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Massive game rebranding, planning phase

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Slash

Sun Jul 12 2009, 09:14AM

Developer

Registered Member #1

Joined: Mon Oct 09 2006, 07:59PM
Location: Medellín, Colombia
Posts: 611

I am thinking on changing the brands of all the games, including CvRL, to something of my own. That my give me some motivation to continue working on them (Think Vampire Hunter Roguelike instead of CvRL, or Space Ranger RL instead of MetroidRL).

The only one I'd left untouched would be Drash, because well--- I always wanted to remake an Ultima game, and I feel this one as special.

The list of games to be rebranded would thus be:

CastlevaniaRL -> Vampire Chronicles: Serenade of Chaos
ZeldaRL -> Nemesis Stars
MegamanRL -> ArcherFire: Infiltration
MetroidRL -> ArcherFire: Assault

Some of these come from my old projects at [link]

Worries:

Most of the art in CvRL, specially the monsters, isvery Castlevaniaish. I wouldn't want all that excellent artistic content be lost, we will see what happens here.
The music and sound effects of all the games would have to be replaced, (specially the music)

Let's discuss :)

Slash
"The average player of your game will give it 5 minutes and the ditch it. If you don't grab him by the throat during those 5 minutes, you've failed." (Anubis, rgrd)

AmnEn

Sun Jul 12 2009, 12:38PM

Registered Member #116

Joined: Sat Dec 08 2007, 04:17AM
Posts: 60

I think Castlevania will offer a couple of more problems.
The Vampire Killer Class is basically the very incarnation of what I understand as Castlevania. An upgradeable whip, the special powerup skills based upon Hearts. The other classes don't have that problem as they were mostly introduced with the later games and don't embody Castlevania that much (until recently I always thought Pistols were added in by you, until I got my DS :D). But the Vampire Killer, it's kinda like Super Mario and Sonic in that it represents a series of games.
The rest of it should be fine though, there are a lot of Dracula Stories out there. I think the simularities could be solved by more background information. The Basics are already there "Warg: A giant wolf-like creature". If you explain things differently, it helps to set them apart.

Personally I can't comment on the music, I always had to deactivate it, otherwise the game would quickly find a crashing end with lots of error messages (reported). Personally, I much prefer my own choice of music. And coming from a Roguelike Background, music for them isn't a must. It helps but isn't necessary.

elig

Mon Jul 13 2009, 01:52AM

Registered Member #208

Joined: Fri Apr 10 2009, 02:40AM
Location: Rocklin, CA
Posts: 3

I think that will be spectacular. I particularly like the combination of MetroidRL and MegamanRL into a single series. I wouldn't worry too much about different classes/gameplay/items being too close to actual series. For CVRL, I think the most logical thing to do would be to remake it in ascii. Is the drash tileset open source? Maybe you could use the same tileset for Drash and CVRL. But really, I'd be very happy playing an ascii CVRL. In terms of the sound, I usually mute the sound on most games, so that's no big deal.

Anyway, looks great! I'd love to see them rebranded and upgraded. Even if it means ascii CVRL with no sound for a while, I think a lot of people will be happy that it's getting worked on at all.

AmnEn

Mon Jul 13 2009, 05:25AM

Registered Member #116

Joined: Sat Dec 08 2007, 04:17AM
Posts: 60

Concerning Ascii CVRL:
Start it in console mode.

I wouldn't be happy if the beautiful Tiles were lost to be honest. They're not too Castlevania either and could still work after a rebrand.

Burzmali

Tue Jul 14 2009, 10:16AM

Registered Member #177

Joined: Wed Aug 06 2008, 12:05PM
Location: Boston
Posts: 46

Rebranding is probably the best bet in the long run as it allows you to avoid any messy legal issues while still drawing from the original sources of inspiration. The music is definitely more of a concern for rebranding than the tiles. A number of free tilesets are available of differing quality, but even passable music is a bit more troublesome.

Slash

Tue Jul 14 2009, 09:31PM

Developer

Registered Member #1

Joined: Mon Oct 09 2006, 07:59PM
Location: Medellín, Colombia
Posts: 611

I am leaning more and more toward Open Sourcing all of them, that would not require as much work as rebranding them, and may be a devteam could assemble around the most interesting ones...

Slash
"The average player of your game will give it 5 minutes and the ditch it. If you don't grab him by the throat during those 5 minutes, you've failed." (Anubis, rgrd)

Burzmali

Tue Jul 14 2009, 09:46PM

Registered Member #177

Joined: Wed Aug 06 2008, 12:05PM
Location: Boston
Posts: 46

I think the most interesting concept would be to unify them under a single base engine and have each game possess it'd own unique characteristics.

Slash

Tue Jul 14 2009, 10:04PM

Developer

Registered Member #1

Joined: Mon Oct 09 2006, 07:59PM
Location: Medellín, Colombia
Posts: 611

They could possibly be reenginered to work on Serf, but it doesnt support a graphical interface yet (only console)

Slash
"The average player of your game will give it 5 minutes and the ditch it. If you don't grab him by the throat during those 5 minutes, you've failed." (Anubis, rgrd)

AmnEn

Thu Jul 16 2009, 07:44AM

Registered Member #116

Joined: Sat Dec 08 2007, 04:17AM
Posts: 60

How do you plan on organizing the Open Source Aspect? There's the danger of forks and variants and someone might take one of your games in a direction you definitely don't want it to go.

Burzmali

Thu Jul 16 2009, 10:50AM

Registered Member #177

Joined: Wed Aug 06 2008, 12:05PM
Location: Boston
Posts: 46

This isn't nethack.

1. It isn't (likely) designed around being moddable

2. It doesn't have the fanbase of nethack

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