Gargoyles RPG Thread

Update (2/24): Beta released (attached)

More about the beta on the second page, please do try it out. I would appreciate if you 1) try it thoroughly and give me feedback and 2) discourage spreading it, as it's incomplete. Thanks, and enjoy!

The basics: For those who aren't familiar with the idea, Gargoyles are a race of creatures which are stone during the day, but come alive at night. Because of their vulnerability during the day, they forged an alliance of trust with humans, where each protects the other as they can. As the storyline unfolds, however, the gargoyles are betrayed by the humans they swore to protect, and of their clan, only 5 survive (plus their gargoyle pet).
Each player will take on the role of a gargoyle, both for the prelude (994 AD) and their experiences in the modern world of 1999 AD, when they awaken from the magic spell that kept them locked in stone for a thousand years.

Gameplay features:
* Flying heroes: Because your heroes have the ability to both walk and fly, the game's plot is more or less open - you can choose to involve yourself in the game's events as you choose, with no annoying indestructible crates and trees preventing you from accessing later parts. This does, however, mean that your speed may be critical; some plots are only able to be interrupted if you hurry, so if you miss your opportunity, the game may change in ways you'd rather have prevented.
* Customized abilities: In addition to the usual 4 hero abilities, each gargoyle has a unique set of abilities they can use while walking and flying. The abilities available to each gargoyle differ from each other, and the abilities that can be used in the air are different from those used on the ground.
* Combat in flight: Gargoyles are melee heroes, and you'll need to adjust your flying height to attack ranged flying units, who will be doing their best to stay out of reach. Thus, you must pay attention not only to whether or not you're in the air, but where you are in the air relative to your foes. There are also areas of the map where you fight opponents high in the sky, where landing is not an option at all.
* Stone by day: Yup. You will turn into a statue during the day, meaning that as dawn approaches, you need to get somewhere safe. If you're unknown to the human world, then nobody will suspect a new park statue, but as your repuation grows and humans grow fearful, careless transformation could be deadly.
* Randomized events: While in modern Manhattan, the Gargoyles will befriend a police detective, Elisa Maza. Detective Maza encourages the Gargoyles to help protect humans once more. However, criminals just don't stand around waiting for heroes to kill them, and a crime report from Elisa will let the players know that criminals have arrived on the map, terrorizing citizens, destroying buildings and robbing stores. These can occur while a game plot is unfolding, and you'll need to act quick to do them all.
Additionally, the main events are not linear, either, and can be ignored, albeit at your peril. The more spontaneous the game, the more enjoyable replays will be.
* Infamy: Humans in the future are not aware of Gargoyles, and Gargoyles are none too eager to encourage humans to learn of their presense. In addition to the challenges of the game, you must also keep a low profile, particularly avoiding media helicopters. If the public becomes aware of your presence, certain elements may use your frightening appearance and fuel violent hate groups to smash you while helpless stone.
* Cinematics: They move the story along, and I think they're well done.

Estimated release: Late January, I think, at least as far as a 100% done beta.

What's left to do:
* Get good building models for 1999: Help would be appreciated; the Tudor style houses are not exactly ideal for a modern city.
* Complete all the major plots from the series, as far as the game constraints will allow (so far, 994 AD is completely done, and I'm deciding how to best implement major plot threads from 1999).
* General tweaks here and there.

Enough already! How about some screenies? Well, ok

Like so. These are from 994 AD.
#1: Goliath and his mate are invited to dinner by the Captain of the Guard of Castle Wyvern. Princess Catherine is not pleased to see them, despite their role in turning back a viking attack.
#2: The trio of younger gargoyles get disciplined by Goliath for scaring the humans.
#3: After Castle Wyvern is ransacked, the only gargoyles left are Goliath, his mentor, and the young trio. Goliath is over to the right, lamenting the pile of rubble that was once his mate. The castle burns, and no humans are in sight.

Sounds good, I like the idea with hybrid-heroes.

But, will spells like Stomp be availiable in flying form?

Klutt -Blue

Are you going to get skin the main heroes?

Ooh i loved that show! i watched it when i was 5 it was ownage i cant wait to play it

Lesse, in order:
@ BlueScoobiedo: The heavier gargoyles (Goliath, Hudson and Broadway) have Ground Pound, which is a war stomp ability that slams them onto the ground and damages units in an area. Brooklyn and Lexington are too light to do that, so Brooklyn has Drop, which can pick up a ground unit and flip it into the air. Lexington doesn't have any particular strengths while in the air; he's strongest versus machinery, so his abilities largely focus on disabling those versus dealing with crowds.

@zotax: Yes, probably, if there is room. The map's already pushing 2.3 megs with customized models for Broadway, Hudson and Brooklyn. I don't want to push it, however. The only model I'm truly unhappy with the skin for is Hudson; Doom Guard is the closest model for him, but it's not a great match.

@Ashandir: I was a big fan when I was 20, this is one of those shows that had a lot of appeal. It's supposed to be out on DVD next year, by the way. I'll keep you posted on map development.

Thanks man!:D

After a little break for RL stuff (applications and holidays, yay), I'm back on schedule for finishing the map around early February, at least as far as complete betas go. I've done some skinning of a very nicely provided (thank you, Ninja_House) building model, and as you can see from these editor screenshots, Manhattan is fleshing out nicely.

These two shots are from near the Hudson river harbor, showing off some of the shops, skyscrapers and office space in the area. As you move away from the high rent district, skyscrapers are replaced by tenements, but since they're my screen shots, I'm showing you the high rent district.

See if you can't find Brooklyn hiding out in this picture.

Goliath, lurking around near an office building.

The city buildings aren't there just for show; you'll be able to perch on them (in fact, will have to!) to survive the day. Crime can take place anywhere, but prefers to do so in back alleys, so fighting in and among the buildings is part of the call of duty for a Gargoyle.

Once terraining is done (I'm making the final push to do so, now that I have an acceptable supply of buildings), I'll give a more formal update on how the quests are coming along.

so gargoyles will be able to fly rather than glide I take it? and the transition between 994 and 1999 what will happen to the castle? I'm assuming that will be ontop of that building (..?) after the reconstruction prior to their awakening

Ah, a fan!

Yeah, I decided to forgo the "Gargoyles can't fly, we only glide on currents of air" thing - it's sorta silly, and that whole thing got more or less ignored in the show after the first few episodes, as they just jumped off of wherever they were and flew around. So flying is a toggle. You'll still have to adjust your flying height when in aerial combat, however, and there are times where you'll be flying high in the sky, and landing is impossible.

As for the castle, after the clan gets turned to stone, then David Xanatos and Owen Burnet do a walkthrough of the castle, purchase it, and the castle is placed atop the Xanatos building, which is a large building in downtown Manhattan. In game terms, as you approach the Xanatos tower, the Gargoyle will automatically fly up to the roof, where the castle is (an identical map to the castle in 994, but with sky around it instead of plains).

I've got Elisa planned to be mostly a narrator, rather then an active participant in the story; there's enough going on in the game that she could just show up in cinematics and leave the actual fighting to the Manhattan clan. Have any thoughts on this? Would it really mess up the experience if she didn't show up a lot?

These are awsome, I loved that show... I can't wait till this comes out!

WhooWhoo! This sounds EXCELENT!! Gargoyles was one of my favorite shows. I still own a VHS of the first pilot eps with an interactive boardgame. lol... Can't wait for beta release! :D

Mits

Thanks for the votes of support! I'm still at work; I'm currently working on micro-events; basically, little quests that can be won or lost, and will have an effect on the game play. This is mostly because they're much easier to do than major plot quests, and I like doing them :ggani:

Most of the "Something minor has happened" events are introduced by a brief (10 seconds) cinematic, usually of Elisa warning you that there's trouble on the map. Crime reports, for example, are usually a "Hey, there's a gang of muggers working this alley, go clear them out!" report, then the action resumes.

Yesterday's was a nasty one - Xanatos calls you up and tells you that a competitor has unleashed a self-replicating robot near one of his factories, and if they manage to bash down the doors, they'll spread out all over the city. You have until dawn to keep them busy (it's nearly impossible to kill them all, as I'll explain in a bit). If you win, Xanatos gives you some EMP grenades, if you lose (or don't do anything to stop them), he chews you out, and several Grid Bug Mark II's run out of the factory before it explodes, and go cause mayhem elsewhere in the city.

Bestiary:
Grid bugs - 330 hp spiders (10-11 damage), mechanical. Have essentially 2 charges of "Build gridbug," which is a raise skeleton like ability that works on the corpses of any other mechanical unit, including themselves! The nasty thing is, the gridbugs that are raised ALSO leave corpses and ALSO have 2 charges of Build Gridbug, so every time you kill one, one of its buddies will reanimate it.

Grid bug Mark II - 450 hp spitting spiders (20-25 damage, ranged), mechanical. Have 2 charges of "Build gridbug," and when they die, they spawn 2 Gridbugs, which, of course, can reanimate each other.

There's a load of little micro-quests like that planned, and the idea is that they'll be randomly generated, so you don't know when an event like this is going to occur, or if it will occur while you're in the middle of another micro-quest or plot quest. Since there is a penalty for failing to respond (in this case, the map is littered with incredibly annoying monsters), there may be occassions when things go out of your control, and you have to adjust to worsening city conditions.

I remember the movie, that was such a long time ago. The game seems fun, can't wait til its released until then i'll just be sitting in this chair and playing games.