What is Project "NOVEM"?

Novem is a very real solo game development project that began in 2022. In one sentence, Novem is...

"Set during an alternative late cretaceous, a diverse cast of personalities handle the choice of death and the nature of their existence."

This story is set in an alternative timeline to ours, capable of ‘magick’ and ...REDACTED... Being set in a world where humans were present during the late Cretaceous (specifically the North America/Mexico region) and have developed to the approximate technological equivalent of 1850. Similarly, on the verge of electricity, with magick currently acting in its place.

Starting in the land and city of Taldaria as the hub of this story arc...REDACTED...The city ...REDACTED...

After a lengthy war with its elven neighbour, Varon, Taldaria must bolster its large gap in their forces which leads to a country wide, randomised draft. The cast is made up of 8 these drafted young adults along with a teacher and the player character participating in the same class of a military academy for a total of 10 main characters. 

The story is split into its chapters, focusing on one of each of the characters alongside an assignment each month slowly increasing in severity and conspiracy. Chapter 9 behaves as the finale of Part 1 of 2. 

Part 2 occurs after the major plot twist of the Part 1 finale, causing the characters to part ways into factions they wish to back. Culminating into a final fight for what outcome the player chooses.

The ultimate goal is a story based in a believable, realistic fantasy with highly realistic and relatable characters. The game will be 3D with 2D animated portraits and entirely uniquely hand painted assets in a more grounded stylisation. Things will be proportionally true to life while avoiding textural realism as a means of achieving timelessness and unique charm.

THE MAIN CAST:

Diana E Hunt, the organised and serious, war veteran teacher. 

Finn Oakley, a kind and joyous, half-Mekarian farm hand.

Katrina Riley, a tomboyish big sister, coming from the depths of poverty.

Mae Kurosawa, a very small and odd, but highly creative individual.

Julia Monroe, an intelligent but lonely Elv (elf) orphan, raised by the church.

Pruitt J Anderson, a quieted and scarred man, raised by the military.

Ezra Gray, an energetic, overly-extroverted son, to a famous jewellery store business. 

Vincent Wolton, a sharp exterior, covering a stable upper-class family background.

Irena Valentine, a gentle mediator, the only and eldest daughter of the Duchy.

The player character, a blank slate for self insertion.

So far I have the main story screenplay manuscript fully outlined, detailed and being worked through. Currently I am halfway through my first draft of Chapter 3 (out of a total of 14 chapters), having 111 pages, equalling 111 minutes of cutscene. It's not much, but I will get there eventually. JRPG'S can have hundreds of dialog hours and over 100,000 words in its script. If I had to estimate, being realistic, Novem will end up much less then big titles, hopefully being somewhere around a 50 hour game. Switching from a novel format to a screenplay has been a massive improvement and I encourage anyone making on dialog focused media to try it. 

I have a "game breakdown document", consisting of 153 pages that goes over every aspect of the world, lore, plot, characters and gameplay intentions. This document was written to accompany the story manuscript's as if I were to hand the entire package to a game studio to be produced. (Considered as an actual idea, factoring how large a scope it is, the industry as a whole right now, and my current personal capabilities. I believe the future of games development, within the current climate of lay-off's, corporate greed, budget issues and rise of AA, will lead to the turn of independent creators designing "packages" such as this, covering the entire concepting/pre-production phase, reducing overall budget cost's, production time and lack of 'finished on release' titles. This is just a theory/possibility, however I do think it has some decent reasoning.)

I have NOVEM's world-map, and city map completed. I also have the available food and lifestyle researched and decided upon. I also have the concept to the following story arc's plot, now with its own placeholder name 'VEX'. This is not being touched until Novem's complete "pre-production"/concepting phase has been completed. Once "production development" (proper 3D development/in engine work) begins, I will likely look to outlining VEX in detail so I can make changes as needed to Novem while it's being made. There is also a third and final arc after VEX which is much different to either of these, which I'm calling 'COMA'. The reason for planning this far ahead is simply because breadcrumbs and reason needs to be established in Novem, and without conceptually thinking forward, it will be lacking in my goal as an overall, complex plot. The worldbuilding was decided upon with the intention new stories can be added after it's inital lore play's out, indefinitely.

I have the main characters fully designed in 2D artwork and have tried out a couple 3D styles (Pruitt and Diana) so far. I have yet to publish neat little upload "book packages" of each character on Instagram, but I had planned on doing so. I may design a page here with/instead.

I will have 19 Character Bonds, already currently planned for, which will turn into 28 with the players included (not currently planned). The character bond's have different quantity of ranks within them, some having 3, others having 4 of different outcomes. For example: Diana and Vincent share one, that goes E, D, C. Whereas Katrina and Ezra share one which goes C, B, A, S. I had started many of these, however they are now being fully re-written based on new main story changes. For a total of 57 individual scripts plus at least 27 player bond scripts (Total: 84). That is a lot of work for one person, and I have been focusing on the main story first before re-tackling them.  

The world took a lot of research, there is a hefty amount of limitations of the late cretaceous, more than you'd expect. In short, I sought a way of having Magick happen in the most realistic fantasy way possible. I wanted everything to have realistic roots and play on true to life rules with a fantasy twist. Not the other way around which most RPG's go for. (Ones set in a time periods of swords and guns yet set in old environments that have "no certain death injury's".)

Magick is basically the only reason human's could even survive in this insanely limited, cruel environment. Some aspects have been left out though, such as regions having no sunlight for months... That is simply too extreme to involve by default. 

-The presence of dinosaurs is also a major aspect to revolve around, which completely shifted the story and lore for the better. 

-Working in a way of being able to design interesting clothing meant the invention of a special cloth had to be made from tree's and ferns. OH! There's also no grass, only ferns, shrubs, moss, palms etc. 

-Rice is the only grain I'm allowing myself to play with from the understanding of a "proto rice" (that wouldn't have behaved as modern rice did but I have to let myself use as such. Unless you want to be eating fiddleheads and meat every meal). 

-There limited flowers and spices, no coffee, tobacco or cocoa. There are no vegetables or mammal milk's, nuts/seed's are the only way of getting a "food-stuff" milk. There's no traditional fruit's, what there are, is "false fruits" that I'm allowing to behave as fruits. 

-Oil cannot be mined for, but instead must be skimmed from natural tectonic movement of the area. All of these work-arounds, ways of getting a massive population of humans to exist in this world led to it's more interesting aspects and was worth the research. 

-The importance of "incense lamp's" developed at a point in history that kept "Monsters" away (dinosaurs), which then brought humanity into true progression, leading to a society able to sustain concepts like war and firearm's even existing at all. 

-There's also the question of realistic travel, on foot or mount across vast distances within a story centric around inter-nation political conflict. Deciding on having a society, capable of basic plumbing, hygiene, infrastructure, feeding mile large cities and vehicle progress reaching a point of steam train travel, was a hard thing to work through. 

Research into personalities was very comprehensive and is still ongoing as I write dialog. This project truly started as a research into personality, focusing on what is nature, what is nurture and how can I make the most relatable characters (statistically) possible. Oddly, a rather useful procrastination to drawing at the time.

What also statistically is the real life birth date and environmental influence on personality, in addition via parental genetics' and personality? 

What personalities are most likely to be xyz zodiac, xyz age right now, xyz gender? Combining that with the personal search for the answer to one of life's biggest questions: 

"What is death?" and "Is the individual, by nature of time and place, predetermined to behave predictably in their life and handle death in the same way when they inevitably face it?" 

"How does cultural zeitgeist influence the population's personality ratio's and thus pre-determines the likely predicted behaviour, attitude and outcome to societal happenings?" 

"Can I develop a method to calculate with almost certain accuracy, how someone will react, feel and think to create exceptionally realistic character interactions?"

TOOLS BEING USED: (I recommend these tools, Maya has a lot of learning resources, as does Unity. I cannot afford all these software btw) 

-Scriviner (Writing) (Can be affordable - One Time Purchase on PC's)

Depending on sales, this can be a good price. It is an amazing tool, I really enjoy using it, though I do wish it was available on tablets for when I'm unable to sit at my desk, but that is still in development and has been for many years.

-Clip Studio Paint (Art) (Pricy IMO - One Time Purchase for PC)

This has gotten somewhat expensive with all the updates, but as a one time purchase, it is an incredibly solid drawing tool that surpasses photoshop in most ways. The company isn't exactly 'greener than grass' though so I'm not jumping to promote it. It has great default brushes, adjustment menu's, layer management and layer modes, timelapse capability and great colour profile switching (RGB-CMYK). I don't care about the asset store they always go on about.

-Maya (switching from Max) (3D) (Pricy but...)

I haven't fully transitioned from Max to Maya. Max being my comfort zone from Uni, but it is clearly superior for animation which is really important for an immersive RPG. It has a surprisingly nice introduction tutorial built in too. Just gotta' take that leap and commit to switching. 

-Unity Engine (switching from Unreal) (3D) (Free)

I have struggled with Unreal constantly, even in Uni. I cannot believe how much more intuitive Unity is. Genuinely brought back all my hope that I can actually develop a game. If you struggle with Unreal, give Unity a try! Once I build a bit more confidence with it, I'll be making an animated scene for a 'proof of concept'.

-Substance Painter (3D) (Semi Pricey but... - One time Purchase on Steam)

I'm not sure if you can buy a perpetual licence through steam anymore? It was a "decent" price when I did, however I imagine now Adobe has their grubby little hands all over it, it is likely ridiculously expensive. See if you can...acquire it. Other than that, it is a lot more solid for handpainted textures than others I tried out. No matter the job, I can do it in Substance very well. (Others are inconsistent and frustrating to work-around, I just keep coming back to substance.) 

-Google Doc's (Cloud Backup's and Writing) (Free)

My full "Game Breakdown Document" is a google doc, and for a long time, all my writing was also, all google doc's. It is very re-assuring to have a cloud backup of my work, and I recommend you also backup your work. 1 in a cloud service, 1 on your PC storage, and 1 on an external hard-drive. Make a habit of doing so every few months or major update. Seriously, don't lose all your work keeping it in one place. 

-MuseScore Studio (Music) (Free)

Now I'm not too practiced with this software, and its partner software behaved very strangely on my PC so I uninstalled that (which left me with the default instrument sounds making it a little unsatisfying to playback). I wouldn't necessarily recommend it however it is a decent score software, for free, with the ability to arrange full orchestral scores. That being said, you do need a fundamental understanding of sheet music to use this compared to other mixer type softwares that allow a bit more "playfulness" to be creative with sound.