Steel Hearts

Steel Hearts

Creator: Blue Yonder

Release: N/A

Genre: Strategy RPG

Gameplay Time: N/A

Status In Progress.

Steel Hearts is an indie SRPG (Strategy Role Playing Game) project currently in its early stages of development. Although serious in appearance, the game is satirical in nature, poking fun at the many clichés in Japanese Cartoons or 'Anime', like the stereotypical schoolgirls, giant robots, martial arts, and the like. The game will look almost as if you were actually watching an Anime show, and is divided into episodes. As a team mostly composed of graphic artists, our main tendency is to give aesthetics greater emphasis, but we are hoping we also develop solid and innovative gameplay.

Story

The story of Steel Hearts is set in San Juan, a steampunk-ish setting that looks like a mix of London during the Victorian era and an industrial Tokyo of sorts.

The story is set in a world like the 1900's, where the world is at the mercy of a great war. With travelling and trade becoming more difficult by the day, oil and petrolium became more and more difficult to import, so the people of San Juan turned to their abundant local supply of coal for energy. Because of this, residents have developed an extensive use of complex steam technology. Everyday things from bath heaters to cars rely on steam engines to function.

Seven years ago, strange meteorites fell from the sky into a nearby mountain pass. Shortly after, giant creatures known as 'Phantoms' began emerging around the area where the meteorites fell. At first they were relatively few, but as the years passed, their numbers grew at an alarming rate.

Recognizing the threat to public safety these creatures posed, the government commissioned a formerly retired commander to form a team known as the Aesir, that would pilot giant robots called Aegis that were made to combat the Phantoms and to protect the city from danger.

Ryan, a newly transferred Junior, finds himself caught in the middle of a fierce battle between the Aegis and Phantoms. In a desperate attempt to stay alive, he boards an unmanned Aegis which mysteriously activates on its own and defeats the Phantoms. Now, he's been recruited as captain of a team of four beautiful, demon-slaying, robot-riding, and very temperamental school girls. Lord help him.

Characters

Playable Characters

Ryan (Creator - DaOne)

Ryan's not your ordinary RPG protagonist. He doesn't have the funky hair, dark past, and freakishly powerful final attack certain RPG characters *cough*Cloud*cough* have, and he's certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed either. He's a pushover. He comes as a bit of weakling to others at first as well. He's the new captain of the Aegis team despite all that though, much to the delight/dismay of the rest of the pilots. He may seem unreliable, but he's definitely one of those people that'll come running to help out whoever's in need.

Lillia (Creator - Kyoko)

Lillia's an outspoken and a headstrong kind of person. She's a very capable leader, probably more so than Ryan, but her temper often gets the best of her. She may come off as a bit snobby to some people, but she's actually a very caring person, often thinking of the well being of others before herself.

May (Creator - Yanilyn)

May is the naive, sweet girl of the group. She comes from a family of shamans from the east. Her family is especially proud of their lineage and has been very strict in upholding their traditions. Because of this, May is often forced to submit to her parents' will and give in to her numerous marriage meetings. Aside from that, she also has to referee bouts between Lillia and Mariel, and avoid her huge horde of admirers in school.

Mariel (Creator - Ippus)

Mariel bleached her hair white and put on colored contact lenses to change the colors of her eyes. Many believe its her wanting to 'stand out', be different, as she does tend to do her share of crazy antics in school, most of which at the expense of Ryan. There's something more though, like she's trying to cover her original appearance up. When people in school stop and think about it, nobody really knew how Mariel looked like before.

Maria (Creator - Sabao)

Maria's a child prodigy. She's a straight-A student, top actress of the drama club, and star athlete of the gymnastics team. However, what she has in talent, she lacks in maturity. Being only thirteen, she's rather naive and gullible, which often becomes her undoing. She's energetic and upbeat, very evidently shown in her reckless fighting style on her Aegis.

Chris (Creator - Sabao)

Chris was the captain of the Valkyries, until an incident two years ago disabled him. His arrogance and stubborn refusal to follow the Commander's orders landed the whole team in an ambush by the Phantoms, leading to the disappearance of his girlfriend Bianca, and heavy damage to the Chrysanthemum, where both of his legs were paralyzed, leaving him confined to a wheel chair. He now only watches the battles from the sidelines, his pride broken.

He's rather hostile toward Ryan, whom he felt was taking his spotin the team, and to add insult to injury, using his girlfriend's old Aegis.

Locations

The geography of the fictional world...

Gameplay

Any cool features or puzzles?

Graphics

Perhaps the game's main draw, Steel Hearts prides itself in its use of 100% original and exclusive artworks. The project was considered more of an artistic endeavor by the team than an actual game earlier on. While there were greater plans for the game visually, the team met problems with development that has forced them to compromise on graphic quality.

The character sprites used were planned to be completely hand drawn and scanned to give it a less pixelized look. This was later on changed to sprites 150px high for easier animation but cut down even lower due to the lack of a workable body template until eventually the use of moving character sprites for exploration was removed completely along with the use of most tilesets.

Due to the perpetual shortage of spriters willing to do completely original tilesets for the game, the use of tilesets and character sprite sets were taken out of the game completely except for those used in battles and mini-games to cut down on the labor rquired for completing them. Consequently, the exploration factor of the game was dramatically reduced and all cutscenes would make use of the drawn graphics.

Music

basically the same

Scripts

Zenith Tactics Battle System English Translation by Mac @ RMXP.org

Watermark Script by jbrist @ RMXP.org

Three Image Title Screen by ccoa @ RMXP.org

Universal Message System by ccoa @ RMXP.org

Reception

What have people said?

Miscellaneous Information

A movie and musician of the same tile exist. There is no relation between any of them.

The five main characters, Ryan, May, Lillia, Mariel, and Maria are incarnations of their respective authors' old characters on Ragnarok Online.

The Aegis base design was inspired and based on the Kobu from the animé / videogame Sakura Wars.

The character Mariel is based on Irene Lee's original character and personal avatar 'Ippus', which is an invert of the name 'Suppi', a character from the animé Cardcaptor Sakura

An incident on deviantART regarding how Irene treats her fans once erupted due to several fans pointing out how they look like her original character Mariel.

External links

Steel Hearts @ Official Site

Steel Hearts @ RMXP.org

Steel Hearts @ Creation Asylum