1 - Introducing Omen Dawn
Welcome to the first inaugural development blog for the fantasy role-playing game "Omen Dawn".
I have been posting about this project on my Xitter page for some time now, but since that website isn't really good for anything, I'm writing this article as a summary and a proper introduction to get everyone on the same page. Pre-production for this project started all the way back in 2022, but as it often goes, progress tends to be slow when the goal is far away. I was inspired to start making my own game because of the scarcity of erotic games that exist to this day. Even when playing the few good ones, I saw tons of untapped potential, so I had no choice but to tap it myself. I came up with the title for the game simply by putting together two cool-sounding english words, so don't ask what it means.
Omen Dawn in its finished state will be an open-world fantasy role-playing game with turn-based combat and breeding as the two primary gameplay systems. Since fighting and breeding are the two most significant things that living beings do, they naturally combine to make for a great basis for a video game. Unlike inferior erotic games, all of the game mechanics are interconnected in a cohesive whole. Rather than describing the basics, I'll ask you to observe them in this gameplay video:
The reason for why the game has been taking so long to make can be seen in the video: all characters are portrayed with fully immersive character sprites that display their physiology, worn equipment, status, et cetera. I understand that presentation is just as important as good game mechanics, and am thus not willing to cut corners on this. I will discuss the character sprite system in more detail in an upcoming development blog.
Although getting the combat mechanics right is an important part of making a great RPG, the truly excellent ones distinguish themselves with all the stuff you do in between. For example, the success of the Pokemon series is built on the backs of the eponymous creatures. If you looked at the battles in isolation, it doesn't seem so impressive. The real draw is the designing and building of your team. This is true for both the singleplayer and multiplayer experiences. Keeping this in mind, I am designing Omen Dawn's gameplay to be both varied and cohesive. Going outwards from the video I just showed, the context of a combat encounter is just as important as the thing itself. In the full game, encounters may begin as random events while traversing the overworld, or as events tied to specific quests or locations. Immersiveness is a priority here, so it's not like old-school RPGs where you take one step out of a city and get ganked by four wyverns for no reason. Speaking of cities, there is more to be found in the game world than just trouble. You will also find other genre staples, such as settlements populated by people you can interact with in various ways, content formalized in a quest structure, points of interest that may or may not be marked in any map, and more. I will discuss the overworld mechanics in detail at a later date. Another important part of the experience is the interaction between characters. As you can see in the video, the protagonist need not face adversity alone, as she will be able to get other characters to join her adventurer party to be under her care and command. You can swell your numbers by many means, such as by finding adventurers who are willing to join you for a fee or more personal reasons, swaying enemies to your side with charisma or by less consensual means, or, of course, by making new characters in the same way one does in real life: by breeding. As the other half of the game's foundation, a lot could be said about breeding, but for now I'll just tell you that this gameplay system is the main reason I am making this game in the first place. The act of procreation is the aspect of all the good erotic games I've played that has been the highlight of those games, but also the greatest source of me thinking I could do it better. Anyways, character interaction is a significant aspect of this game. The goal is to make the characters feel like actual characters instead of just numbers in a game. There are two main ways that I intend to achieve this: immersion and two-way interaction. Immersion is complicated to put into practice, but simple to justify the importance of. If the things that are happening in the fiction don't make sense, that will make it more difficult to feel the things that are represented in abstract ways as being non-abstract. As for what I mean by two-way interaction, characters in games often exist only to serve the player. I am aiming to create a relationship between the protagonist embodying the player, and the other characters that requires the player to think of them more deeply than just how effective they are in combat.
As for the technical side of how this project will come to fruition, the game is being built on the Godot game engine. Originally it was going to be Unity, but then the runtime fee fiasco made me look into other options, leading me to discover Godot, which is the same as Unity, but without any of the bad things. Programming is done in the C# language, simply because that's the one I was familiar with before starting the project. So far this has been a one man operation, and will remain so for the foreseeable future, because I'm too broke to hire help.
I'll leave it at that for now because I'm tired of writing, but know that I will be putting out more blog posts leading up to the release of the demo versions and eventually the full game, discussing a diverse range of topics. There is no specific schedule. I will be posting articles when they are done. This website that I created mainly to support this project will be your main hub for news about Omen Dawn. You can also follow me on Xitter to be notified about new posts and other updates.
- Vilho Kukkonen