Pool of Mana

Plot:
In the land of Olymia, people use Mana to complete every day tasks. They gather their Mana from pools scattered through out the country. But when another civilization in a different dimension, by the name of the Nocere, is losing a war. The civilization realizes they may use the Mana to power devastating war machines that could easily turn the tide of the war. So they create avatars of themselves and send them into Olymia. You are a Praecordia, one with the ability to absorb the souls from other creatures and use them to your advantage. You are called to arms when a near by farming town is attacked. You and three others are the only survivors. And you may just be the key to protecting the Mana.

Further Information:
**Souls:**When every you kill a creature there is a ten percent chance you will absorb the soul. You can only have five souls at once. Souls will do things such as increase your health or give you skills, depends on the creature. Some may actually harm you (you can release souls). If you’re killed the souls that you have are destroyed to reform yours. The amount of souls you have depends how much health is gained. Each souls counts for twenty percent of your health.
**Game Type:**This is a open world horror fantasy RPG. Based on the direction I’m going this will be like an Elder Scroll game.
**Platforms:**PC and Linux may be Mac in the future.
**Pools of Mana:**Naturally occurring landforms that refill you Mana when you approach them.
**Alchemy:**Alchemy in Pool of Mana does not use ingredients (So I will probably change the name), instead it consists of combinations of spells and pure Mana (the type that can’t be used). Your skill in that type of spell will effect the outcome. For example if you combine healing 1 (these aren’t real names of spells) and flames 1 you may get a potion that allows you to resist fire or it may allow you gain health from fire. The outcome will most likely be more related to the spell you are stronger in.
**Mana:**Mana is highly toxic liquid substance that contains large amounts of power in it. Pools of Mana are actually natural wells that extract it from the earth and then process it into a gas restoring ones ability to use magic. Pure or raw Mana is used for industrial and healing purposes.

Features:
Massive world.
Fight in real time
Buy and customizable houses and strongholds.
Day and night system that effects the world around you.
Random weather.
Crafting and a unique alchemy system (see game play).
Hunger, Thirst, and sleep system.
Actual Magic School (you actually take classes rather than just do quests).
Horror style dungeons.

Game play:
The game can be very difficult or very easy. I’m trying to make the combat somewhat realistic. So if your sneaking up on some Bandits with a bow you’ll have no trouble. If your surrounded by Bandits with a dagger I can’t imagine you getting out of that. In order to survive you must eat, sleep, and drink. From the very beginning of the game you can both find and purchase houses. There are lots all over Olymia. Once the game is finished you can purchase Strongholds where you may recruit Soldiers. There are also lots of towns which I hope to have function like regular towns. A majority of the side quests will not be acceptable until the very end of the game. Mana will have a huge part in the game (obviously), in order to recharge Mana you must go to a Pool of Mana or drink a potion. Sleeping will not fill up your health or Mana. It is unwise for the player to leave indoors during night, as that is when monsters will come out of caves and dungeons.

User Interface Screenshots and Videos:
I decided to use the Necromancer GUI since I’m not much of an artist.

Environment Screenshots and Videos:
I’m purchasing the games art. Also these are still really early since I’m not focusing much on the environment. I am going to work on a little bit though. So I’ll have new screenshots soon. I’m scripting the very important stuff right now (Menu, Combat, ect).

I explain some stuff in the description so I’d look at that.

These is with the effects I’m going to use when I buy Unity Pro.

Release:
I’m not even close to a really early Beta but I hope to finish the game withing the next to years. When that happens I’m going to try talking to a publishing company, I don’t know if the project will be good enough when it’s done but I’m hoping for the best. Rather that fails or not I’m going to try and get the game on Steam through Green light.

This is my first Unity project, I’m doing all the programming, world design, a bit of art(logos and stuff), and writing. Every thing else I’m buying. I have Unity free right now but I’m buying Pro so the game should look a lot nicer then.

The game looks pretty good from the video. I really like the concept of collecting souls! What would be an interesting addition to this idea, would be to have a timer on your corpse, where if you make it back to your corpse in a certain time frame, you can reclaim the souls. This could be a similar concept to the “corpse running” found in games such as Everquest, except not nearly as extreme.

On a visual perspective, I have a few suggestions for you. You should modify the ambient lighting (found in the “Render Settings”), just change it to something other than the default, if you haven’t already. Next, I would add fog (also found in the “Render Settings”), enable it, set the density low, and then change the color of it if you want.

Best of Luck!

Thanks!

I’ll go a bit into the souls a bit more. When the player is killed, his/her soul is shattered and then reformed by the pieces of the collected souls. Restoring his/her body, so he/she never actually leaves his/her body. I like you idea but I think I’m going to stick with what I have now. The ambient light is slightly darker than the default, what did you have mind for changing it to? As for fog I have that when its raining in the game, I might have some distant fog when it’s not. If I remember correctly it will help with the game’s frame rate. Thanks for your feedback. I added features to the main post as well.

Ahh okay, that makes a lot more sense now (in reference to the souls)! I see now the ambient lighting, it looks pretty good. Refer to this thread in the forums, as it will be of much avail as you are developing this game: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/113202-How-do-YOU-make-your-game-look-good
It has a bunch of little tricks and gimmicks in it that can make a world of difference in the final product of a game.

Thanks I looked at it briefly today. I’ll take another look at it though.

I haven’t done a very good job updating here but I’m still working on this. I have gotten a lot done and I have some more screenshots. I still need some of the art so these are still WIP. I also need to fix the tower lighting.