WIP (Almost) Paper Mario

[NaviChan]

This post is outdated. See discussion for actual info.

For starters I designed a little map with few necessary elements. I tried my best at this.

I have a nice story(meaningful but entertaining), location and character ideas(hell, I want goomba vikings that sail the sky so bad!), and required skills to make a game engine and locations like one attached to the post. But I'm bad with drawing sprites, so I'm figuring what to do yet.

Game lore implies that once upon a time three wishes were made by three great people of the Mushroom Kingdom, and that's why it stood for thousands of years ruled by a single princess(and somehow she does not die!)
The game itself begins when Mario arrives at Peach's castle. Bowser tried to kidnap our dearest princess, but she gone mad and not only kicked his butt, but also caused havoc all over the castle with some kind of ability that swaps chunks of space and their contents with their past and future versions. Also, gravity drops insanely fast, so after the tutorial battle Mario alongside wih ton of toads and Bowsers minions gets launched into the sky.

I'm thinking to implement non-tactical turn-based battle system for massive battles where you can have up to 24 allies at once, but each one acts accordingly to their AI. You can control few characters yourself - and you can take over another set of characters each turn without any penalties.

i'll be really glad to have a Paper Maro sprite artist and literate English-speaking person in my team. If you want to participate, please, PM me.

Image:

Spoiler

Proof of concept good quality screenshot:

Proof of concept low quality video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S20Ja3G795A
(goomba added only for size comparsion)

UPD 27/08/18
Still looking for artists to help me out. Different kinds of artists - I'm a mere programmer and I can do some 3d and maybe few crappy sprites, but this game needs some more manpower to be born(also because I'm not a native English speaker and I need someone to help me write dialogues). Please, help me out, dudes!(or dudettes or whatever you are)
Btw figured out some areas. Wanna make Cliffside Odal, Fall Falls, Mt. Celeste, Magikoopacademy and much more.

UPD 17/10/18
For the ones who are too lazy to skip to last post:

Spoiler

UPD 20/10/18

Welp, this seems to be no longer a concept, but rather a WIP. Dearie, dearie me.

Spoiler

Dearie, dearie me!

[SonicKade2048]

The build style and graphics use reminds me of something I'd see in a Roblox game. It looks pretty great!

I'd probably remove the glow effect on, say, the Goomba's eyes, for example. It's kind of bugging me with how I perceive the graphics, making it look more blurry than it should.

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[NaviChan]

The build style and graphics use reminds me of something I'd see in a Roblox game. It looks pretty great!

Thank you

I'd probably remove the glow effect on, say, the Goomba's eyes, for example. It's kind of bugging me with how I perceive the graphics, making it look more blurry than it should.

Oh, that's the Bloom posteffect. I'll adjust it but idk what the characters will look like(this little one is a placeholder)

Dearie, dearie me!

[VinnyVideo]

This is an interesting concept! What are you making it in?

Course clear! You got a card.

[NaviChan]

This is an interesting concept! What are you making it in?

It's made in Sketchup + Crazybump + Unity. But I will not use Miillenium engine - I have my own scripts I want to utilize there.

Dearie, dearie me!

[AquaTheYoshi]

Liking this so far! The idea for a different way of doing the battle system definitely seems unique.
The story is looking pretty good too!
Also I might be willing to do some sprites but I'm not very good at the Paper Mario style but if this game varies in the gameplay a bit from the usual paper mario, then maybe the graphics would too?? I don't know, but I might carry this over to a PM.
Anyways, I like it!

It's Aqua!
...and Fire and Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter and Rainbow and Zack
I have a lot of Yoshi characters ok?

[NaviChan]

Liking this so far! The idea for a different way of doing the battle system definitely seems unique.
The story is looking pretty good too!
Also I might be willing to do some sprites but I'm not very good at the Paper Mario style but if this game varies in the gameplay a bit from the usual paper mario, then maybe the graphics would too?? I don't know, but I might carry this over to a PM.
Anyways, I like it!

Thanks I PM'ed you - let's see how we can cooperate with this.

Dearie, dearie me!

[SilverVortex]

heh, seems like a nice idea, i haven't seen too many paper mario games on my time here. i would be willing to do the sprites, but i can't do big scale sprites too well...(sorry)

[Q-Nova]

I like the concept behind this, it sounds rather unique. I also like what I saw on the screenshot, I haven't really seen anything Paper Mario that's like that before. I hope this will turn out to do rather well, Paper Mario fangames aren't something that is often seen around here.

Quillax Ship - Where you can download all of my cool, keen mods and super-marvelous fangames!

[AquaTheYoshi]

recently I've actually started working on my own Paper Mario fan project, I might advertise it a bit on this forums site. I won't be working on the actual game much yet tho, I've been thinking of just coming up with ideas and letting my programmers work on the project I already have them assigned to do.

It's Aqua!
...and Fire and Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter and Rainbow and Zack
I have a lot of Yoshi characters ok?

[NaviChan]

I'm not dead and this idea didnt die either
I think I'll show a test battle soon enough


P.S. And a couple of unique character designs here

Dearie, dearie me!

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

This project looks very promising! Are the environmental textures and materials placeholder? It looks kind of strange to see these simplistic Paper Mario styled characters and assets in very detailed and realistically lit environments.
I'm looking forward to seeing more from this project.

[NaviChan]

This project looks very promising! Are the environmental textures and materials placeholder? It looks kind of strange to see these simplistic Paper Mario styled characters and assets in very detailed and realistically lit environments.

I do not know if it's a final version or not, but actually when I'll write or find necrssary shaders, sprites themselves will be lit, too; and environment itself will be lit another way too while maintaining its normalmaps.

I'm looking forward to seeing more from this project.

I hope to not disappoint you.

Dearie, dearie me!

[NaviChan]

Just a small update. I made even Mario's spritesheet and animated, like, a lot, but there is still a plenty of work to do. Also I composed aa motive for the battle theme, but that will need more polish, too.

Dearie, dearie me!

[NaviChan]

Battle video here(for some reason embedding does not work properly) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3tUidjoLto

UPD: I added another video and I'll stop right there to polish the attack curves and action commands to feel less fangame-ish because they suck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aosPKveQvqs

Dearie, dearie me!

[NaviChan]

I'm not dead and i finally decided on which style I'll go. It's here. Yep, I know, not the best. But not the worst either.

Dearie, dearie me!

[NaviChan]

And, at last, a whole section is finished. It will be expanded to form a little nice town, but that's for later.

IMPORTANT: We are still in need for assistant writers and composers! Please, PM me if you want to contribute!

Dearie, dearie me!

[VinnyVideo]

What kind of writing help do you need?

Course clear! You got a card.

[Honey Saucer Gengar]

Dialogue writing I suppose

I have the Thunder Dragon Statue. Also, I'm not gay

[NaviChan]

What kind of writing help do you need?

Dialogue writing I suppose

A good question, and suggested answer is indeed correct
The work in question is exactly that: dialogue writing and proofreading. Because I'm Russian and my English is kinda lame.

I use my special scripting language for cutscenes and npcs, so learning that will be necessary. I'll fuly document it soon, though.

Dearie, dearie me!