Sore Losers [Complete Game]

[Fallen-Griever]

You asked for it, Max...

SORE LOSERS

VERSION 1.3 - CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

NOMINATED "MOST PROMISING DEMO", 2008 MISAOS!!
NOMINATED RRR "FEATURED GAME FOR MAY"!!
FEATURED IN RMN sNEWS!!

"It takes a 12 step program, hypnosis, a sex change, and the whole damn starwars series to break you away." - Tyrannos

"Sore Losers" is a cyberpunk RPG set in a modern, dystopian world. The gameplay is largely traditional, but shakes things up with interactive mini-game sequences, optional missions and a deeply immersive setting, all of which serve to break up the common roleplaying grind.

The Setting:

The game is set within the nation of Ferusia, with most gameplay taking place in "Ferusia City", the nation's capital. The nation is a totalitarian state led by a single-party Government, but despite this the general populace of Ferusia are happy with their leaders. The Government's efforts to advance technology and science, whilst at the same time irradicating the distractions of religion and beauracracy, have resulting in the nation becoming the most technologically advanced in the world. The Ferusian military is also incredibly advanced compared to the militaries of other nations, and is the only one on the planet with modern firearms and artillery as well as the only military to have access to the more powerful weapons of war; these weapons include inter-continental, nuclear and biological missiles. The military also acts as a Police Force in most Ferusian cities and towns, a factor that the Government believes deters many from committing crimes every single day. Despite all this power, the country is no longer expansive having already taken control of most of its own continent, but it does has active interests in overseas resources. For instance, the recent discovery of an interesting mineral named Ferustine (named after the country by the research group that discovered it) has led to the stationing of many research groups overseas, all protected by a contingent of the Ferusian Military.

Despite the large majority of people being happy with Ferusian life, and despite the power of the Ferusian military, there are still those who believe a democratic state to be the only way a country should be run. They want more control over how the Government is run and want the Government to be more accountable to its citizens, especially when it comes to what the rebels believe are dangerous genetic and mechanic experiments being run by the Government. Without any solid proof, however, the rebels are fighting a losing battle and are gradually being weeded out by the Ferusian Military. Ferusian convicts also believe they are being treated unfairly; sentenced to life within the "slums" of Ferusia City (an area of the city designed specifcally to contain criminals), petty thieves and fraudsters are placed alongside murderers and rapists in a daily fight to survive.

In the middle of it all are Markus and David, two criminals who have accepted their wrongs and simply go about their lives in the slums. Working for a mercenary leader named Jade, they carry out various jobs for those with enough money to pay, and they're about to set out on their latest; one that will drag them into a conflict they don't understand and don't care to be a part of...

Blarb:

So, after basically five years of restarting many different projects under the same sort of title, I've finally got one of them finished. I'm actually kind of amazed with myself because, to be honest, I didn't think this would ever happen; I have a massive tendency to get dragged down into remaking early sections of my games or trying to make their storylines more "epic" than they need to be and that usually puts me off track and leads to be abandonning what I have created.

Well, not this time!

This time I decided not to bother with making an "epic". I decided to put my perfectionism to one side and, instead of trying to recreate the overwhelming pretence that is most RM role-playing games, I decided to make a down-to-earth, fun-to-play game that isn't just a space-bashing romp through fantasy locales with bells attatched. And although I think the dystopian, cyberpunk setting I've created is a realistically gritty vision of life as a condemned criminal, and although I think the locales and non-playable characters are some of the best out there, and although I am quite proud of how the story comes together, none of these are what this game is about.

Instead, Sore Losers is only intended to be a fun to play game for the ten or so hours you'll be playing through it. I hope you'll all come out thinking that I've managed to achieve that.

Features Include:

Over 10 hours of gameplay.
A broad synthesis system that allows you to create and upgrade unique weapons.
Dozens of optional quests to complete, all kept track of by a "To Do List" system.
An Active Encounter System (AES) that removes the need for random encounters.
Inventive Lockpicking and Computer Hacking minigames.
More quotable NPCs than you can shake a stick at.

Screenshots:


Obligatory title-screen shot.


A gritty, modern setting differentiates this from most traditional RPGs.


Lots of minigames help you get around, including Lockpicking, Hacking and Helicoptor Flying.


Develop your characters using a variety of methods. For example, Markus learns skills from skill books in this minigame.

[Devon]

I like your userbars. : )

So when I played this I think I got...just past the sewer chase and to a part in an abandoned military base? It was a short time after the chick (Alexis) joins your party.

How far was I?

[Fallen-Griever]

About 1/5 of the way through the game (ish). There's another couple of towns after that and then the "storylines" actually start crashing together. After reading Darken's review I kinda wish I'd brough the main storyline in a little earlier to hook people in more, but then most people seem to tell me that it is the gameplay that hooks them until they get to that point (the storyline just adds to it). Tyrannos, for instance, hated me for putting a cliffhanger at the end of a demo and seemed to love the storyline. I guess it's just hard to correlate people's opinions with each other

EDIT:

My userbars are cool, and now they actually work! Your forums clearly don't like URLs that are enclosed in speech marks.

[Devon]

By the way, did you really generate the "swordplay magazine" idea independent of ABL?

[Wes]

EDIT:

My userbars are cool, and now they actually work! Your forums clearly don't like URLs that are enclosed in speech marks.

Huh. You know, with as long as I've been using SMF, you think I'd've noticed that particular quirk before now.

Anyway, I'll add this to my list of games to play when I have some spare time (increasingly scant, lately.)

[Devon]

It is a pretty solid game, Wes. And complete.

Too bad about your time, I was going to pester you to help btest To Arms!

F-G, we should collab on a game that is basically about spies/mercenaries who do Espionage things. It would be kind of like that "Shadowun"y level in Sore Losers where you need to break into the building and hack the computer. Your minigame-creation skills and my penchant for character-customization and non-linearity. What do you say?

You automatically win if you can think of a way to make the presence/absence of a silencer on a gun meaningful in any kind of (battle?) system that can be coded in RPG Maker. I have been trying to think of this for literally years with no luck.

[Fallen-Griever]

By the way, did you really generate the "swordplay magazine" idea independent of ABL

I haven't actually played that much ABL. The name came from Tidus' overdrive in Final Fantasy X and the way you learn skills is DDR inspired more than anything - I wanted a way to imitate practising a new movement and the way DDR imitates dancing using arrows came to mind quickest.

F-G, we should collab on a game that is basically about spies/mercenaries who do Espionage things. It would be kind of like that "Shadowun"y level in Sore Losers where you need to break into the building and hack the computer. Your minigame-creation skills and my penchant for character-customization and non-linearity. What do you say?

Like I said about the Game Gale contest, I don't really have enough time to work on Riot Grrrl, yet alone to start working on another project at the same time. I haven't worked on Headfirst since I took the demo down, for instance. It would have to be something that happened quite far into the future, I'm afraid.

You automatically win if you can think of a way to make the presence/absence of a silencer on a gun meaningful in any kind of (battle?) system that can be coded in RPG Maker. I have been trying to think of this for literally years with no luck.

I'm assuming you mean in a "traditional" battle-system. I'll have to think about it as nothing instantly springs to mind.

[Devon]

I meant in any kind of battle system I (we?) could manage to create.

This issue has been plaguing me for decades!

[Fallen-Griever]

The only RPG battle-system I can think of that might support something like this would be one that uses an agro-style system to determine enemy-targetting. A silenced gun would generate zero-agro (or lessen the agro generated per damage unit dealt - this would perhaps make more sense), allowing you to funnel damage towards your more tank-type characters by making them use unsilenced weaponry.

That is really all I can think of, though...

[Devon]

That is a really good idea, and in fact online FPS like Modern Warfare work a LITTLE bit like that (you don't get radar blips for enemy players using silenced weapons, making them harder to locate, whereas when enemies with loud weapons are firing, your radar lights up like a Christmas tree showing you their position.

But that's really more what a flash hider would do, (aggro maintenance). A silencer is for avoiding detection.

What about a minigame that allows you, if you are using a silenced weapon, to quietly execute an enemy outside of combat before they have a chance to fire? Can you think of a cool way to do that?

[Fallen-Griever]

Are you thinking of something like the encounter system used in Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter? Where, if you place your traps right, you can kill/damage/deal status effects to enemies outside of battle before actually engaging them?

In BoF: DQ, when you attack an enemy directly that starts combat but you're allowed to use traps on the area map to gain an advantages etc. Maybe a silenced weapon wouldn't start combat immediately, but would instead cause the effected enemy/enemy group to come looking for what dealt them damage. This could then be used to lure enemies into traps. An unsilenced weapon would just start combat straight away.

As for executions... I don't know.

If you made it so attacking an enemy directly always resulted in combat, then perhaps using a silenced weapon starts some sort of targetting minigame that gives you a chance to kill one of the enemies in that group before battle starts. A target moves around the screen and if you can stop it on an enemy's head it removes them from the subsequent battle.

[Devon]

I like the idea of traps, in a modern setting.

Remote mines, proximity mines, sticky cameras, EMP bombs. (Sorry, been playing a lot of Splinter Cell: Conviction lately.)

[Fallen-Griever]

Traps are never a bad idea - different ways of initiating a battle are always appreciated by players (I think). If the game featured only one playable-character then you could make it so avoiding actual combat is a good idea and bring things like silenced weapons and traps to the forefront of the gameplay. You know, like in Metal Gear Solid, where it is always better to avoid combat than to get sucked into it.

[Devon]

I TRIED to do that in Virus. The result was definitely a Your Mileage May Vary type situation.