The story about the calc RPG that was based on TI community stuff but never came

[DJ Omnimaga]

This is not really a project but rather an idea (since that sub-forum is also for ideas) and that idea was attempted way back in 2007 and in case someone or myself ever needed inspiration for an RPG, I thought I would share that story with newer TI community members who are not very familiar with older calculator projects. Similar ideas such as Omnimaga: The RPG, were suggested or started a few years after this happened, but never came to fruition either.


So basically, in June and July 2007, the last of three failed attempts at creating a 4th RPG in The Reign of Legends series happened with ROL4 and this time, the game was to feature a job system like in Final Fantasy III for the NES and V for the SNES. The game featured 6 kingdoms protected by an elemental crystal, each kingdom being located near one of them, and they were in danger if you didn't stop the Void from engulfing the world. Only 1 hero had the power to hold the holy sword that can defeat it, but that hero had vanished a long while ago.


However, what was particularly special about this game is that the storyline was almost entirely based on TI community events of the time, just re-incarnated into a fantasy adventure tale inspired from various Final Fantasy games. The 6 kingdoms were named after the big TI community forums and websites of the era: Unitia (the first to be visited), Omnitia (nearly deserted on first visit), Cemetia, Maxitia, Revitia and Titia, and the element that each kingdom represented was chosen after the respective site color scheme of the time (for example, since United-TI forum theme had blue, then Unitia represented water). The vanished hero name was my original nickname spelled backwards, missing 1 letter, while two of the playable characters had names heavily based on a temporary set of IRC nicks and usernames I used in July to hide my real identity for a while. The world, or at least the 6 kingdoms, were pretty much the community.

The middle part of the story was not exactly based on TI community events, but it involved saving the world, while in the TI community, we tried to prevent its death. During the intro, two warriors would find a mysterious warrior lying on the ground with a sword that would eventually be revealed as the holy sword and as they wander back to the kingdom of Unitia, they would discover that the crystals are weakening and you must get their power and find the hero of light to fight the void before it's too late. You would find Omnitia, the kingdom ruled by the hero of light who vanished, almost deserted, as the people left for Cemitia, Maxitia and Unitia until the hero returns, although they would return as the three warriors clear the cave separating the kingdom from Unitia from monsters. As you progress, you would get help from NPCs, face your usual RPG dangers and get new jobs from crystals, as you learn that the hero of light might be somewhere close to the Kingdom of Titia, where the final encounter shall occur. The question is whether the hero of light would appear or not.


But unfortunately, after 2005, I didn't manage to finish a full new RPG due to less motivation to code so that game in particular never got further than planning stages, although the entire in-game menu was done (see Omnimaga downloads section). But this was the idea behind the game and just in case somebody (most likely not me, as I have other RPG ideas, unless I decided to revive ROL4 as a KuroRPG project when that software gets translated to English) who was interested into making a new Omnimaga-themed RPG or something like that, maybe that could be an idea for a story?

[Princetonlion.tibd]

Why wasn't it finding a holy calculator instead of a holy sword?

[DJ Omnimaga]

Because the story was still meant to be Final Fantasy-like

[Princetonlion.tibd]

Ah, ok

It still seems really close to the actual chain of events in the community I know.

[DJ Omnimaga]

I would tell the real community story that happened, but I don't want to spoil the ending of the game too much (although the second half of the ending after the final battle is different than real events, but still, spoiling it would ruin the fun of people who would play the game if it ever got revived ).

[Juju]

That sounds pretty fun to do.

[ordelore]

Sounds a bit like Calc Wars. [/shameless plug]

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah that would be an example. I think your project was not a calculator program, though, right?

Also this was how ROL4 looked like (xLIB):



Note that if you spell Ragol's "name" backwards, you can merge it with Garith's to get Logarith which is close to logarithm . I don't remember how I chose the other name, though.

[Hayleia]

I don't remember how I chose the other name, though.

This probably has something to do with a singer whose last name is Astley...

[DJ Omnimaga]

Nope, because there was not ever a single mention of rickroll on the old Omnimaga board. It mostly became mainstream after Youtube did that one april fools prank in 2008. I guess I just didn't have any idea for the remaining name and used some random one.


EDIT: From the old ROL4 thread, there is a mention about another Omnimaga-themed game which was in the works before but never got finished. (IIRC it was closer to Omnimaga The RPG than ROL4 did, though, since those literally featured Omnimaga members rather than just being some sort of fantasy-based TI community cameo)


EDIT 2: Wow I just realised that the last name has "Rick" in it

[Scipi]

I think this idea has been floating around for years. OmniRPG was the most recent attempt, iirc.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Indeed and IIRC, Calc Wars movie is kinda similar in style, but IIRC the ideas varied from game to game, ranging from cameos to existing Omnimaga members and from stories about freeing up Omnimaga from 4chan/b/ or losing the game to fantasy stories with Omnimaga references.

On an unrelated note, that ROL game had an interesting menu engine that made coding menus and text boxes much easier. However since it has been so long since I last used it, I don't even remember what the code does . All I know is that to detect if an item is selectable or not, it checked if the first character in the string of menu options was a space, which is why in the spells/orbs menu the spell list was not always aligned properly (all spells that couldn't be used outside battles or by the selected character had an extra space at the name start). The main engine drawback was that when exiting orbs selection, it exited straight to the main menu rather than orb type selection. I don't exactly remember why but something prevented better switching between menus.