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Belief, with MARDEK Inspirations - The Magisterium

5 years ago2,778 words

Since I won't be able to make a completely faithful remaster of MARDEK, I'm wondering whether to try to make Belief instead, which is a completely different game, which was inspired by it but which isn't a remake as such. Here are some ideas for how concepts from MARDEK could be integrated into it; I'm curious how you feel about them.

First, I still need to release Sindrel Song on Steam etc, though I've been slow with that because I can't focus on everything at once. I've done a bit of research, and it's quite sad seeing how many indie developers there are who pour months or years into their projects, only for posts about them in indie developer communities to get 3 or fewer comments, if any at all... I've seen excited "I've finally done it, after 3 years of work, I've released my game on Steam!!" posts, which link to the store page, where the game's got no reviews despite being out for a week, and the amount of sales is probably the same. That's a fate I'm trying to avoid myself, which is why I'm taking my time doing research about how to actually attract attention (or how to get a publisher who'll do a better job of that than I could alone).

I feel that I've already got advantages over those developers, who are unknown and releasing their first (often not well-made) game, most notably because of my past with MARDEK. It's why I thought of just directly returning to my most well-known work might work... though the more I've thought about it, the more I've realised it's not that simple.

A 2017 remake of Sonny - a Flash game released around the same time as MARDEK, which seems to have been perceived as one of the 'big 3 Flash RPGs' alongside MARDEK and Epic Battle Fantasy - came up in comments on the previous post, which was the first I'd heard of it. One person linked to statistics that show that it sold between 50,000 and 100,000 copies, which isn't bad at all, and it's very likely that that came mostly from nostalgic recognition. Reviews were mixed, though, largely because of changes from the originals. Perhaps a Steam version of MARDEK wouldn't go dissimilarly (though it has been a couple of years since that released, and I don't know how much effort or money he put into promotion).

I was excited when I posted about returning to MARDEK, and I surely did so too eagerly. I thought people might be on board with improving it together, talking about what didn't work and what did, coming up with something that was better than the originals... But the more I've talked about it and heard opinions here, the more it seems like what people would want would be something with no changes at all, which I'm unable to make. I'm sorry about that since I do know there's interest, and if I could make it in six months and put it behind me, I would... It'd just be such a huge chunk of my life to spend on something I really do feel I've long since moved beyond.

So I've been thinking back to the Belief idea that I've talked about previously...

Oh, before I talk about that: I replayed Sindrel Song briefly after seeing the other indie games out there and how well (or not) they were received, riddled with insecurity about sharing that fate as I was, and I was reminded that I really do like Sindrel Song a lot. I think it has a lot going for it, but then again I'm extremely biased. I'll continue with stuff related to that mostly 'behind the scenes' even if I'm not openly posting about it. I do want to get it out there!



I already wrote about my ideas for Belief in ∞ this post ∞, and much of that's still applicable. Experimenting with ideas related to MARDEK wasn't a waste of time, though, and it's inspired some changes I could make to this. People consistently mention the "compelling story and characters" as a strength of MARDEK, so what I'll be describing here will be aiming for whatever part of the mind was responsible for that appreciation.

Not Battles

Before that, though, the 'battle' system will be the most important factor in determining whether it's a game worth recommending, I think, but I'll focus on that in other posts. It'd be useful to discuss some specifics together.

For now, I'll just mention that it's 'non-violent' but not exactly pacifistic. That is, whereas in Taming Dreams, the whole "violence is bad and this is a better alternative!!" thing was as subtle as a sledge hammer to the face, and understandably annoying to people who don't agree with that, here it's an alternate system rather than one that's built around taking issue with violence.

Skills represent social interactions (friendly greetings, insults, lusty stares, abstract lectures, etc), and rather than fighting monsters, instead you face (hopefully not offensive) stereotyped human characters, kind of like some of the enemies you encounter in the MOTHER/Earthbound series.



People fondly remember things like this much more than they'd remember "lava goblin" or whatever.

It's something that I can imagine being really silly, stupid, amusing, just because of the absurdity of, say, causing a whole group of people to burst into tears and have raging panic attacks, only for them to join your side when they 'see your point'. It's not exactly about the nature of belief in some airy philosophical sense; I see it as more comical, absurdist, while at least having an undercurrent of relatability.

Earthbound is a good comparison actually, because I feel that battle system's not very enjoyable mechanically (you might disagree), or even visually (you can't see your own characters), but it's so odd and has such silly enemies that it stands out among all the many generic fantasy RPGs which might have done a 'better' job in terms of pure gameplay or graphics. I'd be aiming for something similar.



I described it in more detail in the other, linked post, so that's worth reading if you haven't already seen it and want to know what I'm planning. I'd like to incorporate at least some of the aspects of the other battle system I recently made, though. Not the dark/light bar or weapons, but some more elaborate form of skill learning/equipping so then you can feel you're actually building up your characters. But I'll get to that in posts focused on the 'battle' mechanics.

The main point I want to make though is that this isn't a 'pacifist game'. It's just a silly alternate take on battles that might make people laugh without attacking them for liking violence.

The Magisterium

In MARDEK, I had the Governance de Magi, who were a group of aliens who focused on the elements. One of them, Rohoph, came to share Mardek's mind for some reason (something like 'stopping Anu's plan'? I don't remember if it was ever elaborated on).



In Taming Dreams, these were reimagined as the 'Atonae', a group of deities who'd been separated from worlds that they'd made, so they came to Alora Fane - which had lost its gods - and aimed to intervene (some more than others). Rohoph came to possess Mardek because he had no physical form (he manifested as an inert crystal when he entered the world), and his goal was eventually to replace the missing Aolmna (gods), though I didn't get very far with this in the episodes that I made. They were all quite unique, and I still really like their designs.

In Belief, the current idea I have is a mix of those two. In Taming Dreams, Mardek's father, Enki, was a member of one of the Alora Fane races called the Mhandisi, which were dark-skinned humans whose culture blended together African tribalism and steampunk technology (I'd never heard of Wakanda at the time). I've since revised that race, as described in ∞ this post ∞, and now they're called the Lucen. They look demonic, though they consider themselves enlightened scientists. ∞ Lightbearers ∞, who've discovered the divine flame and wish to share it with the mere mortals. Their petal world blends high technology with spirituality, both of which they use to unravel the mysteries of the universe.



In their designs in that post, they have a gem on their forehead, like what's apparently called a ∞ bindi ∞. I was thinking of the concept of a 'third eye' while designing that, and when wondering how I could give the original GdM more substance, something clicked.



What if the ruling council of the Lucen consists of six enlightened individuals, who've each devoted themselves to truly understanding one of the sentiments that make up the world? Their enlightenment could be demonstrated by the opening of their glowing 'third eye', while the 'earthly eyes' shut to show their distance from that. They also wear similar robes that largely cover their bodies and faces to distance themselves from ego, like how Buddhist monks wear the same robes and shave their heads. There could be some metaphorical thing about their open third eyes shining brightly through the darkness under their hood, too. Plus the robes make them look wizardly, which they essentially are. They could use their high technology to levitate (maybe they even remove their legs and replace them with a levitation device?), so then they don't have to waste energy or limit themselves with crass ambulation like the plebs.



They could be called the Magisterium, which is ∞ a group in the Catholic Church which essentially interprets the Word of God and tells the lower people what He means ∞. Individuals are called magisters, which is related to (or at least evocative of) the term mage (plural magi). In the Lucen's world, they're the governing body. A government of magi, who believe themselves to speak on behalf of the divine.

This Magisterium of the Enlightened Technopolis (the petal of the Lucen) is aware that the Aolmna (Alora Fane's creator 'gods') are gone, and that the world is decaying as a result. Believing themselves above the others in the world, they felt it was their duty to use their technology and spiritual enlightenment to replace the missing gods and bring order and continued life to the world.

One of them, however, takes matters into his own hands, takes one of their dimensional-shifting craft (which would be necessary to pass between the petal worlds, rather than a ship that travels through the vast expanse of space), and shifts into the Bronze Archipelago... However, he misjudged the jump, and the ship phases inside a forest, where it's penetrated by the trees it tries to occupy the same space as. One of these trees skewers the magister, but when a couple of curious young men stumble in, he's able to use his dying energy to make use of some mind transferal tech to prolong his consciousness in a new host...


Several people commented on how it'd be a shame to lose the sci-fi + fantasy blend that was particularly interesting in MARDEK, and I agree with that. But I also feel that there's a more interesting way to handle the sci-fi elements than I did with MARDEK. Here, the Lucen are very much aliens in possession of technology far beyond the Bold of the Bronze Archipelago, though they're from another dimension of the same world rather than a distant planet, and that technology is intertwined with spirituality. It seems a nice blend of all I've tried to do before.



Also, in Taming Dreams, Mardek was half Bold and half Mhandisi, and similarly, I thought of Blight - his replacement in Belief who I talked about in the previous post - as either half or entirely Lucen. I imagined him being found in the woods as a baby by his adoptive mother, who looked after him with bitter reluctance because nobody else would but she couldn't just let him die.

What if, though, his blood mother was abducted by aliens when she was young and had a hybrid child?? That's a common theme in sci-fi and ufology, and it'd be more of a continuation of what I was doing in Taming Dreams.

It also means that Blight's father would be one of the Lucen... and knowing stories, probably someone important too.

(Or maybe she actually knew him, just as she spent years with Enki in Taming Dreams, but they went their separate ways because they were from different worlds... I need to do more planning.)


One issue with all this is that of the elements/sentiments. In MARDEK, the GdM each represented one of the elements, and in Taming Dreams, they represented what I'm now calling the 'elemental sentiments' (Courage, Fear, Bliss, Destruction, Creation, Sorrow). Belief's 'battle' system uses the 'social sentiments' though (Amity/Enmity, Joy/Sorrow, Desire/Fear), which only represent social interactions rather than the fundamental structure of the universe. The Magisterium should represent the elemental sentiments, but they have no gameplay relevance currently, and cramming them in seems like overcomplicating things. I'll need to give this some thought.

Elemental Crystals

I could retain the 'magic crystals' thing, puerile though it is - pfah! - though obviously with some changes. In Taming Dreams, each of the petal worlds was formed from six sentimental crystals (called Mementos of the Aolmna, or ∞ MotA ∞; 'mementos' were items the characters used to cast sentimancy) that acted as the source for that sentiment, kind of like the 'palette from which the world was painted'. This could be the same, perhaps. The Lucen, advanced as they are, could be aware of their petal's crystals, and each magister wears the crystal of their specialty sentiment around their neck (they'd be about infinity stone sized). Blight takes the one from the corpse of the light magister, at his request, when he's possessed, and wears it around his neck.

Beyond that, I don't know what to do with them, so they might be discarded as I plan more of the story, or not. While I'm using the beginning of MARDEK and Taming Dreams as a starting point, I'm not necessarily aiming to include every character or event.

Believe In Me

Blight is possessed by this magister via mind transfer (I don't know if I'd use the name Rohoph or not; I'm changing all the others, after all), and he explains that he wants to replace the gods, but needs for people to believe in him to have any kind of impact. This doesn't need to be "belief produces more power!" in a magical sense; it's just obviously true that if you're trying to influence people in any way, you need to convince them that you're worth believing in. It's sort of like you're Jesus trying to spread the word about a way to save the world (and each other), but it's also like a youtuber trying to gain followers, or a cult leader trying to gain members (or me trying to figure out how to promote Sindrel Song...).

Gameplay would be clearly structured in a way similar to Pokemon, as I described in the other post: there'd be six towns, and each town would have a number of inhabitants, who you'd have these not-exactly-battles with in an attempt to convince them to believe in you. Once you'd convinced enough people in the town, you could face that town's mayor (gym leader), and once all the mayors were convinced, you'd be able to face the council of the whole island nation and convert them (Elite Four). That'd be the aim of the game, because then you'd be able to essentially instate a new religion based around listening to the voice in your head.

I already described other aspects relating to this in ∞ the other post ∞, so I won't repeat myself here.



There's a lot more I've planned, but for now I'm just curious to hear if people find what I've presented here interesting. Do you feel that the similarities to MARDEK are a good thing or a bad thing? Do you think the 'Magisterium' is more interesting than the 'Governance de Magi', discounting the power of nostalgia?