t control every aspect of his path in the story, to make it even more replayable.
Even though the game has a linear story, a lot of the taken paths will be similar (this is because its the same plot). The game will have 2 different final bosses (depending on the path the player takes), one of them being a sub-boss in the other situation (e.g. in situation "a" the final boss is "x", and in situation "b" the final boss is "y" but "x" is a sub-boss).

In this game, players will not always have to play their role in the story in order to succeed and go on with it. A player will be able to get past a fair part of the game ignoring the story (giving it a more arcade feel), but they will need to know the story to be able to succeed in the majority of the situations (causing players to get more involved in the story without just following it).
However, there will be certain stuff that wont be obligatory to complete, but that can mean to lose some good bonuses, going into another path in the story, or not getting the best ending.

Graphics in the game is something to put attention in. So, the game will have a particle system (for water, sparks, smoke, etc), and also it will have a day and night cycling system, and changing weather (which will usually change randomly, but also sometimes by a triggered action).
Models will have locational damage, this to have different spots to attack to, and therefore, different possibilities of causing more/less damage and have a different effect on the opponent.
Sounds are also set to be an experience. There will be a great variety of sounds, from ambient sounds to voices, including dialogs.

Hey! My message is getting crushed down here!!

-Joe

crushed down???